I dont understand transgenderism

[arilando]

1. Gender does not exist. If someone wants to have a sex change operation simply to escape from gender roles, is't that kind of the cowards way out?

2. If someone wants to change sex purely because of bodily functions, would't it be better to receive treatment from a psychiatrist for their insecurities about their own body?

3. As for people who do not want a sex change operation but purely identify as another sex/gender, that's either bigoted for dividing people's personality into female and male, as gender does't exist, or out of touch with reality for identifying as a sex one is not.

Now let me say that i have no problem with transgender people, i just dont understand why it exists.

[The Jay]

1. Gender does not exist. If someone wants to have a sex change operation simply to escape from gender roles, is't that kind of the cowards way out?

Gender does exist but not in a binary way. One's gender does not change. It is only realized. The assertion of gender roles is cultural and not biological as gender is. It's not the coward's way out because it's culture that's saying apples=oranges.

2. If someone wants to change sex purely because of bodily functions, would't it be better to receive treatment from a psychiatrist for their insecurities about their own body?

It's not an insecurity. It is an internal sense of self. You keep assuming that one matching their gender and sex is 'objectively' good. It's not and there's no way to prove that.

3. As for people who do not want a sex change operation but purely identify as another sex/gender, that's either bigoted for dividing people's personality into female and male, as gender does't exist, or out of touch with reality for identifying as a sex one is not.

Now let me say that i have no problem with transgender people, i just dont understand why it exists.

It exists due to biology. Sex and gender are not the same. That's their decision.

Does that clear it up?

[roy]

I'm not transgender, but these seem pretty straight forward.

1. I don't think transgender people undergo operations to 'escape gender roles'. I'd say they simply don't identify with being male/female so they change their body to reflect how they identify. I don't see what's cowardly about it or what there is to take issue with.

2. People want to change sex because they want to change sex. Psychiatrists are consulted, but ultimately it's an individual's choice to do what they want with their body. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone else, just accept it.

3. If a trans person is bigoted for identifying as a certain gender, then so is everyone else. There's essentially nothing that makes a man a man or a woman a woman other than how the individual identifies.

[arilando]

Gender does exist but not in a binary way.

No it does't

One's gender does not change. It is only realized. The assertion of gender roles is cultural and not biological as gender is. It's not the coward's way out because it's culture that's saying apples=oranges.

Well changing one's sex in order to change your gender role rather than fighting against gender roles is a cowards way out.

It's not an insecurity. It is an internal sense of self. You keep assuming that one matching their gender and sex is 'objectively' good. It's not and there's no way to prove that.

No i'm not, i'm simply saying that if someone wants to have extensive cosmetic surgery performed on them, than they must have some kind of insecurity.

It exists due to biology. Sex and gender are not the same. That's their decision.

Gender, if understood as something seperate from sex, does not exist. What do you mean with it's they decision? If someone goes around saying that they are a man, if they sex is female, that does not make them a man.

[arilando]

I'm not transgender, but these seem pretty straight forward.

1. I don't think transgender people undergo operations to 'escape gender roles'. I'd say they simply don't identify with being male/female so they change their body to reflect how they identify.

Refer to point 2.

3. If a trans person is bigoted for identifying as a certain gender, then so is everyone else. There's essentially nothing that makes a man a man or a woman a woman other than how the individual identifies.[/QUOTE]
Their sex does.

[The Jay]

No it does't


Well changing one's sex in order to change your gender role rather than fighting against gender roles is a cowards way out.


No i'm not, i'm simply saying that if someone wants to have extensive cosmetic surgery performed on them, than they must have some kind of insecurity.


It exists due to biology. Sex and gender are not the same. That's their decision.

Gender, if understood as something seperate from sex, does not exist. What do you mean with it's they decision? If someone goes around saying that they are a man, if they sex is female, that does not make them a man.[/QUOTE]

This can be settled easily, prove that gender does not exist. If you present your evidence then we can talk about it legitimately without you pulling the 'not-uh' card.

[arilando]

Gender, if understood as something seperate from sex, does not exist. What do you mean with it's they decision? If someone goes around saying that they are a man, if they sex is female, that does not make them a man.

This can be settled easily, prove that gender does not exist. If you present your evidence then we can talk about it legitimately without you pulling the 'not-uh' card.

Well, gender is purely a social construct. Social constructs do not objectively exist.

[The Jay]

Fix that post. You are putting words in my mouth. I did not say what you put in those quotes attributed to me.

To answer your question, NOTHING is objectively true. You're making a mute point and playing a game with a serious issue. Prove that a sex is objectively true. You can't. For all you know the next time that you look at a person they may change 'sex'. You assume that inductive reasoning is correct when there's no way of proving it. Your statements are philosophically unsound and unlearned.

[Fawkes]

I'm gonna start this off by pointing out that you're conflating transgender with transsexual. A transgender individual is someone whose behavior, appearance, identity, etc. deviates from the traditional gender role assigned to them based off of their biological characteristics. Being transgender does not necessitate hormonal therapy or plastic surgery. While many will argue that transsexuality falls under the umbrella of transgender, the opposite isn't true.

1. Gender does not exist. If someone wants to have a sex change operation simply to escape from gender roles, is't that kind of the cowards way out?

Gender exists. Maybe not biologically, but as a social construct, it most certainly does. That's like all the arrogant white people that talk about how "race doesn't exist" or "I don't see race". Maybe it doesn't exist in a biological sense, but try telling Rodney King there's no such thing as race. Pretending something isn't there doesn't make it disappear.

And what is cowardly about wanting breasts or wanting to get rid of a penis?

2. If someone wants to change sex purely because of bodily functions, would't it be better to receive treatment from a psychiatrist for their insecurities about their own body?

Or they could just undergo whatever operations they want and forego all the psychiatric bullshit. Why would it be better to receive treatment from a psychiatrist?

3. As for people who do not want a sex change operation but purely identify as another sex/gender, that's either bigoted for dividing people's personality into female and male, as gender does't exist, or out of touch with reality for identifying as a sex one is not.

Yeah, cause trans people are the ones responsible for dividing people into gender/sex categories

So if I were to say I identify more with women (I'm biologically male) due to my possession of traits deemed to be feminine, I'm the bigot? I'm the one needlessly causing division? What about every parent that's bought their daughter a Barbie doll and their son a G.I. Joe? What about the coaches of nearly every contact-based sport that have only males on their teams? Our society is already divided along gender lines, trans people identify as another gender than that which "matches" their biology because there's no other "acceptable" option than to be one or the other.

And there's nothing out of touch with reality about this. A penis doesn't biologically determine someone as aggressive, confidant, and loving of monster trucks. A vagina doesn't biologically determine someone as passive, submissive, and a natural born cheerleader.

[Rafiq]

Tell me, why do you care, OP?

[Tim Finnegan]

1. Gender does not exist. If someone wants to have a sex change operation simply to escape from gender roles, is't that kind of the cowards way out?

Gender doesn't exist as something essential and tranhistorical, but it does exist as an historical phenomenon. Similarly, there's no such thing as an essential or tranhistorical nation, but we can still talk about, say, "France" in a meaningful fashion. This means that it's not a simple case of declaring that gender doesn't apply to you, but of dealing with it as best you can until we find ourselves in a position to unmake it.

2. If someone wants to change sex purely because of bodily functions, would't it be better to receive treatment from a psychiatrist for their insecurities about their own body?

Why do you begin by assuming that their non-identification with their physiological sex is an psychological abberance? Did you ever consider that perhaps they're right, perhaps they are in the "wrong" body?

3. As for people who do not want a sex change operation but purely identify as another sex/gender, that's either bigoted for dividing people's personality into female and male, as gender does't exist, or out of touch with reality for identifying as a sex one is not.

Again, gender may not be tranhistorical, but that doesn't mean it's a simple fiction, so it's not unreasonable for historical beings such as humans to articulate their social identity in historical terms. What's important isn't recognising that "I'm not really a man", or what have you, but that my identification as a man is historically specific.

Plus, sex is socially constructed and all. So there's that.

[Valdyr]

Fawkes (EDIT: and Tim, who posted while I was writing this) did a good job explaining this, but I'm still reeling over the idea that social constructs don't exist. That social constructs don't reflect some external metaphysical order, and that they can be changed, doesn't mean they don't exist. I suppose you're going to tell me that only those entities described by "hard" natural sciences (physics and chemistry) ultimately exist, and that everything else is an illusory composite; an impotent positivism, in other words.

[bcbm]

Plus, sex is socially constructed and all. So there's that.

i thought gender was socially constructed and referring to the roles one plays in society while sex just means your biological parts?

[The Jay]

i thought gender was socially constructed and referring to the roles one plays in society while sex just means your biological parts?

You're right about that. I also view gender as both social and biological: social in the expectations of society, and biological in how the person feels internally.

[GPDP]

1. Gender does not exist.

Citation needed.

If someone wants to have a sex change operation simply to escape from gender roles, is't that kind of the cowards way out?

Why do you care?

2. If someone wants to change sex purely because of bodily functions, would't it be better to receive treatment from a psychiatrist for their insecurities about their own body?

Why do you care?

3. As for people who do not want a sex change operation but purely identify as another sex/gender, that's either bigoted for dividing people's personality into female and male, as gender does't exist, or out of touch with reality for identifying as a sex one is not.

Because they're surely the divisive ones. And blacks cause racial divisions whenever they get uppity, am i rite?

Now let me say that i have no problem with transgender people, i just dont understand why it exists.

Then don't open your mouth until you actually try to understand, as opposed to throwing out half-baked, cryptically bigoted opinions first. You don't come across as someone asking questions because he wants to understand a position, but rather someone who is obviously ignorant about the subject but has a strong opinion anyway and wants everyone to know about it.

In short, it's like when a conservative comes on here, says he doesn't get socialism and wants to understand it, then proceeds to shit out all the buzzwords and propaganda about it at us anyway before anyone says anything. It's not constructive.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

1. Gender does not exist. If someone wants to have a sex change operation simply to escape from gender roles, is't that kind of the cowards way out?

People must have sovereignty over their own physical bodies, and be able to make decisions about them. I do think living in a gender binary system puts pressure on people to have their physical sex congruous with their gender identity, but if people decide they want the two to be congruous, that's their right.

2. If someone wants to change sex purely because of bodily functions, would't it be better to receive treatment from a psychiatrist for their insecurities about their own body?

Being trans is not a mental disorder, no matter how much the bourgeois psychiatric industry pathologizes it (the same way they once pathologized same sex attractions).

3. As for people who do not want a sex change operation but purely identify as another sex/gender, that's either bigoted for dividing people's personality into female and male, as gender does't exist, or out of touch with reality for identifying as a sex one is not.

Gender does exist, even if it's largely a social construct. I've never met a person who claimed gender doesn't exist who doesn't themselves present gendered behavior, even if it falls outside of our society's gender binary.

Now let me say that i have no problem with transgender people, i just dont understand why it exists.

You just called us cowards, mentally ill, bigoted, and out of touch with reality. No problem with us?

[Tim Finnegan]

i thought gender was socially constructed and referring to the roles one plays in society while sex just means your biological parts?

There's biology, and there's how we understand biology. At the most concrete level, every individual is biologically, genetically and physiologically unique, and the classifications we develop involve generalisations from those particulars. "Male" and "female" are a generalisations which draw together various biological and physiological (and more recently, genetic) characteristic, establish norms based on correlations between these characteristics. The binary that we imagine is simply a matter of weighted tendencies, because we're in fact dealing with a number of variables, most of which are non-binary. It's still possible to generalise meaningfully at "the male body", or what have you, but it has to be recognised that it is a generalisation.

[A Marxist Historian]

1. Gender does not exist. If someone wants to have a sex change operation simply to escape from gender roles, is't that kind of the cowards way out?

2. If someone wants to change sex purely because of bodily functions, would't it be better to receive treatment from a psychiatrist for their insecurities about their own body?

3. As for people who do not want a sex change operation but purely identify as another sex/gender, that's either bigoted for dividing people's personality into female and male, as gender does't exist, or out of touch with reality for identifying as a sex one is not.

Now let me say that i have no problem with transgender people, i just dont understand why it exists.

Used to be transgender folks were called "transsexuals." (As in the lead song in the Rocky Horror movie f'rexample). Can you "understand" that better?

I think people who want to have a sex change operation is 'cuz they want to have different genitalia, feel uncomfortable with being the sex they currently are, etc. etc. They don't want to "escape from" gender roles, they want to play on the other team, play different gender roles. And if they want to, why shouldn't they?

And if they can do that without going through all the unpleasantness involved with a major dangerous operation, more power to 'em.

You seem basically to be saying, to use old fashioned language that people avoid nowadays, that transgenderism is perverse. Well, like the saying goes, perversion is whatever the other person is into unlike yourself.

-M.H.-