Today I identify as a trans aardvark called Samantha

[Gian]

There's been alot of talk over the last few years about "what is a woman?" and whether someone can just declare themselves to be another sex. "It's not that I don't empathise with transgenders" says mega-feminist Julie Bindel "but they can't use the term woman. That word is taken."

But what does she mean by taken? My ethical question is... who owns words? Who decides what they mean?

With personal names, other than certain specific legal contexts (eg passport, obtaining benefits) anyone is free to call themselves anything they like. I can call myself Queen Boadicea if I feel like it.

There are dictionaries, and scientific terms, but neither is enforceable by law. So what's to stop an individual saying "My personal definition of a woman is this;"etc etc

Who owns words?

Cheerz

GIAN🙂XXX

 

[StringJunky]

No one owns them. Usage trends determine the actual definitions. They don't define the words, they reflect contemporary meanings; how people use them in the aggregate. I find the concept of cultural misappropriation  a bit nebulous and hypocritical, since all cultures borrow some things off each other... same with these social identity  labels.

Edited February 2 by StringJunky

[iNow]

25 minutes ago, Gian said:

Who decides what they mean?

Society as a whole. Words and terms and their applicable uses evolve with time. This is natural and has happened for thousands of years or more.

Perhaps a better question is why are so many insecure people worried about other people and how they define themselves? Why not just acknowledge their view is different from yours and go on with your day?

Fear. Stupidity. Tribalism. Hatred. These explanations all seem to fit the response here, and it's challenging to think of better explanations for the ridiculous response. 

Bruce is now Loretta. Who cares other than the ignorant? 

[Gian]

15 minutes ago, iNow said:

Perhaps a better question is why are so many insecure people worried about other people and how they define themselves? Why not just acknowledge their view is different from yours and go on with your day?

Agreed, and the numbers we're talking about are very small. I believe the incidence of gender dysphoria is about 1 in 10,000.

The purported objection is about self-defined women using single sex environments like toilets and changing rooms, or participating in women's sports.

But I wonder if those reasons are genuine, or just an excuse to raise objections

Edited February 2 by Gian

[iNow]

4 minutes ago, Gian said:

believe the incidence of gender dysphoria is

Is irrelevant. This is gender identity, not dysphoria. 

I've used many mixed sex and unisex restrooms and somehow I've magically survived to tell the story. 

[Phi for All]

3 hours ago, Gian said:

There's been alot of talk over the last few years about "what is a woman?" and whether someone can just declare themselves to be another sex. "It's not that I don't empathise with transgenders" says mega-feminist Julie Bindel "but they can't use the term woman. That word is taken."

Even science can't force people to restrict their use of certain terms. I really wish we could tell people "Stop using the word 'theory' in that context, that word is taken", but we can't because that's not how words work.

3 hours ago, Gian said:

With personal names, other than certain specific legal contexts (eg passport, obtaining benefits) anyone is free to call themselves anything they like. I can call myself Queen Boadicea if I feel like it.

No disrespect, but I think this attitude is part of the problem. You come up with a flippant, non-serious example that seems ridiculous, as if that's what people who want to change their names are after. You're making a ludicrous equivalence that undermines the real objective.

3 hours ago, Gian said:

There are dictionaries, and scientific terms, but neither is enforceable by law. So what's to stop an individual saying "My personal definition of a woman is this;"etc etc

Are the individuals actually saying that though? Are they defining what a woman is for everyone, or are they trying to include themselves in a definition previously denied to them? People in general are finding out, through better education, that many of our old definitions were too broad or confining, and now we want better clarification and classification.

[MigL]

I will try to explain to the best of my abilities ( and without giving demerit points ), even though I sometimes find the situation ridiculous myself.

Words are defined by context.
In reproductive Biology there are only two sexes, because an idealized male of the species is needed to reproduce with the idealized female of the species.
However, in modern Fashion, it is difficult to define male clothing and female clothing, as there is a huge amount of overlap
These are extreme examples, so before Phi calls them 'flippant, and non-serious', I should explain further.

I'm of Southern European discent, and in the summer my skin is darker than a couple of black individuals  that I know.
Yet, if I 'perm' my hair into tight curls, and 'identify' as black, I cannot use the 'N' word, as that usage is now based on a shared cultural experience. If their group uses the term,it brings them together, if others use it, it offends.
And I understand that, and am fine with it.

When it comes to the term 'woman', however, that term is still in general usage, and some people feel free to include themselves in the group denoted by that term.
And I can sort of understand that also.

Some feminists, however, and people like J K Rawling, are wondering why women don't deserve to 'own' their shared cultural experience as they have a much longer history of oppression all over the world.
And I can understand that too.

The confusing part, for me, is that we choose to avoid offending people who want to identify as 'women' by not letting the group own their shared cultural history, and 'owning' the term, and continuing to be oppressed.

Doesn't seem very enlightened to me, and very possibly needs more discussion, not less.
But what do I know, I usually get neg reps also when discussing similar subjects, as if discussion is not needed ( or wanted ).

[iNow]

So not only do you wish to dictate how others use certain terms, but now you also wish to dictate how members use the reaction vote system? Fascist!  😝🤣

[MigL]

I could very well be a descendant of B Mussolini. 😁

[CharonY]

3 minutes ago, MigL said:

In reproductive Biology there are only two sexes, because an idealized male of the species is needed to reproduce with the idealized female of the species.

I want to add that this is a human-centered view, and not really applicable in the broader field of biology. In terms of sexual reproduction a distinction in male and female is made based on anisogamy (i.e. if they create different forms of gametes). In some species one organism can do both, in others, the role can change during their life cycle. But there is also sexual reproduction where we find isogamy (i.e. gametes with same morphology), which is a form of sexual reproduction that cannot be classified into different sexes. And some do really weird switches, especially when they can change between uni- to multicellular life styles. In short, biology of sex is weird and everyone is a pervert.

[MigL]

22 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I want to add that this is a human-centered view,

What oother view would you expect me to take ?
We are discussing humans., are we not ?

26 minutes ago, CharonY said:

everyone is a pervert.

I've been called worse. 🙂
INow recently called me a fascist.

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

The confusing part, for me, is that we choose to avoid offending people who want to identify as 'women' by not letting the group own their shared cultural history, and 'owning' the term, and continuing to be oppressed.

It could very well be that "men" and "women" are outdated terms wrt some modern societies. The categories are too broad and don't make enough meaningful distinctions, yet they're part of the fabric of our lives almost from birth. I can't appreciate JK Rowling's stance on shared history since it assumes everyone born with a vagina shares some kind of cultural constancy with every other vagina owner. It also assumes someone who chooses a vagina over their birth penis hasn't shared some of that cultural history, which I doubt anyone could support with evidence. 

So who defines what it means to be a man for you? Is it you, is it other men, or is it society in general? I think there's only one decent answer to that, only one that gives you the freedom and liberty to be who you think is best for you to be.

[TheVat]

Words are for communication.  Communication is about conveying the meaning in one head to the inside of other heads.  Since words have meanings that are freighted with cultural and ideological (and other "-als") assumptions, there is no getting around the need to question what a word means.  When I was in my twenties and someone said to me, "there is a woman I'd like you to meet," the meaning I inferred was a biological female.  In that place and context, that made sense.  Given the instincts in the majority of young men to seek a healthy and fertile egg-bearer, I wouid imagine that meaning would retain its semantic dominance unless sexual dysmorphia turns out to be far more common than previously thought.   Trans-, then, would endure as a useful prefix in conveying meaning.  My son wants to start a family.  If someone says "there is a woman I'd like you to meet," that will carry a different meaning to him than "there is a trans woman I'd like you to meet."  So long as humans reproduce via anisogamy, the word choice will matter to some.  You can't really shame people for wanting to know someone else's history - that's just an aspect of getting to know people.  If you're looking for a chess partner, "woman" could be broad and vague on the matter of gametes.  

[joigus]

2 hours ago, iNow said:

So not only do you wish to dictate how others use certain terms, but now you also wish to dictate how members use the reaction vote system? Fascist!  😝🤣

In the Ricky Gervais sense? (Short):

 

[MigL]

I just noticed a mistake in my post which might confuse some, in Phi's quote.

Where it says

3 hours ago, MigL said:

The confusing part, for me, is that we choose to avoid offending people who want to identify as 'women' by not letting the group own their shared cultural history, and 'owning' the term, and continuing to be oppressed.

should say

3 hours ago, MigL said:

The confusing part, for me, is that we choose to avoid offending people who want to identify as 'women' by not letting the group own their shared cultural history, not 'owning' the term, and continuing to be oppressed.

my apologies.

[CharonY]

3 hours ago, MigL said:

What oother view would you expect me to take ?
We are discussing humans., are we not ?

No, that is perfectly fine. I just want to make it clear as some folks assume that this is an universal biological thing, whereas in reality biology is more complicated (and weirder) than we see in humans.

[iNow]

3 hours ago, MigL said:

Doesn't seem very enlightened to me

Also doesn’t seem like this is the OPs first foray or post into this topic, nor is it the first time treating this group dismissively. Trends provide important context for responses.

 

1 hour ago, joigus said:

In the Ricky Gervais sense? (Short

I can absolutely see MigL liking a Joe Rogan tweet. There’s just no accounting for taste 😂 

[MigL]

I don't do 'tweets' nor do I care what others 'tweet' about in social media.
( forums is as far as I go )

And my opinion of Joe Rogan is that he should have stuck to announcing MMA fights.

[Sensei]

10 hours ago, MigL said:

I don't do 'tweets' nor do I care what others 'tweet' about in social media.

Are you living under a rock? People don't "tweet" anymore.. There's an X. Apparently shortcut from "eXcretion".. Once the moderators were fired, it may fit better with the new profile..

[StringJunky]

4 hours ago, Sensei said:

Are you living under a rock? People don't "tweet" anymore.. There's an X. Apparently shortcut from "eXcretion".. Once the moderators were fired, it may fit better with the new profile..

I like that: tweeting becomes Xcreting.

[joigus]

Anyway. Sex is a biological fact that can be settled at cell-level. Behaviour is another matter.

Sexes there are two. Behaviours there are millionfold.

 

[iNow]

2 minutes ago, joigus said:

Sex is a biological fact that can be settled at cell-level. … Sexes there are two.

But that’s incorrect, as already clarified both here and elsewhere. 

Even if we limit our inquiry purely to humans, there’s still XYY Syndrome, XXY Syndrome (aka Klinefelters), Triple X Syndrome (XXX), Turner Syndrome, Noonan Syndrome, X0/XY Mosaicism, among others.

Nature is under no obligation to fit neatly into forced arbitrary binary human buckets. It’s a shame so many humans try forcing her to due to arbitrary social reasons. 

[StringJunky]

8 minutes ago, joigus said:

Anyway. Sex is a biological fact that can be settled at cell-level. Behaviour is another matter.

Sexes there are two. Behaviours there are millionfold.

 

Hermaphrodites don't get a look in then; looking under the whole biological umbrella of organisms.

[joigus]

5 minutes ago, iNow said:

But that’s incorrect, as already clarified both here and elsewhere. 

 

4 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Hermaphrodites don't get a look in then; looking under the whole biological umbrella of organisms.

I stand corrected. Thank you, gentlepeople.

Sexes there are < 10

Behaviours there are > 1000

Something like that.

[dimreepr]

17 minutes ago, joigus said:

 

I stand corrected. Thank you, gentlepeople.

Sexes there are < 10

Behaviours there are > 1000

Something like that.

Indeed, today I had mushroom soup, and now I have a craving for ant's named stewart...