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From now on, I identify myself as Black and everyone else should acknowledge that that's how I feel inside, regardless of my outer appearance.
My preferred race identity is African American.
Needless to say, I now qualify for affirmative action when that is available.
If you don't call me Black, you are a racist.

I think that will only affect demographic surveys.

At least I don't walk up to someone and say "hey, you're black, which aisle has those sticky things you put in plants that catches gnats?". I just ask my question. Since we don't have special pronouns for blacks (or Latinos, or Asians, etc), your comment doesn't really track. There is no need to correct me "I identify as white" because it never enters conversation.

And in some languages, there are no pronouns. That always messes up 1poorlady because she's Filipina. But when she speaks English she often confuses he and she, and almost uses them interchangeably (she uses "she" more than "he").

Also...a nitpick...we're all the same race (human). That can be verified by DNA, and is a fact. We just have different ethnicities. Frankly, I don't get into the details about gender vs sex (I believe one is genetic -X and Y chromosomes-, and the other is identity). I make a guess based on voice, name (if provided), and secondary sexual characteristics (if visible), and if they say "no, it's 'Mr'", I say "oh, sorry...Mr (whomever)...". Doesn't matter to me what they want to be called.

From now on, I identify myself as Black and everyone else should acknowledge that that's how I feel inside, regardless of my outer appearance.
My preferred race identity is African American.
Needless to say, I now qualify for affirmative action when that is available.
If you don't call me Black, you are a racist

Not if it's not true.

I mean, there are lots of thorny issues regarding self-identification (especially on racial matters) that even progressives disagree on, but no one thinks that a pretextual claim of self-identity has to be honored. You can't just say the phrase, "I identify as X" - and nothing else - and have it be true. It's not a magic incantation or ritualistic expression that becomes truth merely because you say it.

Certainly that's true in most legal contexts. For example, a person who has never engaged in any observation, study, or practice of the Jewish faith can't just declare one Friday afternoon that they are an devout Jew and require their employer to accommodate their need to observe the Sabbath. The courts can and will interrogate the sincerity of one's professed religious belief - whether you actually believe what you claim to believe.

But it's going to be true in most social and institutional contexts as well. People who have falsely claimed to be a particular race or ethnicity end up getting savaged - even by progressive groups. Rachel Dolezal is perhaps the most notorious example, but others (like Jessica Krug) have also had severe reputational and career damage for pretextually claiming an identity that they did not in fact have:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/03/jess...

You can't just decide one day to be Black.

You can't just say the phrase, "I identify as X" - and nothing else - and have it be true. It's not a magic incantation or ritualistic expression that becomes truth merely because you say it.

Worked for Elizabeth Warren. Granted, she *did* write a cookbook detailing the culinary feats of her ancestors. Who could forget the natives' invention of Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing? Just amazing.

You can't just decide one day to be Black.

Why not? If your very chromosomes don't matter, why should small details like your pigmentation?

Worked for Elizabeth Warren. Granted, she *did* write a cookbook detailing the culinary feats of her ancestors. Who could forget the natives' invention of Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing? Just amazing.

It didn't work for Elizabeth Warren. No one suggested that a pretextual claim of ancestry which the person knew to have no support is enough to establish identity. All parties involved recognized that there had to be something more - some actual facts that would give rise to a claim of identity. People vigorously disagreed about whether those facts existed, but no one disagreed with the basic proposition that if you have absolutely no basis at all for asserting a particular identity then you can't claim that identity.

Why not? If your very chromosomes don't matter, why should small details like your pigmentation?

Trans identity isn't linked to chromosomes. That's the point. Trans identity is based on the principle that gender identity is a construct that is not inextricably tied to chromosomes, which is how gender dsyphoria can exist.

You can't just decide one day to be Black.

Entering the transgender pathway isn't a decision taken lightly or to gain perceived advantages. It puts into action the transition to being able to live the reality that these individuals have been aware of within themselves for years.

Ambiguity occurs externally as well as internally. About 1 in every 5000 births involves "ambiguous genitalia," which includes atypical sex-chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC78454...(DSD).

Some of these infants are born with both sets of genitals. A very very careful and highly complex evaluation has to be made in the attempt....not always successful....to determine the infant's apparent sex, both to help the family cope with the situation and to "help to foresee with which gender the child might identify later on in life." There are multiple causes of ambiguous genitalia. In some diagnostic groups the determination of sexuality is achieved most of the time. In others it's achieved only 20-60% of the time. I know from literature that I've encountered back in the past that surgery is an important tool in producing clarity after this determination, and hormonal treatments can also be used.

Since this multiple-causality ambiguity and lack of coherence can exist on the outside, where it's observed visually and thus accepted as real, it's only logical that such dissonance exists from birth in some people between internally experienced vs outwardly appearing physical sexual identity.....but without external evidence. The diagnostic tools may not yet exist, but it's a question of time.

Not if it's not true.

I mean, there are lots of thorny issues regarding self-identification (especially on racial matters) that even progressives disagree on, but no one thinks that a pretextual claim of self-identity has to be honored. You can't just say the phrase, "I identify as X" - and nothing else - and have it be true. It's not a magic incantation or ritualistic expression that becomes truth merely because you say it.

Right, that's the point I am getting at.

All of your statements apply to a pre-transition trans man (I mean a man who dresses as a woman, so maybe trans woman is the right term).
There is no biological basis for it. It is purely how he (she) feels on the inside.

Certainly that's true in most legal contexts. For example, a person who has never engaged in any observation, study, or practice of the Jewish faith can't just declare one Friday afternoon that they are an devout Jew and require their employer to accommodate their need to observe the Sabbath. The courts can and will interrogate the sincerity of one's professed religious belief - whether you actually believe what you claim to believe.

This I agree with. Nonetheless, the new Jewish person has to start somewhere. And that's how they can defend their choice to the court. Never mind that this only applies to basically honest people, and not criminals without qualms about lying to the court (as some trans prisoners have done).

People who have falsely claimed to be a particular race or ethnicity end up getting savaged

If they are detected. Until there is a truth detector, your sample is only the people who got caught.

I get your point, that intent matters. But trans advocates are basically claiming that ONLY the intent matters, biology does not. I can't imagine why it has to be true only for trans people, and not others.

All of your statements apply to a pre-transition trans man (I mean a man who dresses as a woman, so maybe trans woman is the right term).
There is no biological basis for it. It is purely how he (she) feels on the inside.

We don't know that. There's no morphological difference that corresponds to trans identity - but the same is true of being gay, also. We don't know whether there's a genetic or inherited component to being gay or trans, or whether there are biological manifestations of being gay or trans that might show up in neurological or other physical brain phenomena. There are lots of psychological characteristics that we suspect might have a biological component because of their tendencies to be inherited, even though we can't directly map them onto an "anxiety gene" or an "extroversion/introversion" lobe of the brain. Indeed, psychologists and psychiatrists suspect that all of the "Big Five" personality aspects (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) have a heritable biological component, but they're not sure how that actually works.

It certainly manifests in a person's internal sense of self. But invariably for someone to actually be diagnosed with gender dysphoria you will find that they have sustained, longstanding thoughts and feelings that constitute that condition. They don't just wake up one day and decide that today they're going to be trans.

This I agree with. Nonetheless, the new Jewish person has to start somewhere. And that's how they can defend their choice to the court. Never mind that this only applies to basically honest people, and not criminals without qualms about lying to the court (as some trans prisoners have done).

The fact that some people might falsely claim to be trans doesn't mean that anyone accepts that someone's mere declaration of being trans (or being black or being Jewish or being gay) has to be taken at face value. If a person who has never, EVER given any indication external indication that they've had gender dysphoria or trans identity suddenly claimed to be trans, we can certainly take that with a grain of salt until they've actually started "walking the walk" and living their claimed identity to see if its real or pretextual. Again, it takes more than saying "I identify as X" for you to be X - whether X is "gay" or "Jewish" or "trans."

But trans advocates are basically claiming that ONLY the intent matters, biology does not. I can't imagine why it has to be true only for trans people, and not others.

Again, we don't know whether biology is involved. Because being trans shares many of the same characteristics of being gay. It manifests as a psychological orientation, not a group affinity or identity like being a member of a race, nationality, or ethnicity. There are differences between race, nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and other identity markers - they're not all the same, and it's not surprising that one's internal sense of self might have different importance in some areas and not others.

It didn't work for Elizabeth Warren. No one suggested that a pretextual claim of ancestry which the person knew to have no support is enough to establish identity.

It didn't work for her because literally anybody has as much NA blood as she does:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2018/10/...

In other words, she wanted to claim some Identity Space for herself...but to no avail.

But at least we have Cherokee crab recipes to cherish as a result of all that!

Trans identity isn't linked to chromosomes. That's the point. Trans identity is based on the principle that gender identity is a construct that is not inextricably tied to chromosomes, which is how gender dsyphoria can exist.

If someone can be gender dysphoric, why can't they be race dysphoric?
We're all of the *human* race, are we not? "Race" as used in popular culture is far more of a social construct than "gender" as used today is.

If someone can be gender dysphoric, why can't they be race dysphoric?

The question isn't, "Why can't they be race dysphoric?" The question is whether anyone is race dysphoric? It's an empirical question.

Gender dysphoria is a psychological phenomenon that has been observed repeatedly - over and over and over again - across cultures and nations and different historical time frames. Like being gay (though with less frequency), there have been many hundreds of thousands of people reporting this condition over the decades. It's an observed phenomenon. Countless patients repeatedly (and independently) reporting the same symptoms, over and over to different psychologists and psychiatrists in different countries and different cultures, all describing similar and consistent mental phenomenon that constitute a discrete and repeated set of symptoms and experiences - an actual psychological condition that we have labeled gender dysphoria.

We haven't seen that with race. If there had been hundreds of thousands of people in countries all around the world who were experiencing severe, oft-times unbearable, psychological trauma associated with not being the "right" race, then we might similarly identify that as a thing that exists in the world.

But we don't. That's not a thing that exists. If it existed, then we might consider how to respond to it so that we could treat people who experienced it with the fairness and respect that all humans deserve. But it doesn't exist.

Gender dysphoria is not performative. Gender dysphoria is a real, psychological feature of some people's mental composition that results in a misalignment between their internal sense of gender and their external manifestation of gender. It has been observed in patients all around the world, over and over again.

The question isn't, "Why can't they be race dysphoric?" The question is whether anyone is race dysphoric? It's an empirical question.

If he says he is, he is. When you throw out the objective science, then all that's left is someone's word for it.

I'm going to be generous and *not* make you go down the list of every. single. possible. gender. and tell me what the scientific rationale is for each one of them because A) I'm a nice guy and B) we both know there isn't one.

I'm going to be generous and *not* make you go down the list of every. single. possible. gender. and tell me what the scientific rationale is for each one of them because A) I'm a nice guy and B) we both know there isn't one.

And by the way, I've set a very deliberate and ironic debate trap for you here :)

If he says he is, he is. When you throw out the objective science, then all that's left is someone's word for it.

No, that's incorrect.

People didn't just decide whether people should be allowed to be a gender that doesn't match their biological presentation. Any more than we decided whether people should be gay or not. We observed that there were literally hundreds of thousands of people, all around the world, whose internal sense of gender did not match their biological presentation.

We're not throwing out the objective science. Quite the contrary. Gender dysphoria exists. Psychologists have been diagnosing patients that have been experiencing the phenomena associated with gender dysphoria all over the world, in nearly all countries and society. People have been observed to act in a way that demonstrates that they have gender dysphoria, independently and without coordination, across time and culture. They consistently report not just an internal sense of self that is inconsistent with their biological presentation of gender, but trauma and anguish caused by that "mismatch."

There's lots of phenomena that are like that - where science is observing people's reported symptoms, and concluding that a condition or psychological state exists because of it. Consider tinnitus. You only know someone has tinnitus because someone says they have tinnitus. But because so many people in so many different areas report experiencing tinnitus, no one doubts it exists.

So again, if someone says they're gay, we're generally okay with accepting that they're telling the truth even though we can only "take their word for it." We'll take it with a grain of salt it if they don't do and have never done anything, at all, ever that's consistent with them being gay. But if a man says he's gay, and is out there dating other men, we don't disbelieve it just because all we can do is take their word for it. And the same is true of being trans. We know that people are trans, so there's no especial reason to disbelieve someone who reports they are trans (unless, again, it's utterly inconsistent with everything they do or say). Like gay people, the question isn't whether trans people exist, but how society is going to treat them.

I'm going to be generous and *not* make you go down the list of every. single. possible. gender. and tell me what the scientific rationale is for each one of them because A) I'm a nice guy and B) we both know there isn't one. - Dope

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I recall there was some well justified mocking of some government aid application that lusted 80 09 90 genders the applicant could choose from. Funny though, when it comes to trans-gendering, there are only two.

Here is a fun list if you to see how far this insanity has progressed....

https://helpfulprofessor.com/types-of-genders-list...

No, that's incorrect.

Nope. Do you really want to go down the list of all 81 genders? And tell me the scientific definition behind each one?

Ahhh, you found the trap I was setting for albaby!

Let's open it up. I'd like a scientific explanation behind this gender identity:

Acault (Myanmar)
Acault is a gender from Buddhist people of Myanmar. It describes people who are AMAB (assigned male at birth) who have been possessed by a female spirit god named Manguedon who has imparted femininity on them. Acaults are often seen as wise shamans and seers.

Ahhh, you found the trap I was setting for albaby!

Let's open it up. I'd like a scientific explanation behind this gender identity

It's not really much of a trap. You've noted that there are dozens and dozens of different terms for genders, and that they vary from culture to culture. Which isn't really much more remarkable than the fact that there are dozens and dozens of different terms that are used for, say, "mother" in different cultures and countries.

Or that in different societies, they will use ascribe slightly different characteristics to whatever their local terminology for a trans or non-gendered person is. Again, not very remarkable. It's like making fun of the fact that there are so many different variations on what people consider the role of an "aunt" or a "uncle" to be in different cultures. That's because what it means to be an "aunt" is both biological (sister of a parent) and cultural (the role that such a person plays in familiar relationships).

Because there are wide variations in language and culture between different societies, those societies will use different terms and differentiations in discussing gender. That's a pretty toothless trap. You can replicate the same result just looking at the genders that you acknowledge are real - different societies will have different terms for "male" and "female," and divergent conceptions of what it means to be male and female that will have subtle differences from culture to culture. Or any other psychological phenomena - go to any country and find out what the local colloquial term is for schizophrenia, and the different characteristics that attributed to that condition. That doesn't mean there's no scientific explanation that (or how) schizophrenia exists.

There is a well-established scientific basis for concluding that gender dysphoria exists. Because gender is also a cultural phenomenon, you'll get lots of variations of how societies describe gender dysphoric individuals. They'll use different terms, and ascribe different traits to them.

Let's open it up. I'd like a scientific explanation behind this gender identity:

Acault (Myanmar)
Acault is a gender from Buddhist people of Myanmar. It describes people who are AMAB (assigned male at birth) who have been possessed by a female spirit god named Manguedon who has imparted femininity on them. Acaults are often seen as wise shamans and seers. - dope

============================


Here is another one that defies comprehension and any sort of scientific explanation except perhaps, "deranged" or delusional". And how on earth could Lurkermom be expected to learn what pronoun to use with such a person when it changes from day to day.

58. Polygender

Like pangender, polygender is a gender identity which refers to feeling multiple genders simultaneously or over time. Polygender people may feel like they are a combination of two or more genders, that their gender changes over time, or that they have no specific gender. Like many other non-binary identities, polygender is often seen as falling outside of the traditional

It's not really much of a trap. You've noted that there are dozens and dozens of different terms for genders, and that they vary from culture to culture. Which isn't really much more remarkable than the fact that there are dozens and dozens of different terms that are used for, say, "mother" in different cultures and countries.

Nice try, but here's you upthread:

Gender dysphoria is a psychological phenomenon that has been observed repeatedly - over and over and over again - across cultures and nations and different historical time frames. Like being gay (though with less frequency), there have been many hundreds of thousands of people reporting this condition over the decades. It's an observed phenomenon.

So my question to you is:

How many scientific observations of Manguedon have been made?

Gender dysphoria is not performative. Gender dysphoria is a real, psychological

Some 30 years ago a friend's girlfriend's kid let me know he really liked boys and was questioning. I told him he hadn't gone through puberty yet and to look at it then. Recently I've come to understand more and I'd have to think it through. It seems most transgenders know years before puberty they are different.

How many scientific observations of Manguedon have been made?

None - because Manguedon isn't a scientific phenomenon. Nor is it a gender. It's a cultural phenomenon in Myanmar, which explains transwomen in terms of possession of a spirit (nat), of which Manguedon is an example.

It's a very close analog to the way that many societies will adopt cultural explanations for schizophrenia - whether demonic possession (in early Europe), having contact with spirits of deceased family members (India), or speaking directly to G-d (many cultures, including Ghana). In fact, the cultural milieu in which schizophrenia manifests can affect the types of auditory hallucinations that schizophrenics report:

https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-cultur...

But the fact that a society has a clearly non-scientific explanation for schizophrenia doesn't mean that schizophrenia doesn't exist. Or that there aren't scientific observations of schizophrenia in those societies specifically. It just means that the local culture has come up with a non-scientific explanation of that condition. It doesn't make the condition any less real.

Many of the terms on that list of "genders" you have been implicitly mocking fall into the same category. They're just different cultural explanations or descriptions of gender dysphoria that have been adopted colloquially in various cultures. If a local culture has a non-scientific story surrounding a scientific phenomenon - whether it's believing that witchcraft or demonic possession is responsible for epilepsy, or that animist spirits are responsible for natural events - that doesn't invalidate the scientific basis of epilepsy or lightning. It just means they have a local myth or story to explain it.

I think there is a legitimate question buried in the sarcasm that is worthy of an answer. I know intersex people, so I know sex and gender are far more complex than the simple dichotomies conservatives would force on the conversation. However there is real confusion around gender identification that contradicts one's biological sex.

Why is a white man self identifying as a black man self evidently absurd, but a penis person self identifying as a woman is reasonable? While I don't care how anyone identifies around gender, I do have a problem with some of the politics of the trans movement. I frankly find it reactionary to challenge gender dichotomies by transgressing them, but in a way that reinforces the essentialism of the dichotomy. The non-binary movement has it right: end the gender binary once and for all. Penises and vaginas, and everything in between, shouldn't matter.

Unfortunately, however, they do matter, and the dream of ending gender, and thus making sex irrelevant, will only be attained when we end sex discrimination, specifically sexism against women.

The trans movement distracts from this more fundamental (in my view) struggle, elevating the plight of a tiny minority of gender nonconformists above the historical struggles of women for equal rights.

Trans identity isn't linked to chromosomes. That's the point. Trans identity is based on the principle that gender identity is a construct that is not inextricably tied to chromosomes, which is how gender dsyphoria can exist.<\i>

Sex and gender are inextricably linked. Even intersex people are forced, in our western cultural tradition, to choose an identity within the gender dichotomy. Gender is linked to sex and sex is linked to biology. I get the struggle to explode the gender dichotomy, but you can't do so by denying its deep connection to biological sex. Ending gender is a noble goal, but you don't do so by claiming the right to bipolar fluidity. The dichotomy remains. None of these gender transgressions do a dot of good for ending the sexism against women which is at the root of the dichotomy to start with.

The whole trans politics movement and national debate is, in my view, a brilliant strategy to distract from the more fundamental dichotomies in our society around sex, race, and class. Republicans have done well to make women's rights into a struggle for trans rights, and in the process to convince millions of working class people to embrace the party of billionaires against the looney left drag warriors who would recruit your children into these 'perversions'. Once again, progressives are left fighting on the terrain chosen by the enemy.

Why is a white man self identifying as a black man self evidently absurd, but a penis person self identifying as a woman is reasonable?

Because the question has nothing to do with whether one is absurd and one is reasonable. The question is whether these things exist or not. "Penis people" whose mental conception of gender is convinced that they are "really" a woman do exist - there have been thousands and thousands and thousands of patients who have reported that condition and experienced pain and trauma because of it. In nearly every culture, country, and time frame. The same is not true of white men self-identifying as black. You don't have a lengthy empirical observation of hundreds of thousands of people showing up dealing with the anguish of being "born in the wrong color skin."

For an illustrative analogy, consider the condition of Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). You might have heard of it - it's like the inverse of phantom limb syndrome. People with BIID are absolutely, 100% convinced that a part of their body which is still there....shouldn't be there. That it's wrong for it to be there. That they don't really have, say, a left arm - that their internal sense of what their body should look like doesn't have a left arm, that can't be their left arm. And it needs to go. Patients will report extreme distress and trauma surrounding their existing limb, and will sometimes self mutilate in order to get rid of it. Psychologists believe that this might be related to a disorder in the sensorimotor cortex - the part of the brain that lets you know where all your limbs are even if your eyes are closed - that leads the person to have an internal "model" of their body that excludes the limb, even though it's still there.

But while people will report that they should have one limb instead of two - with all sincerity (to the point of hacking off their own limbs) - no one ever reports that they should have three limbs instead of two. There's no "Extra Limb Syndrome." They're not trying to get physicians to graft on an extra arm in order to ease their distress.

We don't ask whether it's "reasonable" for someone tbelieve they have one arm instead of two, but self-evidently absurd for someone to think they have three arms instead of two. It's just that the former is an actual psychological phenomenon that doctors have observed in patients, and the latter simply isn't.

Gay people exist. They always have, and we have records of millions and millions of them - even in societies that have imposed harsh legal and social punishments. Trans people exist. They always have, and we have records of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them - even in societies that have imposed harsh legal and social punishments. "Wrong-race" people? There's no indication that such people exist. If they existed, we would would have to confront how we (as a society) would have to treat them. But right now, there's no real indication that that's really a condition that people have.

Sex and gender are inextricably linked.

I certainly didn't say it very clearly, that's for sure. Occupational hazard of casual message board posting.

What I should have said, if I were more precise, is that trans identity is based on the premise that your internal sense of gender isn't determined by your chromosomes. That doesn't mean there's no "link" between trans identity and your biological sex (defined either morphologically or by chromosomes) - because by definition, to be "trans" means your internal sense of gender doesn't match your biological attributes. Just like whether you're gay or not depends entirely on your gender and the gender of the person you're attracted to - we define "gay" as a situation where one's own gender matches the gender that you have attraction for. Being trans is defined as when your mental construct of your gender is different from the one that 'matches' your chromosomes or the structure of your body. But the existence of transgendered individuals demonstrates that one's internal model of gender isn't inextricably determined by their chromosomes.

There's no "Extra Limb Syndrome."

BTW, as punishment for trying to come up with an interesting analogy, I have just found that in exceptionally rare cases, people who have suffered brain injuries or strokes or other trauma to certain parts of the brain will report supernumerary phantom limb syndrome. Where they will (often temporarily) report the sensation of having an additional limb, and even experience some sensorimotor activity corresponding to that limb. It's a very interesting world we live in.

So amend my illustration to be something that doesn't exist - say, "Second Head Syndrome." The point is still the same - we are dealing with the question of what psychological conditions actually exist in the world, not the question of whether one thing is reasonable and the other is absurd.

Trans people exist. They always have, and we have records of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them - even in societies that have imposed harsh legal and social punishments.

First, you ignored the substance of what I said and focused on the cheeky summary of the previous poster's position.

Gender is, and always has been, a cultural construct. Sex is the biological reality on which gender is based. Some cultures have a third gender, recognizing the dysphoria you mention (as well as the biological reality of intersex people). None of this changes the fact that POLITICALLY penis people with gender dysphoria are inserting themselves into the social, cultural, and political spaces of biological and culturally self identified women, and demanding the right to those spaces. Trans women experience horrific discrimination, but they don't experience that discrimination as women. The discrimination against women is different, and needs to be acknowledged as such.

I know women who have been verbally abused by trans women at a women's conference for not centering trans issues in the feminist agenda of the conference.

Yes, there is gender dysphoria because gender is a social and cultural construct. Recognizing this doesn't change the fact that that dysphoria is rooted in a biological reality that is the basis for our gender constructs. That biological reality is also the basis for millennia of subjugation and oppression of women. One might argue that gender emerges as the cultural form of sexism.

First, you ignored the substance of what I said and focused on the cheeky summary of the previous poster's position.

Sorry - it was the question you asked. So I answered it. I didn't pick up that you were being cheeky, rather than genuinely asking it - since that's the question that the thread was dealing with.

None of this changes the fact that POLITICALLY penis people with gender dysphoria are inserting themselves into the social, cultural, and political spaces of biological and culturally self identified women, and demanding the right to those spaces.

Perhaps. That's certainly a disputed contention. But as noted above, and as you can tell by the thread title ("Race Fluidity"), this thread has mostly been a conversation about whether there exists a racial analog to gender dysphoria - which is why my posts (and the responses to them) have focused on whether there exists an actual basis (scientific or otherwise) for gender dysphoria that is absent for the idea of "race dysphoria." We hadn't really been talking about the political question about once you've established that gender dysphoria is real in a way "race dysphoria" is not, how a society should respond to that. The conversation was a little more "upstream" from that, dealing with the threshold question of whether gender dysphoria actually exists in the first place. My discussions of the inter-relationship between internal sense of gender and morphology/chromosomal indicators of sex were in that context.

Gender dysphoria is a psychological phenomenon that has been observed repeatedly - over and over and over again - across cultures and nations and different historical time frames. Like being gay (though with less frequency), there have been many hundreds of thousands of people reporting this condition over the decades. It's an observed phenomenon. Countless patients repeatedly (and independently) reporting the same symptoms, over and over to different psychologists and psychiatrists in different countries and different cultures, all describing similar and consistent mental phenomenon that constitute a discrete and repeated set of symptoms and experiences - an actual psychological condition that we have labeled gender dysphoria.

We haven't seen that with race. If there had been hundreds of thousands of people in countries all around the world who were experiencing severe, oft-times unbearable, psychological trauma associated with not being the "right" race, then we might similarly identify that as a thing that exists in the world.

Actually, this is not entirely true. For black people in places like the US and South Africa "passing" is a real phenomenon where one's cultural designation in a race hierarchy is inconsistent with their racial lineage. The psychological trauma of passing is real, and comes at the cost of having to deny family, culture, and the trauma of occupying a position of privilege while those in your race of origin continue to suffer.

The same is not true of white men self-identifying as black. You don't have a lengthy empirical observation of hundreds of thousands of people showing up dealing with the anguish of being "born in the wrong color skin."

She's a worthy example contradictory piece of evidence (*kidding*).

She quipped "I may look like a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey, but inside I'm a 50-year-old, heavy-set black man with a big thumb, like Wes Montgomery."

I wish I shared Emily Remler gift of rhythm; an independent right thumb. Like Hank Williams, she died at an early age of opioid related heart failure.

Some great weekend listening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLW8UTdMF10

For black people in places like the US and South Africa "passing" is a real phenomenon where one's cultural designation in a race hierarchy is inconsistent with their racial lineage. The psychological trauma of passing is real, and comes at the cost of having to deny family, culture, and the trauma of occupying a position of privilege while those in your race of origin continue to suffer.

"Passing" definitely exists, but it's not the same type of condition as the body dysphorias we've been discussing. The person you're describing isn't suffering due to a disconnect between an internal sense of what their skin color should be and the actual shade of their skin color. They're making a conscious choice to present as belonging to one cultural grouping that doesn't correspond to their internal sense of self - which is a little different than having a body that doesn't correspond to one's internal sense of self. Both can cause psychological suffering, but they're different things.

Being forced to choose between "staying true" to your culture of origin or the economic/social security that comes from "joining" the dominant majority culture - whether through passing or assimilation - can certainly cause a great deal of pain. But it's not generally itself considered a psychological condition (though the traumas associated with it can certainly give rise to psychological conditions or disorders, such as depression or anxiety).

As you may claim to be Black to claim qualification for some benefit such as Affirmative Action, will you please demonstrate your lineage to American Slave ancestery or perhaps from which African country your family immigrated?

I knew a nice Belgian man who grew up in then Belgian Congo. He jokingly referred to himself as an African American.

Gender is, and always has been, a cultural construct. Sex is the biological reality on which gender is based.

The following 'cut and paste' definitions are broader, more inclusive of contemporary knowledge that gender isn't strictly a cultural construct, and sex is not defined by the biological condition a person believes to exist.


gender-Gender includes the social, psychological, cultural and behavioral aspects of being a man, woman, or other gender identity. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures and gender expression.

sex- 1 Sexual activity, especially sexual intercourse. 2. The sexual urge or instinct as it manifests itself in behavior.3. Either of the two divisions, designated female and male, by which most organisms are classified on the basis of their reproductive organs and functions.

"Well Harley, I believe I see a bulge in thet little heifer's britches, whattyathink? Let 'er ride that bull?"

' The person you're describing isn't suffering due to a disconnect between an internal sense of what their skin color should be and the actual shade of their skin color.'

I beg to differ. You're stretching a distinction to maintain your position. I'm not sure it's a 'choice' any different than becoming a trans woman is a 'choice'. Passing is not a recognized psychological condition because it was illegal for much of its history. Just because white institutions of psychology and psychiatry haven't recognized it doesn't mean psychological harm didn't exist.

I'm not sure it's a 'choice' any different than becoming a trans woman is a 'choice'.

There's no "choice" in being trans, any more than there's a "choice" in being gay. People who are trans have an internal representation of their gender that is different from what their body presents as. That is a psychological condition - an attribute of their mental state.

Passing isn't recognized as a psychological condition because it isn't a psychological condition. Passing is making a decision to adopt the culture or presentation of a race that doesn't correspond to your internal model of what your race actually is.

It's the difference between dressing in drag and being trans. A person who dresses in drag is making a choice to dress as a woman even though their internal model of gender is to be a man. A person who is trans has an internal psychological self-model of their gender conflicts with their body - there's no choice involved. The person who is passing is doing the equivalent of dressing in drag - they are choosing to "put on" the uniform that doesn't match their internal model. They are choosing to create the inconsistency. The person who is trans is not - they have an inconsistency between their internal model and their morphology that is not the result of their choice.

That's why gender dysphoria and being trans are psychological conditions, and passing or assimilating are not.

Why is a white man self identifying as a black man self evidently absurd, but a penis person self identifying as a woman is reasonable?

Because they are completely different phenomena, because the latter.....which also includes a vagina person self-identifying as a man, and people in either genitalia category self-identifying as somewhere in between, or as fluidly moving back and forth.....is highly likely to reflect unidentified biological determinants

There is a likely genetic component to gender dysphoria, but we don't have anything solid on it.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30247609/

Sano, she's a solo guitarist? Never sings? I've never heard her and am wondering why.

she's a solo guitarist? Never sings?

Nope, not a singer. Neither was Django Rheinhardt.

She's not well known because her career was a brief 20 years flash. I only discovered her when I found her video'd lesson on bebop and swing.
There's nothing I can say about her that hasn't been said.... lucky for us there's a decent amount of material recorded. on her videos

I can easily burn an afternoon studying her work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvNpK9dtG1w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAPg1c1tWHY

Enjoy

She's definitely good Sano. It was fun to watch her play. :) Thanks!

Her music is solid. Being a Jersey person she was in a good spot to see/hear/study the greats.

Another non-singing jazz guitarist I marvel at is Frank Vignola, a New Yorker grew up at the feet of masters like Joe Pass and Bucky Pizzarelli. He's more commercial than Emily, plays a broader range of jazz/pop styles, and he includes some Catskilly schtick into his sets.
Frank frequently tours with a guy named Vinnie Raniolo who auditioned to tour as Franks bassist. Turns out Vinnie was first and foremost a guitarist too, and quite capable of doubling Frank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNDI5qsTWD0

We saw Martin Taylor, Frank Vignola and John Jorgenson last year on their "The Great Guitars" tour (link below). I've spent a lot of time listening to all kinds of jazz. On guitar, mostly Wes Montgomery, of course, as well as Larry Carlton, Bill Frisell, Al Di Meola, Larry Coryell, John McLaughlin, Pat Metheny, Kenny Burrell, and George Benson. Oddly, no women. Oh, I guess Joni Mitchell's "Hejira" is close, a blend of genres. Took my daughter to see John Pizzarelli when she was about nine. Took her to see Mark Knopfler when she was ten (okay, not jazz). And to see Shawn Colvin do a solo acoustic set. She's not a jazz guitarist either, obviously, but she is a fine, underrated player.

Right now, my favorite guitarist is Molly Tuttle -- bluegrass, not jazz. Sorry. I think she's touring with Tommy Emmanuel. Here's the first time they played together (is there anyone who is happier playing than Tommy Emmanuel?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LygU365fbos

Speaking of firsts, Molly was the first female guitarist to win Best Guitarist at the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards. She is scary good.

Let me close with a plug for Jason Isbell's new album, "Weathervanes". Great stuff. Saw him a few months ago. Another fine player, combining flat picking and finger picking in an interesting, impossible (for me) to duplicate style.

Thanks for the tread. I learned of some new musicians.

Jason Isbell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a36w_Q_o_w

Molly Tuttle w/ Billy Strings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVAyXopT2XA

Martin Taylor, Frank Vignola and John Jorgenson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_13sX78VW8

Shawn Colvin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGK0wUOmd5o

Right now, my favorite guitarist is Molly Tuttle -- bluegrass, not jazz.

Been a Molly fan for years as her proud Papa posted so many vids of his kids as they progressed.
First saw her with the family down in Encinitas at the Summergrass festival.

It's fun to follow her progress as her voice matures and Nashville veterans help her expand her sound. Jerry Douglas looks like the cat that ate the canary in the studio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFRCY7RKJrw

She played in a small bar venue in our little town 2 years ago. Doubt she'll do anything that small anymore.

Molly's brother, Sullivan, plays with AJ Lee's Blue Summit band. Good flatpicker, no voice. They still stop off for small shows in our little town halfway between LA and SF .

Tommy's another amazing musician. One thing I miss back in Orange County is the Lords of The Strings concert series a friend of mine produces. 100 seat room (the womens club building), small riser, no distractions; perfect for watching mostly instrumental shows, but a few singers too. I saw a large number of the listed pickers, but they never managed to book Tommy.

https://lordofthestringsconcerts.com/artists/

There's no "choice" in being trans, any more than there's a "choice" in being gay. People who are trans have an internal representation of their gender that is different from what their body presents as. That is a psychological condition - an attribute of their mental state.

Passing isn't recognized as a psychological condition because it isn't a psychological condition. Passing is making a decision to adopt the culture or presentation of a race that doesn't correspond to your internal model of what your race actually is.

Gender is a social construction, as is race. Gender is the rule governed behavioral manifestation of social and cultural expectations attached to observable physiological differences, as is race. Those biological differences may matter scientifically, in terms of reproductive function for sex and a variety of mostly insignificant morphological differences for race. Ultimately, though, the meaningful differences within categorical dichotomies like gender and race are social and not biological. The differences between women and men are not rooted in the presence or absence of testicles and ovaries, but rather in how we take these observable differences and go about establishing values, mores, and social structures that shape human behavior and social relationships around those differences. Since the underlying biology that is the basis of these social inventions matters only as a justification for their invention as traditions and the power inequalities those traditions establish, the claim that trans people have some "internal representation" of gender that is inconsistent with their biology is essentialist nonsense that reinforces the gender dichotomy and the sexism in which the dichotomy is rooted.

Being trans and/or being homosexual is not a revolt against nature, as your construction suggests. Rather, it is a rejection of naturalized dichotomies, dichotomies that are rooted not in nature but society. Being trans or being gay is a choice. It may be an unconscious choice, as is my "choice" to be a straight cis-gendered person, but a choice none the less. It is a choice because gender and sexual identities are social and cultural constructions, not natural expressions of biological essentialism. The way to address the psychological trauma of these dichotomies, be they transgressing assigned gender roles or passing through established racial barriers, is not to give permission to move between the poles of the dichotomy, but rather to explode the dichotomy itself. Exploding the constraints of gender categories means ending the inequalities on which those dichotomies rest.

Being trans or being gay is a choice.

With respect the argument I see surrounding this sentence is not a very good one. I believe it is highly likely there's a genetic component to being gay, lesbian, bi, or trans, and I'm not sure what anything else is.

So I believe it's highly likely there is no choice at all, the person is just accepting what they are. So acceptance - not choice. Highly likely. I admit there's a possibility it's not genetic, but I'll wait till we know for that (not in my lifetime, eh?). :)

I had a discussion with a friend who pointed to the T'Boli in Mindanao, saying they had no gays - proof there's no genetic component. Within 3 minutes I found an article about a gay man leaving the T'Boli area because he was being ridiculed too much.

My youthful hormones tell me your idea that me being cisgender is a "choice" is so much bunk. How can a thinking man who claims to be cisgender say that? Women drove me nuts, and it was simultaneously a curse and the most wonderful thing in life. That was no "choice".

Now one fellow on line told me after dating young Filipinas that he'd gone back to living with his ladyboy gf because he was treated better. That was a choice. :)

the claim that trans people have some "internal representation" of gender that is inconsistent with their biology

This is (obviously) a disputed proposition. It's certainly the minority position within modern psychology. Particularly since a fairly sizable number of trans people will report actual body dysmorphia - a belief that their body has the wrong genitalia and secondary sex characteristics (like hair and breasts) - rather than merely distress caused by the social and cultural aspects of gender. Since virtually every society has gender norms, though, there's no "slam dunk" way of demonstrating whether the physical dysmorphia is interrelated with, or independent of, the cultural aspects. We know that purely physical dysmorphia exists ("My arm shouldn't be here"), so it's certainly within the realm of possibility that trans identity is no socially constructed.

Fortunately, we don't need to wade into that incredibly sensitive question. The reason there's no "race dysmorphia" as a pyschological condition is that it simply isn't observed among patients. You don't see a non-trivial number of individuals reporting mental distress and trauma resulting from an inconsistency between their internal sense of their race and their external presentation of their race. Because one is an observed psychological state that is reported by a non-trivial number of patients, and the other is not, one is considered a psychological condition.

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