Has the concept of gender become meaningless? (legal, weapon, death)
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I am well aware that what I am about to say is overlysimplistic, but unless I simplify the essence of the question is likely to get lost.
It seems to me that up until the last thousand years, biological sex is what humans mainly used to disguinish "men and women" and gender roles were mostly a product of our sexual dimorphism and were necessary in order for our survival. sex=gender=specific gender role
Once humans had made their lives sufficiently cushy that they were no longer constantly struggling to survive, gender roles drifted from purely biological to more socially driven. Without birth control, females produced many offspring and had to care for them so the fathers were less domestic and the mothers more so, it just made sense. "Work" was more physically demanding and males were better suited for it.
As the women's rights movement and birth control took off, women weren't having as many children and therefore the need of such strict gender roles went away quite a bit. The idea that females had to do "feminine" things and males had to do "masculine" things started to disappear and that is still happening to this day. Feminists pushed the idea that women(females) could do "masculine" things and still be just as much of woman and vice versa. I think most people would agree with this. A female can be just as "masculine" as she wants to be and still be a woman. A lesbian female that wears mens clothing is still just as much of a woman as a stereotypical "feminine" woman. Essentially the belief was sex=gender but one wasn't confined to any gender roles.
Now transgender people want to seperate sex from gender. However, unless you want to go back to the idea that a specific gender has specific gender roles, then sex, gender and gender roles are no longer connected. Sex is rooted in biology and gender roles are apparent from how one behaves and how society/biology normally dictates what is masculine or feminine. But gender isn’t connected to either now. It's all by itself. It isn’t rooted in biology or at least certainly hasn’t been proven to be. If it was there would have to some way for a scientist to distinguish ones gender, which there isn’t. It also isn’t rooted in how one behaves. So it is simply only how one feels. On the surface of it, this is fine, but the problem is nobody knows how it feels to be a man or a woman. In order to know how it feels, one must have a comparison, but we don’t. We only know what it means to be happy because we are sad sometimes. If the only emotion we ever felt was happy, it would be meaningless, there would be no way to describe it. I know what it feels like to be male and I know what it feels like to take on masculine gender rolls, but I have no idea what it means to feel like a man. It seems like the most reasonable thing to do at this point would be to get rid of the concept all together. It has become meaningless. However, if gender is meaningless then being transgender is meaningless as well and if someone wants to try to have the anatomy of the opposite sex, it is simply dysphoria and we should treat it like any other dysphoria.
How do you reconcile this? Does gender have meaning anymore? Should we just abandon the term?
If "biological sex" was what "humans mainly used to distinguish men and women"...how would you explain homosexuality which has been around for thousands of years...
This work that you say was "more physically demanding and males were better suited for it"...is that the work that all the women took over while the men went off to war? I know women on the waterfront who are stronger and do a better job than their male peers...
True feminists don't "pushed the idea that women could do masculine things"....what the hell IS a masculine thing...unless it's like scratching your balls or something.............this word masculine seems to have more meaning to you than what it actually means....thus feminism...the pursuit to getting the same respect, having the same opportunities, and at jobs, the same pay as males get.
How can you be a male, all grown up, and not know what it feels like to be a man?..a [man] is just a word for a boy who grew up....just as woman is the word for a girl who grew up. You seem to be putting your own interpretation on some very common words.
Gender certainly does have meaning and always will...my sons would definitely be looking at gender in their quests for a mate...as would my daughters.
The real travesty in this GENDER IDENTITY issue is CHILDREN (under 18) that undergo reassignment surgery that changes their bodies forever. Any DOCTOR that does this surgery on a minor should be given the DEATH PENALTY. Any parent that allows this surgery on one of their children that is under 18 should be charged with FELONY CHILD ABUSE and sharing a cell with the Doctor that suggested or did the surgery.
Does a five year old really understand what is going on? Why the big hurry?
The real travesty in this GENDER IDENTITY issue is CHILDREN (under 18) that undergo reassignment surgery that changes their bodies forever. Any DOCTOR that does this surgery on a minor should be given the DEATH PENALTY. Any parent that allows this surgery on one of their children that is under 18 should be charged with FELONY CHILD ABUSE and sharing a cell with the Doctor that suggested or did the surgery.
Does a five year old really understand what is going on? Why the big hurry?
You're totally wrong. It saves lives to some children. If you want to have an educated opinion, why wouldn't you first read any of books written by transsexual people themselves about _their_ experiences?
I am well aware that what I am about to say is overlysimplistic, but unless I simplify the essence of the question is likely to get lost.
It seems to me that up until the last thousand years, biological sex is what humans mainly used to disguinish "men and women" and gender roles were mostly a product of our sexual dimorphism and were necessary in order for our survival. sex=gender=specific gender role
Once humans had made their lives sufficiently cushy that they were no longer constantly struggling to survive, gender roles drifted from purely biological to more socially driven. Without birth control, females produced many offspring and had to care for them so the fathers were less domestic and the mothers more so, it just made sense. "Work" was more physically demanding and males were better suited for it.
As the women's rights movement and birth control took off, women weren't having as many children and therefore the need of such strict gender roles went away quite a bit. The idea that females had to do "feminine" things and males had to do "masculine" things started to disappear and that is still happening to this day. Feminists pushed the idea that women(females) could do "masculine" things and still be just as much of woman and vice versa. I think most people would agree with this. A female can be just as "masculine" as she wants to be and still be a woman. A lesbian female that wears mens clothing is still just as much of a woman as a stereotypical "feminine" woman. Essentially the belief was sex=gender but one wasn't confined to any gender roles.
Now transgender people want to seperate sex from gender. However, unless you want to go back to the idea that a specific gender has specific gender roles, then sex, gender and gender roles are no longer connected. Sex is rooted in biology and gender roles are apparent from how one behaves and how society/biology normally dictates what is masculine or feminine. But gender isn’t connected to either now. It's all by itself. It isn’t rooted in biology or at least certainly hasn’t been proven to be. If it was there would have to some way for a scientist to distinguish ones gender, which there isn’t. It also isn’t rooted in how one behaves. So it is simply only how one feels. On the surface of it, this is fine, but the problem is nobody knows how it feels to be a man or a woman. In order to know how it feels, one must have a comparison, but we don’t. We only know what it means to be happy because we are sad sometimes. If the only emotion we ever felt was happy, it would be meaningless, there would be no way to describe it. I know what it feels like to be male and I know what it feels like to take on masculine gender rolls, but I have no idea what it means to feel like a man. It seems like the most reasonable thing to do at this point would be to get rid of the concept all together. It has become meaningless. However, if gender is meaningless then being transgender is meaningless as well and if someone wants to try to have the anatomy of the opposite sex, it is simply dysphoria and we should treat it like any other dysphoria.
How do you reconcile this? Does gender have meaning anymore? Should we just abandon the term?
People should just be who they are and we should stop trying to hammer square pegs into round holes to somehow satisfy our superiority complex.
Did you ever consider that up until a thousand years ago it was "laws" and the need for power and control that kept a strict line between the genders and their roles and not our sexual dimorphism.
Historically women have worked and fought right alongside of men when necessity beckoned. Women can and have led armies, ruled kingdoms, killed, invented, hunted, farmed, pretty much everything men could do in addition to rearing young. It has been mans law that prevented women for the most part from doing these things from education, to war, leadership, legal rights, even down to the clothing we were permitted to wear. Joan of Arch, for example, was charged and tried and burn for wearing men's clothing, even though she was a warrior and lead the French military to victory over the British.
Gender as it refers to the way we use it today, was coined in the 1950s by John Money, a "sexologist." He experimented with children. After learning about him, I have removed that word from my vocabulary. He was a pedophile and a criminal.
During his professional life, Money was respected as an expert on sexual behavior, especially for allegedly demonstrating that gender was learned rather than innate. Many years later, however, it was revealed that his most famous case was fundamentally flawed. The subject was the sex reassignment of David Reimer (Born as Bruce Reimer), in what later became known as the "John/Joan" case.[13]
In 1966, a botched circumcision left eight-month-old David Reimer without a penis. Money persuaded the baby's parents that sex reassignment surgery would be in Reimer's best interest. At the age of 22 months, Bruce underwent an orchidectomy, in which his testicles were surgically removed. He was reassigned to be raised as female and given the name Brenda. Money further recommended hormone treatment to which the parents agreed, Money then recommended a surgical procedure to create an artificial vagina, which the parents refused. Money published a number of papers reporting the reassignment as successful.
I would say more about Money, but I have no doubt the mods would delete it, it's THAT BAD (continue reading the Wikipedia entry -- if you have kids, it will make you vomit). He is responsible for bringing "gender" into modern usage. Prior to his use of it, it ONLY referred to language tenses.
All that word has done was cause segregation, entitlement and discourse. It is used as a weapon. And make sure you use it correctly, or you will be on the receiving end of whatever group/person is offended.
Can I be Japanese? Can I be tall? Can I be a little person? NO. Genetically I am coded. Can you imagine a Haitian person claiming to be an Eskimo? Demanding to be recognized as an Eskimo? Of course not. It is no different with other genetic characteristics.
Let the colleges and high schools have ...one..unisex sports team for every sport.
Have track meets run as unisex and let the best person win the ribbons.
Have a unisex team for every Olympic sport. Let the best athlete take home the ribbon.
THEN..........listen to the feminists howl that it is "unfair" to expect females to compete against males.
Gender as it refers to the way we use it today, was coined in the 1950s by John Money, a "sexologist." He experimented with children. After learning about him, I have removed that word from my vocabulary. He was a pedophile and a criminal.
During his professional life, Money was respected as an expert on sexual behavior, especially for allegedly demonstrating that gender was learned rather than innate. Many years later, however, it was revealed that his most famous case was fundamentally flawed. The subject was the sex reassignment of David Reimer (Born as Bruce Reimer), in what later became known as the "John/Joan" case.[13]
In 1966, a botched circumcision left eight-month-old David Reimer without a penis. Money persuaded the baby's parents that sex reassignment surgery would be in Reimer's best interest. At the age of 22 months, Bruce underwent an orchidectomy, in which his testicles were surgically removed. He was reassigned to be raised as female and given the name Brenda. Money further recommended hormone treatment to which the parents agreed, Money then recommended a surgical procedure to create an artificial vagina, which the parents refused. Money published a number of papers reporting the reassignment as successful.
I would say more about Money, but I have no doubt the mods would delete it, it's THAT BAD (continue reading the Wikipedia entry -- if you have kids, it will make you vomit). He is responsible for bringing "gender" into modern usage. Prior to his use of it, it ONLY referred to language tenses.
All that word has done was cause segregation, entitlement and discourse. It is used as a weapon. And make sure you use it correctly, or you will be on the receiving end of whatever group/person is offended.
Can I be Japanese? Can I be tall? Can I be a little person? NO. Genetically I am coded. Can you imagine a Haitian person claiming to be an Eskimo? Demanding to be recognized as an Eskimo? Of course not. It is no different with other genetic characteristics.
your last paragraph reminded me of Elizabeth Warren.
It's not a political statement. It's a biological reality. Politics, quite frankly, is rarely based in truth, which is needed to have a discussion of any kind. No truth, no discussion. Just ignorance.
Read the rest of the wiki entry to understand the use of the word "gender" to differentiate male/female characteristics, and the experiments that were performed to support it. The use of the word was based on a failed experiment using a child that had a botched medical procedure and involved criminal acts and abuse of innocent children.
Why isn't the originator of the term celebrated? How can the creation of a definition based in criminal acts be so embraced?
Because NO ONE IS AWARE OF IT. Ignorance.
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