Trump Administration Eyes Defining Transgender Out of Existence

[GodisanAtheist]

OK, so if "gender" is the "personal identification of ones own sex" (from Wikipedia), does modifying your body change that? Would it not then be the most accurate to say that someone who is "transgender" is not really changing their "gender", but changing their physical body to try to match their gender?

-Yes and no.

Transgendered means a person's gender and sexuality do not align: a man trapped in a woman's body and vice versa. The surgical procedure and hormone therapy is meant to realign the biological sex of the individual with their gender and in doing so relive the individual with the type of psychological distress you would expect from being trapped in the wrong body.

Transgendered is gender and sexuality don't match up. In some but not all situations, someone who is transgendered can have reassignment therapy/surgery that makes their biological sex match their gender identity.

 

[theeedude]

Probably the best thing to happen for transgender rights ever, because most Democrat states will now enact laws protecting them, simply to spite Trump.

 

[brycejones]

Well...gender SHOULD be defined by the genitalia at birth. Chopping off your junk doesn’t change the chromosomes. Doesn’t mean trans people are “less than,” but you are whatever gender you’re born.

boomerang level stupid

 

[Greenman]

boomerang level stupid

Or just realistic. Personal desires don't change quantifiable physical differences. Changing ones sex is at best an attempt to mimic the appearance and behavior of that sex. We accept the person as whatever sex they decide they want to present, which is fine, but the condition is induced and maintained through surgery and chemicals.

 

[Commodus]

Or just realistic. Personal desires don't change quantifiable physical differences. Changing ones sex is at best an attempt to mimic the appearance and behavior of that sex. We accept the person as whatever sex they decide they want to present, which is fine, but the condition is induced and maintained through surgery and chemicals.

It's not realistic to insist on referring to a transgender person by their birth sex. Yes, they can't make a full change to a physiological sex that matches their gender (not yet, anyway), but at least let them have what they can get. They go through enough torture in life as it is -- we don't need cisgender people telling them that their transition doesn't count.

 

[fskimospy]

Or just realistic. Personal desires don't change quantifiable physical differences. Changing ones sex is at best an attempt to mimic the appearance and behavior of that sex. We accept the person as whatever sex they decide they want to present, which is fine, but the condition is induced and maintained through surgery and chemicals.

It's not realistic, it's just a case of someone not understanding the difference between sex and gender. As per the APA:

Gender (n): the condition of being male, female, or neuter. In a human context, the distinction between gender and SEX reflects the usage of these terms: Sex usually refers to the biological aspects of maleness or femaleness, whereas gender implies the psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural aspects of being male or female (i.e., masculinity or femininity.)

Choosing to define the psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural aspects of someone's interactions with other people for their entire lives based off their genitalia at birth is most certainly boomerang level stupid.

 

[Homerboy]

It continues to amaze me how people here can not figure out the difference between sex and gender.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Republicans: It is clearly government overreach to tell business that they should not pollute the water, but it is a proper use of government to tell people what gender they must be.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Republicans: It is clearly government overreach to tell business that they should not pollute the water, but it is a proper use of government to tell people what gender they must be.

The government does not stop a man from living life as a female or vice versa if that's what that person really wants. Nature dictates, you have xx or xy chromosomes, that's just the way it is. But no one is forcing men to not be feminine, or women not to be butch. Find happiness in the way that makes you happy, I just don't get why those that live that way expect everyone else to pretend along with them.

 

[fskimospy]

The government does not stop a man from living life as a female or vice versa if that's what that person really wants. Nature dictates, you have xx or xy chromosomes, that's just the way it is. But no one is forcing men to not be feminine, or women not to be butch. Find happiness in the way that makes you happy, I just don't get why those that live that way expect everyone else to pretend along with them.

You could have saved yourself some typing and just said 'I don't understand the difference between sex and gender'. Not only is your gender by definition not defined by your chromosomes there are literally millions of people in the world who do not have either XX or XY chromosome pairings.

You are welcome to imagine any definition of gender you want but you can't expect everyone else to pretend not to know the real definition along with you.

 

[SlowSpyder]

You could have saved yourself some typing and just said 'I don't understand the difference between sex and gender'. Not only is your gender by definition not defined by your chromosomes there are literally millions of people in the world who do not have either XX or XY chromosome pairings.

You are welcome to imagine any definition of gender you want but you can't expect everyone else to pretend not to know the real definition along with you.

I understand the difference between sex and gender just fine. Can we agree that those with xx chromosomes are women, and those with xy chromosomes are men, as far as sex goes? How they go about living their life and changing how gender roles apply to them individually is their business, and more power to them. But because a woman wants to pretend she's a man, I don't have to play along. What gender roles she chooses to apply to herself, even if they are those normally associated with men, is up to her though. What gender roles I or society see as applying are up to us as well.

And obviously I wasn't talking to those with abnormal chromosome conditions, in those cases the sex of the person really does go into a gray area.

 

[fskimospy]

I understand the difference between sex and gender just fine. Can we agree that those with xx chromosomes are women, and those with xy chromosomes are men, as far as sex goes? How they go about living their life and changing how gender roles apply to them individually is their business, and more power to them. But because a woman wants to pretend she's a man, I don't have to play along. What gender roles she chooses to apply to herself, even if they are those normally associated with men, is up to her though. What gender roles I or society see as applying are up to us as well.

You very clearly do not understand the difference between sex and gender because you keep bringing up biological features in a discussion about gender and you also said 'if a woman wants to pretend she's a man', which is once again sex instead of gender. How dumb do you have to be to keep getting this basic stuff wrong? This is Ben Shapiro levels of stupidity.

Under Trump's proposed rules here we have a woman:

and here we have a man:

Now society would clearly treat the first as a man and the second as a woman and we all know that but Trump wants us to change these very normal reactions based on what genitals they had as a baby. Everyone, and I mean everyone should be able to admit this is extremely, extremely stupid.

And obviously I wasn't talking to those with abnormal chromosome conditions, in those cases the sex of the person really does go into a gray area.

And yet those people with chromosome abnormalities overwhelmingly occupy either the male or female gender roles despite being neither. Hahaha, thank you for inadvertently showing your standard is stupid and doesn't work. We have to operate in reality and by the real definitions of words, not the definitions you pretend words have.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Can we agree that those with xx chromosomes are women, and those with xy chromosomes are men, as far as sex goes?

Nope. Because I continued my education beyond mendelian genetics and know that is not how it really works, also I continued my education beyond 5th grade know that gender is not the same as sex.

How they go about living their life and changing how gender roles apply to them individually is their business, and more power to them.

Except this is precisely what we are talking about, the government forcing people to publically identify as a gender assigned to a sex based on chromosomes.

But because a woman wants to pretend she's a man, I don't have to play along.

No one has ever forced you to play along. You might be shamed for not treating them with some level of dignity, but that is not the government's doing. You might even have to go to a bathroom or locker room with them, but no one forces you to go to the restroom. You are not forced to play along. The government telling them that they must follow a set of gender norms, like which bathroom to use, under the force of law, is forcing them though.

 

[Starbuck1975]

You very clearly do not understand the difference between sex and gender because you keep bringing up biological features in a discussion about gender and you also said 'if a woman wants to pretend she's a man', which is once again sex instead of gender. How dumb do you have to be to keep getting this basic stuff wrong? This is Ben Shapiro levels of stupidity.

Under Trump's proposed rules here we have a woman:

and here we have a man:

Now society would clearly treat the first as a man and the second as a woman and we all know that but Trump wants us to change these very normal reactions based on what genitals they had as a baby. Everyone, and I mean everyone should be able to admit this is extremely, extremely stupid.

And yet those people with chromosome abnormalities overwhelmingly occupy either the male or female gender roles despite being neither. Hahaha, thank you for inadvertently showing your standard is stupid and doesn't work. We have to operate in reality and by the real definitions of words, not the definitions you pretend words have.

Pass-ability is a dangerous standard for defining normality. I encounter quite a few trangender people in my daily routine, and I know this because they do not pass at all, mostly because of other indisputable physical biological characteristics beyond what’s between their legs (bone density, muscular structure, etc.).

 

[zinfamous]

I still haven't been able to wrap my mind around why anyone would want to prevent people from identifying as a certain gender. What are they doing in life that this is such a huge inconvenience to them that they feel the need for government intervention?

It's a wedge issue. Policy is too complicated for their voters and well, for republicans, as all they do is support job-killing, poverty-inducing policy that keeps their voters in perpetual misery.

This is something for the ignorant to get emotional about. It has no relevance in their lives, but as long as you tune their brains to it, they forget about their miserable lives and manage to cast blame for their actual shitty decisions in life onto these other issues, and all "the others."

 

[fskimospy]

Pass-ability is a dangerous standard for defining normality. I encounter quite a few trangender people in my daily routine, and I know this because they do not pass at all, mostly because of other indisputable physical biological characteristics beyond what’s between their legs (bone density, muscular structure, etc.).

I am not using that standard, I was just using those cases to point out the absurdity of the position that people's gender expression should be defined by their chromosomes.

 

[mect]

Pass-ability is a dangerous standard for defining normality. I encounter quite a few trangender people in my daily routine, and I know this because they do not pass at all, mostly because of other indisputable physical biological characteristics beyond what’s between their legs (bone density, muscular structure, etc.).

Edit: fskimospy beat me to it.

 

[Starbuck1975]

I am not using that standard, I was just using those cases to point out the absurdity of the position that people's gender expression should be defined by their chromosomes.

But that is the case that most gravitate to. I understand that gender expression and biological sex can be two different things, but it is also naive to dismiss the challenges this poses for people who cannot convincingly express their chosen gender.

 

[fskimospy]

But that is the case that most gravitate to. I understand that gender expression and biological sex can be two different things, but it is also naive to dismiss the challenges this poses for people who cannot convincingly express their chosen gender.

I don't dismiss it I'm just not sure how that's relevant to this discussion?

 

[Starbuck1975]

I don't dismiss it I'm just not sure how that's relevant to this discussion?

It gender is arbitrary and in some cases fluid, doesn’t the government have a more vested interest in identifying people by their biology?

 

[nakedfrog]

It gender is arbitrary and in some cases fluid, doesn’t the government have a more vested interest in identifying people by their biology?

To what end?

 

[fskimospy]

It gender is arbitrary and in some cases fluid, doesn’t the government have a more vested interest in identifying people by their biology?

It's hard to see many reasons why the government would need to force identification of all people by sex. What would this be used for?

Regardless if that was their goal then that wouldn't require getting rid of transgender identification.

 

[hal2kilo]

But that is the case that most gravitate to. I understand that gender expression and biological sex can be two different things, but it is also naive to dismiss the challenges this poses for people who cannot convincingly express their chosen gender.

You must be talking about the female weapons expert on "What on Earth " "Mysteries of the Abandoned".

 

[zinfamous]

It continues to amaze me how people here can not figure out the difference between sex and gender.

They just don't want to. "Not how I always knew it!" is the catchall term to defend craven adherence to bronze-aged thoughts on biology and sociology. Yes, as we advance from age to age, we tend to gain better understandings about the world around us, and ourselves. Biology is, probably, the most fluid example of how little we knew then translates into a world of difference today.

I find that that those who are most uncomfortable with the strange things we learn in Biology simply don't understand how this works--how little we actually know. I mean, it's fine. But there is something about a physicist or engineer or chemist, whose disciplines are more or less immutable, that simply don't appreciate how much we learn, how quickly our understanding changes, from year to year, when it comes to Biology. It's just like science--only really much harder for lots of scientists. ....and stuboorn assholes that refuse to give a shit.

I mean, that's fine. Just admit you refuse to give a shit without demanding that you actually know what you are talking about when you so clearly don't.

 

[Starbuck1975]

It's hard to see many reasons why the government would need to force identification of all people by sex. What would this be used for?

Regardless if that was their goal then that wouldn't require getting rid of transgender identification.

No, it would necessitate two forms of identification. One for gender expression and one for biology.