...On Messenger video call with daughter and she mentioned her weekly job and as a PM was casting for a video game mentioning she had to get someone "non-binary". My wife and I looked at each other confused, me more so as having worked in IT and binary always makes me think of zeros and ones . Now I always believed and still do that there are two genders... You are born with a penis or a vagina (whilst accepting there are rare case of hermaphrodites with both or neither). For me, there is a difference between sex and gender . hear me out... As we grow it is the cocktail of chemicals in the brain that determines our sexual preferences, and hormones and genes that determine how our body develops. So various combinations where hormones develop the body one way whilst the chemical cocktail affects how someone sees themselves and how they see others when it comes to sexual attraction . So we have various combinations . Most common is male gender is attracted to females. and vice versa. However we may have a person whose chemical cocktail make him/her attracted to the same sex. Not the norm but natural biology. More extreme is the person who sees themselves as one gender but the body hormonal development has resulted in them 'trapped' in a body of the opposite gender. These are just three examples but there are dozens of variants to contend with and that is my problem. All these labels are just that, ...labels. It is like walking on eggshells when from outward appearance you can often have absolutely no idea how to address people when meeting them for the first time. Why, how and where did this modern phenomena of people wishing to be labelled and some taking extreme offence at being addressed 'incorrectly' (in their view) start? I am perfectly happy to accept people as they are but see no reason why I should feel the need to skirt round the issue and be made to feel awkward just because I don't know what to call them. God! I feel old!!
Me too, I got called transphobic by my daughters for saying JK Rowling had a point and how disgusting some of the tweets about raping her were. I then saw a post about 2 black trans women having been killed and I guess the discussion will continue
Hypothetically, if I want to identify as a potato whose pronoun is 'Pt', pronounced 'puuuuuuuuuh-tay-tooooo', you should be polite enough to refer to me as such. I am what I think I am, not what you think, hope, want, or expect. My identity is mine, and I alone experience it. If my loved ones failed to recognise that, they'd not be in my life for very long. Being a white, straight male is easy.
I thought the point made in the OP was that if you look like a man and dress like a man, you shouldn't immediately take offence if a stranger calls you Mister. Of course, you're right about politely explaining that you're a Potato and letting the person know that you want to be addressed as Spud. Only if they refuse or mock should you take offence. Just out of interest, which do you most resemble: a King Edward or a Maris Piper?
I’m too old to take part in this argument. I don’t understand it. It’s driven Graham Linehan insane on Twitter.
His point was that there are only two genders. There aren't, there are many. Just because I, a white, straight bloke have no experience of them doesn't mean they do not exist in the minds and lives of those who experience them. And that experience of them is what counts. Who can deny the things I live and the things I feel, assuming I am of sound mind? You can either respect them, or not. If someone politely tells you that their pronoun is not 'her' but 'they' and you don't want to use it, then it's fair enough if that person decides they can do without you in their life. Oh, and I am a McCain oven-chip. Slightly salty, and still frozen.
Nowhere in this thread has anyone said otherwise. We've all said that a person's preferences should be respected and that a person has the right to choose for themselves how they are addressed. We might have gone round the houses, but we've all got to the same point.
Yep. If you're free tomorrow, we'll have 5 minutes sorting out racism. Then politics on Tuesday and Covid-19 on Wednesday. I suggest we have a day off on Thursday, and then tackle the really hard stuff on Friday... the EFL and the state of football.
Can we have a brief discussion on Thursday about whether the title of this thread sounds more like someone standing on an upturned plug, or someone slicing their finger open whilst cutting an onion? I'm free if you are.
Can't be worse than a lego brick. Absolute bane of my life when the kids were little. At least with a plug you've got a chance of seeing the bleeder.
With respect, my point was (you are) confusing 'gender' with sexual proclivity. Not sure you fully read my post or missed the point of it. My proposition in the OP was that the word gender has been hijacked and misappropriated and misused to describe different sexual preferences in individuals. As a species we are born either male or female (with occasion rare hermaphrodites). THAT IMO is gender. It is as we grow that our bodies develop and change and our sexual orientation is set (in all the various combinations that are labelled as different 'genders' I do not believe for one second environment or re-education changes that. All of them are natural and individual as much as physical appearance. The new phenomena of labelling seems to be , in many cases, attention seeking. We are what we are and there really is no need to go around shouting it from the rooftops. That said, I think the bottom line is we are arguing semantics.
