Kinsey Hope (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
recursiveparadox) wrote2009-07-21 08:36 pm
recursiveparadox) wrote2009-07-21 08:36 pm
Entry tags:
Identity vs. Objective Reality - Updated (2)
(Well, you've all waited long enough and finally had an evening free to write. I've decided to come from the "questioning" angle on this because offense is usually incurred when you start making claims about how things ought to be. So instead, I'll ask why the current system works the way it does and how we expect to deal with the problems caused by it.)
Update 2: After a lot of discussion I came to agreement with the idea that if someone's well being is at stake, concerns about communication and definition are completely secondary to that. So in the end, if you're faced with situations where communicating clearly or applying the definition is going to hurt you, then don't do so. In no way should linguistics come above the lives of people
Update - Fun times. I guess I wasn't clear enough in how I put this across (which sucks because I spent days agonizing over how to put it.) To make it unnecessary to wade through the sea of comments generated by a simple misunderstanding I'm going to put up a point of clarification right here at the top.
I am not in any way or form saying that male or female should retain their same definitions. Just because I dislike the self referential definition doesn't mean that the current state of affairs is perfect, great or even acceptable. What would be a good solution that takes identity into account is a redefining like this:
Female: one who either possesses (and is content with) or wishes to attain (for whatever reason) or self conceptualizes more closely with the bodily structure commonly created by the XX triggered developmental path.
And there you go. A simple and easy way to create a definition of the word that is not self referential and doesn't nonsensically destroy its own capacity to communicate any meaning. While still protecting us from cissexist abuses of the biological classification system from which female and male originally came. I hope this makes it abundantly clear that I'm not a linguistic purist trying to enforce the current definitions of male and female as perfect while also making it clear that self referential definitions are not necessary to safeguard ourselves.
I think we're all pretty aware of the nastiness of identity politics and elitist hierarchies built into the sub communities of GLBT. Especially how they're used to elevate some and detriment others in an attempt to break associations that some might consider damning to them (when in reality the hate is going to spill on us all, whether we look "normal" or not). And of course, identity crises are pretty awful in and of themselves. Even when not induced by attacks by a bunch of community shredding jackals, they can still shatter self image and leave a person feeling completely lost. There are also situations wherein one using a given label, despite its base conceptual accuracy, is woefully impractical. A good example would be an individual who is well aware of their bisexuality but is attracted to so few women (and so rarely) that mentioning that bisexuality is at best irrelevant and at worst seriously misleading to interested women.
All three of these things are really good reasons to put some protections into place for people's identities and to allow some leeway in self description. Support groups (good ones anyways) tend to frown very fiercely on questioning someone's identity, pronouns, self image and etcetera. Outsiders are usually regarded as a bad judge of what someone's identity is and the common wisdom that a person knows oneself best is usually expected to be followed. None of these things are a problem. It is certainly positive to prevent the identity attack infighting that is so very endemic in the trans community (but is also a problem in the gay, lesbian and bi community as well, most noteably directed very nastily at bisexual folk). It is also benign and ultimately positive to allow simplification of the social interactions that depend on labels, because I know that (were I in the situation mentioned above) I wouldn't want people I'm not attracted to trying to get in my pants just because I'm attracted to one or maybe two members of that particular sex.
This all being said, I have to say I'm a bit confused by what seems like serious overcompensation in response to these problems.
You see, all of the responses above are perfectly reasonable. They still account for objective reality, they just prevent infighting, personal attacks and social complication. None of them outright contradict reality or counsel one that it is fine for them to do so. They might let a few people through who don't have a firm grasp of reality, but that's ultimately not a serious problem for an individual in the GLBT community. It isn't like in the pagan community where misusing words and allowing identity to contradict reality actually decontextualizes and delegitimizes cultures and tends to come from entitlement and ethnocentrism.
But when the self image a person has contradicts reality, that still is a problem. At the very least for them.
So we hit the actual issue. There is a trend in the GLBT community wherein individuals may take on any term describing themselves, even if they do not even remotely resemble the objective definition of said label. This is... troubling. For one, it makes communication unbelievably confusing and it also creates a level of social complication out of that confusion that kills any simplification excuse immediately. You aren't simplifying things if you're a single bisexual individual but you call yourself heterosexual and then get upset when lesbians don't show interest in you.
The basis behind this is what bothers me the most. I get the impression (and have been outright told by some people) that the terms lesbian, bisexual, gay, homosexual, heterosexual, straight, woman, man, male, and female quite simply all mean "one who identifies as x" wherein x is the term that we are defining. Example: bisexual is one who identifies as bisexual. Not everyone uses this basis, this is just the most common one I confront.
Why is this troubling? After all, this does mean no one can question another person's identity anymore. There's no identity crisis because if you feel like you aren't a lesbian then you aren't. If you feel like you are, then you are. Sure it makes things complex socially, but since when has social life ever been simple?
Well the reason is because the definition "one who identifies as x" (wherein x is the term being defined) is a self referential definition that yields absolutely no more information than every single other one of the words. The whole reason why I can summate the preferred definitions of those words into just one line with a variable for the term is because the definition is virtually the same among each of the words.
Now, if the only thing you feel like communicating to someone is that you personally feel like you are "term x" and absolutely nothing else, this works just fine for you. But if you actually feel like communicating your sexual attractions to someone, or whom you are more likely to date, or your body structure, or the social group you are a part of or really any other information than your own self image, then you've just utterly destroyed the usefulness of those words. And the worst part is, you've already expressed that you think you are term x if you apply term x to yourself. The definition is utterly redundant. If you say, "I am term x" then we already know that you see yourself as x. We don't need the word to mean, "one who thinks one is term x".
When I tell someone I'm a lesbian, I'm telling them that I am interested in female folk. There's a certain amount of leeway as lesbian can be stretched between principally dating a given group (women or female folk) and just being attracted to that same given group. The split between woman and female also arises from the complication that trans folk throw into the mix. I'm not trying to tell people that I think I'm a lesbian. I've already expressed this just by the context of the self application of that word. So it just strikes me as sort of... well... silly.
Of course, trans folk have trouble with this too. I can get pre op, pre hormones folk using the words woman or man because those words stretch to fit the sociological groups too. It works just fine. But when we start using the term female (or male) for ourselves when our bodies are still physically our birth sex, that's when things start failing to meet with reality. This is especially a bad idea for trans folk (at least those who require physical transition) because we need to be able to articulate to our health providers and doctors that we require a physical transition. If I were to call myself female before hormones and surgery, how am I supposed to tell the doctor that I need a female body?
Me: "Sorry doc, I'm already female but I need boobs and a vagina."
Doc: "Wait... what? o_O"
I get that the terminology is especially painful for us trans folk. I have dysphoria triggers from the word male simply because it is a firm reminder of the genitals I have. But you don't have to use painful terms either. There is nothing saying we have to apply labels in a social setting. You don't have to say that you're male or female or think about it at all. The situation certainly doesn't require something so drastic as to strip virtually all meaning from the words male/female. (Note that this applies to nonbinary as well, but usually with the medical condition word; intersexed.)
It has honestly reached the point where I've literally had to avoid the terminology in certain situations just to avoid the debates that come from GLBT folk on just my word choice. Instead of discussing my sexuality as lesbian, I've had to talk instead in terms of being a male to female transsexual who is physically attracted to the female form because I've had people who thought lesbian meant one who identifies as a lesbian and told me I automatically was one, even if I was into guys. (There's someone here who might think this is directed at her, but really hun, you were very respectful and reasonable when you brought it up. You even asked permission first, so please don't think this particular example is directed at you. I've had these conversations with a lot of people and you were the absolute best about your view.)
I don't know about anyone else, but I see it as a problem when a word loses its meaning almost completely. I also don't see the point of using labels if all their meaning is already expressed by you applying the word to yourself in conversation. That's my view on it.
I wouldn't mind alternate explanations, clarifications and corrections if I have the wrong impression about this. It's very possible I've misunderstood the justifications or even misunderstood the attitudes on identity labels. I will mind getting a shitstorm of asinine screaming at me for "attacking identities" though. Let's be mature people. That's pretty much all I'm asking here.
Update 2: After a lot of discussion I came to agreement with the idea that if someone's well being is at stake, concerns about communication and definition are completely secondary to that. So in the end, if you're faced with situations where communicating clearly or applying the definition is going to hurt you, then don't do so. In no way should linguistics come above the lives of people
Update - Fun times. I guess I wasn't clear enough in how I put this across (which sucks because I spent days agonizing over how to put it.) To make it unnecessary to wade through the sea of comments generated by a simple misunderstanding I'm going to put up a point of clarification right here at the top.
I am not in any way or form saying that male or female should retain their same definitions. Just because I dislike the self referential definition doesn't mean that the current state of affairs is perfect, great or even acceptable. What would be a good solution that takes identity into account is a redefining like this:
Female: one who either possesses (and is content with) or wishes to attain (for whatever reason) or self conceptualizes more closely with the bodily structure commonly created by the XX triggered developmental path.
And there you go. A simple and easy way to create a definition of the word that is not self referential and doesn't nonsensically destroy its own capacity to communicate any meaning. While still protecting us from cissexist abuses of the biological classification system from which female and male originally came. I hope this makes it abundantly clear that I'm not a linguistic purist trying to enforce the current definitions of male and female as perfect while also making it clear that self referential definitions are not necessary to safeguard ourselves.
I think we're all pretty aware of the nastiness of identity politics and elitist hierarchies built into the sub communities of GLBT. Especially how they're used to elevate some and detriment others in an attempt to break associations that some might consider damning to them (when in reality the hate is going to spill on us all, whether we look "normal" or not). And of course, identity crises are pretty awful in and of themselves. Even when not induced by attacks by a bunch of community shredding jackals, they can still shatter self image and leave a person feeling completely lost. There are also situations wherein one using a given label, despite its base conceptual accuracy, is woefully impractical. A good example would be an individual who is well aware of their bisexuality but is attracted to so few women (and so rarely) that mentioning that bisexuality is at best irrelevant and at worst seriously misleading to interested women.
All three of these things are really good reasons to put some protections into place for people's identities and to allow some leeway in self description. Support groups (good ones anyways) tend to frown very fiercely on questioning someone's identity, pronouns, self image and etcetera. Outsiders are usually regarded as a bad judge of what someone's identity is and the common wisdom that a person knows oneself best is usually expected to be followed. None of these things are a problem. It is certainly positive to prevent the identity attack infighting that is so very endemic in the trans community (but is also a problem in the gay, lesbian and bi community as well, most noteably directed very nastily at bisexual folk). It is also benign and ultimately positive to allow simplification of the social interactions that depend on labels, because I know that (were I in the situation mentioned above) I wouldn't want people I'm not attracted to trying to get in my pants just because I'm attracted to one or maybe two members of that particular sex.
This all being said, I have to say I'm a bit confused by what seems like serious overcompensation in response to these problems.
You see, all of the responses above are perfectly reasonable. They still account for objective reality, they just prevent infighting, personal attacks and social complication. None of them outright contradict reality or counsel one that it is fine for them to do so. They might let a few people through who don't have a firm grasp of reality, but that's ultimately not a serious problem for an individual in the GLBT community. It isn't like in the pagan community where misusing words and allowing identity to contradict reality actually decontextualizes and delegitimizes cultures and tends to come from entitlement and ethnocentrism.
But when the self image a person has contradicts reality, that still is a problem. At the very least for them.
So we hit the actual issue. There is a trend in the GLBT community wherein individuals may take on any term describing themselves, even if they do not even remotely resemble the objective definition of said label. This is... troubling. For one, it makes communication unbelievably confusing and it also creates a level of social complication out of that confusion that kills any simplification excuse immediately. You aren't simplifying things if you're a single bisexual individual but you call yourself heterosexual and then get upset when lesbians don't show interest in you.
The basis behind this is what bothers me the most. I get the impression (and have been outright told by some people) that the terms lesbian, bisexual, gay, homosexual, heterosexual, straight, woman, man, male, and female quite simply all mean "one who identifies as x" wherein x is the term that we are defining. Example: bisexual is one who identifies as bisexual. Not everyone uses this basis, this is just the most common one I confront.
Why is this troubling? After all, this does mean no one can question another person's identity anymore. There's no identity crisis because if you feel like you aren't a lesbian then you aren't. If you feel like you are, then you are. Sure it makes things complex socially, but since when has social life ever been simple?
Well the reason is because the definition "one who identifies as x" (wherein x is the term being defined) is a self referential definition that yields absolutely no more information than every single other one of the words. The whole reason why I can summate the preferred definitions of those words into just one line with a variable for the term is because the definition is virtually the same among each of the words.
Now, if the only thing you feel like communicating to someone is that you personally feel like you are "term x" and absolutely nothing else, this works just fine for you. But if you actually feel like communicating your sexual attractions to someone, or whom you are more likely to date, or your body structure, or the social group you are a part of or really any other information than your own self image, then you've just utterly destroyed the usefulness of those words. And the worst part is, you've already expressed that you think you are term x if you apply term x to yourself. The definition is utterly redundant. If you say, "I am term x" then we already know that you see yourself as x. We don't need the word to mean, "one who thinks one is term x".
When I tell someone I'm a lesbian, I'm telling them that I am interested in female folk. There's a certain amount of leeway as lesbian can be stretched between principally dating a given group (women or female folk) and just being attracted to that same given group. The split between woman and female also arises from the complication that trans folk throw into the mix. I'm not trying to tell people that I think I'm a lesbian. I've already expressed this just by the context of the self application of that word. So it just strikes me as sort of... well... silly.
Of course, trans folk have trouble with this too. I can get pre op, pre hormones folk using the words woman or man because those words stretch to fit the sociological groups too. It works just fine. But when we start using the term female (or male) for ourselves when our bodies are still physically our birth sex, that's when things start failing to meet with reality. This is especially a bad idea for trans folk (at least those who require physical transition) because we need to be able to articulate to our health providers and doctors that we require a physical transition. If I were to call myself female before hormones and surgery, how am I supposed to tell the doctor that I need a female body?
Me: "Sorry doc, I'm already female but I need boobs and a vagina."
Doc: "Wait... what? o_O"
I get that the terminology is especially painful for us trans folk. I have dysphoria triggers from the word male simply because it is a firm reminder of the genitals I have. But you don't have to use painful terms either. There is nothing saying we have to apply labels in a social setting. You don't have to say that you're male or female or think about it at all. The situation certainly doesn't require something so drastic as to strip virtually all meaning from the words male/female. (Note that this applies to nonbinary as well, but usually with the medical condition word; intersexed.)
It has honestly reached the point where I've literally had to avoid the terminology in certain situations just to avoid the debates that come from GLBT folk on just my word choice. Instead of discussing my sexuality as lesbian, I've had to talk instead in terms of being a male to female transsexual who is physically attracted to the female form because I've had people who thought lesbian meant one who identifies as a lesbian and told me I automatically was one, even if I was into guys. (There's someone here who might think this is directed at her, but really hun, you were very respectful and reasonable when you brought it up. You even asked permission first, so please don't think this particular example is directed at you. I've had these conversations with a lot of people and you were the absolute best about your view.)
I don't know about anyone else, but I see it as a problem when a word loses its meaning almost completely. I also don't see the point of using labels if all their meaning is already expressed by you applying the word to yourself in conversation. That's my view on it.
I wouldn't mind alternate explanations, clarifications and corrections if I have the wrong impression about this. It's very possible I've misunderstood the justifications or even misunderstood the attitudes on identity labels. I will mind getting a shitstorm of asinine screaming at me for "attacking identities" though. Let's be mature people. That's pretty much all I'm asking here.
no subject
It may be worth asking yourself just how important what you're perceiving as the "usefulness" of words like "male" and "female" is that it trumps the way trans people sex our bodies.
The most major element of usefulness would be, imo, the fact that those of us who need to transition can't articulate this need without some way to differentiate our current body structure from the target body structure.
Even the very labeling system of trans identity itself depends on there being some form of body and mind dualist opposition, if my body is female and my mind is female then that isn't terribly trans, now is it?
To use what you've said as an example, it can be inferred that, in your opinion, a trans woman is female when, and only when, she has not only started hormone replacement therapy but had genital reconstruction surgery.
But, using the arguments you've made here about maintaining the purity or whatever of the words "male" and "female," others may (and have, as i'm sure you're aware) argue that, rather than being female, a post-GRS trans woman on HRT is a male with an inverted penis who is taking artificial female hormones to induce gynecomastia--in other words, trans women will always be male, and trans men will always be female (excluding intersexual trans people).
Two problems: This is a bit of a slippery slope. It also assumes a purity argument, which tends to be a blind argument. I have no problem with words changing their meanings. What I do have a problem with is words having no meaning at all or a self referential meaning that poses the exact same problem as having no meaning.
Currently I operate under the scientific contextually adjusted definition of sex which splits into genetic, anatomical and hormonal. The key to anatomical is that it's based on functionity and form, not on what something used to be. A prosthetic leg is still a leg, it isn't something else. It has both the form and functionality of a leg.
An "inverted penis" is a completely nonsensical term anatomically because none of the form or function of the penis remains to the tissue that was restructured. There are not "penis cells". There are cells that are often found in the penis, but any biologist can tell you that they are also often found in the clitoris and upper parts of the vagina too. So even from a cellular definition standpoint, one can not claim that the words "inverted penis" make biological sense. Gynecomastia is a medical term describing a "disorder" in which a man grows female breasts. Clearly for a trans woman or transfeminine individual, growing breasts is not a distressing thing and ergo not a disorder. Hence the medical term is inapplicable to a trans woman.
How does this make it a slippery slope fallacy to say that my reasoning can lead to their reasoning? Because my reasoning is based on proper biological term usage and their use is not proper biological term usage (and I severely doubt it will ever become so, because biology terms are based on what works best for biology, not bigots and let's face it, those claims of penile inversion and gynecomastia come from a bigoted agenda).
So my reasoning would not lead to theirs as it depends on different principles that are not compatible with theirs.
Or maybe what you're saying isn't that a trans woman who starts hormones and/or has GRS is female, but that she is no longer male.
Both actually. She would become anatomically female. She actually ceases being anatomically male as soon as the hormones have any demonstratable effect but would not be fully anatomically female until such time as the penis is gone.
Note that this has no impact on whether she would be a woman or not.
But what about, for example, a cis woman who has PCOS that drives her sex hormone levels out of what you might call a "female" range; is her body no longer female?
No, she would still be anatomically female. She would just be hormonally male. Not that hormonal sex has ever been relevant to anyone outside of biology and those dealing with its consequences.
What role do you think self-identification plays here when it comes to the way the body of a trans woman who is on HRT and the body of a cis woman who has PCOS are sexed?
I don't make a distinction between either of them. I use the same biology terminology rules.
I'll continue my response in a second post to avoid possibly hitting a word limit. Thank you for raising these points though. Discussion like this was what I was hoping for.
no subject
i) a) To begin with, there are ways of articulating a desire for physical transition without unsexing the way trans people perceive ourselves--"I'm a trans woman who recently moved to Rochester and would like for [doctorname] to become my new prescriber for transition-related hormones," for example, is something that i said when making my first appointment with a doctor yesterday.
Secondly, not every trans person has access to transition-related health care for financial or medical or whatever other reasons, or even wants to pursue medical transition.
I see no more problem with someone calling a body with a vagina a male body than i do with someone calling a body with XY chromosomes a female body or with someone calling gynecomastia "male breasts": the characteristics of our bodies aren't socially constructed (an idea that i believe you called "idiocy" in a previous post), but the labels and identities of them--the language created to describe them--which are claimed by us and/or forced upon us most definitely are.
b) Well, unless we're Descartian dualists, the "mind" is part of the body.
I'm hardly an advocate of the HBS brain-sex model of being trans--frankly i don't really care about this beyond "hm, that's interesting"--but i'm also not big on the tabula rasa model of psychobiology.
I don't think that being trans is inherently dualist, because what being trans means is that you don't identify with the sex and/or gender assigned to you at birth, not that "my mind is female and my body is male" (i.e. "i'm a woman trapped in a man's body") or whatever. Whether that extends to medical transition or not, for the reasons i mentioned above is immaterial when it comes to the words we use to describe our bodies.
ii) a) You clearly do have a problem with words changing meanings--when they change to mean things that you don't think they should mean.
A "no-ho" and "non-op" trans person identifying the sex of their body as something other than the identity it (their body) was assigned at birth hardly makes "male" and "female" meaningless; all it does is reflect a change in the way we view maleness and femaleness.
This is not unlike the way the words "man" and "woman" have changed (for some) to include trans men and trans women, respectively, to reflect a more realistic understanding of sex and gender.
I've spoken with cissexual cisgender male professors of behavioral genetics in their fifties who've gotten around to viewing sex this way, so it honestly pains me that a young trans woman would be lagging behind in that respect. Your arguments strike me as coming from someone who is a couple of operations away from being a stereotypical surgical-status-elitist trans woman.
b) Being trans and being disabled are awful analogies for each other--yes, i'm dismissing it out of hand before it gets taken too far by the two of us, both of us being temporarily-able-bodied people who are therefore not very qualified to speak on behalf of disabled people--and sex doesn't come together as cleanly, as a whole, as the picture you've painted with your definition of sex.
As it stands, under your definition a post-GRS trans woman is a one-part male and not-quite-two-parts female person who identifies as a woman.
As it stands, i think that both you and i could be called "half-males who identify as women" using your definition.
c) So your argument more or less breaks down to "it's a slippery slope fallacy because those terms are used by bigots and i'm can't be a bigot when i'm just being scientific?"
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you're not being any less cissexist here than the people (some of whom, by the way, have much more influential voices than you in the medical and other biological fields when it comes to convincing others of what is biologically accurate) in your arguments or language than the people you're calling bigots.
I mean, you know, i've had doctors who considered themselves great allies to the ~transgendered community~ talk to me about neovaginas as penile inversion and tell me that trans women's breasts are basically intentionally-induced gynecomastia.
Finally, your saying that you don't think trans women's breasts are gynecomastia because we aren't disturbed by them (and your bold-faced assumption that all men with gynecomastia are distressed by them) is admitting the importance that personal identification plays in the way one's body is sexed.
iii) and iv) Well, no, the cis woman with PCOS would not be "anatomically female" under your definition because PCOS leads to secondary sex characteristics that you would define as "male," like male pattern baldness and facial hair, for example. And, like you said, she would be hormonally male.
And, again under your definition, the "form and function" of the reproductive organs of post-GRS trans women don't match up enough with those of cissexual women to be considered "fully anatomically female" because, obviously, she wouldn't have a uterus or ovaries, and her neo-vagina and -vulva would be imperfect facsimiles of those of cissexual women with limited functionality (at least, given the admittedly anecdotal cases i'm familiar with) at best. To say nothing of the surgical options available, conversely, to trans men.
The point i'm trying to make here is that, as i expected, your reaction was based less on the cissexist (and, i would note, extremely classist, since you're privileging the right to claim the sex one identifies as only to those who can afford what is, at least in the US, a prohibitively expensive surgery) definitions you're using than on the way that the people in either of those situations would identify their bodies.
I'll respond to the second part of your comment tomorrow, maybe.
no subject
On transition not being available or wanted by all: I'm aware, I used it as a single example and was pretty specific that not all trans people want to transition
On social construction: This is entirely true. The terms are social constructions, much like any term. I'm aware you have no problem with it and quite honestly (provided a definition that isn't self referential is used) I don't have a problem with it either.
My issue arises when we take a word and strip its meaning by making it self referential. Not when we change its meaning.
b) I'm only applying the dualist idea because trans as a word is built out of that idea of two things not aligning. That's all. It isn't the greatest wording so I'll drop that one.
ii) a) Which makes me cissexist, how? My reasoning for avoiding self referential meanings has yet to be addressed by a rebuttal of anything more than "why not?" I already explained why not. You seem to think I want the words male and female to remain in their exact definitions now. I've already made it clear that I'm not invested in such a thing.
Now here is where we get into a pickle. Male and female are not automatically assigned for identity purposes. Yes, there is certainly a social component that is irritatingly cissexist. But they are also classification terms used to describe a certain collection of bodily structures. Which you know, a doctor looking at a body can reasonably determine are present.
Of course, I don't have a problem with the words male and female shifting their definitions to something that can strip the cissexist issues from them. The only definition I have a problem with them absorbing is a self referential one. Are you confusing my problem with a particular choice of definition solution to be me having a problem with changing the words at all? Because that would be unfortunate. It's especially unfortunate since you're making a lot of flawed assessments about me based on this incorrect assumption.
It's reaching the point of being a strawman fallacy.
b) I'm not quite sure where I made an analogy between disabled and trans. Was that up in the original post? Or in a comment? I'm having trouble finding it. Did you make that analogy?
I'm really not sure what the issue you're bringing up here is. For one thing, I've never seen the biological definition take up all three of the contexts into one and try to create an overlapping system of description. The XX/XY genetic sex ceases to be relevant for 90% of biological and medical concerns past the point of the developmental path being activated. So its usually only brought up by people who really don't get a lot about science or have an agenda and like to equivocate. Hormonal sex is usually only relevant to a medical context because you usually don't see someone's hormones.
So in the end, the thing that would come up socially would be anatomical. And really, that just comes up (in non bigoted contexts) to allow discourse on sexism, to articulate some trans issues and to make statements relating to the physically aligned version of sexual orientation (which I raised in the original post)
C) Erm... no. Science has a clear set of definitions, with a clear set usage for those words. It clearly delineates how those words should be used and those current usage rules do not support cissexist discourse. If one were to follow those rules that one would have an extraordinarily hard time creating cissexist discourse. (this doesn't necessarily guarantee that a scientist or doctor won't be cissexist and fail to follow these rules though, as you did point out)
None of that is a statement on whether I have any latent or direct cissexist issues myself (although I'm skeptical since your whole basis for claiming I have a problem here is a strawman fallacy), simply on whether science itself supports such a discourse. It doesn't. Purely laymen's terms are a lot easier to mess with than science terms because the highest authority for laymen terms are dictionaries and with shitty sites like dictionary.com messing up those definitions, it makes it really hard to tell someone they're using a term wrong. That's the reason why I tend to prefer scientific authority over dictionary authority. No science isn't perfect, but it gives you more concrete ground to fight from than a layman's term does.
On gynecomastia: Gynecomastia is a medical term for a disorder. That's the reason for the distress distinction. Identity might be the reason why distress is lacking in some cases but it isn't in all cases (there are guys with breast development that don't care, they lack the disorder too, as you clearly are aware of)
iii and iv) It depends on the traits. Some PCOS women end up with a mixed form (male and female aren't the only anatomy describing terms).
Form or function, actually.
There are flaws within classification systems that take up a collection of characteristics in biology, which is part of the reason why I don't mind new definitions for them or even an elimination of the terms entirely. One of the key benefits to science is its capacity to evolve. Of course, flaws in the capacity to describe doesn't mean something is inherently cissexist or classist.
Am I being bigoted to someone who wants to call themselves an aardvark when aardvark is a set biological term? I think you're confusing cissexist issues and implications tied to the words by the flow of social discourse against us as inherent cissexism within the words themselves. These words and this system weren't built to screw us. Nor were these definitions. Nor were they built to screw people without money.
They simply classify. Much in the same way we classify bones, blood vessels and other organs in the body. When someone's view of themselves goes against these classifications, that isn't biology being bigoted. It might be flawed. And there may be reasons to change those definitions to accommodate the needs of varying groups or to catch up with the changing face of our understandings. But attributing cissexism to a classification system built simply to comprehend a dimorphic species' split in bodily structure? That's pretty silly.
I'm going to end this post with a question. Do you have an issue with me having an issue with self referential definitions? (You know, the point of my post) or just an issue with male and female's current definition?
Because those definitions can be changed. Female could become "one who either possesses (and is content with) or wishes to attain or self conceptualizes more closely with the bodily structure commonly created by the XX triggered developmental path." (as an example)
Right there. An objective definition that isn't self referential and stripped of all meaning. And it even includes identity (self conceptualization). That is better than this:
"One who identifies as female" (self referential, i.e. infinitely recursive definition. It begs the question: "what the hell is female?" "someone who identifies as female" "Well what the hell is female?" ...etc)
And this is the crux of my issue. If that wasn't clear from my post then I can definitely put an update at the top to clarify things.
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Cissexism is not necessarily an actively malicious or even conscious thing, so "these words and this system" don't need to have been "built [with the intention] to screw us," but that they screw us nonetheless, since our bodies and health needs don't fit into the standards set up by those words and that system so we often go without coverage or without necessary health care and face legal or other kinds of ramifications for not fitting into one category or the other by cissexual, cissexist standards.
And, an answer to your question:
You said that "those definitions can be changed. Female could become 'one who either possesses (and is content with) or wishes to attain or self conceptualizes more closely with the bodily structure commonly created by the XX triggered developmental path.' (as an example)"
When you said this before, you left out the "or self conceptualizes."
With that included, this is what it means when a trans woman says "i identify my body as female" (!!).
They do not phrase it that way, because that would be long-winded, pedantic, and frankly annoying, but this is (more or less) what that means.
So, do go ahead and change the way you define "male" and "female" along those lines, and remember that when a trans man who isn't planning on having any surgeries or taking any T that when he says "i identify my body as male," what he means is generally (and again, more or less) that he "either possesses (and is content with) or ... self conceptualizes more closely with the bodily structure commonly created by the XY-triggered developmental path."
This entire discussion, it seems, was a masturbatory exercise achieving nothing.
I think that, at this point, anything more we can say would be for the pleasure of hearing ourselves talk.
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I'm still not seeing a basis for determining whether this is an abuse of the system or something built into the system itself. Is a baseball bat inherently a violent item? Or is violence an abuse of it?
I oops'd on the self conceptualized part of the definition. Leaving it out was more a result of rushed writing than anything. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
And really yes, it did seem like a masturbatory exercise to achieve nothing since you spent every comment rather upset about my alleged "terribly cissexist enforcement of male and female's current definitions for linguistic purity" (a complete and utter misrepresentation of my post) instead of addressing the actual point of the post (which is that a self referential definition is a problem)
Long-winded? Pedantic? Annoying? Not really. It's functional. Unlike a definition that just self references. Which really was my whole point. I guess I'm just a little irritated that we filled up so much comment space based on either a misunderstanding (that I kept on trying to tell you was a misunderstanding and you kept on insisting you wasn't) or a strawman fallacy on your part. I find that far more annoying here.
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There was no straw-manning here.
This wasn't a debate over a single point.
This was me trying to get you to address the multitude of problematic attitudes and assumptions you've expressed in this post, all of which i found to be important and relevant.
It may be functional to define it that way, i guess, but god, people will absolutely think that you're a pretentious douche if you identify yourself like that.
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I honestly care very little if people think I'm a pretentious douche. I like my language to work, to function, not to fall apart when analyzed with logic. If some people don't like me because of that, well that isn't my problem.
Note: "Self referential" is actually the concept behind recursion.
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I was pointing out that it wasn't that I felt they were recursive, self referentially defined things are recursive. That's all. So just a misunderstanding on my part.
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