How many genders are there? How many should there be?

[Jon]

What do you do with someone who is born a man, but identify with being a woman, and they want a sex change to be a man. What do you tell them?

 

[AccessBlaster]

I'm like you, I know gays related to gay people. They are in the top ten percent of earners. I would prefer them as neighbors, I frequent their business. But the kids deciding the rest of their lifes at six is a bit much for even me.

 

[Jon]

It would be a lot easier if everything was bolt on.

 

[isladogs]

Unless I've missed it, there has been no discussion about children who are born as intersex (indeterminate gender).
According to this link from the Intersex Campaign for Equality, the proportion of intersex babies is about 1.7% of the population.
Even if that figure is an overestimate, it is a significant proportion of the population.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Im just talking about kids who have certain feelings at a very young age and are allowed to make decisions that will effect them for the rest of their lives. I say if possible hit the pause button, take a breath.

 

[AccessBlaster]

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I see this thread slacked off but AB provided us with a poster.

I honestly don't know whether it is even possible for a prepubescent person (a.k.a. "child" but I wanted to emphasize stage of development...) to know their gender preferences and know whether they are real. Those of you appalled by children claiming "trans" behavior should know that I don't disagree with you.

The problem is that this thread and many other discussions try to overuse (Programming term: OVERLOAD) the word "gender" to mean two radically different things.

When talking about birth anatomy, people suggest a particular gender based on what they see below the belly button. That is what USED to be called SEX on birth certificates and many government forms. That is the thing that all those archaeologists find.

When talking about gender behavior, it should be clear that part of the difficulty we are having is that behavior is not always consistent with that checkbox on the birth certificate. I would say that there are six gender behaviors - straight male, straight female, gay male, gay female, true bisexual (regardless of that pesky checkbox), and true asexual (who doesn't believe in the checkbox). Before anyone complains about making the distinction between the two "straight" behaviors and the two "gay" behaviors, part of that is based on my experience with many friends from college, because New Orleans has always been a relatively gay-friendly town and people will "come out" more often here. I would also agree that there are gradations in the behaviors of gays such that some are reclusive while others are flamboyant. Past a certain point, making a distinction becomes hair-splitting and I don't have enough hair left to split with anybody.

 

[Jon]

I would say that there are six gender behaviors - straight male, straight female, gay male, gay female, true bisexual (regardless of that pesky checkbox), and true asexual (who doesn't believe in the checkbox)

I would agree with your classification Doc, although to me that is sexual preferences and not gender. Nowadays there seems to be a movement to change what gender means, which amounts to a rewriting of the dictionary. However, if we remove the word gender from the argument it would probably help the discussion regarding the underlying behaviour, rather than the term itself. Those are two separate arguments.

Additionally, after watching a "Louder with Crowder" interview with a "non-binary" person (i.e. a woman in this case), she claimed that if he did not use the appropriate pronouns to address her, that is violence. She said she cannot say how many genders there are. So, she recommends that everybody should ask what your pronouns are before addressing them. This is ludicrous. Because they are obsessed with the topic and want to talk about it all the time, they want others to be shoehorned into following suit.

In the US, someone got fired from their job because they used a persons name rather than the pronouns they wanted. It was considered a sackable offence.

A teacher says he was fired for refusing to use male pronouns for a transgender student | CNN

A Virginia teacher has filed a lawsuit saying he was wrongfully fired for refusing to use male pronouns for a transgender student.

edition.cnn.com

In the UK, a doctor was sacked for not using someones preferred pronouns.

Christian doctor sacked for not using preferred pronouns

A doctor has claimed he was dismissed because his Christian beliefs prohibited him from addressing transgender benefit claimants by their preferred

www.personneltoday.com

Part of the argument is "oppression" against the transgendered individual. But what about the oppression against the Doctor who's religious beliefs say there is only man and woman?

Do you think calling someone by name is so harmful that it should lead to their dismissal, affecting their means to earn a living, forcing the state to support this person and possibly affecting their families ability to feed itself? Or using a different lens, taking away this doctor and his experience from helping countless people with their health, and for matters of life and death, all because he did not use a preferred pronoun?

This is all leading to a police state where laws stifle free thought and expression. It amounts to a communist agenda, as you continue down the road to a 1984 style government. By arguing against the oppression of the transgendered through "proper" (inproper) pronoun use, you end up oppressing huge numbers of people. The net result is more oppression, not less.

Imagine a world where we are compelled to say things, stifled in what we are allowed to find humorous, forced into a certain ritual of pronoun usage, threatened by legal force, cancel culture and sacking for having a different view. It is not the kind of society I want to live in.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I would agree with your classification Doc, although to me that is sexual preferences and not gender.

Which, in a way, makes my point that the word we are using is not uniformly appreciated in specific meaning.

 

[Jon]

I think that is part of the argument. Who is right?

 

[Cronk]

As database developers, we could observe that there is an entity which has approximately 8 billion records on the planet. Depends on what your requirements are from the system as to what properties are to allocated to the entity as well as the granularity of the properties.

 

[Jon]

gender(person) {blah blah, return boolean}

 

[AccessBlaster]

gender(person) {blah blah, return boolean}

We still have the checkbox

 

[Steve R.]

Instead of making any reference to either "sex" or "gender", just have a radio buttton (what is your DNA?) with "XX" and "XY" as the only options. (Of course there will still be a few outliers (Klinefelter Syndrome (XXY chromosome).)

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Ah, but here is the problem. If you were to do the search I suggested, you would find that DNA does NOT govern gender preference - only the physical plumbing. The wiring of the brain governs preferences and they DON'T have to match your DNA.

 

[Steve R.]

Ah, but here is the problem. If you were to do the search I suggested, you would find that DNA does NOT govern gender preference - only the physical plumbing. The wiring of the brain governs preferences and they DON'T have to match your DNA.

Sorry not the point. That is why I said "Instead of making any reference to either "sex" or "gender", ..." Simply specifying ones DNA does not make any assumptions and/or allegations as to what that individual believes or as to how others should perceive that person. Simply naked science; "XX" or "XY". Nothing more.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Steve R., given the original question, DNA doesn't answer it correctly unless you agree that you are using a restrictive definition of gender.

 

[Isaac]

The funny thing is that for 40 years they tried hard to convince us that it was pre-determined. Your sexual orientation was something you were born with.

Then Miley Cyrus, who first widely popularized the idea that you decided who you were, what you felt, and what your gender identity and sexual orientation was on any given day/month/age.........Kinda blew that theory out of the water. What?? We thought you were "born with it".

Oops.

 

[Steve R.]

Steve R., given the original question, DNA doesn't answer it correctly unless you agree that you are using a restrictive definition of gender.

Point taken. Just trying to "short-circuit" that circular conundrum that can be endless spun.
With people allowing to self-identify on a variety of biological traits, we could really have some significant forensic and even statistical problems in the near future.
In terms of forensics, how would; for example, victims of a plane crash be correctly identified it their passport/drivers license says they are of one sex, but the DNA says they are of the other sex? Yes, there other methods for matching a person, such as teeth.
In terms of statistics, how would the government be able to "prove" that men or women are being discriminated against if the data is based on self-identity? The spin is endless.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

@Isaac - much more than 40 years. Why do you think that people like J Edgar Hoover stayed in their particular closets? Or take a look at that passage from Romans that discusses homosexuality as an abomination (I'm paraphrasing).