Irrelevant.
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Did something happen with PAX or Penny Arcade today?
- Thread starter jbug617
- Start date
Oh god! You're telling me that I could sleep with someone who I fall completely in love with and who isn't 100% a woman as defined by my favorite dictionary and not even know it? Also they might not even know it? Well I guess i'm giving up the sex i'm not having.
Gokurakumaru
Banned
Irrelevant? It's the entire point of this debate. The topic we're having is about redefining the terms "male" and "female" which are well defined, hold widely understood meaning and are used as they stand in practice to select suitable life partners. When something doesn't meet those definitions, it's an exception. It's a syndrome. We use qualifiers to describe them because the fact they do not meet the norm is significant to people. Your post is practically off topic as it misses the point entirely.
rocketknight
Member
Trans people are already in your unisex areas changing their passports. Anyway, do you seriously think trans people don't know this already? I just don't understand what motivates you to want to follow them around carrying a "trans!!!" sign or whatever.
Here is a well-spoken trans woman's take (I really encourage anyone still in this thread to read her whole post):
There is no debate. You're clinging to bizarre (do you look at your partner's chromosomes as you evaluate how suitable they are to be your life partner?) pseudo-scientific nonsense.
Perhaps reading the material I have generously provided to you (rather than just looking at the names) would help a bit.
ChosenPredator
Banned
yeah i read it, didn't even phase me, twitter sucks balls people getting blown up on because of certain statements they make and then it can be analyzed or interpreted a bazillion different ways - p.s. people should stop posting on twitter.
Gokurakumaru
Banned
Yes, but let's not pretend putting a mental gender on a passport rather than a biological one, or walking into a woman's change room with a penis isn't a big deal when it happens. I don't want trans people walking around with a sign saying "I wasn't born a boy/girl", but you're being completely disingenuous if you pretend that conversation doesn't come up long before a man proposes to his post-op trans girlfriend. Because transexuals know it matters. Why are we pretending it doesn't with this semantic dance?
Gokurakumaru
Banned
I make it a matter of principle to ensure they have a vagina. Yes, I know I'm discriminating against some unfortunate ladies that nature dealt a bum hand to here. That's the real world we live in.
Some marriages (disclaimer: I'm not speaking from experience here) fail over one partner or the other's ability to bear children irrespective of any of this trans debate. This stuff matters to people.
rocketknight
Member
What dance are you talking about? You're the only one talking about marriage or anything, and that's a completely different thread. And I'm sorry to break this to you, but it's not at all a big deal to change your gender on your passport or use the right restroom. I can almost guarantee you've used the bathroom with a trans man at some point, but it was so not a big deal that you couldn't even tell you were supposed to be freaking out.
What the fuck are you talking about? Of course academic study trumps common usage of the language. Languages are fluid, and change to describe the world as our understanding of the world becomes deeper and more accurate. That's seriously, like, Fact #1 about languages.
And your ability to understand the conversation is severely lacking if you think that 'reproductive imperatives' or biological sex in general has anything but an extremely fleeting, tangential relationship with what's being discussed here. Your 'distinction' is not important in any scenario besides the one where reproduction is a part of the conversation. It simply isn't, in any case that is at all relevant to this conversation. To bring up that 'distinction' as though it matters, in cases where it obviously doesn't, is meaningless noise at best, and at worst is blatant dogwhistle transphobia.
The distinction that matters in this discussion is gender identity, not biological sex. If you can't cope with the idea of a world that includes that kind of complexity and want to outright deny the existence of gender as a separate entity from biological sex, then nobody can force you to change your mind, but people are going to, quite rightly, treat you as though you're trying to enter a conversation about astrophysics by insisting that heliocentricism is just "PC bullshit" and that "obviously the Sun has risen in the east for thousands of years, so stop trying to change the language".
I know this may come as a shock but chromosomal variations aren't as simple as XX vagina, XY penis, and everything else scary X-Men "mutations" who can't have kids.
man if only somebody linked you straight to solid medical information with regards to this subject
IrishNinja
Member
read gabe's statement....yeah man, if you don't want your brand & all the good it accomplishes damaged, get the fuck off twitter. you're supposed to be pro league now, this shit happens to athletes & celebs all the time. no pity if you can't resolve that, there's plenty of people who'd love to be in your place and not throw fits followed by pity parties.
it's really not; it starts alright but delves into a series of strawmen.
...uh-huh
it's really not; it starts alright but delves into a series of strawmen.
...uh-huh
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
Chromosomes don't matter. Respect peoples' gender identity and stop trying to put gendered labels on their bodies. End of story.
IdreamofHIME
Member
The posts would be funny if they were supposed to be ironic and from the brain of his comic character who is an idiot..... but they're not.
They're from the brain of someone who's supposed be one of the most savvy people in the industry and it's scary that he's that ignorant and open about it.
They're from the brain of someone who's supposed be one of the most savvy people in the industry and it's scary that he's that ignorant and open about it.
Well put.
One of the very few statements so far in this thread I can completely agree with.
Gokurakumaru
Banned
I did all this yesterday. You can have whatever gender identity you want. I will address you with whatever pronoun you want. But the crux of the matter is, in my head you will always be male or female as defined right there.
I found Gabe and Sophie's exchange interesting is that she doesn't like the "male has a penis, female has a vagina" comments because she finds it hurtful that people don't think of her as a "real" woman. But regardless of how we re-badge the language, or how careful we are in addressing people like Sophie, that is exactly what is going on in people's heads. You are dismissing as "irrelevant" millions of years of evolutionary and biological imperatives. Is this about how we treat other people at this point or about pretending someone is something they are not according to a useful English language yardstick?
I'm well aware and have already acknowledged your post about abnormalities.I have also twice linked the dictionary definitions I use to draw the line between male and female, and that the general public finds useful for multitudinous reasons, not least of which is procreation.
RedNumberFive
Banned
You would think that with all the money these guys have, and all the money they have pulled in from Kickstarter, that these guys would be smart enough to just shut the fuck up and live the good life.
Also, because the comic is the antithesis of funny, and I can't discern the cartoon characters from the personas who is the super bigoted (sp?) dude? Is it the chubby bald guy, or the skinny dude who is still afraid of high school bullies?
Bottom line, I don't care what stupid shit they say, but I'd like to think that they would have the common sense not to be complete idiots.
Also, because the comic is the antithesis of funny, and I can't discern the cartoon characters from the personas who is the super bigoted (sp?) dude? Is it the chubby bald guy, or the skinny dude who is still afraid of high school bullies?
Bottom line, I don't care what stupid shit they say, but I'd like to think that they would have the common sense not to be complete idiots.
In other words, you believe in a flat earth.
Gokurakumaru
Banned
Reductio ad absurdum.
I believe fully what people are saying about a mental gender identity, but it won't change a thing about what box my brain puts those people into. And if that's the issue Sophie and company have -- what other people feel -- they are wasting their time with the linguistic gymnastics.
That's what I thought I was doing, but apparently, I am seriously, literally, not doing that even a little bit. Because:
This is every bit as absurd as I was being. It's a simple, one-sentence statement. I don't have to "read into it" to come out with a particular meaning, and I don't have to insult you or put words in your mouth to make it sound worse. All I have to do is take that statement at face value.
"I believe fully what people are saying about a mental gender identity, but it won't change a thing about what box my brain puts those people into."
"I believe fully in the space shuttle and the moon landing and satellites, but it won't change a thing about what curvature of the Earth's surface."
The underlying logic behind these statements is 100% equivalent. I don't even need to make an argument, here. I just need to point out the one that you've made yourself.
Well, with you, maybe. But obviously it's possible for society to go from consisting almost entirely of people who put people into particular mental boxes to consisting almost entirely of people who put people into entirely different mental boxes, or maybe even no boxes at all. Or where they only use those boxes in really specific situations that have no bearing on most of their interactions.
Are you saying that trying to change how people feel is a waste of time? Or is it just that you don't think that, on this issue, how people feel can be changed? Or is it that language isn't the way to do this? We seem to have made pretty huge strides in changing how people feel about gay people, and those mental boxes are similarly tied up in sex and babies and all that. I'm inclined to think that public demands for respect have helped a lot there, directly and indirectly. One could say here too that gay rights activists are going against "millions of years" of biological imperatives - there are people who do say this!
My feeling is that you're underestimating the power of language to shape thought. If enough of us outwardly respect people, pretty soon they'll be respected. Edit: I think it's hard to argue that you have a duty to not use those mental boxes. But you have a duty to recognize that it would be better if you used different boxes - as you say, that you can't is just because it's hard for people to control their own psychology. And there's a duty to try to bring it about that new people don't end up using the same boxes you use, and, hopefully, over time you won't have this unfortunate irrational tic to nearly the same extent that you do now.
Gokurakumaru
Banned
It's not equivalent at all.
It's not that I choose not to change the way my brain categorises people, it's that I can't. If the dictionary meaning of male and female gets changed and I will still be mentally putting people into boxes marked "biological male" or "biological female". The same way I mentally categorise every other person by hair colour, race, religion and every other piece of minutiae that defines them.
This attitude is behind a lot of the antagonism here. You are misrepresenting the scientific consensus on the biological basis of transgenderism. It does not exist. Furthermore, you are undermining the subjective reality of people's identities and feelings by claiming that it is really an aspect of objective reality, ie. brain chemistry.
What would you say if a test was developed that identified transgendered "minds" with brain scanning, and it excluded many transgendered people, as it almost certainly would, as it would also almost certainly included many cisgendered people? What if the doctors all told you tomorrow that they had got it wrong, there was no such thing as a transgendered mind? Would you abandon your identity? Of course not.
I'm not trying to say that all transgendered people are "really" their original gender, I'm saying that "gender" as such doesn't exist. "Man" and "woman" are purely physical categories, with, yes, some cases of overlap; there is no scientific evidence they have any intrinsic relationship with "gender." That means two things: first, anybody is free to change their gender any time they like. In that context "male" and "female" are just two mode of behaviour among countless others. Anybody is free to rearrange them however they want. Second, it other contexts, "male equals penis, beard, etc..." is also true. If you still have a penis and a prostate, you still have to go to the proctologist.
Gokurakumaru
Banned
I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but ultimately as long as I treat people how they want to be treated it shouldn't matter what box I put them into. But when context does become important, you're still going to need a word for "female" that is unambiguous and that's my issue with this whole debate. It's a perfectly good word. If you've got a superset of individuals that don't fit it, maybe it calls for a new word, and if you're right and society adopts the all inclusive terminology then maybe "female" becomes politically incorrect in 50 years time.
rocketknight
Member
How about you let the trans people worry about what they need to mark down on their medical forms and you just leave them alone about it?
I'm not trying to specifically single you out, but this is the kind of casual ignorance of trans bodies that is mostly the problem - people assuming something is one way and being wrong about it. Trans women on hormone replacement therapy don't need prostate exams (the anti-androgen they take is often actually also used to shrink the prostate in men with prostate cancer!), but they do need mammograms - they have the same breast cancer risks as cis women and virtually no risk of prostate cancer. Obviously this particular incidence doesn't have much bearing on the discussion, but it's a good example of how it's possible to be wrong about something you don't think you're wrong about simply because you haven't really looked into it.
I stand corrected, then.
And you're absolutely right, I haven't really looked into transgendered people's bodies and minds. It's not a topic that has ever really affected me, and it still doesn't, really.
I am only participating in this discussion because I wish that people would understand they are saying something about me, too, when they say "transgendered people have minds trapped in bodies that don't match." They are saying they because I am a cisgendered male, I have a "male" mind, and I take exception to that. I refuse to be defined or identified by my biology.
I suspect that there's, first, some confusion about existing language here. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was that current accepted use has being a man/woman as a property of minds and being male/female as a property of bodies (genderqueer and intersex are going to be in here too; these are not exhaustive sets of properties). As they have historically been used, having both sets of words is redundant - no concepts are being rendered unthinkable by redefining one. Someone with a penis insisting on being taken as a "real woman" is different from someone with a penis insisting on being taken as a "real female", and ought to be pretty understandable in light of what seems to me like a pretty reasonable mind/body distinction.
So then we have the case of someone who undergoes a sex change, for example someone who is born male and who later comes to have female primary and secondary sexual characteristics. This person will not be fertile (although for all I know we'll be able to address this at some point), but of course many who are born female are also not fertile. As rocketknight points out, this person's medical needs are actually a lot like those of people who were born female and never changed. And it's hard to see what the purpose would be of treating such people differently or even thinking about them differently than (sometimes infertile) born females for almost every purpose. Maybe there will sometimes be medical reasons for different treatment. Is it such a sacrifice to use "born female" and "born male" as differentiators? It seems to me like this is basically sorted merely by having an entry for "birth sex" in medical records.
Ah, no wonder. Sounds like he'll make a great Republican too.
Never really liked PAX but his dick-ish attitude has really soured the comic for me.Well, apparently there are people with penises and prostates who don't need to go to the proctologist, namely those taking hormones. So the literal meaning of my words was incorrect. Nobody tried to "correct" my contention that in some contexts, primarily medical "male = penis" is indeed accurate, although not in all.
flatearthpandas
Member
He could have made 1/4 of a podcast with that money.
ZeroGravity
Member
What a monster.
I've never understood celebrities (and Gabe) having to donate a truckload of money to a charity in order to wash their hands of something they've done.
Just say sorry, maybe give a few hours of community service, and be done with it. Writing a check just seems weird to me.
Unfortunately there are people who won't feel he has completely repented for his remarks until he puts his money where his mouth is.
KojiKnight
Member
Let's be perfectly clear at this point... Once the words hit the internet, he was never ever going to win, even if he immediately took back everything he said.
This won't magically stop this either, this will only be a band aid and he'll have watch dogs eyeing his twitter and news posts for months, looking for any chance they can to rally against him again. I'm not saying this is a trait of the LGBT, but a trait of the internet and how easily it is to get riled up and how hard it is to let that settle down.
The man has lost a lot of fans, and they will never all come back (though a good portion will). This is probably the best he can do to try and dam up what's left of his reputation amongst that community as it stands.
adamsappel
Member
ThreePiMatt
Member
It seems like every time one of these issues come up people want blood. Victories are recorded in careers damaged and reputations destroyed.
He made some stupid comments. He tried to own up to them and people won't accept it. He'll try to make restitution and people will just think he's trying to buy his way out of controversy.
Respect to him for doing something good. I am glad that something very positive has come from all this like what happened with RAINN and Kickstarter this week. If he's serious about making amends as he seems to be then that's wonderful! Generous donation aside, that's a much better apology because he isn't making excuses for his behaviour and is interested in continuing dialogue.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
Agreed. Writing a check is nice, but it isn't being accountable. He says he's talking to people, he says he's trying. I hope it's true. Here are some things I'd like to see him do:
- Genuinely work with others to understand why his behavior is problematic.
- Publicly acknowledge his problematic behavior, how it was problematic, and how his attitudes have since changed.
- I want this to be an ongoing process. He has written shitty transphobic things repeatedly, and now I want to see him repeatedly and publicly discuss how he's working to unlearn those attitudes.
- While he's at it, he has a lot to make up for regarding the repeated rape jokes he's made.
- In the future I want to see him listen when people call him out on transphobic, sexist, and otherwise oppressive behavior. At the very least, I want him to not take to his twitter / blog and say more terrible things.
While I'm sure he is sincere in regretting what he said... it's really not hard to see why some people would be cynical in the face of a fair few withdrawals from PAX. He has impetus beyond learning from his mistakes for making the gesture.
Credit to PA on this, but they are already a tremendous positive force in some areas. It'd be great to see them spread those wings a little and help even more disadvantaged or discriminated against people in gaming.
I'm new be nice
Member
People can have bad opinons, everybody is guilty of it sometimes. I'm not going to hold Gabe to this forever if he genuinely feels that he was wrong about it (which appears to be the case).
Good on him for admitting he said some hurtful things. And the charity helps too.
Good on him for admitting he said some hurtful things. And the charity helps too.
Definitely. He has a ways to go but this is a good start. He knows he will be under a lot of scrutiny.
For now though I am willing to take this at face value and hope for the best.
I don't want blood or a mea culpa from him, don't be ridiculous. What I want for him is to reflect and approach the subject more thoughtfully in the future. That's all. Ultimately he's only accountable to himself on that score, but I wish it nonetheless.
I guess if someone with blonde hair told me they identified as brunette and could I please treat them as such, I would.
Though, you know, they're actually blonde.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Ultimately I do think I, hm, I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to say agree, but I do understand Jerry's position about the original controversial panel that he wants PAX to be an open dialogue of all forms, that the panel in question wasn't explicitly hateful in its concept, and that those who had a problem with it were perfectly free to either show up to the panel and voice their opinions and/or have their own panel discussing their own perspectives.
*puts on his doctor cap*
I really don't see how chromosomal anomalies have anything at all to do with what you're trying to say. Not only are they anomalies that any good scientific study on traditional gender genetics would throw out but they also don't particularly apply to the transgender community at large. As far as I'm aware, most transgender people do not have chromosomal anomalies. Furthermore, it doesn't really seem like you have a firm grasp of how genetics work in terms of gene expression, the effects of mutations on alleles, and how that correlates to human biological development. Maybe you actually have a background in science so forgive me for that assumption if I'm wrong, but in all honesty, it's ironic that you're accusing someone of using pseudoscience when that seems to be exactly what you're doing here.
If we're talking about the significance of sex chromosomes within the transgender population, chromosomal anomalies that lead to abnormal development aren't particularly pertinent since, please correct me if I'm wrong here, the majority of the transgender population have perfectly normal sets of sex chromosomes. Chromosomal anomalies don't suddenly mean sex chromosomes are inconsequential. Again, it's a bit ironic since the mutations you listed have severe developmental consequences and one of the biggest mantras of the transgender people that I'm at least familiar with is the idea that their biological development has been normal but does not fit their cognitive identity, thus cementing the fact that there's nothing actually wrong with them aside from the contradiction in identity and biology.
It seems like you're trying to say "there is no need to ask about chromosomes when addressing a transgender person because they do not dictate gender identity" by affirming that chromosomes somehow don't matter. Well I would certainly agree with the former, and the latter is acceptable as well as long as it's accompanied with an addendum that states they don't matter insofar as the value of the person in question as well as their gender identity are concerned. That of course is completely true. But saying they don't matter at all seems to be an attempt to affirm that they don't mean anything whatsoever, that they don't even exist. Which of course is absurd and not what you're saying directly but it seems to be the point behind your arguments. It's undeniable that chromosomes DO matter, that's the whole reason why transgender people decide to transition in the first place! The fact that the human body is pliable and can be remolded to a certain degree with the use of hormones does not somehow negate the reality that chromosomes exist even if their efficacy is diminished. And even then, there are multitudes of other issues that arise with hormone therapy, dangers and concerns that I'm sure you're well aware off, that aren't common concerns for the general population. That's just another way those pesky chromosomes are making a difference.
Just to clarify, I only bring this up as a matter of scientific clarification. I don't think it's appropriate to bring up a transgender person's chromosomes as that is obviously a bit of a sensitive subject and an area that is easy to raise offense. So if you happen to be transgender or there are other who are sensitive to the matter, understand I bring it up not to rub it in someone's face but rather simply because this is actually a field that I'm very familiar with and am approaching it merely in an academic sense, especially since you brazenly accused someone of pseudoscience.
Anywho, if you think I'm just one big honking idiot and don't want to hear from me again regarding the matter, just say so. I just wanted to get my 2 cents in.
edit: it occurs to me that I might have just misunderstood what you were trying to say, in which case ignore everything above