Comment by antonfire
5 years ago
Oh, also, regarding
> What people who harp on pronouns miss is that pronouns are not used to refer to someone's gender but their sex. I can see your sexual characteristics from across the room, and referring to them is a good way to narrow down who I'm talking about.
The thing you see about someone when you look at them from across the room isn't their biological sex, if anything it's their gender presentation. This chunk of youtube video (https://youtu.be/9bbINLWtMKI?t=548) talks more or less about that.
You seem like you intend to be helpful, but I don't think you're as surrounded by these politics, or the disingenuous arguments, as I am. imho, Contrapoints is a homophobic monster who supports shaming people with "genital preferences" (ie, gays and lesbians.) If you want a sane person who just happens to be trans, try Rose of Dawn. They're honest and sincere. Bair White is also reasonable, and often gets threats and hate from the community for being unwilling to join in the nonsense.
Ultimately the rift comes down to lying. Do we have to deny truth to be kind? I say no, and I'll leave this rough paraphrasing of Blair. "Am I male, yes. Of course. I'm a transwoman and I wouldn't be trans if I already was female. Do I wish I wasn't, yes. But am I offended, no?"
As for Contrapoint's "seeing gender", that's just simply not the case. For one thing, I grew up when boys were allowed to like pink, so most of people's signifiers don't stand out to me.
I'm super behind being sensitive, but if you're six inches taller than the others, have a beard, or breasts, etc, those are sex linked traits. Not size entirely of course, but often enough that the 10% male is larger than the 90% female. It's gaslighting to assume we can't differentiate between the sexes.
> Contrapoints is a homophobic monster who supports shaming people with "genital preferences"
Jesus, what was the phrase you used? "Straight to ideological slander"?
> I'm super behind being sensitive, but if you're six inches taller than the others, have a beard, or breasts, etc, those are sex linked traits.
So if you were talking to me and saw someone who looks like Blair White across the room, and wanted to single that person out, do you think you'd spot that person's biological sex and say "him over there" to me rather than "her over there"?
It's not straight anywhere though. It came over years of watching CP defend literal incel terrorists beating up lesbians who refuse to have sex with them, while gaslighting the victims and defending the attacks. CP didn't coin "Cotton Ceiling" but they sure go on about it. If kinkshaming is bad, what is it to personally shame lesbians who reject men?
And I didn't lead with it, I used it to explain why I found your reference to be less than compelling.
> So if you were talking to me and saw someone who looks like Blair White across the room, and wanted to single that person out, do you think you'd spot that person's biological sex and say "him over there" to me rather than "her over there"?
You and I are already talking about Blair so I'd say 'He'. But If I thought it might be ambiguous I wouldn't use either. Like I wouldn't use a shirt-color if I couldn't see it clearly, or thought that you couldn't.
And I won't use people's chosen pronouns but I don't pick fights either so I'd sidestep the issue in their home or at their event.
But if you mean, would I spot Blair if I didn't know them? Ehh, I dunno.
Do you think this means I'm reading their gender expression? Doesn't that implicitly assume that there are only two gender expressions then, such that I'm being fooled into seeing the other one? This whole angle feels like it'd be labelled regressive, and it brings up the question of how one would be expected to recognize 'Moon Gender' at all.
It feels like it'd be simpler to just say that I would be mistaken about their sex.
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