Law of noncontradiction and is a woman a woman?

[aeon]

I feel the 'quietness' about them is its own sort of social punishment. So in a way yes, you're right there isn't much fuss about what a man is. But I believe that isn't because they're more accepted but the opposite: that they are further marginalized insomuch as to get no representation, no voice, and no visibility.
Which makes sense (through a sexist lense) if they're perceived as 'not real men'.

I had a thought about why this might be the other day, which is:

In the abstract, and in a rigid sexist way, consider that women occupy (both as function of their choice and as compliance with a societally-defined limit of imposed acceptability) a range of presentations that ranges from, say, girly-girl to tomboy. All of these shadings of presentation are acceptable, even allowing for the fact that some are going to have a harder time of it.

On the other hand, the accepted cultural definition of what a man is, or should be, allows for no range in presentation—any expression that would suggest a deviation is mocked, and shamed, sometimes gently, sometimes violently. There are well-established phrases used as correctives in the face of behavior that is not part of the cultural ideal. “Be a man about it.” and “man up” are both designed to elicit compliance from men to meet a standard of acceptability and desired behavior.

As women range from girly-girl to tomboy with typically little issue, any man who does so in like kind from the other end of the spectrum becomes highly suspect. Usually by questioning his sexuality or accusing him of sexual preferences and behavior that is not within the narrow standard, and so considered shameful.

Trans-men know they won’t meet the standard if scrutinized, so keep their heads down. For what it is worth, only a small subset of cis men meet that cultural standard.

-------

I apologize in advance for how clumsy the above is (or feels, anyway), and for treating both women and men as each their own monolith. Did ‘em both dirty to illustrate a point. FML

Sigh,
Ian

 

[John K]

Some of this is regional. In the UK, there's a slant like you describe. It doesn't feel as pronounced in the US and I see more cis males making a fuss about it here than in the UK.
Depending on how you receive information also depends on if it'll be region-specific or adjusted for your browsing habits; I don't recall your browser preferences.

I rarely see transmen rock the boat. It does happen but most I've met seem to be very relaxed and would rather keep their head down about it. This seems to be true in groups with high transgender counts too; they typically don't shape the group dynamic or at least that's been my observation.

I feel the 'quietness' about them is its own sort of social punishment. So in a way yes, you're right there isn't much fuss about what a man is. But I believe that isn't because they're more accepted but the opposite: that they are further marginalized insomuch as to get no representation, no voice, and no visibility.
Which makes sense (through a sexist lense) if they're perceived as 'not real men'.
Some years back I looked up to see what support groups existed for transmen & transwomen, and it seemed at the time to be considerably less for the former. I suspect this is a manifestation of that same issue.

It's also not just about 'invasion of social territory'. Like there is that for some; wyote's video touched on it with athletes. It's also that some feel unsettled about it. Often, those who do have had terrible experiences with men and transfer that over. Which I sort of understand? it's complicated because people let emotion make judgement calls and there's a lot of grief on both sides.
It doesn't help if we meet bad apples, and every group has them. I've met some who've made me uncomfortable and I know I'm not alone. However, it isn't the majority and almost all are from my time in sex work & adjacent spheres. Our venue & approach to others makes a huge difference about what subgroups we're exposed to.

My experience isn't comprehensive. I've seen from a few angles not everybody has privy to and missed it from many others.

Yes that makes a lot of sense, and I think @aeon added to why this might be. The practicalities of being of male or female gender are very complicated. As an INFJ male, I have generally been on the periphery of male social groups which can be very competitive, particularly among children and young adults. It's not just that I'm not very good at the social games that are played to determine inclusion and status, but that I dislike them intensely and I'm just not interested in the kind of things that, in particular, a lot of sensor men bond around. I think Ian is right that the range of variability that's accepted without a raised eyebrow in male society is fairly narrow. Given that a lot of cis men fall outside these 'norms', goodness only knows what it's like for trans men. I can't speak from the inside on the way female social groups operate, but judging by the problems some women describe, it sounds like there is an equivalent sort of situation.

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

I'm actually in a strange position in regards to the topic after listening to several different public figures. I'm mostly aligned with the conservative view here, particularly that of Jordan Peterson which I find both highly insightful and empathetic, but there's an issue of methodology which I find constantly irritating in other right wing commentators, though I wouldn't assign this to them exclusively. On surface, it's the problem of intuition and sensing, but also tied up with something more existentially fundamental and I hope I get this right.

The man being criticized in the video, Matt Walsh, made a documentary where he confronts activists by asking them for a definition of a woman to reveal the apparent inconsistency when nobody can give him a straight answer. This is significant because identification with something you don't understand is meaningless and has severe consequences on cultural stability if fully integrated as an acceptable way of participating in life; culture, being a hierarchy of categories, necessitates a clear delineation of those categories for a culture to function productively. The degeneration of the Romans, for instance, was characterized by the disintegration of basic, mutually agreed upon concepts—or so I hear. That's why there's a great weight placed on the definition of the sexes in terms of biology, if nothing else. And it's certainly an extremely useful approach, but the singular reliance on it completely discards the multifaceted granularity of intuitive conception for the sake of long-term social cohesiveness, which is invariably the primary cause of the contention.

At some point, he also asks someone if they can describe a cat; and it's an interesting question because I can't. Seriously, where do you start with a definition of a cat that would be inclusive to all particular iterations of a cat? You could start naming individual parts of it, but I can't think of any that would not overlap with another animal. You certainly can't define it by its psychology; at least physical aspects manifest in a bimodality, but psychology is more on a bell curve spectrum. And yet, you know if something is a cat or not when you see it. There's a fundamental discrepancy between a mental abstraction of an object and a specific manifestation of it. It's one of the main differences in the perception of an adult and a child. Children learn by making a specific correspondence between a word and an object, and in time they develop the ability of extrapolate a physical feature and mentally suspend it to be used in comparison with other objects across categories. But this necessitates a vague image that is independent of any single definition in order to be useful at all.

Hypothetically, you could pile up so many details about the biology of a cat until you home in on something so inextricable that it accurately and uniquely defines all cats, but this would require such a high level of granularity that it would be virtually impossible to render linguistically. That a picture says a thousand words is not only true, it's actually beyond any amount of words. It's a precursor for being able to discuss truth. The data flow of the senses is immense, but the downside is that it's a private process that doesn't allow direct communication. Language is terribly inferior in comparison, and terribly necessary for any kind of cultural prosperity. And I think sensing, in cognitive terms, is really characterized by language much more than actual senses.

I can think of intuition as the only tool that can interface with the metaphysical infinite, but when a finite mind meddles with the infinite, too many times it results in stupidly destructive ideas. As much as the reductive insistence on a proper definition irritates me, I think the conservatives are absolutely correct in pushing back.

 

[mintoots]

This belongs here.

Gender is identity. Holistic individuality. It encompasses choice, preference, soulfulness, and being alive. It most definitely includes the right to living and loving it.

 

[wolly.green]

You see, I’m a conservative and it’s been a big thing these days to question “what is a woman?” And while many people don’t want to answer the question, I thought of a question epistemological one myself. Now a progressive leftist might agree that a woman is a woman. Now I’d like to follow that up with “permanently?” Now I don’t know but maybe I’d get some kind of response like “not if they don’t want to be.” The point is this, a woman can’t be a woman and not a woman at the same time. It’s nonsense.

For goodness sakes. 'Female' and 'Woman' are not the same thing. 'Female' is genetically determined and is unchanging. 'Woman' is culturally determined, meaning males and females can fit the 'cultural conditions' to become a woman. It's simple, bro.

 

[Matty]

For goodness sakes. 'Female' and 'Woman' are not the same thing. 'Female' is genetically determined and is unchanging. 'Woman' is culturally determined, meaning males and females can fit the 'cultural conditions' to become a woman. It's simple, bro.

All women are female, but not all females are women. The usual distinction is between girls and women, the latter being child bearing age and up.

Other uses are analogous, not univocal. For example, if a male friend expects me to change my mind about something based on how it affects him emotionally, I'll say he's being a woman. Or if a woman is acting immaturely, she's being girly. Similarly, if a male feels LIKE a woman, identifies AS a woman, or acts/presents AS a woman, it is not univocal with BEING a woman.

FYI my gender constructs are almost exclusively based on physical and reproductive traits, and cultural considerations, as well as your or other people's proprietary constructs don't mean much to me.

 

[John K]

Speculating ….

I wonder what the philosophy of all this is? It seems to be to do with the meaning and intent of words and who is the custodian of them. The term ‘female’ still seems to be intended and used in a fairly consistent way by consensus. It’s not restricted to humans - if I say my cat is male, then there is little disagreement about what that means. If I said my cat was a woman then I might get some funny looks.

So man and woman traditionally have referred to male and female of the human kind. I wonder how far back into our evolutionary past we would go before we stopped using these words because they no longer fit, like with a cat or an elephant.

We seem to have used man and woman to describe appearance, attitudes, behaviours and biology that differentiate human females and males. There has traditionally been a strong biological link to these in the semantic roots of these words. For example it’s quite psychologically dislocating to call the biological mother of children a man rather than a woman.

I can’t see these semantic problems getting resolved very easily because they have their roots in our genetic hard wiring as well as in our culture. For example, the archetype of Mother is primordial, unconscious and linked so strongly to our notion of woman that it’s probably unbreakable.

Maybe an answer to the debate about the social aspects of man and woman is an expanded vocabulary to include a wider range of gender differences rather than trying to bend our traditional vocabulary to the point where it becomes indeterminate or where views become irrevocably polarised at a political level.

 

[Matty]

Speculating ….

I wonder what the philosophy of all this is? It seems to be to do with the meaning and intent of words and who is the custodian of them. The term ‘female’ still seems to be intended and used in a fairly consistent way by consensus. It’s not restricted to humans - if I say my cat is male, then there is little disagreement about what that means. If I said my cat was a woman then I might get some funny looks.

So man and woman traditionally have referred to male and female of the human kind. I wonder how far back into our evolutionary past we would go before we stopped using these words because they no longer fit, like with a cat or an elephant.

We seem to have used man and woman to describe appearance, attitudes, behaviours and biology that differentiate human females and males. There has traditionally been a strong biological link to these in the semantic roots of these words. For example it’s quite psychologically dislocating to call the biological mother of children a man rather than a woman.

I can’t see these semantic problems getting resolved very easily because they have their roots in our genetic hard wiring as well as in our culture. For example, the archetype of Mother is primordial, unconscious and linked so strongly to our notion of woman that it’s probably unbreakable.

Maybe an answer to the debate about the social aspects of man and woman is an expanded vocabulary to include a wider range of gender differences rather than trying to bend our traditional vocabulary to the point where it becomes indeterminate or where views become irrevocably polarised at a political level.

The expanded vocabulary is there already. Masculine and feminine, for example, aren't in any way reserved to either sex.

 

[John K]

The expanded vocabulary is there already. Masculine and feminine, for example, aren't in any way reserved to either sex.

That’s true but I was speculating about a differentiating vocabulary - trans man v cis man sort of thing. That’s a bit clunky but it’s the sort of thing I’m thinking of.

Edit: There are good precedents for this from the past interestingly, The term eunuch for example which performs the kind of purpose I mean - though that particular kind of gender differentiation is thank goodness no longer needed barring accidents.

 

[Matty]

That’s true but i was speculating about a differentiating vocabulary - trans man v cis man sort of thing. That’s a bit clunky but it’s the sort of thing I’m thinking of.

I don't see the value of buying into ideologies.

I don't refer to my bacon breakfast as non kosher, I don't refer to tap water as halal, and I don't term potential sex partners cis, biological, gender normative, etc.

If people want to be Jewish, muslim, or gender constructionists, they have my best wishes, but I'll keep to my own worldview.

 

[John K]

I don't see the value of buying into ideologies.

I don't refer to my bacon breakfast as non kosher, I don't refer to tap water as halal, and I don't term potential sex partners cis, biological, gender normative, etc.

If people want to be Jewish, muslim, or gender constructionists, they have my best wishes, but I'll keep to my own worldview.

That’s ok and is your prerogative like it is for everyone else. But that leaves the problem of a lot of other people who think differently and are starting to alter the common use meaning of very familiar words. There needs to be an eventual agreement on what they mean if that continues, that covers most of the differing viewpoints - otherwise people will not communicate effectively with each other.

Apologies - I edited my post slightly - I thought it hadn’t been picked up yet so slipped in an addition.

 

[aeon]

 

[Faye]

I've come back to this thread several times now, but my level of emotional exhaustion these days has prevented me from engaging in it. I've always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt by assuming they are ignorant instead of hostile in discussions targeting trans women; however, I'm not convinced that is the case here. Per usual, it has been a painful read. I'll try to contribute anyway though.

As a disclaimer, there isn't a definition of woman (or female for that matter) that will satisfy everyone, even people who accept trans women. At least, this is true insofar as society is concerned. Legal definitions of female vary by state/country, but this thread doesn't seem concerned with legal definitions in particular.

So the best I can do is tell you what is true for me, which is that being a woman is based on inductive logic, not deductive logic. I came to that general conclusion after examining all the evidence in my life, especially my experiences with gender dysphoria. I do believe there is such a thing as female brain structure and that I was born with one, but its not something I have observed. Even if I did have a brain scan done, our understanding of the human brain is still in its infancy; it is a complex issue. Studies have found gender differences in the brain, and the brains of trans women have been found to be more similar to cis women than cis men. For instance, men have been observed to have larger hypothalamus regions whereas women have smaller hypothalamus regions, and these smaller hypothalamus regions have been observed in trans women as well as cis women. The issue gets significantly more complicated from there, and there is a great deal we don't know unfortunately. But I found this information reassuring that I wasn't just crazy in how I felt. It proves that there is a biological basis for gender identity even if we have yet to work out the particulars.

Ultimately though, even if people wont consider me female or a woman, it wont stop me from continuing hormone therapy, and I've already had surgeries for my transition. It also wont stop me from how I present in daily life. The bottom line is I had to do this regardless to address dysphoria, so the only thing that is accomplished by invalidating trans women is to make me feel like garbage (and make the world less safe for me and people like me). I wish that people would try to empathize with trans women and see us as people (and as women). After losing the battle for gay marriage, conservative organizations weaponized ignorance of us in order to push an anti-LGBT agenda. For example, they were able to defeat the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance by running transphobic political ads.

I'm not optimistic about the future. There has been a massive amount of transphobic legislation in my country. Things are getting worse, and not much is being done to try and stop it.

 

[mintoots]

@Faye Thank you for being here and for speaking out. I say it is very important.

 

[Asa]

@Faye Thank you for your honesty, vulnerability, and insight. Even if I don't always get it right (am a doofus), I support you and the trans community.

 

[slant]

I think this is all tied into the 4th industrial revolution that we are currently going through, the transition to transhumanism as technology makes gender roles obsolete.

Whenever the human race has a technological revolution, it ends up changing society and culture in ways we can't predict and naturally have pain points in terms of adjusting to it. It may seem completely irrelevant to tie these two things together but just stay with me for a second about it.

Gender roles traditionally serve as the fabric of society. They differ per culture and have pros and cons but if you look at gender roles contextually in a society they make sense. Biological men who are physically stronger than biological women typically are expected to perform physical labor and biological women are typically expected to be responsible for child rearing and less physically demanding tasks that need to be done and are vital to sustaining life. With the assistance of technology, the physiological gaps between the biological sexes have become less and less meaningful. If you look at technology and society you will always see societal norms being questioned and redefined and that's simply because technology allows people to take on new roles and the old roles aren't necessary anymore.

There is no way to stop the blurring of societal norms as we move into the age of artificial intelligence. Everything will be redefined, rapidly.

When we no longer need men and women to have sex to reproduce, when we have leaned into genetically designing future humans and implanting chips in the brain to augment, gender just doesn't matter anymore, biological sex doesn't even matter anymore.

We are in the in between phase and socially it is very jarring. It's hard for many to watch the definition of reality to be overhauled so dramatically. It isn't even because of being against these social changes that may of us feel so disturbed- I mostly think it's how rapidly it's occuring. If this had all happened more slowly over a few decades I think people might have had time to adjust culturally. There will always be backlash when society shifts in major ways, but for me it's how quickly it's happening, it's the outrage when you're not on the same page as everyone else. It's happening TOO FAST for us older people to be on the same page and to punish people socially because they grew up with a different culture is frustrating. There is a difference between somebody who is having a hard time adapting to changes in the way things are and somebody actively advocating against something and trying to incite harm on people.

Also, I'm not opposed to people openly questioning what these changing views on humanity in general will impact. Discussing any possible downsides or negative impacts are frowned upon, but that is the natural process of adjusting to a change- people are going to want to challenge it, people are going to advocate for the old ways because we really don't know what the new ways will be like. And that is totally ok. Change is uncomfortable and we should be allowed to feel uncomfortable with these changes. Being uncomfortable with changes is not the same thing as opposing changes- it is part of the adjustment process.

If anyone thinks I've evaded the actual topic of this thread- being gender and the implications of that - what you don't see is that this has nothing to do with gender at all. This is anxiety about the underlying industrial revolution and how our entire culture is going to shift.

I don't believe it can be stopped unless the actual progressions of technology is halted and humans have never stopped technologys progression voluntarily.

The change is not a "good" or "bad" thing but it's definitely frightening to some and exciting to others. Both emotions share the same neuropathways.

I watched the movie "what is a woman" and I think it entirely misses the root cause of all of this and turned this all into a political thing when like I say it really has very little to do with politics at all.

 

[aeon]

@slant

I like your post, a lot. I’m going to toss out a few thoughts, not to disagree, but to add, or ask for consideration.

1. There will be ways in which transhumanism will find a place, and excel. That said, for the time being and near future, we will not be leaving our bodies, or the dictates of our biology. The market will welcome people to their market-driven model of transhumanism, and some will find their place and prosper, but in general, most people will be left to deal with the very messy reality of being a primate with a fat cortex laid over top millions-years-old neural systems.
2. AI might arrive, at scale, sooner than transhumanism will be accepted and implemented, such that the potential benefit of transhumanism will be diminished, if not lost.
3. Each human being (ideally) grows up in a family, for better, or worse. What each gets programmed with in terms of gender roles differs widely, even allowing for overall societal trends. This difference is going to make the world an interesting place, more than it is already, and I mean that in the Chinese saying “may you live in interesting times.” As a Ne-dom kid, I didn’t understand this was a curse. This will be (remain?) a major struggle on the axes of conservatism/progressivism, as well as how the intersectionality of patriarchy will inform how things play out. It will be messy, and central to many people’s lives in how it affects their lived experience.
4. Functionally, sex and gender will change, and lose meaning, in regards to reproduction for those of means, but experientially, they will continue to mean a lot—for all that is worth, both good and bad, individually and socially.
5. I don’t find this between phase jarring. That has everything to do with how I was reared, my strong tendency toward progressivism (even in light of tests reporting my shift toward centrism), being a Ne-dom with severe ADHD, my valuation of intimacy and authenticity, and accepting people as they are without defaulting to judgment that condemns. Part of me is like “come ooooooooon already,” but I know that sentiment is my own, and not one shared by many, much less even a few.
6. I agree wholeheartedly with you saying it is okay to feel uncomfortable with the changes. I think it is okay to feel any way one likes, or nothing at all. But then, yes, it’s not enough to simply accept, or even validate—communication, discussion, and exploration are key to both awareness and understanding. I don’t think that’s a high bar, but others may not choose to be reasonable if and when they are emotionally loaded as a result of the subject material being experienced as threatening to their self-image.
7. I think the current clusterfuck is technological, economic, sociopsychosexual, trad/prog, and other things besides, all at once. I think reducing it to one or two axes does everyone a disservice, because it isn’t that simple, and cannot be made so, despite want for reasons noble, and greedy. My sense is that intersectionality will reveal a deeper, more integral truth—at the expense of there being no easy-to-read narrative in the times to come, whatever they may be.
8. Check those neural pathways. The biological structures and activation sequences, and the mechanisms for modulation and up/down-regulation for fear and excitement differ quite a lot, such that they are not mutually exclusive.

Best to You,
Ian

 

[slant]

@slant

I like your post, a lot. I’m going to toss out a few thoughts, not to disagree, but to add, or ask for consideration.

1. There will be ways in which transhumanism will find a place, and excel. That said, for the time being and near future, we will not be leaving our bodies, or the dictates of our biology. The market will welcome people to their market-driven model of transhumanism, and some will find their place and prosper, but in general, most people will be left to deal with the very messy reality of being a primate with a fat cortex laid over top millions-years-old neural systems.
2. AI might arrive, at scale, sooner than transhumanism will be accepted and implemented, such that the potential benefit of transhumanism will be diminished, if not lost.
3. Each human being (ideally) grows up in a family, for better, or worse. What each gets programmed with in terms of gender roles differs widely, even allowing for overall societal trends. This difference is going to make the world an interesting place, more than it is already, and I mean that in the Chinese saying “may you live in interesting times.” As a Ne-dom kid, I didn’t understand this was a curse. This will be (remain?) a major struggle on the axes of conservatism/progressivism, as well as how the intersectionality of patriarchy will inform how things play out. It will be messy, and central to many people’s lives in how it affects their lived experience.
4. Functionally, sex and gender will change, and lose meaning, in regards to reproduction for those of means, but experientially, they will continue to mean a lot—for all that is worth, both good and bad, individually and socially.
5. I don’t find this between phase jarring. That has everything to do with how I was reared, my strong tendency toward progressivism (even in light of tests reporting my shift toward centrism), being a Ne-dom with severe ADHD, my valuation of intimacy and authenticity, and accepting people as they are without defaulting to judgment that condemns. Part of me is like “come ooooooooon already,” but I know that sentiment is my own, and not one shared by many, much less even a few.
6. I agree wholeheartedly with you saying it is okay to feel uncomfortable with the changes. I think it is okay to feel any way one likes, or nothing at all. But then, yes, it’s not enough to simply accept, or even validate—communication, discussion, and exploration are key to both awareness and understanding. I don’t think that’s a high bar, but others may not choose to be reasonable if and when they are emotionally loaded as a result of the subject material being experienced as threatening to their self-image.
7. I think the current clusterfuck is technological, economic, sociopsychosexual, trad/prog, and other things besides, all at once. I think reducing it to one or two axes does everyone a disservice, because it isn’t that simple, and cannot be made so, despite want for reasons noble, and greedy. My sense is that intersectionality will reveal a deeper, more integral truth—at the expense of there being no easy-to-read narrative in the times to come, whatever they may be.
8. Check those neural pathways. The biological structures and activation sequences, and the mechanisms for modulation and up/down-regulation for fear and excitement differ quite a lot, such that they are not mutually exclusive.

Best to You,
Ian

I'm interested in how it is you don't feel uncomfortable by any of it, simply by nature that I do and it's hard for me to understand. Predominantly I don't enjoy getting yelled at because I used the wrong gender pronouns or accidentally slipped up. So there is fear and embarrassment there. Also, being autistic it is confusing to have new social rules to follow and then have to keep adjusting them. I guess I don't have much issue with the changing culture except for how angry everyone seems to be and how if you ask questions some people get angry and think you shouldn't be allowed to. So I'm inherently afraid of that ideology now because of bad experiences that I've had I don't know how to tell the difference between people who are just going to be angry or people who are interested in having normal conversations where we can all share our opinions freely.

I'll have to check the neuropathways thing... It's something mentioned in those popular books but I accepted it instead of looking at the research behind it.

I guess I just don't have time to explore every angle and the broad brush for me is technology. Fair points, can't say I disagree, but to me my narrative ties it altogether I like it a lot.

We will see about the sex and gender roles still meaning things in a future reimagined by technology... I'm still on the fence!

I'm sorry this isn't as organized as your post or as well thought out lol thanks for your post

 

[aeon]

I'm interested in how it is you don't feel uncomfortable by any of it, simply by nature that I do and it's hard for me to understand. Predominantly I don't enjoy getting yelled at because I used the wrong gender pronouns or accidentally slipped up. So there is fear and embarrassment there.

That makes sense. In my experience, some people have taken these new expressions of self and societal changes, and used them to gate keep, and/or weaponize them as a means to shame and exclude.

I haven’t encountered this in real life, but I both don’t go out as much as I once did, and I don’t travel in circles where it would even come up. Online, well, that’s been a different thing a few times, but nothing that really distressed me.

I see those changes as means to greater understanding, acceptance, and realization of human potential—both individual for oneself, and socially, in our engagement with others. They offer the possibility of deeper intimacy, greater authenticity, and provide a better foundation for the experience of happiness.

I consider those things in a loving and forgiving manner. I consider those things by imagining the possible. It’s what I do, because that’s who I am, in the sense that’s how and what I default to in cognition. I respect that others think and feel differently.

I suppose a part of it is that I know who I am, and I accept myself, and if you tell me who you are, I will endeavor to accept, and then understand, you. I don’t worry about other people’s opinions about the fundamental, unchangeable aspects of my person, because even if I did, I can’t change them to make anyone happy (from having tried it myself for years and years). And I don’t worry about other people’s truths either. They aren’t a threat to me, and I am no threat to them, so what is there to worry about? But like I said, that’s just me.

Also, being autistic it is confusing to have new social rules to follow and then have to keep adjusting them.

Very fair, and I am sorry you have to navigate that.

I guess I don't have much issue with the changing culture except for how angry everyone seems to be and how if you ask questions some people get angry and think you shouldn't be allowed to. So I'm inherently afraid of that ideology now because of bad experiences that I've had I don't know how to tell the difference between people who are just going to be angry or people who are interested in having normal conversations where we can all share our opinions freely.

Fair enough, and I can appreciate that you have reason to be gun shy. Both for past experience, and imagined future outcomes. I’m sure one’s region can be a strong influence in this way.

We will see about the sex and gender roles still meaning things in a future reimagined by technology... I'm still on the fence!

Perhaps we will all have a bodily identity, and a seperate tech identity, different from our bodily one.

-------

I also think that when I was a child, because I was taught about sex/gender/attraction/behaviors without shame, in a matter-of-fact way, I don’t tend to become uncomfortable when other people share who they are in those ways, even when it is wildly divergent from my own experience. Of course, I’m going to be uncomfortable with nonconsent and treating people as less than.

p.s. your unnecessary apology is accepted

Best,
Ian

 

[slant]

That makes sense. In my experience, some people have taken these new expressions of self and societal changes, and used them to gate keep, and/or weaponize them as a means to shame and exclude.

I haven’t encountered this in real life, but I both don’t go out as much as I once did, and I don’t travel in circles where it would even come up. Online, well, that’s been a different thing a few times, but nothing that really distressed me.

I see those changes as means to greater understanding, acceptance, and realization of human potential—both individual for oneself, and socially, in our engagement with others. They offer the possibility of deeper intimacy, greater authenticity, and provide a better foundation for the experience of happiness.

I consider those things in a loving and forgiving manner. I consider those things by imagining the possible. It’s what I do, because that’s who I am, in the sense that’s how and what I default to in cognition. I respect that others think and feel differently.

I suppose a part of it is that I know who I am, and I accept myself, and if you tell me who you are, I will endeavor to accept, and then understand, you. I don’t worry about other people’s opinions about the fundamental, unchangeable aspects of my person, because even if I did, I can’t change them to make anyone happy (from having tried it myself for years and years). And I don’t worry about other people’s truths either. They aren’t a threat to me, and I am no threat to them, so what is there to worry about? But like I said, that’s just me.



Very fair, and I am sorry you have to navigate that.



Fair enough, and I can appreciate that you have reason to be gun shy. Both for past experience, and imagined future outcomes. I’m sure one’s region can be a strong influence in this way.



Perhaps we will all have a bodily identity, and a seperate tech identity, different from our bodily one.

-------

I also think that when I was a child, because I was taught about sex/gender/attraction/behaviors without shame, in a matter-of-fact way, I don’t tend to become uncomfortable when other people share who they are in those ways, even when it is wildly divergent from my own experience. Of course, I’m going to be uncomfortable with nonconsent and treating people as less than.

p.s. your unnecessary apology is accepted

Best,
Ian

I guess this gate keeping behavior or aggression is not specifically related to the opinions in general that people hold but more of a way of communicating/ personality trait that can exist in anyone about anything. And it's so hard to reprogram the brain when you've had a negative experience to not fear having that same experience and I guess that's the premise of prejudice or discrimination in some circumstances is just the assumption that the same situation will play out because of certain factors you're identifying. So I definitely recognize that happening in myself.

I suppose we are just highlighting the difference between people who enjoy traditional and structure and predictably vs those who like change and expansion and innovation. And it's definitely a spectrum. Change is just frustrating even if you can't ever avoid it. I think it would be nice to look forward to change and be excited by it and embrace it instead of get lost in fear.