This thread is so gay

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Psyclone
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Psyclone » 28 Jul 2014, 17:19

Yes! My apologies, I should have included it in the post.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Avistew » 28 Jul 2014, 22:48

You picked the easiest ones to use, too. People already use "they/them/their" when the person is unknown. I mean I can see it being a little bit of an adjustment but it would be much easier than using one of the newly created ones that most people aren't familiar with at all.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Merrymaker_Mortalis » 29 Jul 2014, 02:39

My business card says "Artist and Craftsperson".
Not because of what gender I identify with. But because I kind feel uncomfortable using terms that have an underlying tones of sexism.

"Craftsman" is an "accepted" term for a man who crafts. But "Craftswoman" is a mouthful to say and is different from Craftsman. It's subconsciously saying there is a difference between a Craftsman and a Craftswoman. That's why I prefer the label Craftsperson because there is no difference between the two. Gender rarely has any affect of the craft. The focus is crafting, not the gender.

Men can do textiles, women can metalsmith. These types of crafts are not gender exclusive at all.

So I use Craftsperson because when I am selling myself with my business card, I want to sell my skills, not my gender.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Avistew » 29 Jul 2014, 05:59

Why don't you just use "crafter"? Does it sound too weird?

I understand the principle. Wish I could do the same in French, but sadly it doesn't really work that way.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby ch3m1kal » 29 Jul 2014, 07:32

Not to put too fine a point on it, but to my knowledge "Craftsman" is used regardless of gender, and a quick search for craftsmen associations turns up both male and female members.

If having a gender neutral title is really important I could also suggest "Artisan" or if you want to be get cute with your artsy side "Artificer"

Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with "Craftperson" I just dislike the use of "person" as a gender neutral term because it sounds clunky to me. But you know, in the end go with whatever makes you most comfortable.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Merrymaker_Mortalis » 29 Jul 2014, 09:30

Artisan reminds me of cheese.
Artificer sounds like I carve mystical staves.
Crafter sounds like I'm twelve. It's fine on the internet, but I'm skeptic how it'd go down in reality.
Craftsperson does sound clunk and I wonder if I should have even bothered using it. Oh well, I have over 500 of these cards to get rid of.

I might just stick a load in with my Craft-A-Long thing.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Master Gunner » 29 Jul 2014, 10:06

Nothing wrong with "Craftsperson", even if it is a bit clunky. Since you already have the cards, might as well stick with it.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Merrymaker_Mortalis » 29 Jul 2014, 10:28

At least, out of everything on my card, that's the one thing I was unsure about.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby AlexanderDitto » 30 Jul 2014, 14:33

Very aprorpos for the current conversation:

Why Gendered Pronouns Are Dumb And Stupid And We Should Kill Them

and a response: A totally reasonable suggestion – a response to Ryan North on pronouns, perspective and prescriptivism

Both make excellent points. I was a little surprised at Quinnell emphasizing how much North was trapped in his own experience, when they both seemed to agree on almost all points. Quinnell is, of course, right that gendered pronouns can be very important for people affirming their identity (trans people, for example) but the point still stands that it's pretty weird and kind of terrible that we insert gender into sentences with pronouns when we could be inserting just about anything there.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Merrymaker_Mortalis » 30 Jul 2014, 14:55

I find I don't really refer to age or gender when speaking about someone unless it's relevant. If I name them, I'd use gendered pronouns though.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Psyclone » 30 Jul 2014, 15:36

I wasn't surprised at all by Quinnell's response, because she voiced everything I was thinking as I read North's article (especially the ableist slurs; were they really necessary?). I think North's plan sounds great in an ideal world where gendered oppression doesn't exist, but it ignores the realities of our society.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Avistew » 31 Jul 2014, 10:51

Honestly, I think English is unique enough in that gender-neutral pronouns are even possible. A friend of mine is writing a novel in French with a gender-neutral character in it, and she's asked everyone help in how to figure out how to do that. Not only did we all fail in looking for gender-neutral pronouns in the same way there are some in English (recently invented or otherwise), but non of us could figure out how she would deal with adjectives (gendered in French), among many things.
In the end her current plan is to write it without referring to that character's gender, ever. That means never using pronouns when talking about the character, never using adjective relating to the character as a whole (rather than, say, their body parts), never having anyone refer to the character with a possessive (if you say "my best friend" in French, all three words carry a gender). And I'm sure she'll find more problems to deal with along the way.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making things more gender-neutral (although I'd want gendered options to exist, for the cases when they're important or relevant), but from where I'm sitting, English is incredibly gender-neutral to begin with.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby viscomica » 31 Jul 2014, 10:56

Avistew wrote:Honestly, I think English is unique enough in that gender-neutral pronouns are even possible. A friend of mine is writing a novel in French with a gender-neutral character in it, and she's asked everyone help in how to figure out how to do that. Not only did we all fail in looking for gender-neutral pronouns in the same way there are some in English (recently invented or otherwise), but non of us could figure out how she would deal with adjectives (gendered in French), among many things.
In the end her current plan is to write it without referring to that character's gender, ever. That means never using pronouns when talking about the character, never using adjective relating to the character as a whole (rather than, say, their body parts), never having anyone refer to the character with a possessive (if you say "my best friend" in French, all three words carry a gender). And I'm sure she'll find more problems to deal with along the way.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making things more gender-neutral (although I'd want gendered options to exist, for the cases when they're important or relevant), but from where I'm sitting, English is incredibly gender-neutral to begin with.


The same happens in Spanish and most of the languages that come from latin.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Merrymaker_Mortalis » 31 Jul 2014, 11:28

Same with Welsh. I never liked genders being applied to stationary none-biological objects.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby AlexanderDitto » 31 Jul 2014, 13:22

It's true, many languages have an even bigger weird obsession with gender than English. Why the heck do shoes and lamps have an imposed gender? Who thought that was a good idea?

Psyclone wrote:I wasn't surprised at all by Quinnell's response, because she voiced everything I was thinking as I read North's article (especially the ableist slurs; were they really necessary?). I think North's plan sounds great in an ideal world where gendered oppression doesn't exist, but it ignores the realities of our society.


I wasn't surprised she pointed out the ableist slurs, though those two words have been so normalized to me I will be the first to admit that I use them unthinkingly, though I shouldn't.

North was being hyperbolic, and yes obviously the suggestion that we should get rid of gendered pronouns entirely is starry-eyed idealism that ignores gendered oppression, like when people suggest that _they_ don't see race, they treat everyone as equal. Yes, gendered pronouns the allow transpeople to affirm their gender. But they still force them to /adhere/ to a gender, and they still elevate gender to a really important status in conversation, and thus in society. We need a non-gendered personal pronoun to gain widespread acceptance, though I worry that may never happen. I still wonder, though:

Why _do_ we continue to ascribe traits to genders? What does gender even mean, when any sort of attempt to ascribe traits or commonalities to a gender are going to be sexist. Being a "man" doesn't mean anything other than, maybe, being statistically more likely to have a penis. Gender's not discrete, it's not continuous... it's only meaningful because we give it meaning, and the ways in which we give it meaning all stem from backward, sexist, controlling thinking. Trans people feeling pressured to "pass." Lesbians and gay men people describing themselves as femme or butch or masc or "straight acting" (ugh I hate that phrase it's so gross). All that stuff happens because gender already exists. Could it ever not?

I'm increasingly frustrated with even identifying as gay because it's been associated with so much garbage, a lot of behavior that is just as gross as what straight men subject women to. Adding "gay" and "lesbian" and "bisexual" to the lexicon didn't fix the fundamental problem with labeling and controlling and defining sexuality. Queer is more inclusive, and is less specific.

And obviously I identify as male and am cis-gendered so I have lots of priveledge, my gender is the default, I'm always catered to in media and conversations, so of course it's easy for me to say "let's get rid of gender!" when I haven't suffered by being misgendered. So I defer completely to trans and non-binary people when it comes to fixing this problem. I just don't know.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Avistew » 31 Jul 2014, 13:42

viscomica wrote:The same happens in Spanish and most of the languages that come from latin.


Spanish does have the advantage though that the masculine or feminine marker are both added. For instance, most of the time, A for female and O for male. So you have root+o or root+a. That makes it possible to construct a neutral form, which as I understand, is using E instead. So just like "grande" can be masculine or feminine, some people use "pequeñe" instead of "pequeño" or "pequeña".
As far as I know, it's not used much more than the gender-neutral singular pronouns are in English, but it exist.

French however has a non-marked gender and a marked gender. In other words, female forms are male + feminisation. That means that to create a neutral version, you would have to add something to the default, male form.
As a result, I think gender-neutralisation in French would have to come from creating a masculine and keeping the current masculine as a neutral form. It's already used a neutral, and considered neutral as well as masculine. Let it stay neutral, and create a masculine form to be used only in specific cases.
If that could be pulled off, then French would have a good shot at being gender-neutral as far as people are concerned, because the current masculine is used a lot and I don't see people stopping using it if it officially became neutral-only.
However I can see people not feeling a need to use a masculine form when they can just use the one they've always used. So probably won't happen.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Merrymaker_Mortalis » 31 Jul 2014, 13:53

I thought about why people refer to ships and aircraft and transport as females.

I think it's because traditionally, the people who'd work on these machines were male. They usually were heterosexual. So perhaps, it helped them connect closer to the soulless lump of metal machinery if they perceived it as a woman?

So yes, it's a combination of sexism and unfaithfulness I think is the reason ships are female in the English language.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Avistew » 31 Jul 2014, 14:20

I think it's definitely because the men working on them are male that cars and ships are female if gendered. But I don't think it's necessarily sexist. Well, I guess it is if the sexist part is that only males worked on ships or drove cars. Is that what you meant?

Otherwise, a straight guy loving his car and seeing it as female as a result seems fine to me. I mean, I can see myself doing that (except the other way around since I'm a straight female) if I didn't have such a strong sense of gender based on my first language being French. By which I mean, I think of cars are female and ships as male because that's what they are in French.
It makes no sense, but I grew up with the words that way, and having it any other way just seems weird. I suspect the only way to get over it would be to learn a language that also gives them a gender, but a different one, because neutrality does not replace non-neutrality easily. If in my mind a concept is associated with both, say, masculinity and neutrality, what ultimately comes out of it is masculinity. If it were associated with masculinity and femininity, though, the result would probably be neutral.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby cuddlyblade » 31 Jul 2014, 14:23

I always heard it as that sailors were aware of mother nature's power and wanted to please her, so they gave ships female names because drowning sucks.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby cuddlyblade » 31 Jul 2014, 14:25

AlexanderDitto wrote: Why _do_ we continue to ascribe traits to genders?


Because biologically different genders have different traits? For example If somebody is biologically male we know there are risk of testicular cancer and there much more likely to be a hemophiliac than somebody who is biologically female.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Volafortis » 31 Jul 2014, 14:32

As someone who is trans, the issue with saying "let's get rid of gender!" implies that it's something that doesn't exist and is entirely a function of society. This is true, to a point, but gender is an interesting combination of both biological and societal influences.

For instance, part of being trans is knowing that your gender isn't correct. Most people don't really question their gender, and so, they're accustomed to not thinking about it, at all. It's an intrinsic part of them that they pay no more conscious heed to than breathing.

What gender is not, however, is simply acting in a "typical" feminine/masculine way either. Those are simply behaviors.

There is no single thing that one can point to and say, "This defines your gender." (If anyone chimes in saying anything involving genitals here, I will politely ask you to leave the conversation, because you're either ignorant, or a bigot.)

It's probably the main reason why so many people have a hard time understanding being trans.

Sexuality had a phase where it went through a very similar kind of denialism. Homosexual desires were viewed as a response to childhood trauma or something akin to that, when the reality is, you don't choose who you are attracted to, and external influences can't change your sexuality. You simply are attracted to who you are attracted to.

Similarly, you don't choose what gender you identify with, you simply know what gender you are. Or at least, that's my experience. For instance, I couldn't point at any one thing I do and say, this is why I'm me. Hell no, there are plenty of things I do that most would consider feminine, and plenty that most would consider masculine. And the reason is, behavior doesn't determine my gender, just like my meat bits don't. I simply know who I am.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Duckay » 31 Jul 2014, 14:37

cuddlyblade wrote:Because biologically different genders have different traits? For example If somebody is biologically male we know there are risk of testicular cancer and there much more likely to be a hemophiliac than somebody who is biologically female.


Being at greater risk of certain physiological conditions is hardly a "trait", though, unless you're suggesting that we think of certain personality traits as masculine because we mentally associate them with testicular cancer. That's a little like saying we ascribe certain traits to different races because sickle cell anaemia is more common in certain racial groups. The point about people with testicles being more prone to testicular cancer is true, but not useful when talking about ascribing traits to genders.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby cuddlyblade » 31 Jul 2014, 15:03

Duckay wrote:Being at greater risk of certain physiological conditions is hardly a "trait"


I wasn't very clear what I was saying, sorry.
I was speaking of a trait as a genetically determined characteristic and that some traits are more likely to turn up in one gender eq male and having testicles then in another gender such as female which makes a man far more likely to get testicular cancer than a woman.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Avistew » 31 Jul 2014, 16:08

Volafortis wrote:For instance, part of being trans is knowing that your gender isn't correct. Most people don't really question their gender, and so, they're accustomed to not thinking about it, at all. It's an intrinsic part of them that they pay no more conscious heed to than breathing.


I would like to add that for some people, gender is not an intrinsic part of them. Some people are agender or genderfluid, and neither is really a gender. Although I might be nitpicking. They might be a gender identity, I guess, in the same way that asexuality isn't a type of sexual attraction but is an orientation.

To me, being trans means two things.

a) Your gender is not what you were assigned at birth.
b) Your gender is a very important part of your identity.

I believe that there are people for which B is not true, and as a result A becomes irrelevant.
On another forum we discussed it, and wondered if people were assigned nothing at birth, and had to opt-in to have a gender (people were considered neutral by default, you could register as male or female if you desired), how many people would do it, how many wouldn't because they're agender, and how many wouldn't because they don't care enough to bother.

Transitioning is a lot of effort. Someone who feels very strongly about their gender identity will do it because it's better than the alternative. Someone who doesn't feel strongly at all may not bother.

As a result, people not transitioning or actively coming out as trans or non-binary would include people who have a strong sense of gender, which matches the way they're already being perceived, and people who don't have a strong sense of gender, regardless of how they're perceived.

After discussing it at length for year, I can tell with certainty that I don't feel cisgender. However I would rather stay in the "female" box because doing otherwise is more trouble than it's worth, for me. It's sheer laziness. Things as silly as having to use "androphile" rather than "straight" can be enough of a bother for me to go "whatever". My gender identity is pretty much irrelevant to me.

I disagree with the idea that it just means I'm cis. Cis people can have a very strong gender identity. I would actually argue that if you don't identify with the gender you're perceived as, you're not really cis, and that means a lot of people aren't cis. And to me saying the people without a strong gender identity are cis is similar to claiming asexual people are straight.
Although it's not exactly the same because I believe you can have a strong gender identity that happens to be neutral.

So, really, two axes here. Gender identity and how much it matters. If it doesn't matter at all you're going to follow the flow, but you would have followed it if you had been born with the other set of parts as well.

Now what I do agree with is that people who are cis and have a strong gender identity might not notice they have it because it's never been challenged. But that doesn't mean not noticing it = being cis. Some people don't notice it because they don't have it.

As for the "biological" discussion (I prefer saying "genetically" because all people are biological), this isn't really a good justification of why we'd use gendered pronouns. Using a word that means "this person is more likely to have testicles" in every single context is less efficient than referring to "people who have testicles" in the specific context that requires them. It's also ignoring people with testicles who are female anyways, or males who don't have testicles. So it's not really useful in a medical context.

Similarly, if you're talking about ovary cysts for instance, you would talk to people who have ovaries. Many women don't have ovaries, and I don't just mean trans women either, although they're included in that as well. No need to include them in something that has nothing to do with them.
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Re: This thread is so gay

Postby Volafortis » 31 Jul 2014, 17:17

@Avistew: I acknowledge that some people don't identify strongly with either gender. I simply was speaking of my own personal experience.

EDIT: Took out something else I had posted, just because I feel like I wasn't saying anything that people here don't already know, and it could easily be misread in the wrong context.

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