Welcome to the “Human Use of Human Beings” Substack wherein I hope to “entertain” various ideas - as Aristotle supposedly argued - without suggesting that I consider them any sort of “gospel truth”.
Hilarious, and this is exactly why anyone has an opinion on the matter at all - because the elephants are fighting over it. Do you remember when nobody fought about it, and it just didn't matter?
Anyone who doesn't really care about whether one side wins or not is going to look at the "whole bunch of genders" as being bizarre, and the "two and only two" as being dogmatic. You have merely to look around to realize that 99% of people are one or the other, but every once in a while there's someone you just can not, for the life of you, figure out what in the world they are supposed to be. If you're lucky, they have a name like Stan or Jessica, and you at least know what they are *supposed* to be. But sometimes I'll come across an August dressed in a rainbow, and I'd be pretty daft not to realize they were something else.
"when elephants fight it's the grass that suffers".
Still a great deal of value in defining our terms -- "prime number" for example. Likewise on "male" & "female"; you might take look at this article and its Glossary:
But likewise on personalities and personality types -- AKA genders. Even if to emphasize the risibility of of allowing males with feminine traits to compete in sports leagues segregated for the exclusive use of human females, nominally speaking at least.
yeehaw, I have come as you invited me. I am however very confused about why you're arguing against redfems on this issue, since the radfem position is "your personality and interests do not determine what sex you are" and I am not following your argument about why this is incorrect.
Thanks for dropping by, do pull up a chair and set awhile. 🙂
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you -- Substack only informed me of your comment in the last few minutes or so.
But I quite agree with those radfems who argue that "personality & interests do not determine what sex you are". However, the problem with the Radfem position is generally their rejection of the biological roots to the differences between the personalities and interests of men and women -- on average. Think I linked to and quoted from a generally very good essay by Substacker & philosopher Kathleen Stock on the issue:
However, maybe a larger part of the problem, which I alluded to or discussed in my Welcome post, is in clearly differentiating exactly what we mean by "sex" and "gender" -- some reason to argue that the terms denote entirely different kettles of fish. Fairly decent, if a bit too vague editorial in the British Medical Journal which still provides a fairly succinct delineation of the differences:
You don't have to apologize for delays in replying. I promise I am not so conceited that I believe people are required to notice and reply to any of my comments immediately. Presumably you have an offline life to attend to some of the time.
Okay, so, I do intend to come back to this post and engage with your actual argument. But I cannot do so immediately as I am having bias related interference. All prior times anyone has tried to argue this point about innate differences they have been trying to convince me of one of the following:
a. the only reason all men are not pedophiles is because it is illegal
b. men are incapable of treating women as anything other than sex objects and cannot maintain relationships with them because it is just within their nature to be unfaithful (also sometimes comes along with "all men are inherently violent that is just the way it is")
c. women who say they do not like being objectified are all lying
So I need to spend some time digesting the post you linked and respond once I am more certain I will not be reacting to the ghost of previous arguments I've had.
"bias related interference" -- nice turn of phrase. Seems fairly characteristic of the "Terf wars" that so many, on virtually all sides of the issue -- possibly including myself, have various "unexamined assumptions" that tend to muddy the waters. Takes some effort and honesty to give some thought to what they might be.
"digesting the post you linked"
Stock's? Quite a good one -- I've had frequent occasion to link to or quote from it, most recently here:
I think she makes some good points about the value of social norms that are part of gender, but also think she doesn't emphasize enough the average psychological & behavioural differences between men and women that lead to various gender stereotypes.
For example, "agreeableness" is considered one of the Big Five personality traits, and women tend to have a higher score:
Not sure how much statistics you have under your belt -- something of a murky topic that I don't have as good a grasp of as I would like. In any case, the graph shows two "overlapping bell" curves, one for men and one for women with a range of agreeableness -- from 1 to 5 -- on the horizontal axis -- and where the vertical axis is basically related to the percentage of each group with the corresponding agreeableness number.
But the peak, the average, for women is at about 3.9 whereas the middle of the flat-top for men is at about 3.7 or so. As a result, we typically say that women are, on average, more agreeable than men.
But that doesn't mean that ALL women are more agreeable than ALL men, or that if one has a high agreeableness factor then one must be woman, or that if one has a low agreeableness factor then one must be a man. For example, at the high agreeableness factor of, say, 4.5 the "density" of females is about 4.2 while the "density" of males is much lower at about 2.2 or so -- basically saying many more females with that agreeableness factor.
Similarly, at the lower agreeableness factor of, say, 3.0 -- getting into "disagreeable" territory -- there are more males -- density of 3.9 -- than there are females -- density of about 1.8 or so. More disagreeable males than there are disagreeable females.
Bit tricky to explain the meaning of that "density" number which I'm unable to do easily without going back to my textbooks, but it generally relates to the number of individuals in a given percentage of the population. Apparently Louise Perry -- author of the recently published "Sexual Revolution" which Helen Dale reviewed last October -- did something of a bang-up job on that score, at least according to Dale:
"Here, Perry’s numeracy shines, and if I were teaching undergraduate statistics, I’d set her discussion of overlapping bell curves in week one."
In any case, the point is sort of that there ARE differences in various personality traits between men and women that aren't joined at the hip with our sexes -- no "female therefore agreeable", and no "male therefore disagreeable". But part of that is the argument that those differences may be due partly to genetics, and partly due to environment: nature versus nurture. 🙂
Interesting topic, though not understanding the details tends to cause many to reach wrong or untenable conclusions that contributes to the problem.
Thanks again for your insight, links and support. Really appreciate the connection you've made between personality types and gender ID. It really distills and sobers the trans argument. thousands of young people are diving into a machine that tears them up and spits them out on the basis of "feelings" and the parents, thinking they are championing and protecting their children, give them a hearty shove. It's unbearable to witness.
Thank YOU for your comments AND for subscribing. Think I need a special bonus or a blue-ribbon for "early adopters" of my site. 😊
Though I totally agree with "diving into a machine that tears them up and spits them out" - badly mangled physically and psychologically. Heartbreaking "to witness".
But I see that you subscribe to PITT and have a post or two there yourself - 👍🙂 - many parents doing a yeoman's effort to curtail and forestall the horrific consequences of transgender ideology. Particularly commendable given that many other "parents" are seriously falling down on the job, often out of an over-reliance on thinking that "good intentions" are sufficient - roads to hell and all that. But apropos of that latter group, you might be "amused" - particularly if you have a predilection for gallows-humor - by this cartoon on "progressive" parenting:
But thank you also for endorsing and amplifying the linkage between personality types and gender. Seems to me that a big part of the problem in the whole transgender clusterfuck - excuse my French - is due to obscure, imprecise, contradictory, and incoherent definitions for the terms in play.
Took a brief skim through several of your recent Substack posts this morning and was thinking that you, and parents of transgender kids in general, might want to try putting the feet of teachers to the fire over exactly what they mean by gender and gender identity. Getting them to admit that many current conceptions of gender are largely incoherent and quite unscientific twaddle, that a more rational conception is as personalities and personality types might help to them to appreciate and listen to your position. It might help them to realize that girls, for example, can have masculine personalities or expressions typical of boys while still being females, that that "machine", that "gender affirmation surgery" basically turns them into sexless eunuchs, that what they're endorsing and promoting is the "castration" of defenseless children - absolutely bloody criminal.
Apropos of which, Helen Joyce - author, of course, of "Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality" - had a post on detransitioners, on "Speaking Up For Female Eunuchs" at Standpoint Magazine several years ago though the site seems defunct; an archive of it that's a bit mangled by a loss of formatting but is still readable:
I think I’ve seen that cartoon. It’s a great commentary on parental boundaries. And on the fantastical basis of gender ID. Bring on all the gallows humor. Also huge fan of Ricky gervais’s latest on Netflix. “Good as gold.”
The three affirming parents I know all are very progressive, the moms are 99% in charge of the kids, they let the kids lead, and they just buy the whole pile of far left bullsh. (I just changed my voter registration from democrat to independent over this.) One of the moms indoctrinated herself on Ted talks and local organizations’ websites. It was like watching someone become possessed in real time. We haven’t spoken since I told her to wake the F up.
Agree 💯 that gender ideology is a slop bucket of contradictions. The teachers though, they are all on board and do not want to lose their jobs. I can’t see it as a worthy battle for now but who knows, maybe in time. I’m drafting a letter to the board members in charge of all school policies in any case. I have little hope of changing anything but putting my voice forth is still important.
Overall my text convo with my friend really cemented the fact that we cannot change each other’s minds on this. So my best bet is to work on my kid at this point. She’ll be 18 in 2024.
Loved Trans by Helen Joyce. I have so many half and partially read books in my kindle but hers is the only one I’ve read cover to cover so far. Oh wait. I lied. I read Abigail shrier’s too.
Are you going through this with a family member? Your work is so thorough and passionate. I look forward to reading more.
Felice: "It was like watching someone become possessed in real time."
I can imagine; a rather depressing aspect of humanity is our tendency to group-think and cults. Ran across a quote of Hanna Arendt that seems too applicable to much of transgender ideology:
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
Felice: "The teachers though, they are all on board and do not want to lose their jobs."
I didn't see GC News on the list of Substacks that you read or subscribe to, but you might want to check them out if you don't. A daily compendium of topical stories - often provided with links to archived versions - selected through a "Gender-Critical" lens; bit of a questionable bias by the "proprietor" but still has a finger on the pulse.
But today's post may be of particular interest to you for its link to a shared UK Times article by Lucy Bannerman - and for its opening sentence:
"The government must publish new guidance on how teachers should manage a growing number of requests from pupils to change their names and genders to stop 'schools acting as pipelines' for gender identity clinics, a parents’ group has said."
Felice: "Are you going through this with a family member? Your work is so thorough and passionate. I look forward to reading more."
Thank you for that vote of confidence. 🙂 No "family members" though I have a couple of nieces with young kids of their own that I'm a bit apprehensive about.
But more a case of thinking that transgenderism is just the tip of the iceberg, the outlines of which are maybe sketched out by Arendt's quote. Not sure if I mentioned it in my Welcome article or if you saw it if I did, but I had written a Medium article on Wikipedia's Lysenkoism that started off with a quote from a rather brilliant Quillette article by UK/US philosopher/lawyer Elizabeth Finne:
“The primacy of subjectivity is by no means limited to politics. It now permeates the framework through which we have traditionally mediated our competing narratives. Journalism, academia, science, and law are all affected. In short, any institution that exists to accommodate competing perspectives is being undermined by a new paradigm that privileges the subjective ‘lived experience.’ And, in the process, the meta-values which have traditionally enabled us to transcend our differing subjective experiences suffer. Foundational principles such as audi alteram partem (listen to the other side), the presumption of innocence, proportionality, empiricism, and even the rule of law now must bow before the sovereignty of the subjective.”
Subscribed to GC News and read through a few of those articles. Thanks for that rec. it’s a goldmine! Your medium article reminded me of this “lived experience” BS argument. I actually told my daughter when she first came out as trans that the reason I thought she was doing this was so she could claim authority and thereby educate others. Without her own trans ID she’d be left out in the cold. It cut too soon, too close to the bone. She sobbed and went to a friend’s house (the trans boy I mentioned before) and I sobbed too, fearing I’d inadvertently destroyed our relationship. There are so many layers of false and faulty beliefs that funnel right into this fetid swamp. So much to strain out before the water clears. Glad to have found you through all this! Thank you again. 💚
Hilarious, and this is exactly why anyone has an opinion on the matter at all - because the elephants are fighting over it. Do you remember when nobody fought about it, and it just didn't matter?
Anyone who doesn't really care about whether one side wins or not is going to look at the "whole bunch of genders" as being bizarre, and the "two and only two" as being dogmatic. You have merely to look around to realize that 99% of people are one or the other, but every once in a while there's someone you just can not, for the life of you, figure out what in the world they are supposed to be. If you're lucky, they have a name like Stan or Jessica, and you at least know what they are *supposed* to be. But sometimes I'll come across an August dressed in a rainbow, and I'd be pretty daft not to realize they were something else.
"when elephants fight it's the grass that suffers".
Still a great deal of value in defining our terms -- "prime number" for example. Likewise on "male" & "female"; you might take look at this article and its Glossary:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990
But likewise on personalities and personality types -- AKA genders. Even if to emphasize the risibility of of allowing males with feminine traits to compete in sports leagues segregated for the exclusive use of human females, nominally speaking at least.
yeehaw, I have come as you invited me. I am however very confused about why you're arguing against redfems on this issue, since the radfem position is "your personality and interests do not determine what sex you are" and I am not following your argument about why this is incorrect.
Thanks for dropping by, do pull up a chair and set awhile. 🙂
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you -- Substack only informed me of your comment in the last few minutes or so.
But I quite agree with those radfems who argue that "personality & interests do not determine what sex you are". However, the problem with the Radfem position is generally their rejection of the biological roots to the differences between the personalities and interests of men and women -- on average. Think I linked to and quoted from a generally very good essay by Substacker & philosopher Kathleen Stock on the issue:
https://kathleenstock.substack.com/p/lets-abolish-the-dream-of-gender
However, maybe a larger part of the problem, which I alluded to or discussed in my Welcome post, is in clearly differentiating exactly what we mean by "sex" and "gender" -- some reason to argue that the terms denote entirely different kettles of fish. Fairly decent, if a bit too vague editorial in the British Medical Journal which still provides a fairly succinct delineation of the differences:
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n735
You don't have to apologize for delays in replying. I promise I am not so conceited that I believe people are required to notice and reply to any of my comments immediately. Presumably you have an offline life to attend to some of the time.
Okay, so, I do intend to come back to this post and engage with your actual argument. But I cannot do so immediately as I am having bias related interference. All prior times anyone has tried to argue this point about innate differences they have been trying to convince me of one of the following:
a. the only reason all men are not pedophiles is because it is illegal
b. men are incapable of treating women as anything other than sex objects and cannot maintain relationships with them because it is just within their nature to be unfaithful (also sometimes comes along with "all men are inherently violent that is just the way it is")
c. women who say they do not like being objectified are all lying
So I need to spend some time digesting the post you linked and respond once I am more certain I will not be reacting to the ghost of previous arguments I've had.
👍🙂
"bias related interference" -- nice turn of phrase. Seems fairly characteristic of the "Terf wars" that so many, on virtually all sides of the issue -- possibly including myself, have various "unexamined assumptions" that tend to muddy the waters. Takes some effort and honesty to give some thought to what they might be.
"digesting the post you linked"
Stock's? Quite a good one -- I've had frequent occasion to link to or quote from it, most recently here:
https://pitt.substack.com/p/klinefelter-syndrome-xxy-is-a-medical/comment/12855452
I think she makes some good points about the value of social norms that are part of gender, but also think she doesn't emphasize enough the average psychological & behavioural differences between men and women that lead to various gender stereotypes.
For example, "agreeableness" is considered one of the Big Five personality traits, and women tend to have a higher score:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
Fairly decent graph here on Wikimedia that I had linked to in this Substack post:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joint_probability_distribution_by_sex_and_agreeablenes.jpg
Not sure how much statistics you have under your belt -- something of a murky topic that I don't have as good a grasp of as I would like. In any case, the graph shows two "overlapping bell" curves, one for men and one for women with a range of agreeableness -- from 1 to 5 -- on the horizontal axis -- and where the vertical axis is basically related to the percentage of each group with the corresponding agreeableness number.
But the peak, the average, for women is at about 3.9 whereas the middle of the flat-top for men is at about 3.7 or so. As a result, we typically say that women are, on average, more agreeable than men.
But that doesn't mean that ALL women are more agreeable than ALL men, or that if one has a high agreeableness factor then one must be woman, or that if one has a low agreeableness factor then one must be a man. For example, at the high agreeableness factor of, say, 4.5 the "density" of females is about 4.2 while the "density" of males is much lower at about 2.2 or so -- basically saying many more females with that agreeableness factor.
Similarly, at the lower agreeableness factor of, say, 3.0 -- getting into "disagreeable" territory -- there are more males -- density of 3.9 -- than there are females -- density of about 1.8 or so. More disagreeable males than there are disagreeable females.
Bit tricky to explain the meaning of that "density" number which I'm unable to do easily without going back to my textbooks, but it generally relates to the number of individuals in a given percentage of the population. Apparently Louise Perry -- author of the recently published "Sexual Revolution" which Helen Dale reviewed last October -- did something of a bang-up job on that score, at least according to Dale:
"Here, Perry’s numeracy shines, and if I were teaching undergraduate statistics, I’d set her discussion of overlapping bell curves in week one."
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/feminising-feminism/
In any case, the point is sort of that there ARE differences in various personality traits between men and women that aren't joined at the hip with our sexes -- no "female therefore agreeable", and no "male therefore disagreeable". But part of that is the argument that those differences may be due partly to genetics, and partly due to environment: nature versus nurture. 🙂
Interesting topic, though not understanding the details tends to cause many to reach wrong or untenable conclusions that contributes to the problem.
Thanks again for your insight, links and support. Really appreciate the connection you've made between personality types and gender ID. It really distills and sobers the trans argument. thousands of young people are diving into a machine that tears them up and spits them out on the basis of "feelings" and the parents, thinking they are championing and protecting their children, give them a hearty shove. It's unbearable to witness.
Thank YOU for your comments AND for subscribing. Think I need a special bonus or a blue-ribbon for "early adopters" of my site. 😊
Though I totally agree with "diving into a machine that tears them up and spits them out" - badly mangled physically and psychologically. Heartbreaking "to witness".
But I see that you subscribe to PITT and have a post or two there yourself - 👍🙂 - many parents doing a yeoman's effort to curtail and forestall the horrific consequences of transgender ideology. Particularly commendable given that many other "parents" are seriously falling down on the job, often out of an over-reliance on thinking that "good intentions" are sufficient - roads to hell and all that. But apropos of that latter group, you might be "amused" - particularly if you have a predilection for gallows-humor - by this cartoon on "progressive" parenting:
https://patcrosscartoons.com/2019/10/08/progressive-parenting/
But thank you also for endorsing and amplifying the linkage between personality types and gender. Seems to me that a big part of the problem in the whole transgender clusterfuck - excuse my French - is due to obscure, imprecise, contradictory, and incoherent definitions for the terms in play.
Took a brief skim through several of your recent Substack posts this morning and was thinking that you, and parents of transgender kids in general, might want to try putting the feet of teachers to the fire over exactly what they mean by gender and gender identity. Getting them to admit that many current conceptions of gender are largely incoherent and quite unscientific twaddle, that a more rational conception is as personalities and personality types might help to them to appreciate and listen to your position. It might help them to realize that girls, for example, can have masculine personalities or expressions typical of boys while still being females, that that "machine", that "gender affirmation surgery" basically turns them into sexless eunuchs, that what they're endorsing and promoting is the "castration" of defenseless children - absolutely bloody criminal.
Apropos of which, Helen Joyce - author, of course, of "Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality" - had a post on detransitioners, on "Speaking Up For Female Eunuchs" at Standpoint Magazine several years ago though the site seems defunct; an archive of it that's a bit mangled by a loss of formatting but is still readable:
https://web.archive.org/web/20201113021904/https://standpointmag.co.uk/speaking-up-for-female-eunuchs/
Thanks again.
Ooh blue ribbon sign me up. 😎
I think I’ve seen that cartoon. It’s a great commentary on parental boundaries. And on the fantastical basis of gender ID. Bring on all the gallows humor. Also huge fan of Ricky gervais’s latest on Netflix. “Good as gold.”
The three affirming parents I know all are very progressive, the moms are 99% in charge of the kids, they let the kids lead, and they just buy the whole pile of far left bullsh. (I just changed my voter registration from democrat to independent over this.) One of the moms indoctrinated herself on Ted talks and local organizations’ websites. It was like watching someone become possessed in real time. We haven’t spoken since I told her to wake the F up.
Agree 💯 that gender ideology is a slop bucket of contradictions. The teachers though, they are all on board and do not want to lose their jobs. I can’t see it as a worthy battle for now but who knows, maybe in time. I’m drafting a letter to the board members in charge of all school policies in any case. I have little hope of changing anything but putting my voice forth is still important.
Overall my text convo with my friend really cemented the fact that we cannot change each other’s minds on this. So my best bet is to work on my kid at this point. She’ll be 18 in 2024.
Loved Trans by Helen Joyce. I have so many half and partially read books in my kindle but hers is the only one I’ve read cover to cover so far. Oh wait. I lied. I read Abigail shrier’s too.
Are you going through this with a family member? Your work is so thorough and passionate. I look forward to reading more.
💙
Felice: "Ooh blue ribbon sign me up."
At the top of the list! 🙂
Felice: "It was like watching someone become possessed in real time."
I can imagine; a rather depressing aspect of humanity is our tendency to group-think and cults. Ran across a quote of Hanna Arendt that seems too applicable to much of transgender ideology:
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8110811-the-ideal-subject-of-totalitarian-rule-is-not-the-convinced
Felice: "The teachers though, they are all on board and do not want to lose their jobs."
I didn't see GC News on the list of Substacks that you read or subscribe to, but you might want to check them out if you don't. A daily compendium of topical stories - often provided with links to archived versions - selected through a "Gender-Critical" lens; bit of a questionable bias by the "proprietor" but still has a finger on the pulse.
But today's post may be of particular interest to you for its link to a shared UK Times article by Lucy Bannerman - and for its opening sentence:
"The government must publish new guidance on how teachers should manage a growing number of requests from pupils to change their names and genders to stop 'schools acting as pipelines' for gender identity clinics, a parents’ group has said."
https://gcnews.substack.com/p/saturday-july-30-2022
"The times, they are a-changin' ..." 🙂
Felice: "Are you going through this with a family member? Your work is so thorough and passionate. I look forward to reading more."
Thank you for that vote of confidence. 🙂 No "family members" though I have a couple of nieces with young kids of their own that I'm a bit apprehensive about.
But more a case of thinking that transgenderism is just the tip of the iceberg, the outlines of which are maybe sketched out by Arendt's quote. Not sure if I mentioned it in my Welcome article or if you saw it if I did, but I had written a Medium article on Wikipedia's Lysenkoism that started off with a quote from a rather brilliant Quillette article by UK/US philosopher/lawyer Elizabeth Finne:
“The primacy of subjectivity is by no means limited to politics. It now permeates the framework through which we have traditionally mediated our competing narratives. Journalism, academia, science, and law are all affected. In short, any institution that exists to accommodate competing perspectives is being undermined by a new paradigm that privileges the subjective ‘lived experience.’ And, in the process, the meta-values which have traditionally enabled us to transcend our differing subjective experiences suffer. Foundational principles such as audi alteram partem (listen to the other side), the presumption of innocence, proportionality, empiricism, and even the rule of law now must bow before the sovereignty of the subjective.”
Amen to that.
https://medium.com/@steersmann/wikipedias-lysenkoism-410901a22da2
Subscribed to GC News and read through a few of those articles. Thanks for that rec. it’s a goldmine! Your medium article reminded me of this “lived experience” BS argument. I actually told my daughter when she first came out as trans that the reason I thought she was doing this was so she could claim authority and thereby educate others. Without her own trans ID she’d be left out in the cold. It cut too soon, too close to the bone. She sobbed and went to a friend’s house (the trans boy I mentioned before) and I sobbed too, fearing I’d inadvertently destroyed our relationship. There are so many layers of false and faulty beliefs that funnel right into this fetid swamp. So much to strain out before the water clears. Glad to have found you through all this! Thank you again. 💚