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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34967 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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Very little usually hangs on the accuracy of such comparison. Yes - you can't actually know if the anger you feel is the same as the anger I feel although you do at least have a lot more evidence it does(especially if we're the same sex), because anger serves a common biological purpose. Your gender's body has very little reason to be able to accurately model such a thing and probably a few reasons to not perfectly do so.

And hell, I'm open minded, I'm not bothered by Men who want to dress as women, act like women, even get cosmetic surgery/take hormones to look like women for whatever reason. They just enjoy looking cute, they feel sexy, whatever. But don't expect me to agree that there is some cosmic way that they're actually fundamentally women. I gave up religion a long while ago and this is precisely the thing I will no longer accept on faith.

We're social animals so there's lots of evolutionary utility from being able to predict other people's actions and accurately modeling other people's internal states would be helpful for that.

Sure I'm not big on metaphysics. I think labels are about communicating useful information not cosmic essences. But I think in most cases the useful information to communicate is the social role a person is presently occupying not their birth sex. I think trans inclusive language in medical contexts is pretty dumb because the anatomical details are relevant there, but in most social contexts expected presentation and mannerism are the relevant content of the gendered label.

But I think in most cases the useful information to communicate is the social role a person is presently occupying not their birth sex.

I disagree - in my experience, trans people tend to act in ways that confirm and pattern-match to their birth sex, with transbians being some of the most "malebrained" people I have ever interacted with. When I try to model the behaviour of trans people, I ignore their gender identity and operate on the basis of what they were assigned at birth, because that approach generates far more accurate predictions (with the exception of same-sex attracted trans people, who tend to be closer to their target gender). That understanding also makes for good predictions - if I see a trans person talking about computer programming, striped socks, slice of life anime, Final Fantasy XIV and making threats of physical/sexual violence against feminists, I think I can make a pretty good guess as to their assigned gender at birth.

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