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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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It's really, really not. 'Hermaphrodite' is not a social category, outside of furry porn.

  • -12

'Hermaphrodite' is not a social category

If "social category" is a classification of people that makes a significant difference to how they are treated and grouped by social instiutions or practices, then "hermaphrodite" is a social category that predates trans women/trans men (in the predominant modern senses) as social categories. In many cultures, by THOUSANDS of years. The Ancient Greeks were making myths about hermaphrodites long before the sex/gender distinction was even invented. The Laws of Manu distinguish three genders: male, female, and hermaphrodite. Ancient Rabbinic law distinguishes hermaphrodites as a separate category. Ask anyone in the ancient world to tell you what a hermaphrodite is and they would be able to tell you; ask them about our modern categories of transness and your chances of initial comprehension of the relevant categories would be more dubious.

The main difference is that hermaphrodite is also a longstanding biological category that presumably predates humanity, but obviously something can be both a social category and a biological category.

Or are you using "social category" to mean something else in a way that excludes hermaphrodites?

Also, you probably don't think that being a social category identified on the basis of appearance or genitalia is a sufficient condition for self-identification rules, because you probably don't think that race should be determined by self-identification rules. So this is a potential red herring: even if it could be proved that hermaphrodites are a social category, that wouldn't be enough to change your mind.

Careful there! Furries are an oppressed gender and orientation minority, give 'em a few years and you'll be writing pro-furry rights posts on here. You could ask Tracing Woodgrains for some advice on that. I don't know what the 'politically correct' term for furry is, I'm sure there must be one. Seems that therians are different, so what the posh version of furry is, someone enlighten me.

Alright, that’s enough.

The usual rules about strawmen apply. As does the one about speaking plainly, though I’m sure anyone reading the thread can detect your sarcasm from orbit.

Seriously, no joke, tell me that in a few years furries won't be part of the entire queer umbrella grouping. Trace is half-way sane and respectable, there have to be more out there like him, and since they're even holding cons, then it'll become first an identity and then politicised.

And then the likes of the left "identity" defenders will be here telling me to accept furries, just like I'm being asked to agree that "trans women are women".

I'm using sarcasm instead of volcanic wrath, to be a bit cooler about it. Though I'm not really aggravated by furries, oddly enough; I was online-acquainted with one some years back due to mutual fantasy genre literature interests and got a great glimpse into their personal life and how they ended up like that. I am way more aggravated about guesswho wanting me to go "yes, I'm a woman and this person with a dick who fathered two kids is also a woman, just like me".

But non-binary is (by your side's standards).