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Gendered nouns, nonstandard and otherwise

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Nolrai2 said:
I mean you could use the same argument to say that anyone who posts to a web forum is mental ill.
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Well, to be fair...

Nah, I kid, I kid.

I understand why people would think of people using nonstandard nouns as mentally ill. And as a matter of fact, it isn't normal to do so (normal being: a good amount of the world does it and the majority of mankind accepts it). It might become acceptable, but for now, it isn't.

And in my personal opinion, it's just strange, and I can't conceive why you would want nouns besides he, she and their. But I understand that there are things my brain just can't understand, like being attracted to men, or quantum physics.
 
I find that my own mental idenity wavers depending on medium. So I can sort of get it.

Though I used to find it hard to accept other pronouns because it just wasn't how my version of English worked. *

But I have sense actually done so, and it just isn't that hard, (though I do miss gender an aquantance of mine all the time. Its annoying to me. But text is a lot easier, and she doesn't give me a hard time about that I have her stuck as 'he' in my head.).

* Man it was weird arguing with a translator about what English was. They were insisting that the only pronoun to use in instructions was 'he' (and yes that is true /in German/ or maybe if you are older and very proper, but now days it really makes a piece of writing read weirdly to me.) They seemed to think what he was taught in his English class in Germany trumped my reading as a native speaker.
 
Well depends exactly what you mean. .but in this case it kind of does.

It might not be what they teach in college yet, but it how people of my social groups read and write, so like I said then, if he wants to write something that sounds either translated, or by an old conservative then go ahead. Weather some English teacher thinks it's proper or not is basicly irrelivant. (Unless I guess they define your publisher's house style, which you should follow even when out of date or dumb. )
 
Nolrai2 said:
Well depends exactly what you mean. .but in this case it kind of does.

It might not be what they teach in college yet, but it how people of my social groups read and write, so like I said then, if he wants to write something that sounds either translated, or by an old conservative then go ahead. Weather some English teacher thinks it's proper or not is basicly irrelivant. (Unless I guess they define your publisher's house style, which you should follow even when out of date or dumb. )
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What exactly makes your social group so knowledgeable on how English is supposed to be written? Are you editors, or enthusiasts of the English language? I mean my social circle has some people who are absolutely abysmal when it comes to skill in the written word.

I take issue with the sentiment that merely being a native speaker means you know what you're talking about when it comes to technical writing and the like. I've met too many native speakers who can't write for shit to believe that.
 
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Because I'm not talking about how to write, I am talking about how we /read/. You can decide that a usage is proper or proper all you want and its not going to change how using it will make you 'sound' on the page.
 
Nolrai2 said:
Because I'm not talking about how to write, I am talking about how we /read/. You can decide that a usage is proper or proper all you want and its not going to change how using it will make you 'sound' on the page.
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They will always sound like teachers, my English teachers learned it either in the 80s or earlier or they had mostly contact with German teachers for a school exchange.
And there is always the problem that there are so many different English, a friend of me came from an American family and there were enough discussions with our teacher who learned most of it from somebody from GB.
 
This happened a while back in the conversation, but it hasn't really been expanded on, and I have not really been keeping up because of a combination of moving house/unreliable internet/life reasons, so...

TanaNari said:
Actually, a vastly more accurate and realistic comparison is between Gender Dysphoria, and the underlying disorder that causes (extreme) forms of Anorexia and other forms of self mutilation. There's a clear, obvious, neurological issue that generates a level of self hate. That level of self hate then expresses itself in a variety of ways to hate one's own physical form. Which then evolves into a belief that there's something wrong with the body itself. Believing you're really a pony, or really the incarnation of a dragon, or really a girl instead of a boy... falls into this rather broad sequence of mental illnesses.
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This is a tempting comparison to make, but I think it's a mistake to treat it as a 1:1 analogy. First and probably most obviously, people with gender dysphoria who do HRT (hormone replacement therapy) or socially transition generally report a pretty major reduction in their experience of dysphoria. Anorexics who lose a great deal of weight typically still perceive themselves as overweight and desire to lose more weight.

Actually though, there have been some recent studies about eating disorders and proprioception (i.e. the sense that tells you where in space your body is) that suggest that anorexics actually have an inaccurate neurological map of their bodies--they feel like they are taking up more space than they actually are. For instance, in the study I'm thinking of (which I may try to dig up later), lots of anorexics turned sideways, as you do when you're trying to squeeze through a narrow space, even in spaces where they actually had plenty of room to pass.

I've heard it suggested that some forms of gender dysphoria may be caused by a similar disconnect between the body and the brain's map of the body, although I don't think I've read any scientific data supporting it. But I think that it's a mistake to frame all (or even most) dysphoria in terms of a hopeless search for perfection. That may be how some people who experience dysphoria perceive it, but I think it's probably not the underlying cause.

Also, it seems like it is pretty common for people with various types of body dysphoria or dysmorphia to have co-morbid conditions (depression, anxiety, OCD-like symptoms, et cetera), and it's hard to tell which comes first. I mean, lots of people have situationally-affected depression, so it seems likely that constantly feeling like you're in the wrong body would also make you depressed and anxious, but it's hard to eliminate confounding variables here.

... To my knowledge, there has never been an extensive test to see if this method would work on people with Gender Dysphoria. All honest interpretations of the data suggests it likely could and would, to the extent that it works on OCD and other Dysphroria conditions like Anorexia and addiction to plastic surgery (although the treatments are always a bit hit or miss, if we're being honest).

However, the politics of the issue make it fucking impossible to get such a study done. Because some people are obsessed with things that sound pretty, like political correctness, instead of worrying about science, knowledge, and fact.
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The problem with this is that the majority of trans people seem to strongly prefer a cure for dysphoria that involves changing their bodies to a cure that involves removing dysphoria without transitioning. Like, the medical world has a finite amount of resources, it seems reasonable not to prioritize treatments that your patients don't want and would avoid. Also, you need to get people to sign up for studies. Studies that give people a treatment that they have not consented to and would be horrified by generally do not get IRB approval. If there were a big population of people with gender dysphoria who were like, "I don't want to transition, I just want to be happy with the body I currently have," then it seems like this would be a reasonable course of study, but if there isn't, then it's...not very useful practically?

(To be fair, it is possible that there is group that fits the above criteria, but that they are more likely to be closeted/less likely to have a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The problem still holds in that you have to find these people if you want to test whether a treatment is effective.)
 
Valette-Serafina said:
Assertion 1) "He" is a gendered noun. It refers to male things. If you dispute this, you can also try and argue that the sky isn't blue.

Assertion 2) A gendered noun is unsuitable as a gender-neutral noun. Self-evident.

Assertion 3) Using "He" as the default for a being of undetermined or inconsistent gender is sexist.

So, where is the breakdown in my logic?
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You're assuming English.

Lots of languages do not currently have the concept of a non-gendered noun. The idea that something or someone can be referred to as non-gendered is prima-facie absurd simply due to how the language is structured, and changing that is simply impossible in the short term. If someone is non-gendered you use a male-equivalent pronoun, not because you assume that they're male but because that is the pronoun for non-gendered things. On top of that, people from those areas are conditioned to use gendered pronouns for non-gendered things, if you refer to someone who doesn't identify with a gender, or a chair, or god, or whatever they're going to have to use a gendered pronoun because they don't have non-gendered pronouns to use.

As such, declaring entire languages sexist not because of any action undertaken on their part, but instead because they don't have the vocabulary you expect, is absurd. Assertion 1 is iffy, Assertion 2 and 3 fall down.

That said, you're debating Tana Nari and from what I've seen thinking too hard may actually make his brain explode, so for simplicities sake we'll stick with english.

In which case you're absolutely correct, the 'he is neutral' thing is really recent, manufactured during the Victorian era because they were super shitty people who were impressively obsessed with sex. We have viable, non-insulting alternatives in 'they' and as such insisting on using 'he' just makes you a shitty person.
 
Balphozet said:
In which case you're absolutely correct, the 'he is neutral' thing is really recent, manufactured during the Victorian era because they were super shitty people who were impressively obsessed with sex. We have viable, non-insulting alternatives in 'they' and as such insisting on using 'he' just makes you a shitty person.
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Let's be fair, if you are a guy you will likely use "he/his" when referring to an unknown just as females would use "she/hers".

It's actually something I've caught myself doing on occasion... it's kind of annoying.
 
vyor said:
Let's be fair, if you are a guy you will likely use "he/his" when referring to an unknown just as females would use "she/hers".

It's actually something I've caught myself doing on occasion... it's kind of annoying.
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That's not insisting, that's doing it accidentally/for cultural reasons.

You do have to condition yourself out of it though, yeah.
 
Moving on to nouns that aren't pronouns...
  • "Trap": In its proper historical context, "trap" is short for, "this looks like one thing but it's actually another". When applied to trans people, it is typically a form of misgendering. (Unless you're talking to someone who's still presenting as their assigned gender, but nobody does that)
  • "Sissy": Short for "sister", meaning "you're not really a man". Gender-affirming when applied to transfeminine people, but generally has negative connotations that render it an insult anyway.
  • "Hermaphrodite": Portmanteau of Hermes and Aphrodite. In the context of people, means someone who is both male and female. Not appropriate for people who aren't multi-gender.
  • "Futanari": Originally Japanese, and apparently means "hermaphrodite", but with a sexual context.
  • "Futa": Short for Futanari. Same stuff applies.
  • "Newhalf": Apparently means something like, "half-male, half-female", and is thus similar to "hermaphrodite", except there are more nonbinary people for whom it might be gender-affirming. Very rarely used in my neck of the Internet.
  • "Shemale": Similar to newhalf, but less exotic, and with more implication of being fundamentally male, which is probably not gender-affirming for the people it's generally used to refer to. Generally associated with porn and "chasers", so don't use it with someone you wouldn't feel comfortable starting up a conversation about porn with, but that goes for many of these words.
  • "Dickgirl": "A girl who has a penis". Gender-affirming for transfeminine people, because it says, "yes, you're really a girl, even though you have a penis", but see the above note about porn terms.
Thoughts?
 
I just stick with He or She and don't care what others think.
 
powerofvoid said:
it is typically a form of misgendering. (Unless you're talking to someone who's still presenting as their assigned gender, but nobody does that)
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Assigned gender? I do believe you mean biological there.

powerofvoid said:
Gender-affirming when applied to transfeminine people,
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I believe the phrase "Sissy girl" is enough to disprove this.

powerofvoid said:
except there are more nonbinary people for whom it might be gender-affirming
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You keep using that phrase, I do not think it means what you think it means.

powerofvoid said:
and with more implication of being fundamentally male, which is probably not gender-affirming for the people it's generally used to refer to.
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I don't even know where you were going with this.

powerofvoid said:
Gender-affirming for transfeminine people,
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There it is again.
 
vyor said:
  1. Assigned gender? I do believe you mean biological there.
  2. I believe the phrase "Sissy girl" is enough to disprove this.
  3. You keep using that phrase, I do not think it means what you think it means.
  4. I don't even know where you were going with this.
  5. There it is again.
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Numbered for your benefit:
  1. No, I didn't. Brains are biological in nature, so saying "biological gender" would confuse obtuse people like you, and otherwise be less useful.
  2. No it isn't.
  3. I think you don't know what it means. Go ahead and provide us with your definition.
  4. Because you are obtuse.
  5. See #3.
 
GiftofLove said:
Well that's thoroughly unhelpful to everyone.
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"Shemale" is most commonly used to refer to AMAB people who are undergoing HRT and have breasts, but still have penises. Generally, people who are doing in this situation have chosen to undergo HRT because they do not identify as male, which makes implying that they are male a form of misgendering.

EDIT: Note that, in English, and also in German, and thus presumably most or all other Germanic languages, when you make a compound word by sticking two words together, the last word is the root word, and the words before it are modifiers.

Thus, evaluated out of context, "shemale" means a male who is in some way a "she", but is still fundamentally male.

Similarly, "dickgirl", taken out of context means a girl (female) who has (or, perhaps is :p ) a "dick".
 
powerofvoid said:
No, I didn't. Brains are biological in nature, so saying "biological gender" would confuse obtuse people like you, and otherwise be less useful.
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DNA trumps everything else.

powerofvoid said:
No it isn't.
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How so? Surely that shows it is an adjective describing weakness, and not something related to gender.

powerofvoid said:
I think you don't know what it means. Go ahead and provide us with your definition.
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af·firm·a·tion
ˌafərˈmāSH(ə)n/
noun

  1. 1.
    the action or process of affirming something or being affirmed.
    "he nodded in affirmation"
    synonyms: declaration, statement, assertion, proclamation, pronouncement,attestation; More
       
  2. 2.
    emotional support or encouragement.
    "the lack of one or both parents' affirmation leaves some children emotionally crippled"
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So, something being affirming something else depends entirely on context. The words themselves mean jack and shit without such.

powerofvoid said:
Because you are obtuse.
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Helpful.

powerofvoid said:
"Shemale" is most commonly used to refer to AMAB people who are undergoing HRT and have breasts, but still have penises. Generally, people who are doing in this situation have chosen to undergo HRT because they do not identify as male, which makes implying that they are male a form of misgendering.

EDIT: Note that, in English, and also in German, and thus presumably most or all other Germanic languages, when you make a compound word by sticking two words together, the last word is the root word, and the words before it are modifiers.

Thus, evaluated out of context, "shemale" means a male who is in some way a "she", but is still fundamentally male.

Similarly, "dickgirl", taken out of context means a girl (female) who has (or, perhaps is :p ) a "dick".
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You... want to remove context... when language is literally all about context. Don't do that.
 
vyor said:
DNA trumps everything else.
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Actually, in the case of "gender"... it doesn't. It trumps in case of Sex... except in cases where it doesn't... you'd be amazed at how many people were born appearing female (complete with vaginal and uterine structures), but are genetically male... female appearing male also happens, but is significantly more rare... and there's plenty where neither sex structure formed properly in the womb... real bitch, all these birth defects...

But GENDER is very easy to divorce from genetics.There IS no such thing as a gene assigned gender... in the same way there is no such thing as a gene assigned language... and for exactly the same reason. Because genetics are about biology. And gender, exactly like language, is an invention created by humans for convenience sake... and exactly as mutable for this fact...
 
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TanaNari said:
But GENDER is very easy to divorce from genetics.There IS no such thing as a gene assigned gender... in the same way there is no such thing as a gene assigned language... and for exactly the same reason. Because genetics are about biology. And gender, exactly like language, is an invention created by humans for convenience sake... and exactly as mutable for this fact...
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Wut? While I could see it being more mutable than biological sex it isn't that flexible.
 
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