Stop trying to tell me my own experience. You don’t experience gender. Stop trying to speak for people who do.

Without this interaction with this external categorization: would you have been able to find anything was “different”?

Yes.

The words I use to describe it would be different. If I grew up on an island of men, I’d have been completely lost trying to understand it, and may never have found the words, but I would still have felt it, because I was already feeling it before I had the words.

Trans people are real. Our experience of gender is real. Those experiences don’t align with yours, but that doesn’t stop them being real. Trans people exist in one form or another, across every civilisation, and have done so through the length of recorded history.

You won’t find a “gotcha”. You won’t make other folks experience match yours, just because you don’t understand theirs.

I don’t know, I would not say that I knew automatically when I was born what’s the difference between “man” and “woman”.

Nor did I. For me, it came around the same time I started to understand gender and sex. The more I understood it, the more I knew it was wrong.

To me, “man” and “woman” can’t be labels that go beyond the social/behavioral because I don’t know what it feels like to be a man anymore than what I know it feels like to be a woman…

For me, it was initially tied in the physical. I knew my body should have been different. I wished it was different. I dreamed, prayed, hoped and fantasized that it would be different. It was an awareness that I was “like them” with girls and “not like them” with boys. I knew it was wrong when I was grouped with boys.

That’s what it felt like. Not an understanding of others peoples experiences, but an understanding of how my own sense of self was at odds with both my body, and the assumptions that my body created in people.

For someone who doesn’t feel gender, then of course you aren’t going to understand the experience of folk who do, anymore than I can understand what it’s like to not feel it. All I can is that analogies about colour aren’t particularly apt here, because it doesn’t work like that. My gender doesn’t exist because of shared consensus (although it is shaped by that consensus). My gender doesn’t exist because I was able to understand other peoples experiences. My gender is just something I’ve always felt, and that I’ve tried to make sense of over the years. I describe it now in clear, defined terms, but when I was younger, it didn’t work like that. I knew my body was wrong, but the social stuff, the gender stuff? Finding the words for that would take decades. But even as I said, I was finding the words to describe an experience that was always there.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term, but what you’re describing is similar to the experience that many agender folk describe.

Suffice to say, I experience gender very differently to you. I’ve “felt” my gender since before I hit puberty. Before I had the words to understand it, before I knew what femininity or masculinity even were, before I experienced my sexuality…

btw I am not downvoting you

My instance doesn’t have downvotes, so it makes no difference to me. They’re disabled precisely because they get

My argument is that the discussion around the nature of sex is irrelevant to promoting transphobia. The far right (English-language or otherwise) will find something else to latch on to.

Yes and no. I transitioned 8 years ago. Before the current wave of transphobia had settled on us for politcal gain. And transphobes were around then. The same arguments were around then. However, the only people who used those arguments and the only time those discussions came up, was when transphobes were talking about trans folk. What wasn’t happening then, was regular folk, unconnected to the trans and gender diverse community, weighing on on what their opinions on sex and gender were. Mostly, folk didn’t even distinguish between sex and gender.

What has changed since then, is the politics. And yeah, the politicians didn’t come up with these arguments out of thing air. They didn’t create the transphobia. But what they did was popularise and normalise it, and that is the reason that a Ukranian is arguing with an Australian, about the actions of a transphobic American.

The fact that you (and I) are having this conversation, or that you’re even aware of the topic enough to have strong opinions on it, is absolutely shaped by the transphobic political environment around the world.

Forget Ukraine, what about say Pakistan or India or Uzbekistan?

That’s the point I was making! You’re talking about sex using absolutes. I’m saying there are no absolutes. Sex has multiple definitions, some are cultural, some are physical, some are genetic, some are medical, some are legal. And they all overlap, and they often contradict each other. There is no clear cut definition of sex that can apply a consistent standard. The cultural contexts you highlight are actively a part of the reason that is so!

You are welcome to disagree with me and say I am wrong in my understanding of the binary nature of sex. It is what is. I am just trying to show you that my worldview has a level of nuance and it’s not a mere matter of wanting “neat solutions” while ignoring the weaponization of this discussion by the English-speaking far right.

To be honest, your reasons don’t matter. What matters is that you are parroting the arguments actively used by the transphobic folk, in a time when trans folk are facing ever growing abuse. The fact that you think you have good reasons for holding those opinions doesn’t change the fact that in this environment, choosing to share those opinions, especially in the context of arguing with folk actively pushing back against transphobia, isn’t harmless.

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What makes me a woman is that I’m a woman. It really is that simple and has nothing to do with stereotypes. Stereotypes influence the way we express ourselves and our identities, they influence our behaviours, and the language we use. But they don’t determine who we are.

I would be trans on a desert island. I would be trans if I was raised on an island of men and had never seen a woman. The language I use to talk about my identity would obviously be different, and even the way I understand it would be different, but underneath it all, I’d still be trans, even if it manifested differently.

And that’s what I’m getting at. Sure, I’ll argue that the fact I use the word “woman” is based on the social context in which I was raised, because gender is at least partly socially defined. But the identity that I’m describing with that label, that exists at a level below social norms, and below stereotypes, even whilst being influenced by them.

I’m a trans woman. Before I transitioned, I wasn’t feminine. I never experimented with family members makeup or borrowed their clothing. Even now, 8 years after coming out and transitioning, I’m still not feminine. No one looked at me after I came out and said “Oh, it all makes sense now”. I don’t wear makeup, I don’t have my ears pierced, I’m loud, argumentative and competitive. I ride an illegally overpowered fat tyred monster bike, and I’m happiest in a tshirt and jeans.

Yet I’m still very much a woman and very much trans.

Of course, many trans folk do embrace gender stereotypes, but you need to understand, that is “after the fact”. For some folk, it’s simply a matter of protection and ensuring that their gender doesn’t get denied them by society. For others, it’s a source of joy, being able to embrace something that they were not able to explore earlier in their lives. And for others, it is inherently tied to how they experience their gender.

But for all of us, it is not our gender, even if it is strongly connected.

Yeah, no, that’s not how being trans works.

I don’t believe that gender relates to stereotypes.

I’m a trans woman. I don’t “get” femininity, and to me, when I perform it, it feels like a performance. It has zero to do with my understanding of my own gender.

I’m still very much trans.

We are not discussing the strategies used by the far right to demonize trans folk (or anyone else). We are discussing something completely different that has no bearing on the strategies used by the far right.

Yes we are. The only reason these discussions come up in the first place is because of that.

You thinking that this has nothing to do with the far right doesn’t make it so. Normalising the idea that sex is black and white, and conversations about that only occur in a wide spread way because there is political reward in presenting things that way. 10 years ago you weren’t having these discussions. Today, you are, because the politics of transphobia has made it happen.

You are the one who claimed that I was diverting in to irrelevancy. I bring up the political context, because it’s not irrelevant.

This whole conversation, the thread you are talking in, exists, because a transphobe was using the same talking points you are arguing for, to normalise transphobia. You doing it, also normalises transphobia, whether that is your intent or not.

You want a sex binary to exist. It doesn’t, unless you smooth away the edges and ignore some of the data and the lived realities of people. Evolutionary biologists don’t share your perspective. Geneticists don’t share your perspective. This whole conversation exists for political reasons, designed to push exclusion. In a topic about a person using these exact talking points to push for exclusion, you have arrived, repeated the talking points, and then tried to argue that actually, it’s ok, because your perspective is correct, so long as we ignore some of the details.

Which is exactly what the next transphobe will do too.

Even if you don’t agree with me, and to you, this is all about the purity of ideas, your choice of getting involved in this discussion, in this context, isn’t removed from reality. It’s not detached. It’s actively empowering the exclusionary voices by talking over and fighting with the people pushing back against that exclusion. That’s a choice you made that has nothing to do with the truth of your idea

Changes in legal or morphological sex is not relevant. This is not what we are discussing.

Of course they’re relevant. Sex being immutable, easy to define and binary is at the core of the tactics that transphobes use to exclude and legislate against trans folk.

So the fact that it’s not easy to define, has multiple definitions in different contexts, and has no single definition that works in all instances is very relevant.

You talked about “genetic bio-chemical reproduction” earlier. There are women who have literally given birth, who have XY chromosomes. Similarly, there are XX men with SRY genes. Using your “genetic sex is the truth” approach, they are both folks with a different genetic sex to their physical and legal sex. A transphobe would catch those people and throw them under the bus too whilst they target trans people.

The bio-chemistry of terrestrial life is built upon a binary sex framework

Yep. I’ll agree with that. But the framework it is built on is not the end result. There is no meaning or intent behind the framework. There is nothing about it that is more “real”.

The real part isn’t the genetic plan that was used to create someone. The real part is the body they’re actually walking around in.

To you, this is all an interesting argument. You’re arguing about things in black and white, because none of it actually matters to you. So you can argue for how you think things should work.

The very same arguments you are using are being weaponised and turned against gender diverse folk and intersex folk. Your re-use of them, arguing about some sort of ideal that exists only in your head isn’t harmless. The fact that sex is nuanced, that gender is nuanced, that they both have multiple, contradicting definitions, and neither have a single definition that is more true than the others is incredibly important, because the only reason to ignore that is either to hurt people, or because you’re so far removed from the reality of what’s happening, that you place a higher priority on things being neat and tidy than on the people that false belief hurts.

I admitted there are edge cases.

Then it’s not binary.

When you flip a coin, there is a chance that it will land on the side, yet we still use a coin flip for a 50:50 probability scenario because it is close enough.

Absolutely. For day to day life, “there are two outcomes” is safe way to describe coin flips. But given that a coin landing on its side can happen, it’s not a binary system. It only becomes binary when we ignore the edge cases. Just like sex…

And that’s before we get to the point that there isn’t even a single definition of sex that accounts for all scenarios. People can change their legal sex, people can change their morphological sex, “genetic sex” isn’t foolproof, as it doesn’t always correlate with morphological sexual characteristics, or even gamete production.

Calling sex binary is either a generalisation, or something you want to be true. At no point is it reality of the situation though…

It is a binary with some edge cases

So in other words, not a binary? What you’re describing is more accurately described as a bimodal distribution.

Her comment was meant as black and white. To use your analogy, she would be arguing that 6 wheeled cars don’t exist, and insisting that all vehicles have two or four wheels, and that’s how we distinguish them

I don’t understand how Kaliya’s statements can be controversial or classed as transphobia

That’s because it’s mostly dog whistles and wedge tactics. It’s a rehashing of common transphobic talking points, but with the edges brushed off. It’s the way transphobia is portrayed to appear reasonable at first glance.

The dog whistles are easy to miss if you aren’t familiar with them, but the sheer volume of them from here shows that they were absolutely intended. This isn’t accidentally repeating something, this is an active relisting of transphobic talking points predominantly utilised by transphobic groups.

Sex isn’t a “gender orientation” it is really simple biology.

There are unspoken parts to this. What she really means here, even though she doesn’t explicitly say it, is that sex is real, and thus gender isn’t, and because of that, sex is more important than gender. It’s the way transphobic folk often phrase things so they can have a facade of acceptance, whilst still being transphobic. "I’m not questioning your gender, but you’re still male and should be denied space

Sex and gender might be distinct, but they’re related, often conflated and neither are inherently static, binary or immutable. Any attempt to draw a hard line between them, or to point at a dictionary definition is normally always said with the goal of validating exclusion, and that’s what is happening here.

Gamete size – its really simple.

This is a straight regular talking point used by transphobic groups. It is said precisely for the reasons I mentioned above. It’s an attempt to make a black and white, one sized fits all definition. And the reason that TERFs use it, is because to them, it’s a “gotcha” definition that allows them to exclude trans folk from spaces. And those reasons are there, but unspoken when Kaliya wrote that.

Stop confusing young autistic vulnerable people.

This is also a straight up transphobic talking point. It comes from transphobic literature that paints transgender identity as a form of social contagion, whilst also implying that autistic folk are more vulnerable to this social contagion. The specific context in which it is normally used by these transphobic groups is when talking about young trans men, by portraying them instead as vulnerable young girls.

You think it IS moral to have male-bodied people who identify as trans women playing in elite comparative sport for female-bodied people?

This is more dog whistle transphobia. The big give away here is that she can’t even give trans women the validity of their own identity. She defines trans women first as “male bodied” and secondly as “identitying as trans women”. There is a transphobic term “TIM”, that transphobes use as a slur against trans women. It means “trans identified male”. Transphobes like it, because it is a masculine name, and because it defines their identity as being male, whilst implying that the trans part is less real. The word “identified” here implies it is a phase, or a deceit.

This comment from Kaliya is using that exact concept, but just skipping the acronym.

Gender can be socially-constructed.

Sure. Parts of it can be, and are socially constructed. But what she is really saying here is that gender isn’t as real as sex.

There are only two sexes.

See my earlier comment. When you try and make things black and white, and use strict definitions, generally, the reason for doing so is to validate a push for exclusion, which is exactly what this is.

Telling male children who have feminine tights they must be female is what is happening and it is hurting boys.

Once more, portraying trans identity as social contagion.

culture has gone competely bonkers confusing sex and gender.

Explicitly transphobic. Portrays trans folk as “bonkers”.

Which is a lot of words to say, she’s a transphobe, and she is rehashing transphobic talking points, but framing them in such a way that the transphobia isn’t immediately obvious to folks who aren’t familiar with trans and gender diverse folk.

Are you mounting a FAT32 disk by any chance?

I’d just re-install Windows over the top of the fucked up install normally. It was a bit easier to recover from, and a bit harder to fuck up

It was similar for me, but not quite the same. The thing I hated was starting from scratch. I’m very much not a distro hopper. Back in the day, I enjoyed the challenge of trying to troubleshoot issues and get the system working again, and that kept me interested, but eventually, I’d hit a problem I couldn’t resolve, and I’d have to start again from scratch, and at that point, I’d just go back to Windows.

Now, I still get to do the same thing. If I break it, I get to learn how I broke it and try and fix it, and I find that process compelling. But because I’m using btrfs restore points now, I don’t get to the point where I have to start again from scratch. So I can work at solving it to the limit of my abilities, with confidence that if I can’t work it out, it’s not a huge issue.

That also sounds like a good way to stop learning!

The “starting over” part is what made it take so long for linux to “stick” with me.

Once it became “restore from an earlier image”, it was a game changer!