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Epiphanies 2019: TERFs, gender, sex, etc.

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Comments

  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Our mind is who we are. To change that is to create a different person, at least to some extent. Hello dystopian nightmare.

    I dispute that assertion, because you imply that my body is not who I am. I claim my body is just as much me as my mind is.
    Of course the body and mind are intertwined, but they are not equal. If I lose a leg, am I no longer me? I have lost teeth, am I someone else? Yes, large/important physical changes can have a psychological effect, but the important part here, to me, is the implication that who someone thinks they are is not the important part of the equation. That creating a match in either direction is the same thing.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited January 2020
    It sounds like conversion therapy. Hey, you don't have to be gay/trans, just a few simple instructions and prayers and all those intrusive gay/trans thoughts will simply vanish. Be bright, be modern, be straight/cis!

    No, not conversion therapy - pondering something which actually works. Hence probably unachievable.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    I cannot speak for trans people.

    Then stop.
    Right🙄

    Look, Gee D is simply discussing a rational possibility. The fact is, as things currently stand we solve a mind/body mismatch by addressing the body because we simply don't have the possibility of addressing the mind.

    Your response to an attempt to discuss what would be the approach if we could address the mind is to get all worked up on behalf of people that you then say you can't speak for.

    So don't! None of us who aren't trans know whether some or all trans people would embrace the chance to solve this problem by getting rid of the mental sensations of being in the wrong body, rather than going through all the hormone treatments and surgery and so forth. For one thing, current treatments mean infertility.

    It's not helpful for you to act as if the mere idea of the alternative approach being available is some kind of moral wrong.
  • Exactly. The point seems, if it became possible, to give a person the option to change the one or the other, if they feel there needs to be a change.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    It sounds like conversion therapy. Hey, you don't have to be gay/trans, just a few simple instructions and prayers and all those intrusive gay/trans thoughts will simply vanish. Be bright, be modern, be straight/cis!

    No, not conversion therapy - pondering something which actually works. Hence probably unachievable.

    Though if we are putting medically impossible options on the table, a treatment that perfectly aligned anatomy to gender identity (rather than vice-versa) would likely be much less destructive of identity and sense of self.

  • orfeo wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    I cannot speak for trans people.

    Then stop.
    Right🙄

    Look, Gee D is simply discussing a rational possibility.
    I think that rational is debatable. Or, rather, the rationale used to see them as equivalents is debatable.
    orfeo wrote: »
    The fact is, as things currently stand we solve a mind/body mismatch by addressing the body because we simply don't have the possibility of addressing the mind.
    Mind and body are not not equivalent things.
    orfeo wrote: »
    Your response to an attempt to discuss what would be the approach if we could address the mind is to get all worked up on behalf of people that you then say you can't speak for.
    You have an emotions detector? That is pretty cool, although it needs to be calibrated. I gave my reaction to how I'd feel and to the implications of that sort of technology. It is a not uncommon theme in speculative fiction and the speculations are rarely, if ever, "Hey, that is a good idea!"

    quetzacoatl has it correct, it is akin to conversion therapy.
    orfeo wrote: »
    It's not helpful for you to act as if the mere idea of the alternative approach being available is some kind of moral wrong.
    Altering the essence of who someone is could very quickly become a moral wrong. But it is the implication that changing the mind is equivalent to changing the body that I find problematic.

    As far as "speaking for" trans people, that is kind of a weird accusation. This whole thread, outside of when a trans person is actually interacting, is speaking for trans people.
  • Saying, "If there's a choice, we should let people decide between the options" is not speaking for trans people. Neither is it saying the two options are equivalent.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited January 2020
    mousethief wrote: »
    Saying, "If there's a choice, we should let people decide between the options" is not speaking for trans people. Neither is it saying the two options are equivalent.
    That is not what was said.
    What was said was
    The problem is when the general physical make-up is one but the gender perception is another. I can't really understand how it's wrong for those people to get them matching and given our present abilities it's to get the physical to match the perception. I wonder how it would be if we were able easily to alter the perception.
    Which is speculation about the possibility of altering minds. I gave my reaction to how that looks to me.
    The statement implies that they are equivalent and that is as messed up as conversion therapy.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    Lilbuddha, your whole "our mind is who we are" / "essence" line of thinking is sufficiently axiomatic that it's not worth discussing further.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited January 2020
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The statement implies that they are equivalent

    Ah, we're dealing with IMPLICATIONS.

    And an import-your-own buffet.

  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    The statement implies that they are equivalent

    How?
  • Gee D wrote: »
    It sounds like conversion therapy. Hey, you don't have to be gay/trans, just a few simple instructions and prayers and all those intrusive gay/trans thoughts will simply vanish. Be bright, be modern, be straight/cis!

    No, not conversion therapy - pondering something which actually works. Hence probably unachievable.

    But changing your mind is conversion therapy. How many Christian counsellors have said to me, there are gays who want to be straight, what's wrong with helping them? Well, it tends to screw people up and make them feel suicidal. Why would it be different with trans people?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    That's what is in my last sentence. Present methods of conversion therapy are ineffective (or worse).
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    Gee D wrote: »
    It sounds like conversion therapy. Hey, you don't have to be gay/trans, just a few simple instructions and prayers and all those intrusive gay/trans thoughts will simply vanish. Be bright, be modern, be straight/cis!

    No, not conversion therapy - pondering something which actually works. Hence probably unachievable.

    But changing your mind is conversion therapy. How many Christian counsellors have said to me, there are gays who want to be straight, what's wrong with helping them? Well, it tends to screw people up and make them feel suicidal. Why would it be different with trans people?

    Do you characterise all the work that psychologists and psychiatrists do with people, in a whole variety of situations and for a whole variety of conditions/reasons, as "changing your mind"?
  • orfeo wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    It sounds like conversion therapy. Hey, you don't have to be gay/trans, just a few simple instructions and prayers and all those intrusive gay/trans thoughts will simply vanish. Be bright, be modern, be straight/cis!

    No, not conversion therapy - pondering something which actually works. Hence probably unachievable.

    But changing your mind is conversion therapy. How many Christian counsellors have said to me, there are gays who want to be straight, what's wrong with helping them? Well, it tends to screw people up and make them feel suicidal. Why would it be different with trans people?

    Do you characterise all the work that psychologists and psychiatrists do with people, in a whole variety of situations and for a whole variety of conditions/reasons, as "changing your mind"?

    Can't answer that, as I don't know all the work. I've certainly met a spread of active and passive therapists. You have to be both, but on questions of identity, you have to be super careful as the self is fragile in many people. The thing with the Christian counsellors above, is that they want the gay client to be straight. This is unethical, and dangerous. I tended towards being passive, for these reasons.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    orfeo wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    It sounds like conversion therapy. Hey, you don't have to be gay/trans, just a few simple instructions and prayers and all those intrusive gay/trans thoughts will simply vanish. Be bright, be modern, be straight/cis!

    No, not conversion therapy - pondering something which actually works. Hence probably unachievable.

    But changing your mind is conversion therapy. How many Christian counsellors have said to me, there are gays who want to be straight, what's wrong with helping them? Well, it tends to screw people up and make them feel suicidal. Why would it be different with trans people?

    Do you characterise all the work that psychologists and psychiatrists do with people, in a whole variety of situations and for a whole variety of conditions/reasons, as "changing your mind"?

    Can't answer that, as I don't know all the work. I've certainly met a spread of active and passive therapists. You have to be both, but on questions of identity, you have to be super careful as the self is fragile in many people. The thing with the Christian counsellors above, is that they want the gay client to be straight. This is unethical, and dangerous. I tended towards being passive, for these reasons.

    Fair enough. But I don't think it's fair to lump in Gee D's hypothetical with Christian counsellors who want to remove the gay for moral reasons (and believe me I've encountered one, it was not fun).

    The fact is we are talking about situations where the person themselves reports a problem, and they want that problem fixed, and it's now accepted by a lot of people that this an issue genuinely worth trying to help them with - the exact opposite of what's happening with homosexuality where the increasing view is there is no 'problem', it's a natural variation and to the extent that someone is distressed by it the best solution is to just get rid of the sense of distress.

    So yes there are ethical issues around exactly what kind of help is provided, just as there are with many kinds of help for both physical and mental issues. Nevertheless psychologists and psychiatrists exist, and certainly in the case of psychologists they work with people who are wanting to change something about themselves. I suppose one of them could have turned around and said, say, that my tendencies to depression and anxiety and so forth are just part of who I am (there's certainly evidence of a genetic component), but they didn't.
  • orfeo wrote: »
    Do you characterise all the work that psychologists and psychiatrists do with people, in a whole variety of situations and for a whole variety of conditions/reasons, as "changing your mind"?

    My experience - and that of my friends - is that the troublesome thoughts and emotions don't go away, but we learn to manage them rather than succumb to them. The mind is more than thoughts and emotions and memories; we have internal conversations and the mind-body connection works in both directions. And we have medications. Not so much changing the mind as changing how the mind is used or how it operates.

    Changing beliefs is somewhat different, I think (delusions and psychosis excepted).
  • orfeo wrote: »
    The fact is we are talking about situations where the person themselves reports a problem, and they want that problem fixed, and it's now accepted by a lot of people that this an issue genuinely worth trying to help them with - the exact opposite of what's happening with homosexuality where the increasing view is there is no 'problem', it's a natural variation and to the extent that someone is distressed by it the best solution is to just get rid of the sense of distress.

    From a trans perspective, and a trans-positive clinical perspective, this is just wrong. Gender identity, like sexual orientation, is non-negotiable. The question is what needs to be done to accommodate it. As with homosexuality, the best solution (as you say) is to get "rid of the sense of distress", but unlike with homosexuality, this may involve some complicated medical interventions on the physical side.

    I think you may be overthinking this. We've been talking about some rather improbable hypotheticals, and improbable hypotheticals have limited application to reality.



  • The primary problem with ‘conversion therapies’ is not that they don’t work, it is that they are trying to fix something that is not broken.

    I am pretty sure that aspects of my life as a gay man have been tougher than they would have been if I had been straight - but if you offered me a ‘straight pill’ I would not take it, because being gay is not a misperception, it’s intrinsic to who I really am. The law in my country (the UK) recognizes that too, so I am not espousing anything radical here. Similarly for trans people; the basis of legal protection (i.e. protected characteristic) in the UK is that their sense of self is valid, it is not considered to be a perceptual problem.

    Disrupting and changing a valid sense of self would not be equivalent to helping people align with this valid sense of self. It would instead be changing who someone really is, and I find it a chilling suggestion.

    Despite the difficulties that come with difference, that does not mean that people would opt to be blended and blanded out of existence. I have been involved with the support of some college-age trans people, and the main perceptual problems they do suffer from are the perceptions of others; those who think they are a problem to be fixed, rather than people to be respected for themselves in their diversity.

  • RussRuss Deckhand, Styx
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    That creating a match in either direction is the same thing.

    It's not the same thing, but it is a resolution of the dissonance that seems so problematic.

    There are a number of mental health problems which are resolvable by achieving psychological acceptance of the way things objectively are. It is not immediately obvious that trans is not an issue of this kind.

    Now if it is true that trans has an observable material cause - such as a male/female difference in permanent brain structure - that would tend to argue against the possibility of psychological resolution being successful.

    But it's not clear to me who here is arguing for such a material cause and who is arguing that subjective experience trumps objective reality.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited January 2020
    Just because something is not purely biological, does not mean it is not real. Searching for this or that specific brain difference is a wild goose chase anyway.

    We know for example that whilst taxi drivers in London do “the knowledge” (spending two years learning the city off by heart) bits of their brain physically change shape.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Thank you Cameron for your post. That comment really goes to the heart of the issue - it is the perception which must remain.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    I totally agree with @Cameron , but want to add a further note of caution. While I am now very happily gay, it took me a long time to get to that point. As a young man I would have done almost anything to get rid of my unwanted desires, in order to fit in and be normal. People who are scared of what they might be need treating with extreme care.

    (Tangent. I've often wondered if Origen was a self hating gay.)
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Why Origen?
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    He castrated himself, allegedly because of the verse that talks about some people choosing to be eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom. I wonder if other stuff was going on as well.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Thanks - that's an adoption of literalism that fortunately has died out of mainstream churches.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Even at the time it was unusual. Which is why I wonder if something else was going on.
  • Even at the time it was unusual. Which is why I wonder if something else was going on.
    It was likely made up in order to discredit him.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Even at the time it was unusual. Which is why I wonder if something else was going on.
    It was likely made up in order to discredit him.

    I have read something to that effect. I believe we don't have any contemporary evidence until Eusibius.
  • RussRuss Deckhand, Styx
    Just because something is not purely biological, does not mean it is not real.

    I would have said that in common usage the opposite of "real" is "imaginary". And "imaginary" describes ideas that fail to correspond with what objectively exists. Thinking of imaginary friends, imaginary countries, etc.

    I don't know exactly what you're meaning to say. Are you using "real" in some other sense ?



  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    Unless you're claiming that only what is purely biological objectively exists I don't follow you. But that would be stupid.
    Plenty of things objectively exist that are not purely biological. Your consciousness, your sense of empathy, for example. Unless you want to claim that those are imaginary?
  • RussRuss Deckhand, Styx
    @Dafyd,

    Glad to hear that you agree that "imaginary" is a valid category. I'm not sure Doublethink agrees.

    I agree with you that objective reality goes wider than biology.


  • It sounds like conversion therapy. Hey, you don't have to be gay/trans, just a few simple instructions and prayers and all those intrusive gay/trans thoughts will simply vanish. Be bright, be modern, be straight/cis!

    "Conversion therapy" is one of those things labelled by the press and public that no-one outside of some fringe lunatics can even consider. It's professional regulator discipline for licenced psychologists and psychiatrists, probably also social worker counsellors where I live. The ethics codes for these professions contain principles which stress respect for the autonomy and dignity of others, which "conversion therapy" violates. The request to convert comes from someone other than the person who has the issue in most cases.

    This does raise the issue of parents arranging care for their minor children, about whom things are different: children require guidance from care providing adults. This includes providing some boundaries. It is also normal for children to question basic identity aspects of their forming selves, with the parents needing to provide decision-making for their kids. Do most children question at some point their sexual orientation? I think so The 1950s Kinsey studies for example suggested that 37% of males had some homosexual experiences to orgasm, but only 10% of those had adjusted to an adult identity of gay, and we're talking 1950s data. Despite Kinsey's careful approach, I'd suspect from the historical times that a goodly group denied. The numbers and proportions vary greatly in subsequent studies. Which tells us that homosexual contact is normative and part of life, I suspect for most human males. I should think the consideration of being trans might be similar: many consider and experiment and fewer find a firm adult identity as trans.
  • It sounds like conversion therapy. Hey, you don't have to be gay/trans, just a few simple instructions and prayers and all those intrusive gay/trans thoughts will simply vanish. Be bright, be modern, be straight/cis!

    "Conversion therapy" is one of those things labelled by the press and public that no-one outside of some fringe lunatics can even consider. It's professional regulator discipline for licenced psychologists and psychiatrists, probably also social worker counsellors where I live. The ethics codes for these professions contain principles which stress respect for the autonomy and dignity of others, which "conversion therapy" violates. The request to convert comes from someone other than the person who has the issue in most cases.

    This does raise the issue of parents arranging care for their minor children, about whom things are different: children require guidance from care providing adults. This includes providing some boundaries. It is also normal for children to question basic identity aspects of their forming selves, with the parents needing to provide decision-making for their kids. Do most children question at some point their sexual orientation? I think so The 1950s Kinsey studies for example suggested that 37% of males had some homosexual experiences to orgasm, but only 10% of those had adjusted to an adult identity of gay, and we're talking 1950s data. Despite Kinsey's careful approach, I'd suspect from the historical times that a goodly group denied. The numbers and proportions vary greatly in subsequent studies. Which tells us that homosexual contact is normative and part of life, I suspect for most human males. I should think the consideration of being trans might be similar: many consider and experiment and fewer find a firm adult identity as trans.
    As much as I am against book burning and erasing history, Kinsey tempts me. The positive of Kinsey is bringing the variability of sexuality to light. The negative is his methodology which was anything but careful.
    And people "experimenting" with homosexuality but then identifying as straight is at least as much indicative of the constraints of societal expectations as it is of anything else.
    In other words, society has very narrow and very few definitions. It doesn't like fluidity.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    Russ wrote: »
    Glad to hear that you agree that "imaginary" is a valid category.
    Did I say 'imaginary' is a valid category? A valid category of what? It's not as if you can divide things into two categories: real things and imaginary things.

    But anyway, you're "Glad" to hear it? Really? It made your day brighter to think that some random person on the internet agreed with your proposition, whatever you mean by it? You've been walking with a spring in your step and a smile on your face since?
    There is a technical term for this, and the technical term is bullshit. That is, it is a proposition uttered insincerely without caring whether it is true or false.
    It seems to me that the whole of your sentence is bullshit.
    That is, you do not sincerely mean that you are glad, you do not sincerely communicating your opinion on whether or not I agree with you, and you have not sincerely given any thought to whether or in what respects, '"imaginary" is a valid category' is or is not a sensible or meaningful thing to say.
    I'm not sure Doublethink agrees.

    I agree with you that objective reality goes wider than biology.
    As 'objective reality goes wider than biology' is logically equivalent to Doublethink's proposition that 'just because something is not purely biological does not mean it is not real', and you say you agree with one but you're not sure that Doublethink does, and yet you do not give any other reason for not being sure - I conclude that this is more bullshit.
  • LouiseLouise Epiphanies Host
    hosting
    Please stop this tangent about defining 'real' or 'imaginary' right now. Take it to another board please or stop.

    Thanks,
    Louise
    Epiphanies host
    hosting off
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    It sounds like conversion therapy. Hey, you don't have to be gay/trans, just a few simple instructions and prayers and all those intrusive gay/trans thoughts will simply vanish. Be bright, be modern, be straight/cis!

    "Conversion therapy" is one of those things labelled by the press and public that no-one outside of some fringe lunatics can even consider. It's professional regulator discipline for licenced psychologists and psychiatrists, probably also social worker counsellors where I live. The ethics codes for these professions contain principles which stress respect for the autonomy and dignity of others, which "conversion therapy" violates. The request to convert comes from someone other than the person who has the issue in most cases.

    This does raise the issue of parents arranging care for their minor children, about whom things are different: children require guidance from care providing adults. This includes providing some boundaries. It is also normal for children to question basic identity aspects of their forming selves, with the parents needing to provide decision-making for their kids. Do most children question at some point their sexual orientation? I think so The 1950s Kinsey studies for example suggested that 37% of males had some homosexual experiences to orgasm, but only 10% of those had adjusted to an adult identity of gay, and we're talking 1950s data. Despite Kinsey's careful approach, I'd suspect from the historical times that a goodly group denied. The numbers and proportions vary greatly in subsequent studies. Which tells us that homosexual contact is normative and part of life, I suspect for most human males. I should think the consideration of being trans might be similar: many consider and experiment and fewer find a firm adult identity as trans.
    As much as I am against book burning and erasing history, Kinsey tempts me. The positive of Kinsey is bringing the variability of sexuality to light. The negative is his methodology which was anything but careful.
    And people "experimenting" with homosexuality but then identifying as straight is at least as much indicative of the constraints of societal expectations as it is of anything else.
    In other words, society has very narrow and very few definitions. It doesn't like fluidity.

    Fluidity is a metaphor. It is interesting from an epistemological perspective that it's back to hydraulics á la Freud, and neither the phone switches of behaviourists nor the current popular data programming and AI.

    We must be cautious about using current standards and knowledge to judge the past. Kinsey was a bug man. Studied wasps if memory serves before surveying sexuality.
  • Kinsey wasn't exactly in prehistory, but that is irrelevant. His methodology was rubbish, therefore one needs to be very careful pulling numbers out of that mess.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    @Russ, you've been warned several times about bogging discussion with constant questions about minor details or quibbling definitions (for example here and here), and you're at it again with trying to define 'real' and 'imaginary'.

    We don't take such blatant disregard of our hosts, and as such we're suspending you from posting for a couple of weeks. Feel free to use this time to reflect on your style of posting.

    Alan
    Ship of Fools Admin
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    It sounds like conversion therapy. Hey, you don't have to be gay/trans, just a few simple instructions and prayers and all those intrusive gay/trans thoughts will simply vanish. Be bright, be modern, be straight/cis!

    "Conversion therapy" is one of those things labelled by the press and public that no-one outside of some fringe lunatics can even consider. It's professional regulator discipline for licenced psychologists and psychiatrists, probably also social worker counsellors where I live. The ethics codes for these professions contain principles which stress respect for the autonomy and dignity of others, which "conversion therapy" violates. The request to convert comes from someone other than the person who has the issue in most cases.

    This does raise the issue of parents arranging care for their minor children, about whom things are different: children require guidance from care providing adults. This includes providing some boundaries. It is also normal for children to question basic identity aspects of their forming selves, with the parents needing to provide decision-making for their kids. Do most children question at some point their sexual orientation? I think so The 1950s Kinsey studies for example suggested that 37% of males had some homosexual experiences to orgasm, but only 10% of those had adjusted to an adult identity of gay, and we're talking 1950s data. Despite Kinsey's careful approach, I'd suspect from the historical times that a goodly group denied. The numbers and proportions vary greatly in subsequent studies. Which tells us that homosexual contact is normative and part of life, I suspect for most human males. I should think the consideration of being trans might be similar: many consider and experiment and fewer find a firm adult identity as trans.
    As much as I am against book burning and erasing history, Kinsey tempts me. The positive of Kinsey is bringing the variability of sexuality to light. The negative is his methodology which was anything but careful.
    And people "experimenting" with homosexuality but then identifying as straight is at least as much indicative of the constraints of societal expectations as it is of anything else.
    In other words, society has very narrow and very few definitions. It doesn't like fluidity.

    Fluidity is a metaphor. It is interesting from an epistemological perspective that it's back to hydraulics á la Freud, and neither the phone switches of behaviourists nor the current popular data programming and AI.
    Fluid is not a metaphor. It is an adjective which is very apt to some people's gender and sexual orientation.
    Again, whilst Kinsey's numbers are suspect, there are undoubtedly people who've experimented in homosexuality, but then defaulted to heterosexuality.* The common narrative has put that down to "experimentation", but that seems to miss a lot of other possibilities. Sexuality is a spectrum, which means there will be people in every position between the extremes.

    *And of course, the reverse
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    It sounds like conversion therapy. Hey, you don't have to be gay/trans, just a few simple instructions and prayers and all those intrusive gay/trans thoughts will simply vanish. Be bright, be modern, be straight/cis!

    "Conversion therapy" is one of those things labelled by the press and public that no-one outside of some fringe lunatics can even consider. It's professional regulator discipline for licenced psychologists and psychiatrists, probably also social worker counsellors where I live. The ethics codes for these professions contain principles which stress respect for the autonomy and dignity of others, which "conversion therapy" violates. The request to convert comes from someone other than the person who has the issue in most cases.

    This does raise the issue of parents arranging care for their minor children, about whom things are different: children require guidance from care providing adults. This includes providing some boundaries. It is also normal for children to question basic identity aspects of their forming selves, with the parents needing to provide decision-making for their kids. Do most children question at some point their sexual orientation? I think so The 1950s Kinsey studies for example suggested that 37% of males had some homosexual experiences to orgasm, but only 10% of those had adjusted to an adult identity of gay, and we're talking 1950s data. Despite Kinsey's careful approach, I'd suspect from the historical times that a goodly group denied. The numbers and proportions vary greatly in subsequent studies. Which tells us that homosexual contact is normative and part of life, I suspect for most human males. I should think the consideration of being trans might be similar: many consider and experiment and fewer find a firm adult identity as trans.
    As much as I am against book burning and erasing history, Kinsey tempts me. The positive of Kinsey is bringing the variability of sexuality to light. The negative is his methodology which was anything but careful.
    And people "experimenting" with homosexuality but then identifying as straight is at least as much indicative of the constraints of societal expectations as it is of anything else.
    In other words, society has very narrow and very few definitions. It doesn't like fluidity.

    Fluidity is a metaphor. It is interesting from an epistemological perspective that it's back to hydraulics á la Freud, and neither the phone switches of behaviourists nor the current popular data programming and AI.
    Fluid is not a metaphor. It is an adjective which is very apt to some people's gender and sexual orientation.
    Again, whilst Kinsey's numbers are suspect, there are undoubtedly people who've experimented in homosexuality, but then defaulted to heterosexuality.* The common narrative has put that down to "experimentation", but that seems to miss a lot of other possibilities. Sexuality is a spectrum, which means there will be people in every position between the extremes.

    *And of course, the reverse
    Metaphor means something symbolizing something. Unless you can tell me the name if the actual fluid and where it's flowing from and to with human bodies and brains. It isn't actually factual as a concrete thing. It's an explanatory tool. Not real as an actual physical entity

    Much like the use of spectrum or continuum, this is a representation of what someone uses to describe things. There are better and worse metaphors. I discussed previously that I didn't think spectrum was a good description, and nor do I think continuum is, as they may mislead to think that gender-sex correspondence is evenly distributed when the statistical distribution is bimodal.
  • Using fluid to describe something that is changeable is part of the dictionary definition of the word, therefore literally applicable and not a metaphor.
    The possibility that people might misunderstand is a red herring as the people who care to understand can quickly learn. It isn't as if using a search engine is truly arcane.
    Speaking of misleading words, the use of bimodal can have the same effect. People can use bimodal to infer binary with a few outliers. This is what a typical bimodal graph looks like. There is a lot of variation in elevation between the peaks and the valleys and those points are all filled.
  • LB, the dictionary accepts metaphors into its hallowed pages, and they do not cease to be metaphors therefore. If you look up "lightbulb" and find an entry linking this word to "idea, sudden appearance of", that does not mean that the word ceases to be used metaphorically from then forward, and actual physical lightbulbs suddenly start appearing over various heads. All the dictionary entry proves is that someone thought the usage was prevalent enough and important enough to be included.
  • LB, the dictionary accepts metaphors into its hallowed pages, and they do not cease to be metaphors therefore. If you look up "lightbulb" and find an entry linking this word to "idea, sudden appearance of", that does not mean that the word ceases to be used metaphorically from then forward, and actual physical lightbulbs suddenly start appearing over various heads. All the dictionary entry proves is that someone thought the usage was prevalent enough and important enough to be included.

    This. Calling something that is not an actual liquid "fluid" is metaphorical. The metaphor has become so common it's in the dictionary. But it's still a metaphor.
  • Not how language works, but whatever. Literal or metaphor, fluid still describes how gender and sexuality work for some people. Call it changeable if that works better for you, doesn’t matter. The point of language is communication and fluid communicates the message just fine.
    It doesn’t fit the old models, but it fits the way some people experience sexuality and gender.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    I discussed previously that I didn't think spectrum was a good description, and nor do I think continuum is, as they may mislead to think that gender-sex correspondence is evenly distributed

    You appear to be the only person suffering from this misapprehension in this discussion. Neither spectrum nor continuum mean or imply "even" distribution.

  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Not how language works, but whatever. Literal or metaphor, fluid still describes how gender and sexuality work for some people. Call it changeable if that works better for you, doesn’t matter. The point of language is communication and fluid communicates the message just fine.

    Nobody is saying "fluid" doesn't work to describe the phenomenon. Only that it's a metaphor. Reading for comprehension.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Not how language works, but whatever. Literal or metaphor, fluid still describes how gender and sexuality work for some people. Call it changeable if that works better for you, doesn’t matter. The point of language is communication and fluid communicates the message just fine.
    It doesn’t fit the old models, but it fits the way some people experience sexuality and gender.

    Gawd!
  • Leaf wrote: »
    I discussed previously that I didn't think spectrum was a good description, and nor do I think continuum is, as they may mislead to think that gender-sex correspondence is evenly distributed

    You appear to be the only person suffering from this misapprehension in this discussion. Neither spectrum nor continuum mean or imply "even" distribution.
    The discussion of in wikipedia implies it to my reading, as did 45 years ago statistics classes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum
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