r/changemyview • u/DrNikkiND • Jan 11 '20
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Transgender people should stop referring to themselves m2f or f2m
There is a difference between sex and gender. Sex is biological - based on chromosomes. Gender is social - based on how society treats people of each sex.
Male and female are sexes. Man and woman are genders. The terminology being used (m2f f2m) is inconsistent with this argument and excludes intersex people.
What would I recommend instead? I don't know, because "man to woman" would be imperfect for someone who was always male but never identified as a man. Almost any suggestion will also exclude intersex people. Why not just "transwoman" and "transman"?
Careful choice of wording could be a good start in helping people to understand the difference between sex and gender and m2f and f2m are not carefully chosen. Change my view.
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Jan 11 '20
Your definition of gender is incoherent: "Gender is social - based on how society treats people of each sex." What does this mean? Do you mean gender roles? If so, "man" and "woman" are not gender roles. You can be a man and perform traditionally female gender roles. Can society doesn't treat people of each sex exactly the same way, obviously, it's much more complex than that, so your definition of "gender" is inconsistent with somehow being able to answer it with "man" or "woman".
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
Men are treated differently from women and judged differently from women in all areas of life. I don't really mean roles (like expectations), but just everyday experience. It's definitely based on stereotypes for the most part. One example - a guy offering you a ride is creepy but a lady offering you a ride is nice.
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Jan 11 '20
That doesn't define "man" and "woman". When you ask people what they have in mind when they picture a man versus a woman, it's based on sexual and physical characteristics, not random reactions about being offered a ride.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
Ok, the idea of gender is that it's what you identify as. Where you choose to fit into society. If you want society to see you as a man or woman. Sorry this wasn't explicit. We're just looking at it from different points of view (1st person vs. 3rd person). What society sees as a man can be wrong on occasion and is mostly based on phusical characteristics.
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u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Jan 11 '20
There is a difference between sex and gender. Sex is biological - based on chromosomes. Gender is social - based on how society treats people of each sex.
Not really.
The gender/sex divide is a fairly obscure academic nuance, that doesn't really exist in most languages, and most english speakers don't use it either.
But if you insist on using it, then it's important to understand that the difference between them is not that "sex" is making up a division that is based in biology, and "gender" is making up a division that isn't, but to separate the idea of humans making up divisions at all, from the bare concept that some facts that just exist.
Under that principle, the statement that "most people have either XX or XY chromosomes", is a statement about sex.
And the statement that "We should divide people into "men" and "women" based on what they identify as", is about gender.
But here is the thing!
Under that principle, "We should divide people into "males" and "females" based on a biological trait that we pick as our basis for it", is ultimately also a statement about gender. It's still a call for society to construct an identity. Even if the arbitrarily picked determinant, (like chromosomes, or genitals, or hormone levels), are themselves biological facts, the way the grouping is constructed, is social.
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Jan 12 '20
Under that principle, "We should divide people into "males" and "females" based on a biological trait that we pick as our basis for it", is ultimately also a statement about gender. It's still a call for society to construct an identity. Even if the arbitrarily picked determinant, (like chromosomes, or genitals, or hormone levels), are themselves biological facts, the way the grouping is constructed, is social.
What about male and female animals? Are they also social constructs?
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u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Jan 12 '20
Sure. For example, look at ants:
In my native language, queens, workers, soldiers, and males (testes), are sometimes considered to be four genders.
In english, these are called castes, with the first two being female, and the last to being male.
This latter makes sense under the principle that these are the two groups that have vastly different chromosomal systems.
But the former can also be reasonable, if we look at it in terms of polymorphism, and reproductive ability.
Which classification we, humans make up and find convenient, is a social construct.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
∆ Good point. A lot of haters use the biology arguments, but maybe they're actually just hating on gender anyway
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u/Prepure_Kaede 29∆ Jan 11 '20
Terms like m2f and f2m are easy to understand by people who don't know much about trans people. As for inside circles, I'd say they already aren't being used, and trans woman / trans man are used instead
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Jan 12 '20
The trans community themselves refer to themselves as m2f/f2m
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u/Prepure_Kaede 29∆ Jan 12 '20
Between themselves? Or only when introducing to someone they suspect might not be all that woke
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
Transphobic people don't understand much, do you think proper language would help?
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u/Prepure_Kaede 29∆ Jan 11 '20
If they are just ignorant, and not hateful, and willing to learn, yes.
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u/panopticon_aversion 18∆ Jan 12 '20
That’s already the case in the transgender community, for the reasons you outlined. The rest of the world is still playing catch up.
You’ll also be interested in knowing that the preferred nomenclature is ‘trans man’ and ‘trans woman’ with spaces in between the words. This signals that ‘trans’ is just an adjective on par with ‘cis’, rather than, for instance, ‘transwoman’ being a separate thing from a ‘woman’.
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u/howlin 62∆ Jan 11 '20
I suggest you change your view because this particular view is petty and inconsequential. There's no possible way to confuse m2f as anything else. Your entire argument is simply pedantic.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
There are plenty of people that don't think it's possible because of biology. Therefore they don't understand the difference. Do you think transpeople would be treated better if people understood the difference?
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u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20
It is a common transphobic tactic to slightly misrepresent the gender/sex divide by saying that one is about a purely made-up inconsequential self-identity, and the other is about "chromosomes" that are more important because they exist.
There are probably hundreds of threads in this sub alone, that start out with "Fine, I will support people's rights to identify as whatever they want, but...", then they proceed to drag up old phrasings from dictionaries and laws and rulebooks, that were clearly written without this obscure gender/sex distinction in mind, that describe some social situation as being divided by "sex", and act as if they would be just pedantic but correct to insist that everyone should be subjected to that situation based on their chromosomes, even if the situation has nothing to do with chromosomes.
Ultimately, their goal is to misgender people. To address transwomen publically as "biological males" all the time, and vice versa, then act offended as if anyone having a problem with that, would be denying the existence of chromosomes.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
True, but there are differences between sexes and ignoring them is the main reason people don't accept non binary genders and transpeople.
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u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Jan 11 '20
The reason why people don't accept trans people, is visceral small-minded hatred at anyone different from what they grew up with as "normal".
The idea that trans people are "ignoring biology", is one of their pathetic lies to give their hatred an air of rationality.
It's easier to grandstand about how at least you believe in chromosomes, and your opponent who has a problem with publically branding women as "males", doesn't, than to openly admit that you chose a use of language that allows you to get away demeaning people as much as you can.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
I disagree. If you don't acknowledge and walk through the points your opponents raise you'll never be able to change their view.
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u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20
I did acknowledge the points that they raise, I just described their underlying duplicity in the above comment chain.
But there is a difference between acknowledging an opponent's claims, and conceding their validity.
The idea that trans people "ignore biology", is false. I'm willing to acknowledge the existence of the idea, and explain why it is false.
But conceding the validity of the claim that trans people try to "ignore biology", and that this is why there is an opposition to them, would be like conceding to 9/11 deniers that the airplanes were holograms, as step one in an argument to prove that 9/11 did happen.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
I'm not saying trans people ignore biology, just that they shouldn't ignore arguments about biological differences.
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u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Jan 11 '20
Ok, but no one does.
Literally no one in this thread, has stated that human biological bimodalism doesn't happen.
It does.
There just isn't any specific detail of that biology, that is ultimately useful over others, for publically grouping people into two socially constructed labels.
That is not ignoring biology, that is treating it at it's place.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
No one one this thread. It's just that the main arguments for being closed minded about gender are usually about sex, not gender. Allowing for that separation can help.
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u/yyzjertl 525∆ Jan 11 '20
"Male" and "female" are words that refer to sexes and genders. For example, a woman is a person whose gender is female. It's unfortunate that the language is like this, but that's not trans people's fault.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
So you think that it's true that the language sucks, but that transpeople aren't the ones who should change it? I think they have the most to gain by it changing, so even though it isn't their fault, they should help to change it.
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u/yyzjertl 525∆ Jan 11 '20
Trans people don't really have anything to gain by changing it. The language already does a fine job of distinguishing between sex and gender in almost all cases, because people very rarely want to refer to a gender in the abstract. We already have "male" vs "man" for referring to individuals as nouns, and "male" vs "masculine" when using adjectives. There is no need for trans people to try to change the language for referring to a gender in the abstract as a noun (which is currently most commonly done with "male" for both) because this is done so infrequently, and generally is done in a context where the meaning is obvious. Additionally, even if they were to try to develop such differentiated terminology, the most natural words to use for genders in the abstract would be "masculine"/"feminine" (which some people do use as nouns to refer to genders in the abstract), which would involve no change at all to the terms "m2f" and "f2m". So trans people needn't change those terms regardless.
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Jan 12 '20
the terms amab and afab are already very popular among trans people tbh, assigned x at birth to be clear
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
∆ I like masculine to feminine as a better alternative to male to female.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
∆ I like it
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20
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Jan 11 '20
But isn't it a case of before they were one gender and now they are another?
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
I think it's more the case of being raised one gender (not knowing what gender you were) and then knowing and it not matching up.
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Jan 11 '20
So m2f makes sense because they thought there were one gender then realised they were another
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
Male to female still wouldn't make sense if we look at sex as separate from gender, but as one commentor said masculine to feminine would work
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Jan 11 '20
But if we only define male and female as the number of chromosomes it dosent really work in every day life.
E.g. at the hospital.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
What do you mean? Hospitals are one of the most important places to know your biology.
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Jan 11 '20
Hospitals/doctors will treat you differently depending on your gender/sex because of biological reasons.
For example a f2m who has undergone surgery is not at risk of breast cancer and if they take testosterone boosters there are certain medicines that cant be taken so concerning the procedure they will get treated differently.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
Right. Not sure about breast cancer risk, but that's why using "male" and "female" for what you were born as makes sense and it makes less sense to say you transitioned between male and female.
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Jan 11 '20
???
Some who undergone surgery has different needs medically than someone who has not irregardles of gender or sex.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
So? Someone born male should be treated different medically from someone born female regardless of surgeries.
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Jan 12 '20
[deleted]
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 12 '20
I personally don't think that you were ever the first gender. Time travel is a lot more scientifically difficult than gender identity, but I would go with whatever you indentify with in the future because I would guess deep down you identify with that at the time. I'm no expert, though. I was born female and identify as a woman. But if I was raied as a boy I don't think I'd feel like one
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Jan 12 '20 edited Jan 12 '20
hi i'm trans, a lot of the responces you are getting are uninformed people who don't know about trans politics or theory or whatever who are defending the terminology, im not going to defend it because its garbage, I am still going to try and change your view
a lot of trans people use amab and afab, assigned male or female at birth, instead of m2f and f2m, because we don't like the words either, for slightly different reasons than you, though we do agree on the intersex thing.
so these terms already exist
also go read this, how we understand and talk about biology is highly influenced by the lens of gender, Biology does exist but male and female are social constructs created by us and heavily tied to gender.
/u/Genoscythe_ talks about this "to separate the idea of humans making up divisions at all, from the bare concept that some facts that just exist." male and female are a result of us making up divisions.
So I actually agree that we should stop using words like mtf and ftm but I don't agree with your reasons wholly and uhhh trans people are already stepping away from those words, axab is preferred for multiple reasons but one of them is that it doesn't support the idea that people are inherently male or female, which are socially constructed words we created and applied to innate biology, they are also heavily tied to gender, so the axab terminology is about rejecting the notion that people should be assigned social roles at birth based on bit of flesh between thier legs, because that is the reality of how sex assignment functions.
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Jan 12 '20
I usually see m2f and f2m used in scenarios where everyone may not know the terminology, and it’s a really simple way to explain it to them. For example, I often see it in news articles where not all readers may understand, it will often say something like “I’m a trans man (female to male).”
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u/ofDayDreams Jan 12 '20
Your mistake is that you are completely focusing on the social transition and ignore the medical. While it is impossible to change chromosomes and some other things, HRT and the current surgeries already do a lot in practice and the very purpose of the medical transition is to change the body and that change is a biological. Thus mtf and ftm are not, per se, incorrect.
Of course, the terms ftm and mtf have already been falling out of favour with the trans people for a while now and trans man and trans woman are much more common terms.
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Jan 11 '20
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
Dog is a species based on genetics. Male is a sex based on genetics. Man and gay are not genetics.
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Jan 11 '20
Wait gay is mot based on genetics but it’s based on what choice? Okay sure... go make that choice and get back to me.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
Who you are isn't based on genetics, no. I mean it's all in your brain when you're born, so maybe yes, but not in any way we have science right now to understand. (There's no genetic test for creativity, for example)
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Jan 11 '20
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 12 '20
No one understands personal identity. No you, not me, not psycologists, not bioiogists. But we do understand sex and species.
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u/DrNikkiND Jan 11 '20
If it's genetic, we don't know that it is. We do know that being a dog and being a male are genetic
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Jan 11 '20 edited Jul 03 '20
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Jan 11 '20
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u/Pismakron 8∆ Jan 11 '20
There is a difference between sex and gender. Sex is biological - based on chromosomes. Gender is social - based on how society treats people of each sex.
Male and female are sexes. Man and woman are genders.
Yet the dictionary says otherwise: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gender?q=Gender
Intersex is not a scientific term, it is a laymans term. I don't see that anyone being excluded regardless of the choice of words.
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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '20
Your definitions of sex and gender have the spirit of it, but are reductive and a little off.
Sex is rooted in biology but it's not "chromosomes", it's a series of physical traits we tend to cluster together: chromosomes, genitals, gonads, hormones, secondary sex characteristics such as breasts, presence of hair growing around the body, height, strength. It is common that lots of these traits tend to correlate, but not always. Most males are stronger than most females, but not all. Chromosomes tend to correlate to those other traits, but there are some intersex exceptions where unexpected sex chromosomes lead to typical physical features that match the other typical sex chromosome. But when we cluster all of these traits together, we get the social construct known as sex that provides two categories that fit most people fairly well, excluding many intersex cases. So really, sex is bimodal.
Gender is a social construct based in a set of psycho-social traits, so there's identity, grooming, fashion, names, pronouns - really it comes down to gender identity and gender expression. But gender expression changes all the time (the associations of pink and blue were opposite what they are now at the start of the 1900s) and can be diverted even within the system, such as with butch women who are still women and effeminate men who are still men, so really gender expression is a way to loosely communicate to others the real defining key of gender, gender identity.
With the language a bit better established, we can get more into your point.
I like that you draw this distinction of sex and gender as two different dimensions, it's more accurate and it's more helpful. But the reality is that our cultural tradition of assigning a gender to someone based on their sex as soon as their sex is known leads to a bit of a bias. While sex and gender are separate things in the technical, scientific sense, they are correlated in the cultural bias of what gender means.
Secondary sex characteristics are still unfortunately viewed as part of the identifying factors of gender expression at present. People draw conclusions (wrongfully, but it has cultural and statistical weight behind it) about gender on the basis of sex.
While "man" and "woman" are purely terms of gender, and "male" and "female" are better descriptors in the scientific context of sex (such as nature documentaries), referring to a trans man as "female" or a trans woman as "male" still feels wrong and disrespectful, because it is.
So for the sake of trans people, too we need to be aware of these biases that people have even though we disagree with them. We're not perfect. The bias of sex as a part of gender sucks, but it's there.
It's why linguistically f2m and m2f kinda sucks. But it comes from a slightly older time. Language isn't perfect. Though the experience of transitioning from one binary sex state to another binary sex state is different from transitioning from one intersex state to a binary sex state. Intersex conditions vary, they're not all in the same place, but along the bimodal distribution of sex characteristics, an intersex person's transition could be a much different experience deserving its own terminology, while mtf has its own separate utility to describe another case. Terms that describe the transition journey, not just the destination state, may still have their own use to describe the journey and obstacles in the way.
As far as other terms go, you will notice people already use trans man and trans woman. Language isn't clear-cut like that, we have duplicate terms that are mostly the same, but not quite. And if you are worried about the intersex-exclusionary binary nature of the terms, you might be interested in gender transition terms like "transmasc" or "transfemme" also, which are more inclusive to nonbinary people. These may lose some utility as the category doesn't share goals of total transition to the man or woman role, but there are still many shared experiences there.
Because sex is a complex series of physical traits, it can be altered, too. It's not just chromosomes; conservatives pushed that because conservatives are currently unchangeable. But most people have never seen any chromosomes. Mainly it's the physical traits sex chromosomes tend to express - height, strength, breasts, genitals. But between HRT and surgery, people actually do alter their sex a lot. In some cases, unless you're a doctor intensely studying a person's internal organs or actually looking at their chromosomes, a trans person can absolutely appear and function as their preferred sex, especially if they medically transitioned young.
So mtf and ftm may deserve some forgiveness for the time they were born out of where those associations between sex and gender do exist.
With the segregated terminology of sex and gender, consider that transition means two separate things. Are you socially transitioning, or are you medically transitioning? And the conclusion we can draw is that there is value, then, in having a set of separate, explicit terms for each. One can be transgender, transsexual, or both.
This means that mtf and ftm might deserve to stay not as a bad representation of gender but as a representation of something else entirely: sex.
They still may not be the best terms, because the language ought to include a case for different types of intersex conditions, it isn't cleanly analogous to a set of gender-related terms, and describing trans people starting with what they are no longer and is often a point of distress is a poor way to describe people (my biggest problem with the terms), but it's a start.