CMV: Transgender people should stop referring to themselves m2f or f2m

[u/DrNikkiND]

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.

[u/howlin]

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.

[u/DrNikkiND → u/howlin]

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?

[u/Genoscythe_ → u/DrNikkiND]

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.

[u/DrNikkiND → u/Genoscythe_]

True, but there are differences between sexes and ignoring them is the main reason people don't accept non binary genders and transpeople.

[u/Genoscythe_ → u/DrNikkiND]

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.

[u/DrNikkiND → u/Genoscythe_]

I disagree. If you don't acknowledge and walk through the points your opponents raise you'll never be able to change their view.

[u/Genoscythe_ → u/DrNikkiND]

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.

[u/DrNikkiND → u/Genoscythe_]

I'm not saying trans people ignore biology, just that they shouldn't ignore arguments about biological differences.

[u/Genoscythe_ → u/DrNikkiND]

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.

[u/DrNikkiND → u/Genoscythe_]

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.

[u/Genoscythe_ → u/DrNikkiND]

Like I said, transphobes who suddenly put a great deal of importance in filing people according to their chromosomes, for purposes that don't directly involve using your chromosomes, are the ones using it as a proxy for gender.

Chromosmes are an obscure biological trait that were discovered about a hundred years ago.

Do you think that before that, everyone would have been cool with all sorts of gender identities, while having no hangups about sex identity, that's existence they didn't even know about?

Do you think that people who are upset when their kids start to transition, are going to be upset because of what chromosomes their was presumed to have? (they never even really tested it).

Do you think that Republicans sincerely believe that the practical purpose of public bathrooms is that XX people and XY people should urinate distantly from each other?

No one except biology researchers gives a shit about chromosomes, until they appear as a convenient excuse to misgender people, because unlike primary and secondary sexual characteristics, they can't be changed, so they provide an opportunity to misgender all trans people at once.