For rock music to survive it will have to cut back on testosterone

[andreasmaaan]

What if a girl in your charge says "I want to be a boy because I want to be a rock star. I am desperately unhappy with the thought I may not be able to be a rock star. I thought I could become a rock star as a girl but the statistics given by Mr. Harris show that it is dominated by boys. I stand a far better chance as a boy".

I don't think the discussion benefits from such unrealistic examples (I don't know of any reported case where perceived disadvantage has been the sole reason cited for a child wanting to change gender), and as I don't have or work with children I'm far from an expert.

But since you've asked the question, I would:

• encourage the child to discuss the topic with other close adults and peers whom she trusts
• ask questions to help her explore the various very significant ramifications of gender transition other than (purportedly) impacting on her ability to become a rock star
• explain the limitations of statistics, and the possible factors that give rise to the statistical realities, including making sure that she understands that being a girl doesn't make it impossible to be a rock star and that the statistics given may reflect a deficit of opportunity for girls in rock music, but also may not
• encourage her to find out more about - and possibly even try to talk to - female rock stars (I'm sure many would actually be quite interested in discussing these issues with a young female fan)
• ask questions to try to explore whether there may be other underlying reasons for her perspective (people often phrase difficult issues in terms that they believe will be more socially acceptable)

And no doubt numerous other matters. A lot of course depends on the child's age and maturity level too: is her language and level of insight sufficiently well-developed to think through these issues?

What would you do?

 

[Cosmik]

That's not a person who is uncomfortable with her gender. She just envies men for their real or imagined advantage. Many women are annoyed by "it's a man's world".

How do you know whether you are uncomfortable with your gender?

 

[Cosmik]

What would you do?

Tell her not to be so daft. Pick up her guitar and play.

In all honesty, I think the 'progressive' wing is hoist by its own petard. It tells us that we should not acknowledge any difference between men and women and in the next breath it says that gender is the most important part of someone's identity and that a five year old child just 'knows' what gender they should be and should be allowed to change it if they feel ready.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Tell her not to be so daft. Pick up her guitar and play.

Why not, at the very least, turn it into an opportunity for her to further explore her thoughts and feelings? Why not take some time to try to help her find out whether there are more serious feelings or issues underlying her words?

In all honesty, I think the 'progressive' wing is hoist by its own petard. It tells us that we should not acknowledge any difference between men and women and in the next breath it says that gender is the most important part of someone's identity and that a five year old child just 'knows' what gender they should be.

Surely it's clear that the the idea "that a five year old child just 'knows' what gender they should be" is almost the exact opposite of what I (a progressive) just said?

 

[maverickronin]

In all honesty, I think the 'progressive' wing is hoist by its own petard. It tells us that we should not acknowledge any difference between men and women and in the next breath it says that gender is the most important part of someone's identity and that a five year old child just 'knows' what gender they should be.

Definitely this. No one would want to go through the trouble and prejudice of being transgender if there wasn't actually a difference.

Surely it's clear that the the idea "that a five year old child just 'knows' what gender they should be" is almost the exact opposite of what I (a progressive) just said?

You're one of sane ones.

 

[svart-hvitt]

What would you do?

What about telling her about realities of life:

*Some are born blind
*Some are born deaf
*Some are born mentally handicapped
*Some lost their legs

The list goes on.

When and where should one draw a line between privileged ones and the unlucky ones?

When should one tell somebody to accept the way things are and when should we change things?

Could it be that society risks building new tiers, levels, beyond which one needs to pass in order to become happy? Do we risk building expectations into people of what life has to offer that will be impossible to realize? Does the wish to alter oneself come from within only, or are new pressures building to make alterations? What and when is enough in terms of altering oneself in order to be happy?

 

[Thomas savage]

Oh yesterday was immigration, today it’s gender identity politics.

Anybody thought about discussing audio , ya know just for a change.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Definitely this. No one would want to go through the trouble and prejudice of being transgender if there wasn't actually a difference.

I'm about to generalise a lot here, but what I think is the most widely-accepted position on gender among progressives who care about such things (and it's impossible to pin it down to a single position) is this:

• Sex (i.e. male, female, intersex) and gender (e.g. man, woman) are distinct categories that describe different things.
• Sex is a biological category. It can be ascertained by physical means (albeit sometimes very complex means if there are superficially contradictory indicators).
• Gender is a social identity. It usually follows apparent sex, but it needn't necessarily.
• As a social identity, gender is both imposed from without and "performed" from within. For most people, there is no dissonance between these two aspects, and their experience of gender appears to them to be absolutely natural. For some, however, dissonance is experienced.

The "social identity" aspect of this view follows from the observation that, while there are no relevant biological differences between populations of humans with respect to sex across time and place, there are and have been huge differences with respect to gender.

In other words, what it means to "be a man" or to "be a woman" is not fixed over all populations of humans and throughout all history. (At least some) differences in definitions of "man" and "woman" are cultural differences. Gender is in this sense at least significantly a cultural (or "social") construct.

Where it gets a lot less clear is with respect to the following:

• Are there some aspects of gender that are common to all human cultures in all times and places?
• If so, do these result from biological differences between sexes?
• Or, on the other hand, could these common aspects result merely from social conditions arising from the until-recently ubiquitous reality that biological differences between sexes necessitated differing social roles?

There are no easy answers here, and we actually just don't know enough to really know. But IMO there are strong grounds to believe that a huge number of aspects of gender are socially constructed, while some may not be.

As we move forward into a society in which - at least in the more affluent parts of the world - there is no need for differing social roles between the sexes (because people will be able to have and raise children regardless of sex and because biological differences between the sexes will not pose obstacles to survival), there must follow significant shifts in our understandings of gender.

I realise this is a long ramble now...

To get back to your original statement @maverickronin, my point is that one can say yes, on one hand there are significant (socially constructed) differences between the genders, while on the other hand, these differences are not fixed, at least insofar as "gender" changes over time in light of cultural/social changes.

Where it goes wrong is when people assert that there are no differences between the sexes. There are of course obvious biological differences.

What is unclear is whether, and if so the extent to which, these are relevant to questions of gender.

EDIT: sorry @Thomas savage!

 

[Cosmik]

Oh yesterday was immigration, today it’s gender identity politics.

Anybody thought about discussing audio , ya know just for a change.

OK. I'll start:

Digital is a lot better than vinyl.

 

[Ron Texas]

How do you know whether you are uncomfortable with your gender?

When someone knows, they really know. They want to be of a different gender and they want it every minute of their life. Just how much accommodation society should give them is another matter, especially transgender females without reassignment surgery.

 

[Thomas savage]

OK. I'll start:

Digital is a lot better than vinyl.

Of course, without digital we would not have the elegance and wonder of MQA..

 

[svart-hvitt]

When someone knows, they really know. They want to be of a different gender and they want it every minute of their life. Just how much accommodation society should give them is another matter, especially transgender females without reassignment surgery.

This musician really knew that he (she) wanted to be different from his (her) born self:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_and_appearance_of_Michael_Jackson

 

[Cosmik]

When someone knows, they really know.

But as has been described, they might be being raised in a society where most people are trans or in some other way atypical of their sex. How then would they 'know'?

That's what gets me about this: it's the lack of a fixed reference point. Being interested in guns or dolls, cars or flowers, etc. might at one time have been indicators, but with toys now being gender neutral, advertisements reversing the old gender (or are they sex-) stereotypes etc., how is the five year old supposed to 'know'?

 

[maverickronin]

Oh yesterday was immigration, today it’s gender identity politics.

Anybody thought about discussing audio , ya know just for a change.

Some asshole form the Guardian had to bring music into it!

• Sex (i.e. male, female, intersex) and gender (e.g. man, woman) are distinct categories that describe different things.
• Sex is a biological category. It can be ascertained by physical means (albeit sometimes very complex means if there are superficially contradictory indicators).
• Gender is a social identity. It usually follows apparent sex, but it needn't necessarily.
• As a social identity, gender is both imposed from without and "performed" from within. For most people, there is no dissonance between these two aspects, and their experience of gender appears to them to be absolutely natural. For some, however, dissonance is experienced.

Yep. That's pretty much the standard position. As I occupy a political no-man's-land I have another weird idea though

I do believe that people who feel such dissonance should be allowed to choose the identity they want and not be discriminated against as any other "protected" class.

What I disagree about (which will at first seem opposite to the above...) is separating sex and gender. I think that all sexual characteristics - primary, secondary, tertiary, physical, genetic, psychological, etc, etc - should be weighed on the same scale. Sex is developmental just as much as it is genetic and I don't see much reason why so much precedence should be given to chromosomes or gonads when there are other contradicting phenotypic traits even if those are psychological.

I see sex/gender as a developmental spectrum with a bimodal distribution and don't see any reason why someone in the middle shouldn't be free to choose their own identity. It's none of the government's business anyway...

 

[andreasmaaan]

But as has been described, they might be being raised in a society where most people are trans or in some other way atypical of their sex. How then would they 'know'?

That's what gets me about this: it's the lack of a fixed reference point. Being interested in guns or dolls, cars or flowers, etc. might at one time have been indicators, but with toys now being gender neutral, advertisements reversing the old gender (or are they sex-) stereotypes etc., how is the five year old supposed to 'know'?

Are you saying there should be a fixed reference point? Any such fixed point would be somewhat artificial IMHO.

I "know" what my gender is (and it corresponds to my sex btw). To the extent that I can know mine, then someone else must be able to know theirs, I would have thought?

 

[andreasmaaan]

Some asshole form the Guardian had to bring music into it!

Yep. That's pretty much the standard position. As I occupy a political no-man's-land I have another weird idea though

I do believe that people who feel such dissonance should be allowed to choose the identity they want and not be discriminated against as any other "protected" class.

What I disagree about (which will at first seem opposite to the above...) is separating sex and gender. I think that all sexual characteristics - primary, secondary, tertiary, physical, genetic, psychological, etc, etc - should be weighed on the same scale. Sex is developmental just as much as it is genetic and I don't see much reason why so much precedence should be given to chromosomes or gonads when there are other contradicting phenotypic traits even if those are psychological.

I see sex/gender as a developmental spectrum with a bimodal distribution and don't see any reason why someone in the middle shouldn't be free to choose their own identity. It's none of the government's business anyway...

Yeh, that's a reasonable position too IMO.

It strikes me as more "extreme" in some ways actually, as it implies that not only gender, but sex itself is fluid / subject to culture.

Do you think it leads to any different conclusions or outcomes from the "standard" position?

 

[Thomas savage]

 

[maverickronin]

It strikes me as more "extreme" in some ways actually, as it implies that not only gender, but sex itself is fluid / subject to culture.

Do you think it leads to any different conclusions or outcomes from the "standard" position?

I'd say that evolutionary and biologically, sex is a fluid construct. Some vertebrate species essentially have reversed sex/gender roles and the farther back you go into older phyla the weirder things can get. I see culture as influencing the conscious expression of one's phenotype, not causing the phenotype itself.

Regarding individual rights or liberties, I don't think it really implies any different outcomes.

It might be a better argument for convincing some people though. Whenever I hear something like "socially constructed" I think of post modernism and then "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" and then I laugh and and have a hard time taking it seriously any longer.

 

[JJB70]

Whatever happened to just enjoying the music you love without it being micro-analysed and deconstructed to see whether it fits the in-vogue political ideas of the moment? To be quite honest I really don't give a toss about the sex, gender, ethnicity, religion or much of anything else of an artist if there art moves me and give me pleasure.

 

[maverickronin]

Whatever happened to just enjoying the music you love without it being micro-analysed and deconstructed to see whether it fits the in-vogue political ideas of the moment? To be quite honest I really don't give a toss about the sex, gender, ethnicity, religion or much of anything else of an artist if there art moves me and give me pleasure.

I actively avoid looking into a band's politics and whatnot because just knowing it can sometimes distract me from the music.