Elon Musk is a nice chap

[james_s]

“Gender” is unambiguous but sometimes irrational in grammar, more important in non-English European languages.

I've mostly used "gender" when referring to connectors, it sounds silly to me to refer to the sex of a plug or socket.

If someone's gender identity is different than their sex that is not a factor in how I treat them and I'll try to use the pronouns that match their identity, but in my head I still know that they're not literally the gender they identify as. I'm not interested in dating a biological male even if they identify as female, they are not truly female. Outside of romance and medicine sex and gender are virtually irrelevant, I don't care in the slightest whether my friends, colleagues and other people I encounter in life are male or female and I've never understood why group identity is so important to some people. I am first and foremost and individual, and a member of various groups or categories very very distant second. For reasons that are a total mystery to me many people seem to be absolutely obsessed with categorizing people into buckets rather than seeing them as individuals.

[vad]

I'm not interested in dating a biological male even if they identify as female, they are not truly female.

The question is more about someone’s insistence on dating another person who cannot be identified morphologically and/or genetically and/or psychologically as a male or a female. According to some research, about 5% of adult population fall under that category.

[james_s]

The question is more about someone’s insistence on dating another person who cannot be identified morphologically and/or genetically and/or psychologically as a male or a female. According to some research, about 5% of adult population fall under that category.

It's way less than 5% that cannot be identified genetically. Intersex people do exist but they are very rare.

Others are free to date whoever they are attracted to as long as it involves consenting adults it's none of my business.

[SiliconWizard]

What if I want to identify as a cactus? Is this legit or not?

Now you are just trying to be prickly.

Now I'm offended. This is just specism. Cactus having pricks? It's just a social construct. Get your facts straight.
If we weren't constantly oppressing them, cactuses would be as smooth as silk.

[tom66]

No long term studies have been done. The problem with affirmation is it invariably leads people down the path of irreversible medical treatments. It was reading the studies and applying critical thinking which made me change my mind. We don't affirm someone who wants a limb amputated or blinded, because they have transablism and sex shouldn't be any different.

Actually, there are long term studies, showing 40% attempted suicide rate by transgender people.
The same rate is 31% for people with gender dysphoria. Both is staggeringly high, and these people are not getting the help that they would actually need.

I don't know what study you're referring to.  In the US, this study was performed which indicated a reduction in feeling suicidal (or having taken steps toward suicide) by 60%:
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/930195

Researchers found a 60% decrease in moderate and severe depression and 73% decrease in suicidality among transgender and non-binary youth who received puberty blockers or gender-affirming hormones over a 12-month period, according to a study abstract presented during the virtual American Academy of Pediatrics 2021 National Conference & Exhibition.

Here's a brief synopsis of another study:
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fort0000200

Here's a study from the UK:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/MHRJ-05-2014-0015/full/html

[..] A supportive environment for social transition and timely access to gender reassignment, for those who required it, emerged as key protective factors. Subsequently, gender dysphoria, confusion/denial about gender, fears around transitioning, gender reassignment treatment delays and refusals, and social stigma increased suicide risk within this sample.

...Transitioning does not change that?  Are you kidding?

There's no doubt that GD is a serious mental illness and no one (sensible) is claiming otherwise; and it definitely carries a higher rate of suicide and self-harm.  But we don't ignore serious mental illnesses for a good reason, we try to treat them.  If you actually cared about trans youth suicide rates, you would take into account the current evidence, not just your feelings about man = male and so on.  These studies are not made by the woke "academiati" who want to make everyone a peace-loving vegan who hates right-wingers; they're made by the top academics studying in their field, who have looked at the evidence, met the patients, and seen how effective the right treatment can be.  Maybe in 20 years we'll have a wonder one-shot drug or therapy that cures GD and reassigns everyone back to their bio sex, but we certainly don't have that now.

And as for the comparison made by another poster, of treating anorexia by telling people they're fat (?), I'm really not sure why anyone would think that would work, but the good news is there is a body of research on that which points towards body positivity being a good thing.  That doesn't mean you just accept anyone and everyone but generally lean towards trying to help before criticism.

[coppice]

I don't know what study you're referring to.  In the US, this study was performed which indicated a reduction in feeling suicidal (or having taken steps toward suicide) by 60%:
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/930195

Researchers found a 60% decrease in moderate and severe depression and 73% decrease in suicidality among transgender and non-binary youth who received puberty blockers or gender-affirming hormones over a 12-month period, according to a study abstract presented during the virtual American Academy of Pediatrics 2021 National Conference & Exhibition.

What sex were the subjects in the study? Take any woman, pump her full of testosterone, and in the short to medium term her confidence rises substantially, and she feels much better about her life. That isn't sustainable, though.

[james_s]

There's no doubt that GD is a serious mental illness and no one (sensible) is claiming otherwise

It seems like that should be the case, but your own NHS officially states "Gender dysphoria is not a mental illness" and they are not the only ones.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/

The APA has also taken this stance: https://nicic.gov/being-transgender-no-longer-mental-disorder-apa-2012

I've encountered quite a few people who insist that it is a physical defect with the body not matching the mind rather than a mental disorder that the mind doesn't match the body.

And my comment regarding anorexia, that is a disorder where a person sees themselves as overweight just as a trans person sees themselves as a gender other than what they were born, they both are body dysphoric disorders. "Affirmative care" for an anorexic would be acknowledging that they are in fact overweight and taking steps to help them lose weight. That isn't the same thing as calling them fat which implies an insult.

[RJSV]

Coppice, just a side note about Synesthesia.
   I believe I have a mild, inconsequential form of synesthesia, I think called:
   'Visual phantom Limb'.

   The limbs are there, but when hidden, behind a blanket or table top,  I can 'see' a shadowy form of 'hand', waving there unseen physically.
I've surmised that's just the brain synthesizing a crude likeness, in absence of actual light perception.  Often, the movements are conveyed, but not coinciding with actual real hand waving there, in my informal 'tests'.
   Just the brain supplying the missing info, which is perception of a Limb'.  Those hand motions get seen by the eyes, what?, Some billions of times over a lifetime.  So that makes sense.
Never diagnosed tho.

[AndyBeez]

No missing limbs, arms, flippers or even hydraulic tenticles in Elon's world after he upgrades his motor skills with an embedded 'super cognitive' Neuralink chip.

Elon Musk shows off updates to his brain chips and says he’s going to install one in himself when they are ready.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/01/elon-musks-neuralink-makes-big-claims-but-experts-are-skeptical-.html

[tszaboo]

The question is more about someone’s insistence on dating another person who cannot be identified morphologically and/or genetically and/or psychologically as a male or a female. According to some research, about 5% of adult population fall under that category.

It's way less than 5% that cannot be identified genetically. Intersex people do exist but they are very rare.

Others are free to date whoever they are attracted to as long as it involves consenting adults it's none of my business.

It's well documented to be somewhere around 0.02 to 0.05%, or one person in 5000 people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex
Should we care about it, and let these people have surgeries and let them identify how they want to? Sure. Is this like the most important social issue, that have to be put into every single hollywood movie, shoved down our eyes constantly? Please, look at the unemployment rate, the number of homeless people, or how people are living in other countries. The issue is simple. "Hey I have a medical condition and I am identifying as this and this.", "Sure, whatever". This is how an adult conversation looks like. But no, now we have to endure compelled speech, constant propaganda and forced medication of adolescents, or "ladies playing the piano with their junk on national television prime time, uncensored" (I didn't make that up). Why? Because the medical procedures are profitable.

Researchers found a 60% decrease in moderate and severe depression and 73% decrease in suicidality among transgender and non-binary youth who received puberty blockers or gender-affirming hormones over a 12-month period, according to a study abstract presented during the virtual American Academy of Pediatrics 2021 National Conference & Exhibition.

12 months is way too short to reach conclusions for this. I also have a problem with gender studies publications, just because they fail to represent very basic principles of the scientific method. And when scientists are trying to do their studies with the scientific method, the people doing this are cancelled because they don't reach the desired results.

[MT]

Elon, elon, dear Elon, you little fraudster boy!

[vad]

LGBT self-identification rate is 7.1% in the US, according to recent Gallup poll. Obviously psychological factors prevail over pure genetic and morphological factors.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-ticks-up.aspx

[mikerj]

For most of history gender was literally equivalent to sex, it is only very recent and arguably radical academic theory that gender is a social construct that is separate, 10 years ago I had never even heard of such nonsense and frankly for the vast majority of scenarios it is only sex, as in biological sex, not the act is all that is relevant. If a person needs medical treatment for example sex matters, not what they identify as.

You may not have heard about it, but it’s actually something documented since antiquity. It’s absolutely, probably, not just something concocted in recent years. In many cultures it’s actually been integrated into core belief systems. (Like the “third sex” people in India, or Native American peoples.)

The word "gender" has literally been a synonym for sex since the middle ages when it was first used.  The pressure to change this is relatively recent and lead by some absolutely abhorrent deviants such as John Money.

[mikerj]

Elon, elon, dear Elon, you little fraudster boy!

In what way is he a fraudster?

[mikerj]

LGBT self-identification rate is 7.1% in the US, according to recent Gallup poll. Obviously psychological factors prevail over pure genetic and morphological factors.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-ticks-up.aspx

A lot of these are so-called "transtrenders", done for attention and perceived status.

[TimFox]

For most of history gender was literally equivalent to sex, it is only very recent and arguably radical academic theory that gender is a social construct that is separate, 10 years ago I had never even heard of such nonsense and frankly for the vast majority of scenarios it is only sex, as in biological sex, not the act is all that is relevant. If a person needs medical treatment for example sex matters, not what they identify as.

You may not have heard about it, but it’s actually something documented since antiquity. It’s absolutely, probably, not just something concocted in recent years. In many cultures it’s actually been integrated into core belief systems. (Like the “third sex” people in India, or Native American peoples.)

The word "gender" has literally been a synonym for sex since the middle ages when it was first used.  The pressure to change this is relatively recent and lead by some absolutely abhorrent deviants such as John Money.

"Gender" is a cognate of "genre" and "generic", developing from the Latin "genus";  the original meaning was "type" or "sort". 
From a standard etymological reference:
"The unetymological  -d- is a phonetic accretion in Old French. Also used in Latin to translate Aristotle's Greek grammatical term genos.
The grammatical sense is attested in English from late 14c.
Jespersen ('Philosophy of Grammar,' 1924) defines grammatical gender by reference to the Indo-European distinction of masculine, feminine, neuter, "whether the division be based on the natural division into two sexes, or on that between animate and inanimate, or on something else...
The "male-or-female sex" sense of the word is attested in English from early 15c."

The grammatical sense of gender continues in modern French and German, and is not necessarily biological or even logical.
With all the agitation in the English-speaking world about gender, language, etc., I think that there seems to be less fuss in those languages that emphasize grammatical gender.

[james_s]

In my mind, "gender" is either a synonym for biological sex, or it is an irrelevant label that one can arbitrarily apply to themselves.

[TimFox]

But, to the medieval mind invoked above, and to modern languages with grammatical use, the meaning can be different.

[AndyBeez]

Here in the UK you might encounter a web form that asks for your "identified gender?". Answers include: male, female, transitioning, non-bipolar and other. This replaces the arcane web form "sex" question where responses would be: male, female and yes please! In our post woke nation, asking for a person's gender is considered to be more 'gender neutral'. Except when it comes to female gender politics.

[james_s]

Here in the UK you might encounter a web form that asks for your "identified gender?". Answers include: male, female, transitioning, non-bipolar and other. This replaces the arcane web form "sex" question where responses would be: male, female and yes please! In our post woke nation, asking for a person's gender is considered to be more 'gender neutral'.

Frankly I find it mildly offensive when a person implies they can't tell my gender by looking at me and has to ask, but I guess nobody cares if I get offended. Really it's more tiresome than offensive, like just take your best guess, if you get it wrong maybe I'll bother to correct you. In most cases it doesn't strike me as relevant anyway, outside of a few specific cases like dating why is a person's gender even relevant?

[RJSV]

   'SEX CHANGE BUTTON', on the doctor's office check-in screen.  Just a dermatology visit, to get my 'demographics' they had said, at the check-in desk.
New Patient, so the office wanted all my pronouns, given or made up I guess.  They had three pronouns on the menu, I think, but also had a (touch screen) button;
   <<<< Change Sex >>>>. that I was REEAALLLY careful, to not touch.  In case they had me anethesitized, I wouldn't expect to wake up to, surprised.

   I think, we get to make up a pronoun...mine might be:
   Born in Oakland.

[RJSV]

...oh yeah, and that office check-in screen would not accept lower case letters, in my email contact. Lol

[Buriedcode]

Surprised just how off the rails this thread has got.

Anyways, back on topic, good to see Musk is sticking to his "freedom of speech" shtick and not banning anyone based on hate speech. oh.. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63826675  If he really has lifted a lot of resctrictions, it'll only get worse.  I wonder if he'll ever admit he was wrong?

(edit: I'm aware that there isn't really a win for anyone here, you can't just let everything pass, but he desperately wants to be seen as someone who doesn't censor, its pretty hypocritical, and entertaining).

[james_s]

To be fair, he never said hate speech would be allowed. He specifically said it would no be a free for all, his promise was not to ban anyone for saying something counter to a certain political ideology, threats of violence, antisemitism and such are still not allowed. His claim was they were going to assemble a diverse team to handle content moderation.

[tom66]

Kanye is committing the social equivalent of self-harm.  Who publicly hangs out with white supremacist's and claims Hitler was an alright guy?  I think he is bored and wants attention.