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Define your way out of reality
Doublethink reminds us that the transfiguration of words in public life is a bad thing. This week, a few judges in California made up a new definition for the word marriage. And all over America, people are redefining the words man and woman.
I feel an intense amount of pity for folks who consider themselves transgender, but wanting to be a member of the opposite sex doesn’t make you one, and no amount of cosmetic mutilation to your genitals will cause you to become one. Remember when there was all that hubbub a few weeks back about the “man” who was pregnant? Yeah, that wasn’t a man. She was a woman-one who has taken hormone therapy and had radical surgery to look more like a man, but a woman nonetheless. I’m something of a pedant when it comes to words-they have definitions for a reason.
Definition is a powerful rhetorical concept, and it was one of Adam’s first jobs, to name the animals, which is to say, to define them. Definition is everybody’s job, and getting the definition as close as possible to reality.
back to top131 Comments to “Define your way out of reality”
Marriage was and almost always has been–across time and geography–a covenant between a man and a woman.
Weak arguments:
Arranged marriages: Show me a culture where parents arranged for their son to marry a man or their daughter to marry a woman, and I’ll listen.
Polygamy: Show me a culture where one man married mutliple men or one woman married mutliple women and I’ll marry. Even in polygamy the man is seen as having a separate marriage with each woman; in fact, he usually marries them at different times.
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But as we all know, according to the postmodernists, there is no transcendent reality. There’s only “my reality” and “your reality.” In this construct definitions are about power, not reality.
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Men and women are inherently different. Therefore multi-sex couples are inherently different from single-sex couples.
The woman who thinks she is a man is akin to the man who thinks he is a chicken. Gay men only pretend to be feminine. They are just not cut out for it in real life.
Another weak argument -
hermaphroditism: this is a birth defect, a tragic disability. It is not justification for another’s delusion.
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Correction:
“. . .one woman married multiple women and I’ll listen.”
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It’s interesting to read historical writings and come across “gay” meaning happy and “faggots” as twigs to be bundled and burned.
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I was just reading about some doctor’s research on pain in (it’s my wife’s mag OK?!!) Oprah’s magazine. Seems that women’s neural pathways are different than mens. And it makes women more sensitive to pain.
Interesting…..
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Waht an interesitng set of comments.
I do believe that the topic focuses on grounding in reality.
We can do the long discussion, but the short one is that if by relaity we mean objectvie reality, then the scientific process is the best known tecnique to date to aguge objectvie reality.
So please show me the scientific data that demonstrates:
1) that this is a single construct of male or female
- that is to say that there is not a coninuum of some form: this is necessary to posit this strict demarcation
2) that in the natural course of events we do not find a number of organism which dmeonstrate what we would call homcentric sexual tendencies
If we do not have scientific data to support this strict demarcation, then it is puzzling to me how we can insist that this strict demarcation is “real”.
And if it is not “real”, then it would seem these views fail the test suggested in the lead in to this topic.
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Currently we find ourselves defining truth as that which is defined by reality. Even Christians tend to abide by this definition of truth.
Fortunately the Truth is Jesus Christ, and it is he who defines reality, since he is the Creator of it.
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Obviously the implications are clear. As God has defined “man” and “woman” so it is.
In abandoning God, we abandon definition.
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Musing, you’re kidding, right?
Have you ever heard of X and Y chromosomes?
Have you heard of sperm and ova and of the male and female genitalia?
Do you know how babies are made?
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Musing -
1) There is no continuum in human biology, there is only male and female. Show me a continuum that is not based upon a birth defect or deliberate disfigurement.
2) Homcentric sexual tendencies do not make a male into a female because there is a lot more than sexual tendency that differentiates male and female.
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Musing -
Please consult any work on human anatomy and you will discover the most obvious scientific observations that support a strict demarcation. Please show me an anatomical reference that does not split humanity into ONLY male and female.
A person with an androgynous birth defect would not be fully functional, that is, able to reproduce. Such a person’s body is incomplete or malformed. The fact that some men are born without two arms would not explain why a man with two arms says he has only one. The only reasonable explanation would be that what such a man claims is incorrect.
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Make it Man post 8,
the simplest response would seem ot be, please prove this objectively.
and in the silence which would follow it should become clear that what you are proposing is a non-objectvie view of the world.
The consequences of this view can make for some very interesting discussions.
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amphipolis post 12,
but then if you are correct, since it is the endocrin system, and not the sex organs, which undergird our sexual activity, I should find a rigid demarcation in the sex harmones between men and women:
1) all women should have only female harmones AND they should presuambly if all women are female the same, have the same amount
2) similarly for males
Unfortunately, the physiology does not seem to support this, and it would seem your argument is flawed.
It is an amusing side note that all humans will be female UNLESS they are acted on during gestation by testosterone. The chromosomal makeup is just the beginning of a very complex story.
But we do so like simple stories which fit our preconceptions.
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Women can bear children. Men can not. Please show me the continuum.
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Does it bother anyone else that our country is “defining its way out of reality”? Can we no longer put a stop to such nonsense? If the homos want civil unions for tax or legal benefits, fine. But marriage? That’s just silly.
Maybe I can define my way out of income tax. We spend billions on lawyers to define our way out of having to obey laws.
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amphilopolis post 15,
and you are arguing that all women have the same levle of feminity?
And ofr that matter all men have the same level of masculinity?
I suggest that in ignoring the harmonal impact here you have lost the horse.
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I should find a rigid demarcation in the sex harmones between men and women
Why? The endocrin system is once again only one part of the picture, as you know. You create another false demarcation to obscure the obvious demarcation.
It is an amusing side note that all humans will be female…
It is amusing to note how you acknowledge the differentiation of the female in order to argue against such differentiation.
You are in denial.
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amphipolis post 12,
so lets look at legs.
NOw most humans have two legs, although some are born with none.
And yet if we look at legs, some have legs which can perform as high speed runners, some have legs which can carry heavy loads, and some have legs which can barely function.
so when it comes to legs, a simple and non-harmonally drivent aspect of humans in the main, we see a continuum.
So why for something as complex as gender which is heavily harmonally driven would you also not expect a continuum.
In short, your physiological understanding would seem limited.
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amphipolis post 18,
ah so you do agree that there is a continuum!!!
Excellent, I thought you might come around!
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musing 17 – you have not answered my question in post 15. Where is your continuum?
It depends how you define masculinity and femininity. If femininity has to do with the ability to bear children, then there are no degrees of femininity. If it has to do with the length of one’s hair, then there are.
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Men and women both have red blood cells. They both have lungs. They both have testosterone. I never said they are different species.
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“all women should have only female harmones AND they should presuambly if all women are female the same, have the same amount”
False premise, and physiologically uninformed, to boot.
Feel free to continue though, as if you can’t determine a practical demarcation between the two. Report back on how that goes for you, along with attempts to develop humanly normative values from the sex lives of snails.
Until then,
SG
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The left learned long ago that they could define down the meaning of words to mean anything they wanted once they had the courts stacked with secularists to uphold these new meanings. They know full well that they could never win a straight up vote for any of their unnatural lifestyles – any more than a polygamist could.
Gays having the courts override the will and vote of the people in CA will be the best thing that could have ever happened for straights – no question about it.
Now there will an amendment to the CA constitution passed outlawing gay marriage once and for all. There will also likely be one to the US constitution passed as well and there will be an amendment to the constitution in CA that will allow voters to recall judges that make rulings against the will of the people like these.
There are these harsh backlashes planned against gays for their actions to get the get the courts to go along with this defining down of marriage.
Illegal immigration amnesty and federally elected officials found out the same thing when they went against the will of the people.
They have no self control, no shame and can never be satisfied. Since no compromise is possible with these political terrorists their wishes will just have to be made forever illegal instead.
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amphipolis post 21,
but amusingly I have and you actually accepted it.
Humans have sex organs.
It is easily demonstrated, however, that human sexuality is mediated by the endocrin system.
And since the level of sex harmone varies significantly among people and since both men and women have both male and female sex harmones, we have developed a first order argument to support a continuum.
Now if you are to insist that there is no continuum, then it would seem you must refute the above example.
I do sense that you are confusing human sexuality with sex organs. Stories regarding slatpeter suggests that this is probably not a valid argument.
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serious george post 23,
absolutely which provides first order evidence for human sexuality being on a continuum,
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Whatever the meaning of ‘is’ is.
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RRBAR: “Maybe I can define my way out of income tax.”
That made me laugh. Not as long as the IRS exists my friend!
If you’re not a boy who likes girls, or a girl who likes boys, you are definitely on the “continuum” somewhere but you are deviating from the norm. You have genetic and/or psychological problems. This is not as hard as Musing wants us all to believe. It’s really very simple, and as KyleA points out, throughout history, marriage has always meant between male and female. Some things do not change no matter how hard people want to redefine words, no matter how debased and debauched they want society to become. The problem is sin, and our society in all respects can’t come to terms with it.
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Humans have sex organs – but males and females have different ones.
Humans have sex hormones – but males and females have them at different levels.
All you have proven is that both men and women are human. You have not demonstrated a continuum. I have demonstrated that there is no continuum in post 15, which you have not answered.
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“human sexuality is mediated by the endocrine system.”
Yes.
“since the level of sex harmone [sic] varies significantly among people and since both men and women have both male and female sex harmones [sic], we have developed a first order argument to support a continuum.”
No. With the exception of pathologic outliers, the demarcation remains clear.
I suspect a flawed understanding of the physiology here is your problem, regardless of how you spell hormone. So your premise isn’t true. It’s not even very practically interesting, as I’ve pointed out. If there’s such a demonstrable fluidity that underlies gender defintions, there needn’t be any ruckus about same-sex marriage. A man should be easily able to argue that he isn’t marrying another man, but rather a woman of a different degree. Good luck with that.
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“…and in the silence which would follow it should become clear that what you are proposing is a non-objectvie view of the world.”
Musing,
in an effort to prove you wrong, I’ll make some noise…
I never said that I had an “non-objectvie [sic] view of the world.”
What led you to suppose that I did?
And further, what leads you to suppose that only world views that can be “objectively proven” are valid ones?
Historically you have had a lot of confusion over the definition of what it means to be “human”, and now you seem to be quite confused as to the definition of “male” or “female”.
This confusion can be alleviated if you accept my world view. If not… well, continue on in your confusion, but don’t expect me to follow you…
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amphipolis post 29,
so all humans have both male and femal sex harmones. I believe we have agreement here.
I believe your argument is that men and women have different levle of each.
But what happens when a mans harmonal level swings into the range which is usually present in women or vice versa?
We can easily do the following test: eliminate testosterone from men and what happens?
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“Truth is so obscured nowadays and lies so well established that unless we love the truth we shall never recognize it.” Blaise Pascal (1623–62), French scientist, philosopher. Pensées, (1670).
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eliminate testosterone from men and what happens?
Eliminate it from what? Why eliminate it from men only, what in the world made you think maleness would be relevant to your experiment?
Because men usually have higher levels, and you would have to artificially tamper with them to change them perhaps? Like genital mutilation surgery?
Musing, we can drug and cut a man to make him like a woman. The fact that you would have to do this proves my point.
My post 15 still awaits your answer.
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From “The Emperor’s New Clothes” (Fairy Tale illustrating social pretense), by Hans Christian Anderson (1805-1875):
“‘But he has nothing at all on!’ at last cried out all the people. The Emperor was vexed, for he knew that the people were right; but he thought the procession must go on now! And the lords of the bed chamber took greater pains than ever to appear holding up a train, although, in reality, there was no train to hold.”
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Minor technical point, having nothing to do with gender:
…it was one of Adam’s first jobs, to name the animals, which is to say, to define them
No, no, NO!!!
Naming is NOT defining!!!
This is from the text “Teaching Introductory Physics”:
9. Idea First, Name Afterward. For examples of pedagogy emphasizing this issue see the 15 pages
indicated in the index of Arons (1997a) or the 9 pages indicated in Arons (1990) for “idea first, name
afterward.” To give one example, on page 82 of Arons (1997a) [pages 69-70 of Arons (1990)]
Arons writes:
. . .students must be made aware that the name does nothing more than conceal ignorance – that to
this day, despite the power of the Newtonian synthesis and the beauty of the general theory of
relativity, we have no mechanism for the interaction and no idea of how it “works.”
It is
interesting to note what Galileo had to say about this matter. In the Dialogue Concerning the Two
Chief World Systems one finds the following exchange:
SIMPLICO: The cause of this effect [what it is that moves things downward] is well known;
everybody is aware that it is gravity.
SALVIATI: You are wrong, Simplico; what you ought to say is that everyone knows that it is
called “gravity.” What I am asking you for is not the name of the thing, but its essence, of
which essence you know not a bit more than know about the essence of whatever moves the
stars about. I accept the name which has been attached to it and which has been made a familiar
household word by the continual experience we have of it daily. But we do not really
understand what principle or what force it is that moves stones downward. . . .
________________________________________________
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More on defining reality:
“It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes. It may even lie on the surface; but we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions— especially selfish ones.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918), Russian novelist. “Peace and Violence,” sct. 2, in Index, no. 4 (London, 1973).
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Get real:
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Philip K. Dick, US science fiction author (1928 – 1982), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
“Reality is a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs.” Lily Tomlin, US actress & comedienne (1939 – P).
“Ask anyone who is suffering the agonies of some terrible disease whether he believes that there is such a thing as reality, or whether he thinks it is all just a matter of “perceptions.” The pompous but silly notion that it is all a matter of how you choose to look at things is an indulgence for those who are insulated from suffering, from accountability, and from reality.” Thomas Sowell, Author.
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The title should be Defining Your Own Reality, which is what these people do. Equivocation is the art of using a word and subtly change its meaning later in the discourse.
The discovery of the X and Y chromosomes affirmed the tradition of only two sexes, man having XY and woman having XX pairs. It wasn’t until the discovery that some people have chromosomes that depart from the ‘norm’ that the opportunity to blur the sexes became available. It didn’t matter that those departures resulted in undesirable traits. Words like ‘disease’, ‘error’, ‘defect’ and ‘mistake’ are downplayed, since there is no ‘curse’ and nature makes no mistakes.
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Make it Man post 31,
I never said it was wrong to have non-objective world views. I think they are just fine SO LONG AS THOSE WHO PROPOSE THESE WORLD VIEWS ADMIT THAT THEIR VIEW IS A NON-OBJECTIVE ONE.
There is an interesting second order conversation regarding how to reconcile objective and non-objective world views. In fact there is an even more interesting discussion regarding how to reconcile differing non-objective world views.
But I have never suggested that one can not hold non-objective world views, and when people are honest with this position, I am happy to honor it, SO LONG AS THEY ARE WILLING TO ACCEPT THE CONSEQUNCES INHERENT IN A NON -OBJECTIVE WORLD VIEW.
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Musing – my post 12 still beckons also.
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amphipolis post 34,
oh dear, it does seme that you are uncomfortable with existence proofs.
So here is the argument:
you appear to believe that maleness is purely in the sex organs
I suggest that maleness is mediated by the endocrin system, predominantly testosterone in males.
So lets try the following expeirment (it has already been done so we know the answer): remove testosterone from a male. Now we will see a significant if not total suppression of male sexual behavior.
This would suggest that sexuality is based not in the sex organs themselves, but in the harmones associated with them. How we express this sexuality may vary with the sex organs based on pure geometric considerations, but you will have a hard time demonstrating that this is the expressed sexulaity.
In fact this experiment has been performed, generally unintentionally, for a wide spectrum of both male and female harmones, and the impact on the expressed sexuality is apparenlty significant.
Hence it would suggest that it is the harmones and not the sex organs which dominate sexuality, and further we have demonstrated expression along a continuum in our boundary study.
Now this argument is refutable, but you will need to dig deep into what is meant by sexuality, gender identification, and the harmone system to begin the discussion. The simple observation of sex organs would seem inadeqaute to carry the case.
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Joel Mark post 37,
excellent quote.
Now consider how this may apply to considering the concept of gender too simply!
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ccc post 39,
but as you note, nature makes many mistakes.
What is interesting is the variety of mistakes, and how some of these mistakes have been crucial for human survival.
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Musing, one major flaw in your line of reasoning is this: there is no connection between hormone levels and sexual preference. I have not read about any studies that indicate that a man is a homosexual because he has a low level of testosterone, but the ones I have read clearly indicate that there is a range of hormone levels among homosexual people just like the one in other people.
If you want to say that two men should be allowed to marry because one has less testosterone than the other, the better solution would be to treat the imbalance.
As Amphipolis points out, your line of reasoning actually supports the male-female dichotomy because, so far you a haven’t been able to discuss the matter without referring to those entities.
Take even a “transgendered” person. They change from male to female or female to male. There’s not a third option.
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Musing, from what I have read, a reduction in testosterone in either males or females tends to reduce sexual drive but doesn’t necessarily cause a person to identify as a different sex, especially not as an in-between sex.
I can assure from what I’ve seen of homosexual behavior that most gay men have plenty of testosterone.
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Musing -
Are you saying that all male homosexuals have decreased testosterone levels? This would have to be the case if hormones and not the sex organs dominate sexuality, and to provide a link between your unreferenced study and the self-report of homosexuals.
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Musing,
That quote stands on its own. Gender does too.
But here’s how I think it might apply: Those who see gender on a continuum make the mistake of missing the obvious truth because too much focus is placed on emotions——especially selfish ones.
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It is odd how sexual attraction ends up being the primary attribute associated with maleness or femaleness (or both). A content 40-year old virgin would simply not compute in such a system.
Not everyone defines themselves by who they want to sleep with. Such things are notoriously malleable.
And there are other inherent differences beyond attraction. The fact of menstruation alone creates a huge difference between man and women regardless of who they sleep with.
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Kyle A post 46,
I believe you are correct with respect to the rearch on harmonal impacts after puberty.
There is some interesting set of studies suggestig that harmonal activity during gestation is critically important, however.
We have the data point that to create a male, one needs to introduce testosterone during gestation, otherwise the resulting child will be female.
There are some limited data points which suggest that the presence of the appropriate testosterone levels on female embryos results in a malefied offspring.
If by your question do you mean is the research conclusive, as I noted earlier, no it is not.
If the question is is there enough research to suggest that this hypothesis is as plausible or more plausible than the hypthesis of genders being a rigid binary structure: then I suggest the answer is yes.
And of course to resolve the issue, more research, not more arguing, is required.
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amphipolis post 47,
no all I am saying is that first order simple harmonal analysis suggests that gender behavior and identification results on a continuum.
There is evidence to suggest this and to argue otherwise in the face of the present evidence will require additional careful research.
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Joel Mark post 48,
but of course in posing non-objective world views I suggest you are basing your entire world view on emotion!
You have certainly dropped all objective pretense!
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amphipolis post 49,
suggesting of course that if mensturation naturally stops we would have a shift in gender identification along the continuum?
Do remember that there are a number of natural cases where menstruation stops even in what would otherwise be considered fertile women.
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This week, a few judges in California made up a new definition for the word marriage.
Tis a pity that Harrison didn’t read the court’s ruling. He would never have made such a recklessly false statement.
The court made it absolutely clear that it was not re-defining marriage.
Come on Harrison, you can do better than repeat the talking points from the FRC
*****
Gay men only pretend to be feminine.
What a load of crap. Clearly Amphi needs to get out in the world and meet some real gay people. It might help to dispel his/her ignorant, homophobic comment.
*****
As for Musing’s point, there is a continuum on both gender and sexual orientation, however small the numbers might be at certain points on the graph. For those who cling to “black and white”, “all or nothing” beliefs, that does represent a threat. Clearly many conservative Christians cannot handle the threat.
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44: but as you note, nature makes many mistakes.
You read it wrong. I wrote “nature makes no mistakes,” which is from the frame of reference of one who defines their own reality. Definers of their own reality have no basis for saying anything is a mistake, or normal, or even real for that matter.
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Kyle A #46
and Amphipolis #47, #49
These observations (among others) are why Musing’s premeses are bogus, and lack the substance to attract chasing him/her down the meandering rabbit trails of what we do or don’t mean by objective measures of gender identity. The purportedly continuous nature of a practically unconfusing continuum only sounds interesting.
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Oops. That should be “premises”.
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AMPHIPOLIS: The woman who thinks she is a man is akin to the man who thinks he is a chicken.
She might be related to him, but at least she knows her own species.
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Your analysis breaks down. Hormonal analysis does not suggest a continuum because it does not explain gender behavior and gender identification.
Besides, I would certainly acknowledge a continuum in gender behavior and gender identification. That is obvious. But it does not lead to the conclusion that there is a continuum between male and female, which is determined by biology. No amount of hormone treatment will make a man bear a child.
There is a big difference between a man saying he is acting like a woman and a man saying he is a woman. The one I can understand, the other is a delusion.
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Anlir,
Why are you so “threatened” by the notion that with the exception of a few pathologic outliers, people know who is a man and who is a woman? What a load of crap, indeed {:~)
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These differences are not semantic. The terms mother and father are far more than expressions of gender identification.
anlir -
What a load of crap. Clearly Amphi needs to get out in the world and meet some real gay people. It might help to dispel his/her ignorant, homophobic comment.
I won’t deign to give you my gay friend credentials, because they are irrelevant. You need to spend some time with women if you think a gay man is feminine.
How does my comment show fear of homosexuals?
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This thread reaches new lows of sophistry.
Musing, you’d be much more convincing if you didn’t reliably use the same misspellings of physiologic terms. You really have no clue what you’re talking about. Sometimes the most grown-up thing one can do is keep quiet.
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For those who cling to “black and white”, “all or nothing” beliefs, that does represent a threat.
The possibility of your gender continuum males bearing children does not threaten me.
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The formula, “Marriage is a union between two persons,” doesn’t re-define the formula, “Marriage is a union between a man and a woman.” The restated formula is expansive, not contrastive. It is similar in nature, form, and quality, not incompatible. A union between two persons fully encompasses a union between a man and a woman. The formulas are parallel, not disjunctive.
In order to state the reverse, you have to draft a predicate that is NOT included in the concept of marriage, namely that a man cannot marry another man and a woman cannot marry another woman. We know people do in fact marry people of the same sex, according to the forms of common law. Arguments against same-sex marriage masquerading as definitional disputes are therefore arbitrary.
The notion of “union” modifies the semantics of “man” and “woman” to create a new reality of possibility that does not exclude gayness by necessity, since these are contained in the notion of “man” and “women.” Marriage isn’t a term of negation. A gay man man is the compliment of a gay man.
In marriage, union and intersection of like and unlike interchange under complementation.
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All this stuff about hormone levels, etc. is superfluous. Gender is self declared. When you get a driver’s license or other ID, you fill in the blank with M or F. No one ever asks for proof!
When you walk in to get a marriage license, does anyone ever say, “Are you sure you’re a girl?”, etc.?
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Musing 51 just saw your post -
The experience of menstruation is unique to females. Don’t you think it would have a significant impact on what it means to be a woman? After menopause a woman has had it her entire adult life. No, I don’t think missing a few periods would make her male. Most amenorrhea is associated with pregnancy and nursing.
Fertility issues seem to be ignored in these discussions. As if fertility has nothing to do with male and female any more.
For a man to presume to know what it means to be a woman is arrogant. I don’t know, I merely observe that this is another obvious difference.
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oops – last post 66 was a response to Musing’s 53
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Straight people insult themselves when they deny the honorifics of marriage to gay people. That’s because the claim that only parters of different sex can marry, and that partners of the same sex by necessity cannot, is profoundly sexist. It deprives partners of their freedom by subordinating them to their gender. Had my wife and I forseen this cultural dispute when we got married, we would not have done so, but would have remained together under common law, out of self-respect.
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Scroop -
You imply that same sex couples are the same as milti-sex couples. I don’t see it. Other than there being two people, they are completely different – as different as men are from women.
Saying men and women are different is not sexist, is it?
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Musing–
I’m curious what you believe an objective worldview is, since you’ve pointed out MIM’s (possibly) lack therof. Perhaps you’ve answered this in an earlier post that I missed ….
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“This week, a few judges in California made up a new definition for the word marriage.”
Harrison is correct. Anlir is incorrect. Of course that is what the California Supremes did, and if they pretend otherwise, intelligent people are not fooled.
It’s hard to debate an issue when obvious basics are dishonestly denied. After all, as Fyodor Dostoyevski (1821-1881) said, “The formula ‘Two and two is five’ is not without its attractions.”
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This is one of the most radical legal redefinitions of marriage in the history of humanity and it is amusing to see advocates in denial. Most pathologies survive where the obvious is denied, even with eleitist or legalese language.
Throw smoke and deny the obvious! That’s how we came to this point. Too many Americans are easily fooled.
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The California Surpeme Court does not think they are an activist court, they don’t think they redefined marriage and Usama bin Laden thinks he is a great Muslim. Self deception is nothing new.
If some of you don’t like my comparison, I make it anyway simple to get the logic across. Why should we expect perpitrators of injustice to admit what they do honestly?
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the honorifics of marriage
Such as being called husband and wife
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it was one of Adam’s first jobs, to name the animals, which is to say, to define them.
If you actually believe this, you have really “defined” your way out of reality! To wit, Young Earth Creationists, today, have utterly failed to come up with a useable definition of “kind” that distinguishes between one group of animals and another.
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“It is odd how sexual attraction ends up being the primary attribute associated with maleness or femaleness (or both). A content 40-year old virgin would simply not compute in such a system.”
And why would that not compute?
What is being discussed, correct me if I am wrong, is orientation, and identification. Which, even you at #59 admit lies along a continuum.
Moreover, I see no one confusing male and female. Homosexual males know (I assume) that each other are male. They are males, attracted to males, not males who think they arer female!
Now, that attraction may be genetic or have something to do with testosterone levels or who knows what – but I just don’t possibly see how it is a choice.
I am attracted to women. MANY of whom, gasp, are not my wife! I *choose* not to act on that attraction, other than with my wife! I could also choose, if I were single, to be a heterosexual virgin.
I assume a similar choice exists for homosexuals. They can, should they choose, be virgins. But, if their attraction is solely to those of their own gender, they remain homosexuals.
So, where is the confusion in this?
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SG,
“pathologic” is of course a slur against those who don’t fit into your narrow, simplistic, conservative Christians worldview.
*****
Amphi,
You are the one who made the homophobic comment, not me. Do your supposed gay friends know about your anti-gay tirades on here?
*****
But really, this is all about conservative Christians attempting to co-opt the language in our country, and re-define everything according to their narrow, fundamentalist Christian point of view.
They don’t own the word “marriage”. Never have, never will.
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Re: #71
Of course, Joel Mark has not read the ruling, yet he continues to make idiotic assertions that are patently (and knowingly) false.
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Anlir: “pathologic” is of course a slur against those who don’t fit into your narrow, simplistic, conservative Christians worldview.
No it wasn’t. Try to keep up and in context. It was in reference to the few, rare conditions where endocrinologically- or chromosomally-mediated gender is truly ambiguous: XXY, XXYY, hypopituitarism with hypogonadism — that type of stuff. By definition these are pathologies — medical disorders, not slurs. Unlike your calling my worldiew narrow and simplistic {:~)
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#79 endocrinologically- or chromosomally-mediated gender is truly ambiguous:
Chromosome typology is obvious, but endocrine (or other hormone) mediation of gender??? You have no way to determine that for a large fraction of the population that claims a gender identity (not to be equated with sexual orientation) at odds with their anatomy! It is also not obvious that such a difference should always be “pathologized,” expecially if it is not reversible. It just is.
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Spinoza,
I was merely speaking of cases of anatomic ambiguity, many of which are hormonally mediated and no less “obvious” than when due to chromosomal abnormalities. These are, by definition, pathology, and do not constitute a large fraction of the population.
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ok – so then you how do you classify the much larger number of gender identity differences with no obvious external symptom?
1. Probably of unknown biological origin, but should be considered pathological even if there is nothing to be done about it.
2. Psychological/behavioral, but still pathological in a mental health sense; person needs therapy (or drugs).
or ???
Do you think there is ever a case where someone with a gender identity different from their anatomy should be encouraged to accept it?
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ccc post 55,
but as you noted in post 39, nature made many mistakes.
My apologies if I assumed you had made a typing error and inferred the reasonable conclusion based on the full context of your post.
So instead in post 39 you wanted to contradict yourself and remove any meaning from the post????
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Spinoza:
3) Multifactorial – probably with mixed top-down and bottom-up psychosomatic/somatopsychic mechanisms.
4) Not definitionally pathologic until someone can correlate behavior with objective assays and/or response to treatment (sometimes the best evidence we have).
5) Very likely confusing, like most of life.
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amphipolis post 59,
but of course you are then totally discounting the physiological evidence of harmonal impact on gender during gestatojn.
Given that this is reasonabkly well documented, it would seem that your premise is incorrect.
Now I will admit that I have not proved a continuum, but I have provided reasonable evidence to suggest that a black and white demarcation of gender does not appear to match the physiological data.
So I believe it is now in your court to locate physiological data demonstrating that gender can not occur on a continuum
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amphipolis post 66,
actually most of my contact with amenorrhea has been in the area of extreme physical activity and in particular mountain climbing, although it apparenlty is common among female gymnasts.
It was you who suggested that mensturation was a unique thing which as I understand you would make then gender identify as female.
Since a common impact in young female gymnasts is to significantly delay the onset of menstruation, it is a reasonable conclusion that by your model these women should feel less feminine.
My point remains that as a bare minimum, the harmonal variations are very large across the sexes. My challnege to you then is that since we have reasonable data that gender is heavily mediated by harmones, that gender can plausibly also show such a continuum.
And to discount it without further evidence would appear to be arbitrarily discarding potential a plausibly supported hypothesis.
So I am awaiting you more definitive objective evidence that gender must indeed exhibit the sharp binary division you seem to be espousing.
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rrbar post 65,
a cogent point.
As you so rightly note gender is what the person feels it to be.
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Musing:
You are delusional (and arrogantly solipstic) if you think you are operating from an objective world view and everyone who disagrees with you isn’t. All world views depend on presuppositions. It is Comtean positivists such as you appear to be that seem most oblivious of their own.
Perhaps that is why you and Scroop Moth are confusing yourselves with lame and irrelevant diversions? Males are separated from females by the presence of the x chromosome. The “testosterone” bath that changes the hormonal balance requires that first.
What’s your point with insisting on misspelling hormonal as harmonal? If you’re trying to be witty you’re not succeeding.
It requires a serious effort to purge words of their meanings and squeeze truth from propositions before anyone could even begin to consider using homosexual as an adjective applied to marriage. Orwellian Newspeak at its brilliant worst.
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Re: #79
SG,
After re-reading your post #60, I withdraw my comments about it in #78. You are correct in your use of the term “pathologic” within the context of your comments. I should read more carefully. I apologize.
I do stand by my point that gender and sexual orientation are on a continuum.
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Whatever the definition of ‘is’ is (second reminder).
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Anlir, #54 and #78
I thought you read all 172 pages. Clearly it’s what the majority has done here. And the dissenters agree with Harrison and Joel Mark.
From the agreeing and dissenting opinion of J. Baxter, pages 128 thru 153, and concurred by J. Chin; “If there is to be further sea change in the social and legal understanding of marriage itself, that evolution should occur by similar democratic means. The majority forecloses this ordinary democratic process, and, in doing so, oversteps it’s authority.”
If thats not clear enough; “But a bare majority of this court, not satisfied with the pace of democratic change, now abruptly forestalls that process and substitutes, by judicial fiat, it’s own social policy views for those expressed by the People themselves. Undeterred by the strong weight os state and federal law and authority, the majority invents a new constitutional right, immune from the ordinary process of legislative consideration. The majority finds that our Constitution suddenly demands no less than a permanent redefinition of marriage, regardless of popular will.”
And;”Judicial restraint is particularly appropriate where, as here, the claimed constitutional entitlement is of recent conception and challenges the most fundamental assumption about a basic social institution.
The majority has violated these principles. It simply does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy it’s own contemporary notions of equality and justice.”
And from J. Corrigan, pages 154 thru 161;
“What is unique about this case is that plaintiffs seek both to join the institution of marriage and at the same time to alter it’s definition.” or “The institution of marriage was not fundamentally changed by removing the racial restrictions that formerly encumbered it. Plaintiffs, however, seek to change the definition of the marital relationship, as it has consistently been understood, into something quite new.”
And Corrigan also thinks the comparison of sexual orientation to race is bogus.
So you are wrong, and should pay closer attention to what you read, or you were being less than truthful.
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Anybody who wants to read it for themselves can do so here. It’s the courts pdf.
http://tinyurl.com/3kp9ql
That way you’ll know what it says, and won’t need anyone else’s biased opinion.
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Some of the comments seem to indicate that homosexuality and non-normative gender identity are simply physiological imbalances. What do the “gay” commenters think about that viewpoint?
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CCC writes in 55:
Definers of their own reality have no basis for saying anything is a mistake, or normal, or even real for that matter.
Exactly what I said. Why then does Musing ignore this and continue to attempt definition? We’re simply dismissed with no indication that it’s a glaring error on his part.
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Thomas writes:
Moreover, I see no one confusing male and female.
Ahem. Did you not read the blog entry by Harrison? How did you miss the pregnant woman who would like be known as a man? If that is not confusion I don’t know what is.
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Sorry to disappoint you A.J., but contrary to your false implication, I did read the entire document, including the footnotes, and the concurring and dissenting opinions. I even read the entire list of plaintiffs and respondents.
I have given Peter and Joel more than ample opportunity to indicate that they have read the entire opinion, and so far they have flatly declined to do so. I seriously doubt more than a couple of people on here have read the whole document. By the way, have you read it in it’s entirety?
Interesting that your quotes are only from the dissenting and lone concurring opinion (who had a few issues with how the result was reached, but not the conclusion), not the majority opinion. You’re completely distorting the document in a futile attempt to promote your anti-gay agenda.
If you’re going to make the statement that I’m “less than truthful”, the burden is on you to provide the evidence. I await your evidence or a retraction. I’m man enough to admit when I’m wrong. Are you?
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Well I have found this discussion enlightening.
We have seen two potential hypitheses proposed:
1) gender is a strong clear binary demarcation
- supported by sex organ arguments in the main
2) gender is a continuum
- supported by harmonal arguments in the main
My point has been that we don’t really know and we need more research if we are to understand the reality of the situation here.
One can see a number of posts whihc appear to suggest that the answer is alreayd known.
But of course no solid informaton has been brought to the table. there is nothing here that we can use to say we “know” whether gnder is binary or on a continuum. All we can say is we have annecdotes which suggest our personal view may be right.
In short, what we have here is doubt.
And with doubt, comes, if the question is important enough, the necessity to address this doubt.
One approach is to try to deifne your way out of it. So we can try to deifne our way to a binary gender model if you so choose.
An alternate approach is to recognize that there is undertainty, accept that to gain a better understanding of reality will require more work, and adjust ones actions and view points to accept this level of uncertainty.
A quick look at the posted material would seem to suggest which approach is attempting to define one’s way out of reality.
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The bottom line: Homosexual unions cause no one any harm (other than offending people who are prone to being offended by other people’s personal lives.)
They may even provide some good, by giving homosexuals additional incentive to form monogamous relationships.
Therefore, there is no non-religious reason to disallow it and the court’s decision was right.
Churches should be free to refuse to perform the ceremonies (there are enough that will that it doesn’t matter if some don’t), but the government has no basis to deny it.
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ken post 88,
lets look at the alternate perpsective on this discussion.
Look carefully at make it man’s post 8: the statement is that the truth is “Jesus Christ”
My observation here is that this is a non-objective perspective.
To expore this fully one needs to establish what is meant by objective. I have made my own derivation of this in this blog several times, but for simplicity let us merely note that critical to objective is the construct of shared and agreed to observation.
For a series of reasons which we can explore if we like, make it man’s proposal will fail this test.
Note that I am quite happy for people to hold non-objective perspective so long as they admit it.
But do note that a non-objective perspective has some difficulties: in accepting a non-objective perspective one is abandoning the ability to have confidence in observation AND if we explore this long enough arguably traditional logic itself.
So if a person who is working from a non-objective perspective makes either objective or logical claims based on this non-objective perspective it is perfectly reasonable for me to observe that their claims are not objective or possibly not logical.
I do not claim that I am objectvie. I do claim that I attempt to use objective criteria and observation. We can explore what this means in more detail also if you like.
What this perspective does, however, is allow to to make claims based on observation and argubly traditional logic with less room for inconsistency.
There is indeed still room for major error. If you examine the concept of shared and agreed to observation in more depth you can begin to see tools that help manage this opportunity for error.
There is of course a big difference between the two perspectvie:
1) a non-objective perspective may allow one to reduce uncertainty, but it may very well be at the cost of a lack of consistency: what will be visible as observational and logical difficulties
2) an objective framework will of necessity result in more uncertainty, since what we truly know is very small and even that we have doubts about it, but arguably can result in higher consistency: one finds fewer observational and logical difficulties
Which path you choose is of course a personal choice, and few if any are able to strictly abide by one path or another.
If one is, however, clearly operating from a non-objective perspective, then one should neither be surprised nor upset if observation or logic shows inconsistency in one position
To blame the observation or logic for demonstrating this inconsistency is clearly inappropriate: one should instead accept that this is an inevitable outcome of ones assumptional decisions.
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ken post 88,
ah between a small motor coordination issue, a vision issue and an amusing form of what may be dyslexia, I do find that I dont even see many spelling mistakes.
I do appreciate your assisting me here.
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kenb post 88,
so lets look at this comment:
“It requires a serious effort to purge words of their meanings and squeeze truth from propositions before anyone could even begin to consider using homosexual as an adjective applied to marriage.”
And while definitions generally will not solve our cognitive problems, failure to have clear definitions often means we talk past each other and not with each other.
So what do we mean by marriage?
Is it a religious sacrament?
Is it a civil legal state?
If by marriage we mean a religious sacrament then I will withraw from the discussion, because I have no expertise here at all.
If by marriage we mean a civil legal state, then I note that civil legal states are constructed regularly for the convenience of the government. I find the fiction that a corporation is a “person” the most amusing, but your mileage may vary.
So if it is a civil legal state, then marriage can and will be what the legal system decides: in this case the California Supreme Court has found that marriage can be between any two individuals, and this will be the case unless other legal activities intervene.
Now those who argue that marriage is a religious state may and in many cases do find this very distressing. The error, I suggest, is not in the California Supreme Court action, but in religions allowing marriage to become a legal entity of the state.
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The Real AJ hits all the nails on the head at #91. Being in touch with reality, AJ will not endear you to some on this blog for whom words often mean whatever they want them to at the moment. But I commend you for your honest contribution to to this thread.
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Anlir, you got exposed by the Real AJ. He nailed it at #91 & 92.
Also, the Real AJ did not claim that you didn’t read the document, Anlir, but that you obviously did not read it carefully enough. And he proved his point. This shows that you didn’t even read the Real AJ’s comments carefully enough.
Reading the entire document will never change the fact that there are different points of view besides the opinion of the four activist judges who over-turned the will of the people and redefined marriage.
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When leftists are redefining words and reality out of whole cloth for distortion purposes, they don’t like to be called on it. The Real AJ obviously cares more about reality and truth than being liked by leftists.
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Yes Anlir,
I read the whole thing. Some of the legal jargon was maddening to follow, as well as the footnotes. It gave me a headache, but I finished it.
And you call me anti-gay, I call myself pro-marriage. In it’s age-old, and well established definition, not the new one you’d prefer. I distorted nothing. In fact I provided a link so that what I was saying could be verified.
And you said” who had a few issues with how the result was reached, but not the conclusion” To which I say “HUH?” On page 128 it clearly states, “However, I cannot join the majorities holding that the California Constitution gives same-sex couples the right to marry.” Also “Nothing in our Constitution, express or implicit, compels the majorities startling conclusion that the age-old understanding of marriage-an understanding recently affirmed by iniative law-is no longer valid. California statues already recognize same-sex unions and grant them all the sustantive legal rights this state can bestow.” Sounds to me like they definately disagree with the conclusion.
My evidence is all over #91 and above. Now granted, if you read the whole thing, it was long and you may have missed some of the points I pointed out above. But your obvious pro-gay agenda makes me suspect otherwise. I have no problem, well maybe a little, admitting when I’m wrong. But I don’t think I am. Now I showed you in this post that they don’t agree with the conclusion, as you suggested. So when can I expect you to admit it?
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What Sex are you? How would you react if someone told you you were wrong?
This is a post about sex and gender. It briefly describes some of the science, some of the junk science, and some of the exaggerations and occasional falsifications on all sides.
How do you define what is a man, and what is a woman? It would be useful if your definition didn’t involve apparent absurdities like biological mothers being classed as men, and biological fathers being classed as women, but that’s no insuperable barrier. It would also be useful if your definition included everyone (so everyone is either M or F, not neither), and no-one is both (so they’re either M or F, not both). It is desirable that someone who was once M remains M, and someone who was once F remains F, but again, this is just a desirable property, not set in stone.
Whatever your definition, and whether it meets all or none of those properties, it’s essential that it applies to everyone. No saying “Oh, but they’re a tiny minority, we’ll ignore them”. The people concerned will object at this de-humanisation. It’s also essential that your definition be humane, so extermination, exile, torture, or compulsory surgery to make people fit the definition are also right out.
It’s my contention that no such definition with all the desirable properties above exists.
This post is too long, so I’ll just finish up with some reading material that it’s essential to look at before you can discuss this from an informed standpoint.
Zhou J.-N, Hofman M.A, Gooren L.J, Swaab D.F (1997)
A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality.
(PDF at http://www.harrybenjaminsyndrome-info.org/pdf/BSTc.pdf)
Kruijver F.P.M, Zhou J.-N, Pool C.W., Swaab D.F. (2000)
Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic
Nucleus (PDF at http://www.harrybenjaminsyndrome-info.org/pdf/brainsex1.pdf)
In summary, Male and Female brains differ, both on the coarse scale (BSTc layer of the hypothalamus) and fine scale (number of neurons – brain cells – in each structure). Autopsies on transsexual women, that is, women with mostly male bodies, have shown they have female pattern brains.
Note that gay men have male pattern brains though.
From ArzteZeitung this year, detailing studies using fMRT – “brain scans” of living people:
“Radiologists can now confirm what transsexuals report – that they feel “trapped in the wrong body” – on the basis of the activation of the brain when presented with erotic stimuli. There is obviously a biological correlation with the subjective feelings.”
What is Intersex, by the Intersex Society of North America
http://www.isna.org/faq/
By the way, I have one of the rarer Intersex conditions. It’s like the far more common 5ARD or 17BHDD conditions, where you’re born looking like a baby girl, but in your teens, weird stuff happens, and you masculinise.
The reverse, where a baby who looks like a boy feminises, is rare. Usually it happens later in life, but we know 2 cases that happened earlier, in the teens.
I have dual nationality, UK/Australian. In the UK, I’m considered male, based on my “boy” birth certificate. Despite my Female UK passport. In Australia, I’m considered female, based on medical reports, ultrasounds, and general appearance. I’ve always had a female gender identity (I picked my new name, Zoe, at 10), but until my diagnosis was thought to be transsexual rather than intersexed – female mind, male body.
So it’s not that simple, I’m afraid. Not a matter of Leftist PoMo Doublespeak, but messy biological reality.
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If you go by gender identity, mind and personality (and neurology) then I’m female and always have been. If you go via chromosomes, I’m male. If you go by endocrinology, well, female, but not necessarily human. Seriously weird and non-standard there. If you go by shape, then formerly more M than F, then more F than M, and after surgical reconstruction, unambiguously F.
I have a psych report that says I’m remarkably sane, all things considered. Sometimes I wonder about that… Some of the treatment I had required a psych examination first, so a checkup was necessary.
As regards Thomas Beatie, the “pregnant man”, well, in his situation, the closest thing he could be to a father was to be a biological mother. I can understand that. The closest thing I could be to a mother was to be a biological father – though that took technical help, as you can imagine. For a few short years, I had partially functional male gonads, if not much else. The female parts never came remotely close to working. It took surgical reconstruction for me to look remotely normal down there.
That’s in contrast to Swyer syndrome, where women can be surrogate biological mothers, despite their 46y (male) chromosomes and streak gonads.
Attempts to legislate Intersexed and Transsexual people out of existence are as useful, and ultimately futile, as legislating for Pi to exactly equal 3.2 “for convenience”.
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zoe brain post 107,
nicely presented material.
I do sense you have presented the level of complexity in this issue which it deserves.
My amusment is that in general there is no simple answer. My puzzlement is that people seem very uncomfortable with the complexity.
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On defining “Objective” Musing writes:
“…but for simplicity let us merely note that critical to objective is the construct of shared and agreed to observation.”
Ahem. Well. In that case I believe Christians the world over can claim objective knowledge of God.
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After reading many of these posts, all I can think of is Jesus’ delight that some things so obvious to children completely baffle intellectuals.
We have a God who thinks it’s funny that some adults don’t know the difference between a man and a woman. I think it’s funny too.
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Zoe,
It does sound complicated, and difficult for you. For the record, no one is trying the impossibility of legislating intersexed people out of existence. But it would be absurd to say there’s no such thing as male and female because there are complicated situations like yours–we might just as well stop saying that humans have ten fingers and ten toes, because obviously some do not. (One of my best friends does not, because of a minor birth defect, and one of my nephews does not, because of a minor accident.)
But obviously one can define what male and female mean–even you are doing so, though you’re acknowledging that you don’t quite fit either. Still, fundamentally you’re a woman, and my guess is it was a relief to sort everything out and have your physical identity match reality, right?
All of this has nothing to do with homosexual marriage, however. When a male wants to marry a male, society has always said something is wrong with his desires; now we’re allowing the confused individual to turn around and say something is wrong with society if it doesn’t recognize his confusion as “normal.”
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Make it man post 109, an interesting thought.
We can easily test if your statement is true.
Please provide in a testable hypothesis form a method by which we would demonstrate that there is an active God participating actively on earth.
As I said, my summary was the simple form.
Now this is a simple and straightforward question and if you believe in an active God, then God’s actions should be measureable.
So it would appear that this is a fair test.
I look forward to your response.
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Hmm I see no comment from make it man.
What is interesting about this exercise is that for the discussion to progress it assumes that make it man can indeed provide a testable hypothesis demonstrating an active God.
I am reasonably confident, given the confidence make it man seems to have expressed in his post, that such an hypothesis will be forth coming.
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Zoe, thanks for sharing. It must be both difficult and helpful to share those details about yourself.
I imagine that your situation has caused you a lot of heartache over the years, and I hope that you have made peace with it now.
I don’t think anybody would deny that some people exist who don’t have one definite sex. However, as Cheryl wrote, that seems to be some kind of biological anomaly like so many others that plague people. But like every anomaly it highlights what the normal situation is.
Your story is fascinating, and it probably is educational for many of us, but what it doesn’t do. . .
*Is demonstrate that a person’s sex falls along a continuum. You don’t see yourself as something between male and female, do you? You were a sort of combination of the two, it sounds like. Please correct me, if I’m wrong.
*Is prove that same-sex couples have the right to call their relationship a marriage. Since you didn’t have a definite sex yourself, you couldn’t have married a person with the same one, right?
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Cheryl D 111 -
“fundamentally you’re a woman, and my guess is it was a relief to sort everything out and have your physical identity match reality, right?”
Usually I have to spend hundreds of words explaining that, but you saw it straight away. Yes, the relief was indescribable, a release from a Death Camp, a place with no hope. And I had a mild case, I always was a geeky tomboy, so doing the Boy Act was relatively easy. My heart goes out to those who have it tougher.
Kyle A 114
what it doesn’t do. . .
*Is demonstrate that a person’s sex falls along a continuum. You don’t see yourself as something between male and female, do you? You were a sort of combination of the two, it sounds like. Please correct me, if I’m wrong.”
I was always female, I just didn’t look like it. I’m not “between”, just a woman with an unusual past and a peculiar medical history.
But having said that… I do know people to whom the terms “male” and “female” don’t fit. One girl I know – and I think of her as that based on appearance – has Swyer syndrome. She could, if she chose, become pregnant as a surrogate mother. She has no ovaries, but streak gonads more like testes. The thing is, her mind is neither M, nor F like me.
I’ll quote from her introduction:
“eFeminate is a blog about me, Natalie: an intersexed asexual who is trying to decide whether or not to take estrogen to fully develop as a female. I’m in my 20s and discovering more and more about the strange and rare condition that caused me to generate an almost complete female anatomy while having a 46,XY karyotype.
Come with me on my journey as I try and figure myself out; should I transition into a woman and feel like a phony, or find an alternative to stay androgynous and natural? I’m completely candid and open about my experiences – there is simply not enough on the web about XY females for me to reserve myself. Let me be a force of learning in a world that doesn’t think people like me exist. There must be a place for the two-spirits of the world.”
I think that the Joker she got in life’s great card game gives her the right to be anything she feels is right for her.
Moving on, again from 114
“Since you didn’t have a definite sex yourself, you couldn’t have married a person with the same one, right?”
That is an area of mixed feelings and some heartache. Although part of me “knew” I was really female, my body contradicted that every time I looked in the mirror. So I thought I had to be a slightly weird guy. Being fair, so did the doctors in 1985. It was only in 2005 that they revised that.
I fell in love, and got married to someone who is still the great love of my life. That we managed, against all the odds (far greater than we knew), to have a child together was miraculous, and made all the decades of misery worthwhile. That when my body changed to match my mind, and my misery ended, we ended up indubitably the wrong sex for each other, is just one of life’s minor tragedies. The love remains, but it’s purely chaste now.
In law, we are still married. Divorce would be just too painful for both of us, and neither of us think Divorce is something that should be invoked except when the love has gone.
Most importantly though, we’re also too busy as co-parents, bringing up our son. He likes 3-way hugs, with both his parents. So until one or the other of us finds a guy worthy of being our son’s father, we will remain as we are. Even then, we will always be closer than sisters.
We lost something important and beautiful: but the better part remains.
In light of the above, I can’t say that any loving relationship between two adults is wrong. Howe come we are a married same-sex couple, and they can’t be? It seems unCharitable.
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zoe brain post 115,
our hopes and prayers are with you.
Thanks for sharing, and good luck!
I suggest your closing comment is the critical one:
“In light of the above, I can’t say that any loving relationship between two adults is wrong. Howe come we are a married same-sex couple, and they can’t be? It seems unCharitable.”
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Hmm yet no response from make it man.
Fascinating, since make it man apparenlty asserted he could indeed establish an objective proof apparently for an active God.
Well lets complete the syllogism
Let us posit that make it man can pose a valid objective test to demonstrate that there is a God. By its nature if this is to be an objective test, it will need to involve objective, not subjective measurements or observations, typically of the form:
If A happens then B occurs and this demonstrates that there is a God.
Simple straightforward science class material.
Now consider the outcomes, and there appear to be three:
1) one finds that the correlation A => B is satisfied with a very high probability so that the correlation will be observed: then God is a new physical law, for the purposes of this discussion we will call it “make it man’s law”.
2) one finds that there is a correlation A=>B but the statistics are very weak. Then this God is apparenatly, with respect to make it man’s proposed test, a very ineffective God, otherwise A => B would have a hgh correlation
or
3) one finds that the correlation A => B is not demonstrated statistically, that is the analysis only detects noise. Then make it man’s God is in fact shown just to be statistical noise.
In short the very attempt to demonstrate God objectively will, in the main, refute the majority of models of God which are usually discussed in this blog: i.e. God will be a fixed physical law OR God will be statistical noise.
If you read Collin’s “The Language of God” you will find an interesting comment of the form if miracles occur, then they must be very rare. The quantitative form of this is that if miracles occur, they must be below the statistical noise level of the measurements: that is that they can never be verified as actually occurring as a miracle.
P.S. of course if God is an inactive God, then there will be no actions to observe and God will be non-observable.
P.P.S. since I believe in God, I suggest if one considers this further, it makes some very interesting and arguably sound statements about what can and can not be said about God.
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Sorry about my hiatus, life tends to intervene.
Anlir – Saying that gay men pretend to be feminine is homophobic? Gay men do frequently and ridiculously pretend to be feminine. Do you dispute this statement?
It seems to me that you are the one who is unreasonably afraid of my statement.
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Musing 85 -
You are attempting to prove that there is a continuum between male and female based on how one becomes male and female (gestation)? You make no sense. The hormonal differences during gestation are determined by the genetics of the fetus, unless there is a deformity. The fact that men and women both develop in the womb does not in any way indicate a continuum between men and women. See my post 15.
86 -
You are not getting it – the fact that gymnasts may sometimes have menstruation later is irrelevant when compared with the fact that they will eventually have menstruation, since they are female. Women have menstruation, men do not. Women’s menstruation can be interrupted (again, this is usually due to pregnancy and nursing, most women are not gymnasts), to say men’s menstruation can not be interrupted is absurd because there is no continuum. Men and women are obviously and inherently different. This is reality.
You seem to start with the premise that male and female are not inherently different, and go on to prove it by observing human behavior. I would start with the scientific observation that they are inherently different (reproduction, a basic human function, proves this conclusively), and then consider human behavior as it relates to this fact and other facts of human emotional variability.
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To put it another way -
Hormonal differences are the primary biological mechanism that make men and women different, during gestation, puberty, etc. This fact supports the bifurcation of male and female. All you have proven is that they both develop.
You would have to show me how a typical homosexual is part male and part female. The fact that some think they are part male and part female is not the same.
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Concerning rigid binary structures – gays often maintain and the CA decision is based on the premise that homosexuals and straights are a rigid binary structure, gays can not become straight.
What they do is substitute a real binary structure – male and female, based on science – for an emotional one based on fickle human preference.
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So I gather then, Amphipolis, that you could become gay? If it is a “preference” and a fluid one as you suggest, then surely you could be persuaded under the right circumstances to bat for the other team?
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One more thing about menstruation -
I never said menstruation makes one female. I said the experience of menstruation is limited to the female and that this is another example of the inherent differences between the men and the women. It is indeed a black and white difference.
SteveG -
You would have to define what you mean by gay – if you mean attracted to men, certainly I could be. Can anyone say for certain where their emotions will attempt to lead them in the future? I could be attracted to women other than my wife. I could be attracted to a door knob. I don’t know, my attractions do not make me who I am.
Persuaded under the right circumstances – I don’t know about persuaded, that implies a logical argument. Men have adopted homosexual behavior under certain circumstances, such as when no women are around. But none of us act on every sexual thought that occurs to us. That is why we are not all rapists. It is something known as self-control. I have not felt the desire that I suppose homosexuals feel for their own sex, but I have felt strong desires that I have not acted on. And I am not “persuaded” by arguments based on what amounts to a rationale for gender confusion.
The fact is that homosexuals do become straight, and vice versa. There is a demonstrable continuum in the bisexual community. There is no comparable continuum between male and female, there is only delusion.
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bat for the other team – does one homosexual desire make a person gay? What does gay mean, how is homosexuality defined – desire, behavior decisions, self-report, or some combination?
Are there two teams, or just a bunch of humans with preferences that they may or may not act upon?
I can tell you how male and female are defined. And this can be scientifically verified.
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Thomas 76 -
I do see the confusing of male and female – the “man” who was pregnant, the denial that there is a difference. But I think I generally agree with you. My point is that attraction is malleable but male and female are not, excepting of course cases of tragic disability.
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amphipolis post 119,
no you do not appear to be reading my material.
I am not attempting to prove anything since I have little to no data.
What I am I believe doing is providing enough of a case to suggest that we don’t know enough to be able to determine whether, and we use many words here, gender/sex/sexual orientation/sexuality is along a continuum or is binary.
We have some minimum data which suggests both options.
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amphipolis post 120,
when you say:
“Hormonal differences are the primary biological mechanism that make men and women different, during gestation, puberty, etc. This fact supports the bifurcation of male and female. All you have proven is that they both develop.”
and I agree but note that both men and women have varying levels of both malre and female harmone.
If harmones are the primary difference AND both sets of harmones occur in both sexes in varying amounts THEN it suggests, but does not prove, that gender may occur along a continuum.
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amphipolist post 121,
amphipolis post 121,
but of course when you say:
“Concerning rigid binary structures – gays often maintain and the CA decision is based on the premise that homosexuals and straights are a rigid binary structure, gays can not become straight.”
you are misrepresenting the argument.
There are two separate issues which you seem to have confounded:
1) is gender along a continuum
2) once gender is established how mutable is it
The presence of a continuum does not imply that gender is mutable, and your syllogism is in serious error here.
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Musing, we are going around in circles. common hormone levels do not suggest a continuum any more than common red blood cells. See my post 15.
Sexual preference exists on a continuum, I submit bisexual behavior as proof. Sexual preference is mutable, I submit gays becoming straight and vice versa as proof. Male and female do not exist on a continuum, I submit fertility as proof. Male and female fertility is not mutable, there is no case of it ever happening.
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Why do you ignore fertility? Fertility conclusively proves that men and women are inherently different, excepting disability and chemical/surgical alterations. Fertility is by its very nature binary. If it were not so there would be no human reproduction. Every person who ever existed on this planet is a result of binary reproduction.
This is not minimal data. This is the elephant you are ignoring.
You must separate varying sexual preference, which is emotional and psychological but nonetheless very real, from the obvious and immutable male and female state that divides humanity, excepting disability and artificial alteration.
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amphipolis post 129/130,
it is delightful to watch you use a concept, harmonal levels, which you agree are critical to gender and which have been experimentally measured to vary along a continuum for both men and women (with much overlap), and then assert that gender is binary.
I would think by now you would see the inherent contradiction in using a concept which has been shown to have a continuum to justify a binary approach. Fascinating.
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