SJW and autism

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XFilesGeek
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01 Feb 2017, 1:22 pm

adifferentname wrote:

The same logic might be applied to having a plethora of gender identities. Homosexuals have fought long and hard to gain acceptance for a condition (of being) that, no matter if you believe it's nature, nurture or a little of both, is beyond their means to change. It isn't outside the bounds of reason that a significant percentage of "otherkin", "two-spirit", "pangender" etc are suffering some sort of mental health problem, and that by piggy-backing on the existing "queer" movement they're poisoning the well for, as you put it, people that actually have to live with it.

A lot of these self-labels come across as seeking status that isn't earned, and I think it's reasonable to oppose such, however minimal the impact on oneself.

Yeah, I've been involved with the genderqueer community since the late 90s, and I've never met anyone who identifies outside the binary because they're looking for special "privileges" or rights.

Personally, I think of myself as agendered because that's what 33 years of my life experience has taught me about my own gender. Perhaps there are so many lables for gender because "gender" is, in fact, complicated.

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02 Feb 2017, 1:04 am

Dox47 wrote:

Ganondox wrote:

Have you seriously never heard of certain neo-nazi named Richard Spencer?

I know he claims to have coined the term, but I'd heard it long before I'd heard of him, and being used to describe ideologies that are not white supremacist.

As far it describes a particular group rather than just applying the adjective "alternative" to right-wing politics, it's from Richard Spencer. Also, your reasoning is pretty silly, because of course Spencer could have been using the word long before you've ever heard of him, and it could have spread memetically so that it wasn't tied back to him.

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Kiprobalhato
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02 Feb 2017, 1:14 am

RetroGamer87 wrote:

So is gender nonconforming now considered to be a gender? If a girl want to dress and act boyishly there's nothing wrong with that but the term for that used to be tomboy and it wasn't considered to be a gender.

people still use "tomboy", though it might be focused on children now.

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EzraS
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02 Feb 2017, 2:37 am

Kiprobalhato wrote:

RetroGamer87 wrote:

people still use "tomboy", though it might be focused on children now.

Didn't tomboy usually always refer to a girl rather than a woman?

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02 Feb 2017, 3:15 am

all the dictionary definitions of 'tomboy' i've read use the word girl, and not female or woman so that may be the case, though of course real life speech and its semantics isn't as neat and clean as a dictionary, it should be noted.

i can definitely remember hearing some grown women being called tomboys, though that wasn't recently.

i guess people are just uncomfortable using the other, new terms on kids, who are just barely starting to figure out who they are. so mainly older people adopt them.

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adifferentname
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02 Feb 2017, 5:51 am

XFilesGeek wrote:

adifferentname wrote:

Yeah, I've been involved with the genderqueer community since the late 90s, and I've never met anyone who identifies outside the binary because they're looking for special "privileges" or rights.

Aye, it's certainly a problem with a minority of agitators who claim to represent the majority (or entirety), but that's not unique to that demographic.

My direct experiences with transgender and "genderqueer" people have been mixed. They're certainly not a united community in the sense implied by most activists - which is one of the reasons I prefer diversity of opinion and thought over diversity of arbitrary distinction.

Quote:

Personally, I think of myself as agendered because that's what 33 years of my life experience has taught me about my own gender. Perhaps there are so many lables for gender because "gender" is, in fact, complicated.

Or perhaps it's really simple, and you're just looking for a way to express detachment. Or perhaps it's anywhere between or beyond either point. I don't know, and there's no definitive answer as yet, just politically muddled arguments and noise.

Personally I don't believe you can pick your gender in much the same way that you can't pick your species. You can certainly choose how you present (or identify, if you prefer) but I think that's a superficial projection of an internal narrative rather than anything material. The point being, I don't care what "outfit" people choose to wear, as long as nobody is being forced to accept anyone else's "reality" and nobody is being hurt.

adifferentname
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02 Feb 2017, 5:57 am

Kiprobalhato wrote:

i guess people are just uncomfortable using the other, new terms on kids, who are just barely starting to figure out who they are. so mainly older people adopt them.

Aye. I'm certainly not a fan of parents pushing their children into "identity boxes", and believe they should be left to work it out for themselves.

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02 Feb 2017, 6:07 am

adifferentname wrote:

Personally I don't believe you can pick your gender in much the same way that you can't pick your species. You can certainly choose how you present (or identify, if you prefer) but I think that's a superficial projection of an internal narrative rather than anything material.

The thing here is that I don't think people pick their gender. I certainly haven't picked agender for myself; I've just found a label that closely resembles what I feel to be an inherent part of myself, that I haven't chosen but that's it's always been there, and would remain there even if I didn't have a word to describe it - having the word just makes the whole experience a little less confusing for myself (and perhaps more confusing to those who have never experienced an internal deviation from the binary).

The case that you pointed out in a previous reply (otherkin, etc.) could indeed reflect a coping mechanism in relation to traumatic experiences or other form of mental or emotional challenges (people that may identify with being a wolf in the inside because being a human is just too painful). Those specific cases are very different in my own view to the case of identifying with a gender outside of the binary, where there is no detachment from reality, but rather the use of a label that allows one's own reality to make sense. It is always going to be difficult for those who have never experienced something like that to understand (and sometimes accept) that others may genuinely feel differently than they do.

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adifferentname
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02 Feb 2017, 8:38 am

Tripodologia wrote:

adifferentname wrote:

That's why I specifically couch this in terms of personal "reality". It's not from intent to dismiss the perceptions others have about themselves, but rather to acknowledge that we all interact with what appears to be "reality" from our unique perspectives. I might not agree with answer you've provided to the uncertainty you've experienced, but it's not for me to tell you it's wrong and it doesn't seem to be doing you any harm. Neither of us can produce scientific data on the matter (though we could easily find thousands of different hypotheses from soft science), so it'd pointless to argue with your perception.

Quote:

The case that you pointed out in a previous reply (otherkin, etc.) could indeed reflect a coping mechanism in relation to traumatic experiences or other form of mental or emotional challenges (people that may identify with being a wolf in the inside because being a human is just too painful). Those specific cases are very different in my own view to the case of identifying with a gender outside of the binary, where there is no detachment from reality, but rather the use of a label that allows one's own reality to make sense. It is always going to be difficult for those who have never experienced something like that to understand (and sometimes accept) that others may genuinely feel differently than they do.

My one word response to that is "Asperger's". I think most people diagnosed as an adult would have very little difficulty empathising with your situation.

As to the wider point you made, I agree. I think a large part of human social behaviour is (oddly enough) built on a need to be part of a collective.

Thanks for discussing something which is of personal relevance with such restraint, by the way. That's a lesson many of us on here could benefit from. Then again, your bio says you're from Denmark, the land of hygge, so I shouldn't be surprised in the slightest. :lol:

XFilesGeek
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02 Feb 2017, 1:46 pm

adifferentname wrote:

XFilesGeek wrote:

adifferentname wrote:

Yeah, I've been involved with the genderqueer community since the late 90s, and I've never met anyone who identifies outside the binary because they're looking for special "privileges" or rights.

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That's reasonable.

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02 Feb 2017, 2:17 pm

XFilesGeek wrote:

That's reasonable.

Thanks XFilesGeek. I try to be! :lol: