Transgender people and their sympathizers are mostly reacting to bullying that relates to not being a "normal person" with their moralizations and positions. — ProtagoranSocratist

Correct. I sympathize with this greatly. Does using poor language structures in phrasing fix this? No.

If someone were to tell me that they were a man, yet looked like a woman, or whatever, i wouldn't be like "oh, so i don't believe you. You must must be a man because i say so." — ProtagoranSocratist

It depends. One of the things that people have to check when conversing with someone else is whether their words are

1. Clear definitions that we both agree on and understand
2. The other person is being honest in what they tell us

Lets say in this case there is a transman who believes they are a man. Further, they believe 'man' unmodified means, 'adult male gender'. There is nothing innately wrong with this if the person they are conversing with also agrees that man unmodified means 'adult male gender'.

However, in the context of the above statement it is more logical and historically accurate for a person to interpret the statement of 'man' alone as referring to 'male sex'. Now if a person is trying to avoid bullying or disrespect, they should avoid poor grammar and unclear communication. These tend to engender disrespect and lower social status as either uneducated or unintelligent.

Thus, the phrase, 'trans men are men' should not be used in broader society. A simple adendum to the statement 'trans men are men as gendered' or some variation that avoids confusion and clearly conveys the intent unambiguously, the phrase wouldn't be as much of an issue. This assumes of course that the issue is grammar and not the intent to use the term 'man's' double meaning to squeeze in the idea that 'a trans man is a man by sex'. Because this is a tactic of dishonest people, which also does not engender good will if that's what one is trying to do.

Apparently, males/females are supposed to think a certain way and act a certain way. The "gender" question is extremely confusing, and these "roles" you mention largely do not exist. — ProtagoranSocratist

One way to make it less confusing is that gender is a group subjective opinion about non-biological behavior in relation to your sex. "Are you man enough?" In this case man refers to gender, or the expectation that as a male you must act in a certain way or be seen as failing in your sex. The expecation of an adult male may very from person to person, group to group, city to city, onto the world. It is a purely subjective opinion that is culturally sanctioned prejudice and sexism among the group.

Some people learn not to let the opinions of other bother them. Some crave the opinions of others, or may even crave the gendered expectation of the other sex. As such, they take on these gendered expectations for themselves in hope of getting this treatment and expectation from other people. Finally some crave to have the actual opposite sex, and use gender as a mask and part to get the culture to view them as the other sex.

the transgender people seem to just want people to accept their story as true, since we tend to accept a lot of narratives as true — ProtagoranSocratist

I have no problem accepting a story as true as long as the two points I flagged above pass. Are they being clear in their communication, and is there evidence to trust they are being honest with us? I would say most good people will accept a person's story if these two things align. If the trans community wishes to be accepted, they would much better be served dropping the poorly worded 'trans men are men' slogan and adjusting it to more clearly communicate to others what they mean.

"Is" "is" "is". Don't you get tired of that? — ProtagoranSocratist

This 'is' a statement that the transgender community insists is true, so I think its a viable thing to look at linguistically.

I have never needed anyone to tell me what i am. — ProtagoranSocratist

Technically you had to have people tell you that you're a human being, or at least learn it from somewhere. The OP is pertinent to telling other people who you are.

I am a man, but my avatar is a woman. Does that offend you? Does that make me transexual? — ProtagoranSocratist

The OP does not have any moral judgement on personal identification. It is a critique to note that the statement, "Transgender men are men" is an unclear and poorly phrased sentence if 'men' is intended to represent 'male gender' and not the default of 'male sex'. "Transgender men are men by gender" is the correct way to communicate the idea with clarity.

She is simply there to buy some groceries and not making a statement about her sexual identity, but about her sexual motivations, or lack thereof. — Harry Hindu

It doesn't always have to be about sexual attraction, but other indicators like wanting to be viewed as 'sweet' and having doors held open for you, etc. A large amount of gendering is about sexuality, but there is plenty of gendering that also has nothing to do with sexuality, and a person can be transgender because they want those non-sexual expectations that come with it.

Is it moral to fool another of your sex in the context of seeking a mate that fits the other's sexual preferences? — Harry Hindu

That's a fairly loaded question. If one is attempting to be perceived as the opposite sex purely for their own purposes, and but does not hide the fact when they would benefit from a sexual interaction, this is not immoral. If they hide the fact for the benefit of a sexual interaction they know an individual would not give to them if the other person was aware of their natal sex, then yes this is deceiving another person into doing something they wouldn't do if they saw the truth of the matter for personal gain. That would be immoral.

How do you delete a comment? — Copernicus

I'm not sure you can. You can edit it though and change what it said.

But that's highly biased, based on an idealization of a very particular category of women. Statistically, it seems few women get that kind of sexualized attraction you mention above that these men are seeking. — baker

I never implied it wasn't highly biased. I'm just noting what is. And many in the femboy community receive plenty of sexual adoration online and in their isolated communities. For them, they get what they want.

Why would anyone go to such lengths just to be -- ordinary??
Why would anyone go from being an ordinary guy to looking like an ordinary gal? — baker

I believe that is a question for those that have the mental health condition. I'm out of time for now, but off the top of my head:

1. To avoid societal expectations of their sex
2. To be more comfortable with being gay
3. "Grass is greener" mentality
4. Confusion about sex, gender, and stereotypes
5. Actual mental illness
6. Sexual desire.

Secondary sex characteristics absolutely have to with hormones. The longer the body is dominated by T the more it will masculinize and the longer it is dominated by E the more the body will feminize to the point of heterosexual attraction. — Forgottenticket

Incorrect. This can happen, but this is most likely due to attraction that already exists. AGP is an autosexual orientation that can be gratified by men seeing the AGP as female. This is well documented. For a modern summation of this check out Phil Illy's book "Autoheterosexual" online, as well as his interviews with confessed AGPs. I do not judge AGPs, and I advise getting to know about them first.

The other side is that many trans individuals are actually gay or lesbian and use transsexualism as a way to cope with the cognitive dissonance of liking the same sex. Studies on pre-pubescent children who exhibit gender dysphoria are found 70-80% of the time to end up identifying as gay and bisexual by age 18 if not medication or transition measures are given.

That is what puberty does to you and why puberty blockers are given to buy time for the teen to make a decision. — Forgottenticket

No, hormones still don't change your sex. They can change your secondary sex development, which to me is quite frankly disgusting and pedophilic to push on kids. Kids should not be sexualized period, and such decisions should never be pushed on a minor. My apologies for my more emotional response here, I can break down further in a more detailed post about why if you are interested later.

Transgender is obviously more scalable than transsexualism which doesn't roll of the tongue at all so that term is used. — Forgottenticket

No, transsexualism was familiar to people and had a certain emotional connotation to it. The trans activist community has attempted to eliminate the word to 'rebrand' and disguise what they are trying to do, which is change sex. Its thought control by denying an objectively innoffensive word that describes what is happening.

Transgender - someone who wants to take on the gender of the opposite sex.
Transsexual - someone who alters their body in an attempt to change it to be or more resemble the other sex.

See gender affirming surgery replacing sexual reassignment surgery — Forgottenticket

Right, if you study the history this was done to rebrand transsexualism. This was to get sexual identity disorder out of the mental illness category, and allow medical insurance to treat the issue. It does not eliminate the reality that this is transsexualism.

↪Philosophim In other words, trans people are not identifying as a gender. They are identifying as the opposite sex and the difference is the level of detail one wants to obtain. — Harry Hindu

In my experience actually being in the community (I am not LGBTQ, I just visited to see things for myself) yes. For the one's that transition, that is what they truly want. The language is all to obscure this fact. We are of course getting a more inbetween version which is typically a highly sexualized and cosmetic version of body alteration too.

Femboys for example don't want to change their sex, but want to have people view them in the visually sexualized way they look at women. For these individuals, I think the definition of transgenderism as intended fits quite well. Its not an entire encapsulation of the opposite sex's gender, but a selective desire to (sexual in this case, but not all cases) get a particular reaction from people that they see society giving the opposite sex.

For example, men in Western society are not given the allowed public sexual expression that women are. Sexy or even mildly sexually stimulating clothing and behavior are often encouraged, where as in men it is often discouraged. To escape this, some men want to be seen as women or emulate the way women sexually express because they think they'll get more attention from society in a positive way, and they may not know how to do so within the 'male gender' expectations of the people they are around. For them they are happy being male, they just want the gender acceptance of sexual expression and attention that they see women have.

in assuming that society is defining a woman as someone with not just the biological characteristics, but the expectations as well. But society is not saying that (and people that use language in this way are misusing it) wearing a dress makes you a woman. Society is saying because you are a woman, you wear a dress. — Harry Hindu

Correct. I believe most transsexuals know this. Transgender is a convenient way to justify their need to be seen as the other sex both for themselves, and a tool to attempt to persuade society. It is all about that need, and they are willing to do whatever it takes, even if its dishonest language, to have that need fulfilled. I believe letting this happen is actually harmful to transsexuals. They need to accept the reality they cannot be the other sex as the technology isn't there yet. They need to be ok with everyone not accepting them as the opposite sex, and that they shouldn't be trying to trick or cajole society into this desire. It is at its core, immoral.

Trans exists and is popular because exogenous (bio-identical) hormones exist and you can artificially induce intersex conditions. — Forgottenticket

To be clear, this is transsexualism. There are the terms transgender and transsexual, and 'trans' shortens to make it unclear which you are referring to. Which of course is the goal of the activist community to make you say, "You're the other other sex" without you realizing you're saying, "You're the other sex".

This leads me to ask, what kind of expectations are we talking about here? Are people jailed for wearing clothing inappropriate to one's sex? If not, is it fair to say that society has any expectations of the sexes? What is an expectation that isn't enforced? — Harry Hindu

A fantastic question that likely requires its own topic. Why does society enforce prejudice and stereotypes when it comes to sex? I imagine its a combination of many things from sexual dimorphism emphasis, power dynamics, and sexuality. There is a thin wall between biologicaly expectations of a sex vs gender expectations of a sex as well. We are very willing to accept biological expectations, and perhaps its easy to cross over into sociological expectations because of it.

As I pointed out - transgenderism's existence depends on a society having sexist expectations. If there are no more expectations then there is no gender (based on your own definition of gender as societal expectations of the sexes). — Harry Hindu

100% agree. But that is not the society we live in.

If everyone crosses the gender divide then that means the society is gender neutral and that there is no such thing as gender as everyone in the society wears what they want regardless of their sex, and there are no expectations of society for people to act differently because of their sex. — Harry Hindu

Society in general is a combination of individuals who have varying degrees of discomfort with crossing gender divides in public. Small and/or temporary crossings can be disliked or even seen as amusing and not typically the label of 'transgender'. Transgender comes about when a person understands the societal gender for men and women, and decides to actively cross that boundary in hopes of being treated by society as they see them treat the other sex. Its of course an incredibly naive task, and no one is obligated to do so in any way. That is the argument for then wanting to change their sex through hormones and body modification. They want to be treated like the other sex by society, so changing their body will hopefully do so.

Sure, but the former precisely is what she is being asked. She is being asked what her credence about the coin will be on that occasion, and not what the proportion of such occasions are that are T-occasions. — Pierre-Normand

I would say she is being asked what the odds are of it being a day in which a T side vs a H side coins is flipped. If she's only being asked what the percent chance of the coin ended up being at, the answer is always 50/50. The odds of the coin flip result don't change whether its 1 or 1,000,000 days. What changes is from the result of that coin flip, and that is the pertinent data that is important to get an accurate answer.

This is very similar to the old Monty Hall problem. You know the three doors, make a guess, then you get to make another guess do you stay or change?

On the first guess, its always a 1/3 shot of getting the door wrong. But it can also be seen as a 2/3 chance of getting the door wrong. When given another chance, you simply look at your first set of odds and realize you were more likely than not wrong, so you change your answer. The result matches the odds.

Same with the situation here. Run this experiment 100 times and have the person guess heads 50 times, then tails 50 times. The person who guesses tails every time 50 times will be right 2/3rds of the time more than the first. Since outcomes ultimately determine if we are correct in our odds, we can be confident that 1/2 odds is incorrect.

By the way, very nice discussion! I appreciate your insight and challenging me to view things I might not have considered.

But Sleeping Beauty isn't being asked about specific kinds of outcomes explicitly. Rather she is being asked about her credence regarding the current state of the coin. She can reason that the current state of the coin is Tails if and only if she is currently experiencing a T-awakening and hence that the current state of the coin is twice as likely to be Tails than it is to be Heads. But she can also reason that the current state of the coin is Tails if and only if she is currently experiencing a T-run and hence that the current state of the coin is equally as likely to be Tails than it is to be Heads. — Pierre-Normand

She can reason that its equally likely that the result of the coin flip is 50/50, but that doesn't mean its likely that the day she is awake is 50/50. Lets flip it on its head and note how the likelihood that she would be wrong.

If she always guesses heads, she's wrong twice if its tails. If she always guesses tails, she's only wrong once. Thus, she is twice as likely to be wrong if she guesses heads on any particular day woken up, and twice as likely to guess correctly if she guesses tails. If the total odds of guessing correctly were 50/50, then she would have an equal chance of guessing correctly. She does not.

We can see this by extending the days out. Lets say that if its heads, she's woken up one day. If its tails she's woken up 10 days. Again, its better odds to guess tails, despite the outcome of the coin being equal as mentioned above.

As I've been noting, because the probable outcome of the coin is the same, you can effectively remove the probable outcome of the coin from the equation. r = r can be divided out. Lets change up the odds of the coin flip, and it changes the our guess.

Going back to the original setup, lets Say that its twice as likely that the coin lands on heads. Now the probability of the coin becomes essential to the outcome of the follow up outcomes.

So its two times more likely that its heads, but only one day. 1 times as likely for two days. This appears to equate to 50/50 when considering what day is randomly picked out of the outcomes.

Now, there is absolutely zero doubt that in the original case it is not a 50/50 outcome. However, I do doubt if it ends up being 2/3rds. There may be some multiplicative statistical shenanigans needed here that I'm not aware of that is being disguised by making the heads/tails outcome equal and eliminating it as a consideration. Perhaps the imaginary case I made above would be more revealing of any special case. Thus I may be wrong that 2/3rds is the answer, but there is no question that 1/2 is wrong.

It all comes down to whether gender is seen as a biological given or not. — Jack Cummins

Gender by the modern day definition is not a biological given. It is a set of social expectations how one acts non-biologically in relation to one's biology. For example, if boys were supposed to wear pink and girls were supposed to wear blue. There is nothing biological about that besides a cultural reference to one's sex. So things like 'males are generally more aggressive' is a biological outcome. Its not a cultural expectation. The expectation would be that a man be more aggresive than most woman, a man comes along who in a normal statistically reasonable outcome, is not, and is lambasted for being 'weak'. There is nothing innate in biology that ensure all men are 'strong', so therfore its a cultural expectation, not a biological reality that being born a man makes you strong.

In gender rulings, the problem may be that everything is reduced to how a person is assigned to a gender at birth. — Jack Cummins

No one is officially assigned a gender. Your sex is identified, and the people around you have culturally accepted levels of prejudice in how you should act apart from your biology in relation to your sex.

This may be why non-binary identities are being adopted, in order to overcome clear disturbances.. — Jack Cummins

I'm very open to considering all angles, but I have never heard a single person be able to identify what non-binary means in any coherent way.

However, identity is complex and individuals may identify differently from assigned and biological sex. — Jack Cummins

Its not. It was made complex by transsexuals trying to sneak in a more societally acceptable term they could use to justify what they do. Gender at its clearly defined core, is socially acceptable prejudice and potentially sexism in how a person should behave non-biologically in relation to their biological sex. Gender identity is simply deciding what prejudices and sexist expectations you have for yourself.

So, now you are back to treating experimental runs rather than awakening runs as the "outcomes". This sort of ambiguity indeed is the root cause of the misunderstanding that befalls Halfers and Thirders in their dispute. — Pierre-Normand

I'm not seeing the ambiguity here, but maybe I'm not communicating clearly. There are two outcomes based on context.

1 Outcome of the coin
2. Outcome from the result of the coin

The outcome from the coin is always 50/50. Because of this, you can ignore the outcome and simply say, "Its equally likely that the result of one coin flip will happen as the other result"

When we look at all the outcomes from the result of the coin, we see that if its tails, there are two days, and only 1 day if heads. So if you don't know which day it is, (previous days can be removed as we 'forget') then it is a 1/3 chance that your day is a heads, and 2/3rd chance that your day is a tails. Is it equally likely that a heads or a tails was flipped in isolation from the days? Yes. But since we have different outcomes from the flip itself, we have to take them all in consideration and realize that if either side is equally likely to occur, it is a much better odds to say that its heads because the consequence of it being heads makes it twice as likely you awake two days.

One more way to think about it is you have a hat that you could either reach in one time, or two times. Each is equally likely to occur. You forget how many times you've reached into the hat. Is it more likely that you're on an outcome where you reach in two times, or one time? Obviously its two times.

The issue with her remembering or not is that if, as part of the protocol, she could remember her Monday awakening when the coin landed tails and she is being awakened again on Tuesday, she would be able to deduce that the coin landed Tails with certainty and, when she couldn't remember it, she could deduce with certainty that "today" is Monday — Pierre-Normand

Correct. My point was that its just used as a word problem way of saying, "We have 3 outcomes we reach into a hat and pull from"

Your argument in favor of the Thirder credence that the coin landed Tails (2/3) relies on labeling the awakening episodes "the outcomes". But what is it that prevents Halfers from labelling the experimental runs "the outcomes" instead? — Pierre-Normand

Because there are two different outcomes. One with one day, and one with two days. If you pick any day and have no clue if its a day that resulted from a heads or tails outcome, its a 2/3rds chance its the tails outcome. The heads and tails is also irrelevant. The math is, "Its as equally likely that we could have a series of one day or two day back to back in this week. If you pick a day and you don't know the outcome or the day, what's the odds its a tails day vs a heads day?"

The odds of whether its head or tails is irrelevant since they are the same and can be effectively removed from the problem.

The part to note is that almost all of this is a red herring. Its irrelevant if she remembers or not. Its just word play to get us out of the raw math. The odds are still the same.

Flip heads, 1 result
Flip tails, 2 results

Put the pile of results as total possible outcomes. You have 3 possible outcomes. In two of the outcomes, tails was flipped. Put it in a hat and draw one. You have a 2/3rd chance that its a tails outcome.

To be clear, it is a 50/50 shot as to whether heads or tails is picked. Meaning that both are equally like to occur. But since we have more outcomes on tails, and we're looking at the probability of what already happened based on outcomes, not prediction of what will happen, its a 2/3rds chance for tails.

This completely ignores the fact that society's expectations have changed. Having long hair and wearing earrings is no longer considered feminine, so a man that grows their hair long and wears earrings is no longer transitioning because those traits have now been taken off the table of transgenderism. — Harry Hindu

Correct. While a biological male and female do not change with time and culture, gender does. It is a subjective and flexible expectation that can vary over time, culture, and even individuals.

There is nothing that prevents men from growing long hair or wearing earrings, but there are things that prevent a man from getting pregnant. — Harry Hindu

Of course, because sex, or biology, is how people reproduce. A transgender woman is not a woman by sex, period. Any honest transgender person should have zero problem with this. Anyone who does is using an unclear gender/sex distinction and the equivalence fallacy where it benefits them personally. The people who generally do this are not simply transgender, they are transsexual people. Or people who want to be seen as the opposite sex, and see crossing genders as part of that goal. Does taking on a cross gender imply you are the other sex in any way? Of course not.

The purpose of the term transgender for transsexuals is to hide the term 'transsexual' as that has a largely negative connotation in society. Transgender is seen as more normal, as everyone crosses the gender divide at times, and some people just like to cross a little more right? So much more that they need to try to change their biology and be seen as the other sex.

The logical conclusion for a person who wishes to be 'transgender' is 'be what you want'. As long as you don't think it has anything to do with your actual sex in anyway, its fine. Its not where the issue lies. Its with transsexuals who wish to use and confuse gendered language as a euphamism to hide the fact they want to change their sex. These are the people who insist, "Trans men are men". Non transsexual transgender people generally have no disagreement with the distinction that they are one sex taking on the gender of another. It is those who take on the gender of another, and that is driven by consequence of wanting to be the other sex that wish to insist on you using terms traditionally used for sex for them. The insertion of, 'but gender' is a ploy to get the emotional fulfillment of hearing that word and emotionally equating that with sex. Since they know you won't do that if you see the term as a sex term, they use duplicity and unclear language to make you think its 'gender'. A fantastic example of tricking using another person for one's own emotional self-satisfaction.

This is a pet peeve for me. Though people may use the word "construct" to deny the reality of a thing, that's not the philosophical meaning of the word. — frank

I did not mean to imply that constructs are not real. They are real ideas. God is a real idea. It doesn't mean that 'God' as an identifying and existent entity is real.

In terms of gender, a realist would treat gender as a thing. So your own gender would involve contact with that gender thing. A constructivist would say gender is dynamic (I'm sure Joshs would approve) and made of countless interactions, some of which involves heritage. — frank

I tend to avoid terms like realist and constructivist because according to you, a realist would interpret what a 'realist' is differently than a constructivist would interpret a 'constructivist' as. This adds unnecessary terms and confuses the point I think you're trying to make.

Very simply gender is an expectation of one or more individuals in how a sex should act culturally in relation to the reality of its own sex. It is culturally sanctioned prejudice. "A man must be aggressive. Oh, you think a man can be timid? 'We' do not sanction such behavior." When gender is taken too far, it becomes culturally sanctioned sexism. So gender is very real. But its real in its culturally accepted prejudice about one's sex, not real as in a dictate that one's biology must follow because of the laws of physics.

This ignores that I said "carve off".

That tells you I don't take your logical conclusion in hand. — AmadeusD

I may not have understood your exact meaning then. According to the definitions above, sex and gender are two different identities. One's sex is one's biological embodiment, gender is a cultural expectation of how one of that embodiment should act culturally in relation to their sex. When you mean you didn't take my conclusion in hand, did you not agree with it or was this merely a separate proposal?

You raise the very good point that the use of 'man' and 'woman' is then fraught. Fine. It need not be: man and woman are 'adult' genders (akin to boy and girl) and describe cluster types of behaviour. — AmadeusD

To clarify, it is not clusters of biological behavior that are gender. So for example, on average men are more aggressive than women. But that's not gender. Gender is if society expects men to always be more aggressive than women. So a timid man might be insulted by someone claiming, "You're not a 'real man'. In this case man alone does mean gender, not sex, as the person clearly did not change their biology.

The case I'm making is that linguistically, the context of 'transman are men' having 'men' mean gender isn't clear or logical. And since a transman is not a male by sex, the statement is false.

The problem I see is that that requires that gender is a social construct. If gender is a social construct, you, personally, cannot choose your gender. — AmadeusD

Yes, again the grammar is a mess isn't it? If its a cultural expectation that sex A behaves in X way, and sex B behaves in Y way, sex B behaving in X way does not mean that they changed societies gender expectation. You cannot choose 'a gender', you can choose to act with your gender, or against your gender. The reality for the strange grammar is the game of, "I want you to say I'm the opposite sex without you realizing you're saying I'm the opposite sex". Obviously a person can act however they want despite cultural expectations. A 'transgender' person actively chooses to behave in gendered ways of the opposite sex not because they've chosen their gender, but because they want society to see them as the opposite sex. But because its not possible to change your sex, and people were already familiar with transsexualism, they attempted to disguise the term into another set of language phrases to 'rebrand' it.

And I think anyone running the line that you can be born in the wrong body may not require to be taken seriously by adults. — AmadeusD

This is the power of unclear and manipulative language. You can convince people God exists and they'll live forever in bliss if they do good things, or suffer forever in agony if they do bad things. Oh wait, you only live forever if you believe in God, but, isn't suffering forever also living forever? The point is to elicit an emotional response loyal to the vocabulary and phrasing to control their aims instead of clear and rational language.

It should just be about grammar you submit. — Hanover

For the purposes of this discussion, yes.

What I'm getting at is that social rules have ontological impact. — Hanover

True, but does that apply to speech? Let me give you another example. There is a religion that is oppressed in society for the longest time. Eventually the society gives freedom of religion. People are now free to believe what they want. The members of this religion begin to ask for more. "You must now claim God is real. This is because despite giving us legal freedom, people don't believe that God is real. This is causing them to still discriminate against us and say we are delusional."

"But lo", some of the members of society say, "We know that God is a construct of the mind, not reality."

"You are merely asserting that God is not real to assert control over us despite us being legally recognized as having the right to worship and declare we believe God is real. Because God is simply the advent of creation, we will simply note that if you believe in the Big Bang, you believe that is "God" We will convert the people emotionally to the word "God" so that way they give us what we want and treat us with respect.".

And so it was decreed in this society that not only could this religion now worship without oppression, the rest of society needed to use their words and phrases to not offend them and make up for all the harm that had been done to them over the years. To utter, "God is not real" would result in banning, job loss, social shaming, and accusations of a person being bigoted. All of this was done in the name of good, of making sure the oppressed minority would finally have the respect and acceptance of its belief not only allowed, but forcefully accepted by everyone else.

If you wish to persuade someone that they should change their view of things, you can either try to manipulate them through language and rationalization, or use rationality. Rationality of course is often times crude, painful, doesn't respect social norms, and might end up in a result that people do not want. But isn't that what the goal of philosophy is? To challenge the church? Our notions of knowledge? To question if a transwoman is a woman?

The same holds true for all entities in a society. This means that society can (without violating a holy decree) ascribe the necessary requirements to a biological male and a biological female such that both are really, truly both men. — Hanover

Of course society can, just like they can get you to say, "If you believe in the big bang, then you believe in God." But is that what society should do? Creating a term of male and female as both 'men' seems to remove specificity and clarity to the language, not add to it. And that is the point of language. Not moral or social change. The point of language is the clear communication of ideas. And to me anyone who interferes with that is attempting to control how other people think. And I think an undebatable civil right is the ability to be able to think and speak as you wish.

We would simply have sport divided not upon gender, but upon biology, — Hanover

By sex. It was never divided by gender. And the transgender community knew this. They wanted to redefine it so they could get in because the real goal was never to recognized as 'the gender' of another sex, but recognized as the other sex itself. When JK Rowling commented that she accepted transgender people but she thought sex separated spaces should remain sex separated, she got the pushback that she did.

Its the game. To get you to say they are the opposite sex without saying they're the opposite sex. This is why there's the need to get people to repeat the mantra, "Trans women are women". They want you to view them as the opposite sex without saying they are. Otherwise they would simply go, "Oh, you're right, I guess a woman is by sex, and we're really one sex just taking on the gender of the opposite sex. We don't mind you pointing out this fact at all." The problem isn't that the word woman means sex. Its that they need you to say it so they can get you to think they are, but they know people will push back if the word woman is explicitly seen as sex. Gender is used for good ol' equivalency fallacy here.

That is the debate, but keep in mind that it is your anchoring that determines your grounding, but no one suggests the grounded entity metaphysically changes based upon what it is anchored to it. — Hanover

Correct. To assist for Copernicus, "You can call something whatever you want, it doesn't change the reality of what it is."

If you hold that what is a man is socially anchored in the ability to impregnate a woman, having certain legal documents, and having certain genitalia
and you ground those traits to only XY humans, then you have a real man only under those criteria.

By the same token, you have a real female if your anchoring relies only upon psychological belief of the person. However, for that anchoring to count, social acceptance of that anchor must exist (which is absent in your counter examples). But, should being an American one day be socially determined by gun ownership, then that will one day be so. — Hanover

Great explanation. The goal of the OP here is not to address the social aspect of the man and trans. Its addressing what makes most logical sense if one is to phrase the words into the sentence, "Trans men are men." I'm viewing it as a puzzle of wordplay, and what makes most sense given the phrasing. It is instantly erased if someone states, "Trans men are females who act in as the gender assigned to males", but it is the insistence of the trans activism community in phrasing it exactly as "Trans women are women" that interests me. If we remove any ulterior motive for wanting to do so, I simply find the grammer inadequate and flawed if one insists that 'man' in this situation should only refer to gender.

So, the question becomes whether gender anchoring is changing, and the answer is that it is for some but not others. — Hanover

To clarify on the OP, this is more, "Is it logical for it to change from a grammar and definition standpoint." No, not really. And if it doesn't make any sense to by grammar, then we can assume its intentionally crafted for an emotional outcome. Considering I've been attempting to make the conversation about grammer and everyone makes it about something else, this shows its not really a problem of grammar. Any ideology that insists on poor grammer and ambiguous definitions for its ideology is essentially circumspect. Its very similar to religious arguments about God that use ambiguous terms and phrasing that must be repeated as truth.

That is a social battle, with lines on both sides, seen as a matter of civil rights by some — Hanover

Yes, I might make a topic on this idea later. I've never understood the idea that changing a word to mean gender instead of sex is some type of civil right. I can see debating about letting a trans person into a cross sex space as a right, but definitions of words themselves are not rights nor should enter into moral debates. Words are about conveying ideas accurately and clearly. Anyone who wishes to muddy the waters is trying to lie, obfuscate, and push an outcome a person would not agree to if the idea was clear.

But, to the point of social realism, whatever the anchors and whatever the grounding, the man or woman is a real man or real woman at the conclusion. — Hanover

Correct me if I'm wrong in your intent, but I think you're trying to convey that no matter the label of a man or woman society chooses, your existence doesn't change. There is no 'real man' as a definition apart from social construction, there is only the existence of an individual no matter what society labels them.

Don't look for an all purpose essence. Look to particular cases of use. — frank

I am looking at is a linguistic argument. Does it make sense to say the phrase, 'trans men are men' and change 'man' in the second reference to indicate gender and not sex? No. I find the phrasing a great philosophical word play to analyze.

My take is that 'transgender' needs to be read prima facie. transgender. In this way, we simply carve sex off from gender. They are related in many ways (even on relatively flimsy ideological takes) but are clearly, imo different things. — AmadeusD

This is the OP's take as well.

So if you hold anything essentially male or female to constitute 'man' or 'woman' then that's an issue for your terminology. — AmadeusD

Correct and in agreement with the OP if man is taken as pointing out the sex of an individual, not 'man as gender'.

The alternative that the transgender community proposes is that 'trangender men are men' is more tautological in the fact that they say 'man' in this instance refers to 'male gender', not 'male sex'.

The question then is, "If 'man' by default without modificaiton is defined as 'male gender' and not 'male sex' is this a clear linguistic phrase that makes logical sense and that we should switch to?" The answer is no. There are already modifiers to 'man' that switch it from 'sex' to 'gender'. Cis and trans. If 'male' is defaulted to 'male gender', then the terms cis and trans no longer have any meaning.

"Cis men are men and trans men are men" conveys no pertinent or useful information in this case, and trans and cis would effectively be synonyms. Cis and trans only have a differential when referring to gender in relation to the sex of the individual. When saying cis man we have to note the full definition of, "A man by sex who acts as a male by gender"

If male defaults to sex, there is no additional word needed to correctly communicate the phrase 'transgender men are men'. If it defaults to gender however, we need some new word or addendum that indicates we are comparing sex and gender. Since we already have a perfectly good word, "male" that denotes sex, and a man is 'an adult male', we are simply overcomplicating the language.

So the clearest and most logical use of the word 'man' in relation to the term trans man, is 'adult human male by sex', not 'by gender'.

I correctly asserted that in the past a moderator stated that he would ban people for disagreeing that transgender woman is a woman. That's a fact. — frank

I think in the interests of being on scope with the OP, we shouldn't call out moderators or accuse the site of being overly restrictive in the past without a citation and context. Today I'm able to post a discussion about the question of the phrase 'trans x is x' without any threat of banning or moderation. That's a credit to the site and the people who run it.

Frank, do you have any criticism or addition to the OP's argument? I promise I won't vomit all over you. :)

I didn't counter him. I responded to the fact he presented. — Copernicus

Ah fair. My apologies, I'm just trying to clear up the vocabulary. I'll let TClark respond.

If transwomen are women or transmen are men just because of cultural or habitual identity, does carrying a gun or shooting down schools make a Norwegian an American, or does loving KFC chicken make a caucasian man an African American, regardless of ethnicity or nationality? — Copernicus

That's not the argument he was making. He was noting that the term 'man' may rely on biology, but it is not a fixed biological definition like 'spleen' for example. Since a man is 'an adult male', the definition of adult can change based on the culture. He was not arguing against the point I was making that we use man to reference a biological male, or indicating we should change it to mean a gendered one. He really wasn't addressing the OP, just noting that 'male' is a strict biolological referent while 'man' is a definition that can change due to the addition of the socially constructed identity of 'adult'.

I suggest you carry on discussing your OP, because I won't be posting in this discussion again. — Jamal

Fantastic, thank you.

That said, since it became clear yesterday (or whenever it was) that you were, in an arrogant and ridiculous manner, refusing to think through or face up to some important challenges to your obviously fallacious OP, I have avoided the discussion and intend to stay out of it. — Jamal

I'll post in this topic as much as I want. — Jamal

No actually. I'm going to reach out to some other moderators and request that you not.

That is a really stupid post. — Jamal

Remember this one sentence post you did yesterday? If anyone on this forum posted such a troll response and I forwarded it up to a moderator, they would be warned. You are an administrator and you need to act as the example that other posters are supposed to follow. You are the one who first introduced insults and personal attacks against posters in this topic, namely me. It is your responsibility to be BETTER than a troll, and you lapsed in judgement here.

I'm in a leadership position in my job. If I had someone call me out for breaking my own rules, I would apologize and tell them I wouldn't do it again. Not tell them, "I do what I want" right? Lets see if you have what it takes in your next post. Show the forum what kind of person you are.

The fact that you don't know that moderator threatened to ban anyone who denied that transwomen and women just shows you weren't paying attention. — frank

Lets be polite please. Also lets stay on topic with the language argument of the OP please.

My God frank, you are mightily obnoxious today. — Jamal

Jamal, you are adding personal attacks and not encouraging people to remain on topic despite being an administrator. This topic obviously is highly emotional for you. If you cannot control that, please refrain from posting in the topic.

To be fully objective, it's a biological man who identifies and presents as a biologucal woman. Your definition suggests a third gender. — Hanover

I believe his definition implied a tautology. "A trans man is an adult female that purposefully acts in the gendered way society expects of an adult male.' = itself

And it's not about how many people use a word to mean something in particular; it's about how powerful those who use it in that way are. — baker

That is one aspect for sure. But another aspect is the usefulness, reasonableness, and ease of use of the term. If it is reasonable, useful, and easy to change the term's meaning, people will. My point in the OP is that the term man meaning 'adult male' not only is historically the correct use, it is reasonable, useful, and easy to use. Whereas it may be that in certain contexts man can mean, 'male gender', in the general phrase of 'transgender men are men', the context of 'male gender' for man leads to unclear, illogical, and hard to use language.

Should someone call a trasman a woman or a transman, the objection isn't simply one of misuse (like if I called a spider an insect and not an arachnid), but it's one of ethical impropriety. — Hanover

The OP is not an argument of ethical impropriety as I note in my reply here to Baker. Its simply poor grammer, does not convey a clear idea, and is ultimately inferior to using man as 'adult male' for the reasons I've cited in the OP.

A man wearing a skirt does not mean they are being transgendered. It means that wearing a skirt is now gender-neutral. — Harry Hindu

A clarification. Crossing the gender line is a transgendered act. This is independent of one's own viewpoint. If one purposefully commits a transgendered act, knows and accepts that the action belongs to the gender of the opposite sex, they are purposefully being transgendered. If a person commits a transgendered act, but doesn't accept that the action belongs to a gender, then they are being gender neutral.

Gender neutral means that we stop having these expectations of the sexes as opposed to transgenderism that amplifies the expectations to the point of being sexist. — Harry Hindu

Gender is a fine line between expectations and sexism. Gender is mostly in the realm of pre-judgement, or prejudice. Healthy gender is typically a one step away from biological differences. Unhealthy gender is farther away from biological differences and is used for control. This is what we would call sexism.

So, Philosophim, is this the sort of content you were looking for? — BC

Not quite. A little too in depth for what was needed here I believe. I'm just approaching the phrasing and noting that if we define sex and gender seperately, it still doesn't make sense to say a 'transman is a man' as defining man as 'male gender' doesn't even lead to a useful sentence. This seems to be a much more in depth criticism of sex, gender, and transgender than I am intending here.

I wasn’t addressing the question of whether a trans man should be considered a man or a trans woman should be considered a woman. My comment only addressed the fact that the answers to the question are not primarily biological, but are rather social and linguistic. — T Clark

Ah, in that context I agree 100%.

The difference between man and woman is a social and linguistic one. This is evidenced by the fact that the definitions of man and woman have changed over the years. When I was young, you had to be 21 years old to be considered a man or a woman. That has been redefined so that 18-year-olds are now seen as such — T Clark

Yet what has stayed consistent is a reference to sex and age. What we consider the age range for an adult has changed, but not that we ever considered a man as 'a female'. If I read about men and women from 100 years ago, do you think, "They mean men by gender, it could just as easily be a female or male"? Of course not. The common understanding has been that 'men' are adult males.

And thus in regards to trans men, the trans modifies the discussion to mean "the gender of male", but does not claim the sex is male. Thus "trans men are men' is not true if man is being used as an indicator of sex. In the case of trans men are men in regards to gender, theres still the issue that if man is meant to be gendered, there's no way to differentiate between "Cis men are men". The only way to have a meaningful differentiation of the phrase is if 'man' by default refers to 'an adult human male' or by sex.

As "trans ideology" has developed, I have no confidence that it is a valid concept. — BC

While I do appreciate your weigh in, I'm trying to focus the discussion on the words and phrases themselves. Whether a person agrees with trans ideology or not should be irrelevant to the discussion at hand. This is an attempt to tackle the philosophical concept of stating "Transmen are men" and how we can interpret that to mean anything logical. Would you like to weigh in on that portion of the OP or counter some who are insisting that the OP is not correct?

Whether or not, I agree with your answer, in the past similar types of conclusions have led to threats of banning. — T Clark

I will have faith that a philosophy board will let people do philosophy.

The terms are as fluid as gender is supposed to be. They are a package, containing both sex and normative role. Which meaning is emphasized depends on context — hypericin

Right, but it doesn't mean two things at once in the same context. What context is it reasonable to use man as sex vs man as gender? Note my reply above where I note that 'man as gender' does not provide clear or meaningful information when used in regards to trans and cis.