I appreciate your thoughts and I agree: this thread has run it's course and we just need to put this all behind us. I look forward to our future discussions, my friend!

CC: @Leontiskos, @Jamal, @Banno, @Philosophim

Banno has finally clarified what they meant by this DM:

Since you accuse me of false and defamatory comments in the thread, I've marked it for mod attention. They can let us know if I've over stepped.

I will probably not be participating further in your thread, despite your chiding.

Now, onward.

What they meant according to a DM today:

I did not report you for making defamatory comments. I reported myself, because you accused me of making such comments.

As anyone can see, the first quote, which is the entire DM message in question, clearly conveys to any person that the sender reported them, not that they reported themselves. I guess @Banno was attempting to make a joke.

In light of this and in hopes of moving forward, I recant my claim about Banno reporting me and chalk it up to a very odd joke by Banno that was not appropriately clarified after the fact.

Just to be clear.

A bigot is obstinate. They have not entered into the conversation in order to engage in earnest dialogue. They are not going to change their mind as a result of a rational discussion.

There is a point at which further engaging with bigotry is doing no more than providing them with a platform, or the walls to their echo chamber.

You are, as before, alluding to me here as the bigot and someone who will not change my mind (which you’ve stated multiple times now in the thread). That’s contextually what you are referring to with @Philosophim. Do I need to pull up the transcripts of what you have said earlier in this thread? You have never once substantiated any of these claims.

That same hateful attitude can be seen in this thread, from the petty disparaging of the tom boy to the outright perdition of the homosexual. The anecdotal accounts of compromised transgender folk are pathetic, given the profuse accounts of transgender folk being ostracised by their community.

The content of this thread is bigoted

You are alluding to me having a hateful attitude, engaging in petty disparaging, doing pathetic anecdotes, and incentivizing the ostracizing of transgender people from the community. You’ve expressed many times that my views are bigoted and that you would censor them.

Nothing I said was defamatory: it’s true.

If there's something I am misunderstanding, then please let me know and I will be more than happy to apologize if what I am saying is false.

@Jamal, @Philosphim, @Leontiskos

I want it to be on the public record here that @Banno just told me that they reported me for defamatory comments for this response I just gave.

Here's the DM:

Since you accuse me of false and defamatory comments in the thread, I've marked it for mod attention. They can let us know if I've over stepped.

I will probably not be participating further in your thread, despite your chiding.

Now, onward.

I am not going to report @Banno back out of spite, because this whole thing is really childish and unnecessary. What I said in that response was as respectful but honest and true as can be; and anyone who reads it can see that.

Bob has literally, explicitly, called multiple subsets of people bad, immoral, and/or crazy

I never once said that people who engage in sexuality immorality are crazy; and you are confusing badness with immorality.

Nope, not a personal attack, except perhaps against his judgement. He might be doing this unwittingly, with the best intentions. But he is doing it regardless.
…
Bob is not only participating in, amplifying, and offering legitimatization of a larger homophobic and especially transphobic movement in this historical moment, especially in this country. But he has implicitly insulted forum members and their loved ones, implying they are bad, immoral, and crazy

This is incoherent. You can’t plead that you are not attacking me and then hurl personal attacks on me. Which is it?

it defies logic that one can keep insisting that nobody should be able to challenge the many flaws in their posts

No one has tried to discuss any flaws in my position, other than @Banno and @Jamal (that I can remember) for a brief moment. You just keep ad hominem attacking me and refusing to substantiate your claims.

 (if Jamal could ban all bigots, the nobody would be able to post here)

Ok, so do you believe that everyone is a bigot then?

yet writing off homosexuality and transgenderism as mental illness or problematic is definetly what i would call bigotry.

If you are good-faith interlocutor, then I give you this challenge: try to play devil’s advocate. Give me a brief account of why I believe that homosexuality is bad as a sexual orientation and immoral as an act; and why transgenderism is a mental illness called gender dysphoria. I will bet you that you will grossly misrepresent my position because you still to this day haven’t engaged with me on the topic in any substantial sense. Prove me wrong.

For example, i'm personally ignoring everything Bob Ross says to me, as he has pulled me into this thread that i've been sick of for a while now

Then please stop calling me seriously bad names without substantiated evidence to back them up. No one has the right to pop into a thread, ignore the actual topic, and gaslight everyone into believing the person is a horrible person.

This is worse than flaming, this is completely manipulative and narcissistic behavior

I’ll give you the transcript. You said in this post that I am a bigot, hypocrite, evangelist, and a transphobe. I responded addressing all of these claims and how they are patently false; and challenged you to demonstrate them with evidence here. You then ignored everything I said with this sidestepping response. I then kindly asked you to substantiate your horrendous claims against my character on this forum here. You responded with hateful comments that were complete red herrings that demonstrated your unwillingness to back up your defamatory claims here. I then rightly pointed out the dodging you are doing and the seriousness of your baseless accusations here. You then, now, ignore me and respond to someone else spewing the same unsubstantiated, hateful claims against my character and, worse yet, trying to gaslight everyone into thinking you are the victim. There’s the tape: you can’t escape the transcript. You have called someone a bigot, transphobe, evangelist, and hypocrite while purposefully evading substantiating the claims. That’s the facts, and I am growing impatient some of these forum members and their unwarranted hostility and uncharitability. .

:heart:

I've tried to discuss this topic with @Banno many times and they keep evading it. All I've asked is that they describe or define 'sex' and 'gender' so that I can understand where they are coming from and hopefully further the discussion. I don't see any other way to progress the discussion, since my definitions are clear and Banno clearly is well versed in Aristotelianism.

A bigot is obstinate. They have not entered into the conversation in order to engage in earnest dialogue. They are not going to change their mind as a result of a rational discussion.
...
That same hateful attitude can be seen in this thread, from the petty disparaging of the tom boy to the outright perdition of the homosexual. The anecdotal accounts of compromised transgender folk are pathetic, given the profuse accounts of transgender folk being ostracised by their community.

I don't understand why you are DM me that you would like to be omitted from the discussion in this thread, of which I honored and respected, to just inject yourself yet again to spew false, defamatory, unsubstantiated, and spiteful comments about me.

Like I said in the DM and in this thread, I need to understand what you mean by gender being social and sex being physical/biologically to be able to discuss with you our differing opinions on this topic. I already clearly defined the terms; and, in good faith, I will do it again.

'Sex' is the procreative nature of a substance; and 'gender' is the natural tendencies of that sex. What do you mean by sex being biological and gender being social? Can you elaborate in depth about that or provide a basic definition of each?

If you truly don't want anything to do with this thread, then please stop interjecting with malicious ad hominems that are unsubstantiated. It's not helping us further the discussion. Like I said before, I would love to discuss this topic with you and hear your thoughts; and, believe it or not, I will concede any points that I am convinced by. I am not a bigot.

I understand, and that is respectable :up: .

There's nothing trolling about it. You accused me of the serious offenses of expressing bigotry, transphobia, hypocrisy, and an evangelism; and are refusing to provide any evidence to support it, which is, be definition, slander and defamation. Don't call people nasty names if you are not willing to have a conversation about it.

But, then, why am I bigot? Or why am I, if you prefer, speaking bigotry?

The people in here are trying to claim that I am a bigot or at least speaking bigotry by saying that transgenderism is bad and transitioning is immoral; but yet when it is transgender person that says it now it all of the sudden isn't bigotted. It's almost like bigotry is never demonstrated through the material act because it involves an obstinate attachment to the belief....

I spent a few minutes looking this up. There is an issue, but mainly with rough, forced, unlubricated entry, i.e. rape. This completely fails to support the absurd claim that anal sex is like smoking and drinking every day.

Anal sex has been demonstrated to be correlated to an increase risk of getting:

1. Fetal incontinence;

2. STDs;

3. Bacterial infections;

4. HPV;

5. HIV; and

6. Anal trauma.

How much of a correlation is there? Scientifically, there is no consensus; but they definitely increase the risk: the anus is clearly not designed to be penetrated, even if it is morally permissible to do so. Now, how much of an increase is worrying enough to not do it? I think this is a mistaken question, as I’ve noted before, because having anal sex is contrary to the natural ends it has—irregardless of how contrary it may be.

However, I will indulge: if someone is thinking about it in terms of “I won’t do it if it is too harmful to the anus”; then I would say fetal incontinence and anal trauma are the biggest risks. The other ones can be mitigated fairly well; but over time the anus loosens up with more anal sex and if done frequently keeps it loose.

The problem with studies now is that there isn’t a lot of them about the link between the above issues and anal sex due to the sexually private nature of it and the political agendas of liberals. Just as they are trying to wipe out the notion that transgenderism is caused by gender dysphoria (by doing things like removing it from the DSM-V), they are also spitting out unsubstantiated articles trying to claim that anal sex is perfectly safe because we lack data on it. It’s a, at best, argument from ignorance—that is, they are saying something is safe to do because we don’t know if it is unsafe to do (due to lack of sufficient studies).

The studies in existence clearly support a correlation between them and if you ever talk to someone that does anal sex you will find that, anecdotally, they have problems with holding in poop—especially right after having anal sex for a while. Some even do exercises to counter-act the loosening of the pelvic area so they can do anal sex on a weekly basis.

Yet, you dismiss these dangers, while being fixated on the somehow unique harm of the activities of one particular population. Why is that?

Maybe we are thinking of two different activities, but mountain biking does not usually, when done right, have a significant risk of any of those. Again, I am not arguing that if there is a risk of danger that one should not do it—that would mean, e.g., I can’t go drive my car because there’s a chance I will get in a crash. I am saying that you cannot use, purposefully, your faculties contrary to their nature. If you think biking is contrary to the natural ends of the body, then please demonstrate how—I am not seeing it.

What do you think of eugenics? Perhaps it gets a bad rap?

You clearly are trying to bait me into saying something bad so I get banned; but, since I am a good-faith interlocutor, I will give you a brief summary of my views on eugenics and I would be interested to hear what your thoughts are on it.

By ‘eugenics’, I understand it to be the selective breeding of humans on the basis of genetics. There are two fundamental kinds of selective breeding: involuntary and voluntary.

Involuntary selective breeding is only permissible when such breeding would produce a grave risk to the state of being and genetics of the offspring and reasonable efforts have been made to respectfully convince the parties involved in that attempted breeding to voluntarily abstain. I am thinking here of examples like incest and inheritable diseases that are extremely bad. The inheritability of the bad condition must be proven to be sufficiently high-risk and the bad condition itself must be sufficiently high-risk.

Voluntary selective breeding is always permissible, as it reflects the right to bodily autonomy. A person has the right to decide who they sleep with and on any grounds whatsoever. People have all sorts of different dating, marriage, and sex preferences; and for many people they do have genetic preferences—especially racial ones.

Having racial preferences in dating and sex may sound weird (maybe?) to Europeans (I am not sure); but in America people of all races here have preferences in terms of who they are more attracted to (which may not even be their own race) and a lot of people in minority groups explicitly prefer their own race preferable. I know a lot of, e.g., black people that will only date black people and want black children. I don’t seek to regulate nor find it immoral for people to choose who they procreate with, have sex with, or date.

I personally do not really care what race a woman is; but I find mixed women usually more attractive then other women.

What are your thoughts?

With all due respect, are you going to accept the challenge to demonstrate the slanderous names you have called me? I think it is rather disheartening that you call me all sorts of serious names, I respond with a thoughtful post addressing all your points, and all you do is half address one minor point I made. Can you please address what I said?

Would you consider that transgender person a bigot then even though they were pro transitioning as a necessary evil?

CC: @Leontiskos

@Banno, @RogueAI, @Jamal, @ProtagoranSocratist

Also, come to think of it, that transgender person I mentioned to @ProtagoranSocratist agreed with me that transgenderism is caused by gender dysphoria, that it is bad, and they even went so far as to say it is immoral to transition; but they believed, as a Christian, that Jesus would forgive them since it saved their life (and so there was an element of consequentialism going there). By your own words and logic, that transgender person is a bigot, transphobic, and prejudiced.

But that's because we treat them as such, not because they are such-and-such a thing.

I apologize, I am not really following your view on a nature. How can something be such-and-such a thing if there is nothing it is to be that thing? Your explanation of ‘tendencies’ seems to deploy realist semantics to convey your point; and it is tripping me up.

If humans do not share a nature, then we cannot say that there is such-and-such a way a human will tend to behave because there is no such thing in reality as a human—no?

Why does it require realism?

I'd say it just requires wanting a tranquil life. For Epicurus he went out and actively recruited people due to his realist commitment, but I don't think we have to be realists to utilize an ethic. We could just want what the ethic wants.

Because you were saying it is eudaimonic: that’s an Aristotelian term that refers to happiness as a biproduct of realizing one’s nature; and you description of Epicurean thought seemed to imply the same thing. I think I just need to understand how you are analyzing what a nature is and then I can circle back to this.

"Natural function" is the same as teleology

They are conceptually distinct. Biology admits of functions of the organs (e.g., the heart pumps blood) but not that there is a design to it (e.g., the heart should pump blood). Which leads me to:

Sure it is! And it's just a way of organizing our thoughts rather than the ontology of speciation

Are you saying you deny that the heart functions in a way to pump blood? I don’t understand how one could hold that: can you elaborate more?

I think we have plenty to discuss in the above, so I will refrain from further comment until I understand your position better.

No worries, my friend! If you ever think of them, then please feel free to let me know and we can discuss.

:heart:

:fire:

With all due respect, your response is full of ad hominems. I don’t think you are doing it unintentionally, as I think you are a good faith interlocutor (and I commend you for that) that simply hasn’t read the thread and is basing their interpretation heavily (inadvertently) on what other people have claimed about me (instead of what I claimed myself).

To be clear, you have now taken the position, by your own words, that I am expressing bigotry, transphobic, hypocritical, and an evangelist. Let’s break all of these down in hopes that we can have a substantive discussion about it.

1. Bigotry. In order for a claim to be bigoted, it has to be something claimed in an obstinate way; and not merely claiming something that is niche, false, delusional, or considered gravely immoral (by the recipient). I would challenge you to demonstrate, through citation, where I have been being stubbornly attached to my position—where I adamantly refuse to consider reasonable critiques—to the point of dying on the hill. I submit to you that, on the contrary, in this thread I have been nothing but charitable to everyone’s critiques (including those that are irrelevant and ad hominems): I have openly stated that I will concede points where I find reasonable evidence to support it. If this is true, then, even if you believe what I hold to be true is widely immoral, my views on sexuality cannot be bigoted by definition.

2. Transphobia. I would define this term as “to be hateful towards transgender people in virtue of their transgenderism” but I concede this is not the standard definition; so let me also address the basic one on google that says it is the “dislike or prejudice against transgender people”. Firstly, as it relates to my definition, I am loving transgender people by acknowledging that they have a mental illness, wanting to cure them, and helping them in whatever way I can to get rid of their body dysphoria; and this is because, in Aristo-Thomistic thought, love is to will the good of a thing for its own sake and goodness is the equality of a thing’s essence and existence. The problem here, is that you, being submerged so thoroughly in liberal thought, can rightly rebuttle that, under your view, to love a person is to will their (hedonic) happiness; and, consequently, it would be, since hate is the parasitic opposite to love, hateful to prevent, e.g., a transgender person from having a drag show or getting surgery if they thought, or perhaps knew, that it would give them relief from their gender dysphoria. Given the definition I gave of love and transphobia, it cannot be true that I am transphobic for wanting to help cure their illness nor because I want to prevent the incorrect exaltation of sex in drag shows. Secondly, the colloquial definition from google requires one of two things to be true: either (1) one dislikes or (2) has a prejudice against transgender people. I would challenge you to cite anywhere where I expressed dislike or prejudice for the transgender person themselves and I will concede. On the contrary, I have openly advocated to love transgender people (which doesn’t mean you affirm their own mental illness as if it is normal), to treat them with respect, and to help them kindly as much as possible. There is a difference, crucially, between hating badness and immorality vs. hating people. I do not hate, dislike, nor have a prejudice against a schizophrenic because they have this bad illness; and likewise the same is true for transgender people. I love the person, hate the evil (viz., badness or immorality).

3. Hypocrisy. A hypocrite is a person who special pleads—that is, they hold some proposition true but not for such-and-such without any reasonable reason for any sort of symmetry breaker. I am not sure why you think I am being hypocritical; but I understand you think that I am blind to the hatred that you seem to think I ‘had it coming’. I would like to stress that even if you are right that I provoked hatred, it would not follow that you should condone the hatred provoked nor blame me for it. The one hating is doing something immoral, not the person being hated.

4. Evangelism. I never once have done anything evangelist on here; and I would challenge you to come up with one example. Evangelism is different than forwarding a position: everyone forwards a position when they are conversing on a topic. Evangelists are actively trying to convert you to a religion. I have not been open about my Christian faith on here; nor have I tried to convert anyone.

transphobic: you expressed interest in banning drag shows

So if I express interest in banning Christian parades, then I am a Christianophobe? What you are doing is defining anything against the predominant view of how we should treat transgenderism as transphobic: this is oddly convenient. What if a transgender advocate group decides to push that murdering cisgenders is perfectly permissible—am I transphobic for opposing that? Where do you draw the line? What definition are you using?

So what exactly are you trying to accomplish with this performative whining? Are you trolling? Are you trying to guilt people into changing their minds and embracing your ideology? You've done this more than once.

I @ you because we had a discussion about this where you denied any of this was happening—including that people were trying to get me banned. I am showing you that the people on here are demonstrating their hatred in an attempt to avoid hatred: it’s an interesting paradox.

I personally did not directly hurl insults at you (homophobe, transphobe, bigot, Nazi, etc.) because I do not like to argue like that, it doesn't bring light to a discussion.

I appreciate that, and I do commend your good faith discussion: I am not meaning to lump you into that crowd.

We are all prejudiced, we can't help but be prejudiced because this is how the survival mechanisms in our brain have been wired overtime, for lack of a better explanation.

Do you believe, then, that everyone is a bigot too? Clearly, when these people are calling me a bigot or prejudiced they are not intending to convey that everyone is one.

If you don't like being called a bigot, then do not express dislike towards transgendered people

I don’t dislike transgender people. Again, you are confusing dislike for the modern-day ideology (that teaches it’s totally normal and tries to affirm their dysphoria) with dislike for the transgender person. Think of it this way, imagine you had a bad case of schizophrenia—lots of unwanted hallucinations causing you to develop depersonalization, derealization, and delusion—and you went to a friend and told them about. Imagine that friend told you that there’s nothing bad happening to you: you don’t have a mental illness. Imagine they proceed to affirm every delusion you have—which is caused by your inability to discern reality from your hallucinations of no fault of your own—to help you be happy. Are they doing you a service? Are they really loving you properly, ProtagoranSocratist? No. Are they necessarily doing it out of malice, spite, or some other immorality? Not necessarily: maybe they don’t understand what schizophrenia really is—maybe they think you really don’t have a problem.

The mods choose the left/liberal bias so that transgender people can post on here.

Look—believe it or not my friend, @Banno, @Jamal, and @RogueAI—I have discussions with transgender people and I do not dislike them nor are we disrespectful to each other. One time I had an long conversation about sexuality ethics and gender theory, in much more political detail than in here, with a transgender person that transitioned to avoid suicide; and we had a respectful, nuanced, thought-provoking, and productive conversation that left me with nothing but sympathy for their condition. It is truly tragic and horrible the suffering many of these people have to go through and overcome. Is that bigoted of me to say too? What makes you think if a transgender read my OP or discussed sexuality ethics with me that they would be disrespected, demeaned, hated, or attacked by me? You are twisting my view that transgenderism is bad into some sort of hatred of transgender people that is completely unsubstantiated. I challenge any of you to cite where I have suggested or demonstrated that I would insult, abuse, demean, disrespect, or attack a transgender person if I were to talk to one on this forum.

You've even clearly broken one of the rules, more than once, about evangelizing a particular point of view

I’ve never once tried to convert anyone to Christianity: I am not sure why you believe that I’ve committed evangelism.

For example, there's this one music service I was using that had a chat room. There was absolutely no moderation. As a result, there's some dude who has been living on there for years who almost constantly spews hatred towards jews.

My friend, with love and respect, the fact that you consider my comments in this thread on par with anti-semitism tells me you have not looked at really anything I claimed in here.

CC: @Philosophim, @Leontiskos, @Jamal, @Wayfarer

@ProtagoranSocratist, this is what I was referring to as the hatred, anti-free-speech, and lack of good faith by my opponents. I have been a member on here for over four years and never have ever had any issues with anyone: I try to be as charitable as I can be to other people's positions and learn something from them (although I fall short sometimes). Simply for providing a robust and sophisticated (albeit not necessarily true) position contrary to modern gender theory and sexuality ethics I have been dubbed a bigot, neo-Nazi, homophobe, prejudiced interlocutor, and widely considered banworthy.

Even @Jamal has expressed in many times, including in the bannings thread, that they consider me lucky that they did not ban me for having an opinion on gender theory and the ethics of sexuality.

The liberal establishment in this forum has exposed its anti free speech sentiments. I wish we all could have productive conversations, in good faith, about important topics like gender theory. All of these insults, ad hominems, threats of banishment, etc. on their part is unnecessarily and does not further the discussion.

The ethics of sexuality and gender theory appear to be irrationally off limits on this forum, even if it is a good faith intellectual and philosophical discussion grounded in widely prominent theories (such as Aristotelianism). Ironically, I've made a thread about defending, to some extent, Imperialism, which is still up, and I was not threatened with banishment nor hated on like I am now. These threats seem politically motivated to me.

To @Jamals credit, they haven't banned me nor censored the thread; and I do respect that.

Jamal, I have to admit, I also find the rules lacking clarity. It seems like there is a lack of checks and balances within the admins. I am not sure how you guys have it setup, but I would appreciate it if you could either explicate or refer me on the forum to what constitutes a banworthy offense. These reasons you give are super vague.

Does the offender get a fair reprimanding warning before banning them?

Likewise, can we implement a notification system for censored posts? I know you've silently censored some of my posts and it would be greatly appreciated if the mods gave them a notification of offenses committed and authoritative actions done to resolve it.

I'm curious where this leaves cross-dressing in your view. Clothes/makeup/jewelry are surely nothing more than symbolic expressions of gender. And so choosing one set of symbols over another cannot be "gravitational", and so can only be a morally neutral expression of personality. Do you agree?

I don’t think attire and aesthetic accessories are purely social (viz., purely how we symbolize gender). For example, makeup is closely connected to women making themselves beautified as a part of their role as the object of sex (which is not to be confused with saying that women should be objectified in the colloquial sense of the term).

A lot of the ways we traditional or even liberally dress are related to masculine vs feminine traits. For example, a traditional dress covers the legs and butt to express female modesty.

To be fair to your point, I don’t know exactly how much of our clothing choices is truly gendered vs. socially constructed; and there definitely are socially constructed aspects to clothing choices.

And so, what to make of male nurses, female engineers, females who gravitate towards being providers and protectors? Insane? Immoral?

A person that exhibits sufficiently the oppose gender of no fault of their own is not doing anything immoral but it is bad. A tomboy girl is a masculine girl, which is bad even if they have done nothing immoral. Ideally, all men would be masculine to a perfect degree and same for women with femininity.

A person that purposefully mimicks the opposite gender is doing something immoral by trying to will what is bad for them; but this isn’t too say that it is a sin like murder.

Wow!!! You will have to cite me some sources on that one. By that last sentence, do you mean, you can't take a shit after???

That can happen too, but that’s a temporary inhibition. The long-term effect is that it loosens the anus which makes it have a hard time keeping poop in.

To be a mountain biker is to sustain injuries, many of which can entail significant impairment later in life. It goes with the territory

Not necessarily, unless you are doing stunts or something. One can safely bike through mountain bike trails without hurting themselves; and just because doing something opens up one to the risk of injury does not mean that it is immoral to do. If that were true, then everything we do would be immoral basically. There has to be a sufficient probability that an act is going to go contrary to the natural ends of the body for it to be unwise and immoral.

Every day of our lives would be thereby be swimming in immorality, and the concept would dissolve into meaninglessness.

We are swimming in immorality. We have no disagreement there.

Thanks, I will take a look.

All @hypericin is doing is ad hoc defining and redefining bigotry because they want it to be bigoted because they view the position that transgenderism is a mental illness as too extreme. I have no problem with people continually refurbishing their definitions (as that's part of the refinement process); but this is just bad faith to me on their part.

But there could still be a use for "nature" in our thinking even if we're not adopting Aristotle's ontology.

Ok, but what is a ‘nature’ then?

You are arguing you can know the ends of things, though. Their teleology. Yes?

Yes.

If that can come to be known over time then by what means do we infer the teleology of organs as you have?

It’s innate to the organ: it isn’t supervenient. That is, the nature of an organ is intrinsic like its weight, size, shape, etc. and not like its extrinsic properties like its monetary value.

The reason I think you are having a hard time conceptualizing it, if I may be so bold (and no offense meant), is because you are failing to see that, even if essence realism is false, my kind of theory views the very same natural organs you do through the lens of them having a nature ‘embedded’ in them (in virtue of their form).

Think of it this way: studying the functions, biologically, of an organ is the same process as studying its teleology. This is not to say that we have to understand teleology through the scientific method, but just to convey it to you I think that’s the best example I can give that you may be able to relate to. E.g., based off of what this liver is doing, what is made up of, its size, how it relates to the other organs, etc. it seems to be for filtering out toxins (as well as other stuff). One natural end it has is to detoxify the blood which is done through its natural functions, such as its enzymes that break down toxins into less harmful substances.

... it was explicitly your description of the anus' teleology that got me started on this line of thinking.

Let me reword it in a way that you might be on board with: the anus’ natural functions are such that it secretes and holds in poop. That’s what it does for the body. You may divorce the functionality from teleology, but let’s start there.

This is your Argument 1. There is either Realism or Nominalism. Nominalism is not tenable, ergo Realism.

No, I have not given an account of why someone should accept realism: I was noting that you are a nominalist and you are an epicurean that accepts eudaimonia which requires realism. You are holding two incompatible views.

I'm not claiming nominalism. I'm speaking in my own words and not as part of a category of people with such-and-such beliefs well known, unless nominalism really is nothing but the belief that essences do not exist.

Nominalism is the view that essences are not real: you are denying realism about essences, so you are a nominalist. Semantics aside, you are still affirming realism about natures in a way that doesn’t seem coherent; but I’ll wait to elaborate on that until you give me your account of what a nature is.

Since we're a social species who learns roles and desires to fulfill them hedonism can explain sacrifice.

How can it though if you are claiming that Epicureanism is Aristotelianism without the social obligations derivable from one’s nature? Typically, the father has to lay down his life for his kid because he is their father who is has the natural role in the natural family as the provider and protector.

I've read through the first 7 pages of this discussion and encountered a lot of noise, along with a few gems. Apologies if skipping the next 10 has made me miss anything relevant to my inquiries.

No apologies needed: most of it was red herrings and ad hominems.

1. When you say divorcing sex and gender makes for "an ahistorical account", do you mean it is an account that does not agree with the historical usage of the term 'gender'?...Or do you mean, as some people here (don't remember who) seem to have thought, that it was disconnected from queer history and the like?

I don’t mean to deny that ‘gender’ is connected to queer history; but that it’s normal usage has never been like it is today. Now we are seeing people using the gendered terms in completely two different senses; and of which they believe are completely or vastly separated from each other.

2. I am not sure what you mean by 'the symbolic upshot of sex'. The Mars symbol ( ♂ U+2642 MALE SIGN = Mars, alchemical sign for iron) is of course a symbol, but it seems quite arbitrary that it is attached to the male sex, or for that matter to Mars or iron.

When a symbol is in some way representing a gender, it is a valid symbol of gender; but gender itself is not about symbols. You are right that a symbol can be loosely or tightly related to what it signifies (e.g., the redness of the Templar cross resembling blood seems much more closely connected to martyrdom than red representing 'to stop'). We could debate what counts as a good symbol vs. a poor symbol, but I think we would both agree it has to do with how well what symbolizes the thing relates to that thing. The Mars symbol doesn’t seem as closely related to maleness as the shape of a man on a public bathroom door, for example.

When you refer to "the very social norms, roles, identities, and expressions ... that are studied in gender studies", it would seem more relevant to give as examples typical or stereotypical male or female behaviors, such as dominance or submissiveness, interest in things or interest in people.

I was just giving the standard description of gender that liberal gender studies uses: it’s all social and not ontologically connected to sex; and it has to be for their ideology to work, since they want to claim that a person can become, e.g., non-binary by simply not expressing themselves as a part of the male or female gender—this only works if gender is purely socio-psychological.

On the contrary, my theory suggests that, under the revised version (let’s say), gender and sex are not really distinct but are virtually distinct; and so we can conceptualize them as different, insofar as gender is the natural tendencies of sex and sex is the procreative nature of the substance, but in reality they are not separable. If this is true, then gender is not social at all: masculinity, e.g., is separable from the social understanding of it and so the social expressions and expectations are not a part of gender itself.

One thing to note is that I think we're a social species, for instance, so "social construct" does not thereby mean "not real" as is often mistakenly taken to be the case.

Well, it wouldn’t be real; because reality is objective, and socially constructed ideas are inter-subjective (even if they are expressing something objective).

Our agreement that vanilla ice cream is the best ice cream ever and that anyone who disagrees is an ice cream heretic has inter-subjective existence.

In the ontology of atoms and void the gods do not care about you and there is no afterlife so theological goods are distractions from pursuing our true nature

Ok, would it be fair to say that Epicureanism is the same fundamental, naturalistic project that Aristotle is doing but it focuses on well-being of the organism independently of an ordering to any higher goods? For example, it seems like Epicureans would say that sacrificing yourself as a father for your son is not good; because it goes against the immanent well-being of the father and there is no recognition of the higher good that relates to the father’s role as the father.

I tried to address your concerns in the preceding paragraphs.

You didn’t address it though. To be clear, you are both denying and accepting the existence of natures. Which is it?

Do you, on the one hand, believe that things have natures that they can realize to live a happy life (as you describe with Epicurus) or do you deny the reality of natures altogether? This seems internally incoherent to me.

That's perfect acceptable to me -- but then it seems you can't make normative claims like:

All of those are descriptive claims. The fact someone has a nature is not a prescriptive claim in the Humean way. I am simply stating that there really is a nature to a human, irregardless if one should follow it or not.

The nature of things is that obvious that we can just say, by looking at something, what it is for, what it's proper purpose is, what its essence is. But that doesn't seem like the sort of conclusion you'd want, either

I am not arguing that we can know everything about the nature of something at first glance: we’ve impacts the natures of many things over many thousands of years. It’s an empirical investigation: it is not a priori.

 If the latter then The Kinsey Report isn't "in the game"

Nothing about what people report about themselves is itself a normative claim, so I am not following you here.

 If we play the former we play Hume's Guillotine then I'm pointing out modern medical ethics. as well asIf we don't play Hume's Guillotine Epicureanism is a possible other way of thinking on the question of sex, gender, and boning.

Ok. We aren’t discussing the ethics involved in the medical industry nor what should be the ethic there: we are discussing what gender and sex are. I think you are jumping to my ethical views on sexuality when I have not imported it into the OP’s discussion.

Likewise, Epicureanism may be an alternative: we would have to explore that; but it definitely doesn’t seem coherent with nominalism (which you accept since you reject essentialism).

Would it be fair, then, to say that you believe water is water, as opposed to something else, because of its structural (molecular) makeup (viz., H2O)?

Please refer me to your answer, then.

How do you distinguish a "gravitational expression of gender" from a "personality type expressing gender"

Good question. There is no such thing as a gender expression that is an expression of personality (in the stereotypical sense of ‘personality’ which is [inter-]subjective) under this view: there are just gravitational and symbolic expressions of gender.

A personality trait is any trait that a person has as a matter of their psychological persona; whereas a gravitational expression of gender is the natural tendencies that a person has due to their sex. Since personality is influenced by natural tendencies, the personality of a person will reflect those tendencies to some imperfect extent (depending on various factors).

You seem to be importing a notion of morality people do not use

My friend, this is natural law theory and Aristo-Thomism: it is a very popular view in metaethics and normative ethics.

Since Divine decree won't cut it here you are relying on purported self harm.

Natural law theory claims that we are decreed by God to follow our nature; so the idea that you can separate out harm (in general: not just self-harm) from Divine Law is a false dilemma if the thesis stands.

 But if that were enough to substantiate immorality then eating desserts and mountain biking would also need to be condemned

They would not be immoral under Natural Law. Neither of those in and of themselves inhibit the body from realizing its natural ends. Now, depending on the context (e.g., dessert gluttony, rash biking, etc.) it may be immoral because it does inhibit it.

We don't generally consider minor harms associated with voluntary activities to indicate immorality, be they elevated cholesterol, sprains and breaks, or anal tears

You kind of smuggled in anal sex here; but it is nothing like the other examples you gave. Anal sex is like consistently drinking alcohol your entire life; or smoking. It has permanent damage that occurs over time. Even doing it once inhibits the anus for a while at doing its job.

This "immorality as self harm" reminds me of drug prohibition. Here too draconian punishments for even simple possession are justified in terms of self harm. Even though, little effort is taken to substantiate

Are you taking the position that self-harm is not immoral?

I was asking you a question. Do you believe that gender is social and biological; or neither; or a combination of those and other things?

The gravitational gender expression is tied to sex because it is the upshot of how that kind of being tends to behave (e.g., men being more interested in things; women more in people) and is not, therefore, a social construct.

The symbolic gender expression is a sign that signifies something about gender (e.g., the mars symbol representing maleness) and this is a social construct. This is still, however, the upshot of sex insofar as a valid symbol will represent something that is really about gender (viz., really about the natural tendencies and traits of a given sex).

Consequently:

Both types of gender expression are grounded ontologically in the sex (gender) ,inseparably therefrom, inscribed in the nature (essence) of the given substance; and, consequently, express something objective (stance-independent).

"Sex" is a differentiation within a species. "Gender" is a differentiation between cultures. The relationship between "gender" and "sex" is fully one of cultural habit.

Ok, so, then, you are viewing gender as a social construct—correct?

To compare, I would say sex is a procreative nature of a substance; and gender is the natural tendencies of that sex. Hence, e.g., masculinity is a gender and maleness is a sex. If this account is true, then gender nor sex is socially constructed. Our symbolism, societal knowledge, and expectations of gender would be social constructs.

 Even "sex" isn't exactly "biological" but more cultural in that we tend to think sexes are di-morphic when really it's just a spread between markers, an extension of the reproductive system outside of a single organism reproducing itself and a manner for a species to exchange and mix-up genotypes

Yes, I could see that would be the case since you are not an essentialist.

Why isn't the latter "doing ethics"? 

They aren’t telling you what you ought to do; so they are not imposing ethical commitments on you. Of course, as I noted before, they are operating under a code of ethic. I am talking about how they don’t impose an ethic on the patient as it relates to their health.

 How is that a denial?

They don’t believe that the way a, e.g., hand is supposed to work medically has any relevance directly or immanently to ethics. They see it as them simply ‘giving the amoral facts’. This is in alignment with and directly caused by Hume’s Guillotine.

 Must ethics be the sort of thing a person, upon knowing, now knows what's good for others?

I didn’t follow this question. If someone knows about what one ought to do, then it applies to everyone; if they know what so-and-so should do, then it applies to so-and-so.

I choose happiness because Epicurus is a eudaimonic hedonist and so it dodges all the things that you discuss in dismissing the "liberal view"
…
because then people would be living in accord with their nature. 

How is it eudaimonic when eudaimonia is achieved by properly fulfilling one’s nature—not chasing pleasure or avoiding pain?

Likewise, how can your view be eudaimonic when you deny the existence of natures and eudaimonia is relative to the nature of humans?

Epicureanism basically side-steps all the accusations against liberalism you've conjured as your other that props up your position.

Can you elaborate on this? I’d be interested to hear how.

You'll notice a theme in my responses here -- that would be so much the worse for the society resisting what's good, from my perspective. I'd celebrate letting go of Christian guilt in favor of hedonic calm

Of course, if you believe that Christianity is holding incorrect ethical views (viz., what is contrary to what is good), then you should reject it. I just don’t see hedonism as plausible: Aristo-thomism is Aristotelian but with the theological goods.

Are you equating Epicurianism with boiler plate Aristotelianism?

 how do we designate one form of damage "natural" and the other "unnatural" other than to say this is what the speaker prefers?
….
I'd celebrate letting go of Christian guilt in favor of hedonic calm because then people would be living in accord with their nature.

I am not following. You make claims that imply nature is real; and then turn around and deny it. I don’t know what to make of this.

Does the nature of things spring forth so obviously that there simply is no reason why the vagina can be damaged but the ass cannot?

A body part doesn’t have a nature: it is a material part of a substance with a nature. A human has one nature: either maleness or femaleness. This nature is instantiated in one underlying reality that exist by itself (viz., a substance) which is provided that nature (essence) by its form and it, as such, is one complete instantiation of that type of substance (viz., one suppositum). The form has the full essence; and the matter receives that essence. The human body is the matter as actualized by the human form; and the body parts are parts of that body.

A finger, hence, does not have a nature: a human has a nature which is in its form, and its body has parts which are developed by that form. The finger is something developed by that form.

The finger has a natural end insofar, although it doesn’t have a nature proper, it is a part of the teleology as imposed by the human form (which is the human soul). The fingers are for grabbing, touching, poking, etc.

The anus is obviously for holding in poop and excreting poop: any doctor will tell you that. That’s obvious biology at this point. Now whether or not it is immoral to abuse the anus is a separate question.

I want to highlight here how you're doing it again: You're setting up the bad consequence in order to preserve your generally reasonable position. When some criticism is pointed out that seems to be your go-to: To either point out how the other possibility is worse, or to note that the criticism is "too analytic" and if they adopted the mixing of norms/facts like Aristotle then they'd come to see the light.

The claim wasn’t relevant though. I can play the Hume game and say that the OP is making purely descriptive claims about sex and gender; and then you will need to discuss why you agree or disagree with my account of sex and gender without invoking morality. This would only be an invalid move if the OP was making ethical claims; which it isn’t immanently.

The defense you're offering is one of plausibility in the face of a possible bad conclusion.

No, I was just noting the issues with Hume’s Guillotine since it seems critical to your metaethical commitments. Eventually, if you want to discuss ethics, we are going to have to discuss it.

If we're discussing descriptive claims alone then how does your account square away with the evidence in the Kinsey Report?

I don’t understand what objection you are making with the Kinsey report: can you elaborate? To me, it’s just a report that people feel happy, when they don’t believe it is immoral to, having all sorts of sex.

To me, I am saying ethically it is wrong to, e.g., sodomize; and you are rejoining “but people report having fun doing it”. That doesn’t have direct relevance without connecting it to some ethical claim. Are you saying because they find it pleasurable it must be morally permissible? If your view is eudaimonic, then that can’t be the case.

But what makes it water? Why is it water as opposed to acid?

Here you say that gender is the "symbolic upshot" of sex:

No, the OP defines gender as:

Sex is 'a distinct type of substance which serves a specific role in the procreation of the species'; and gender is 'sex' in this sense the expression of that sex through behavior. — Bob Ross

Yet elsewhere you claim that sex and gender are the same

That’s because I changed the semantics in the OP, which I openly stated, to help try and further the discussion with people who were getting confused with the terms. I even kept the old text in strikeout and the new text in bold.

Here you relate sex and gender to properties of a triangle:

That’s correct; but as an analogy. There is a difference, in Thomistic scholastics, between a virtual and real distinction/property.

Triangles, trilaterality, and triangularity are related by strict entailment. One logically entails the other two.

Trilaterality and triangularity do not entail each other: an entailment is when a formula cannot fail to be true given the truth of another formula. Trilaterality and triangularity are properties: not formulas in a formal system of logic.

Maybe you are saying that “Trilaterality<x> <=> Triangularity<x>”; but this doesn’t follow innately from either property. You could say that they both follow from actual necessity; but not logical necessity.

This is not how symbols work

Gender isn’t symbolic in either schema I gave. There are symbolic and gravitational expressions of gender; but gender is the natural tendencies which are necessitated from the given sex.

Similarly, outside of social coding, you will never discover blue in a boy, nor femaleness in pink.

Blueness, whether it is a symbolic or gravitational expression of gender, is not a part of gender itself—this is the crucial mistake of modern gender theory. Gender is the natural tendencies of sex and sex is the procreative nature of the substance; e.g., masculinity is the gender and maleness is the sex.

Gender is not a social construct: the symbolic expressions would be. Gravitational expressions would not be.

So is "sex" the biological nature of a being; and 'gender' is the social cues, expectations, roles, and expressions under your view?

If so, then is gender a purely social construct for you?

To be clear, you still have not defined what you mean by sex and gender. I am still waiting. You are refusing to continue the conversation by actually providing an exposition of your view. All you have done is explicate vague descriptions of sex (e.g., has to do with biology) and gender (e.g., has to do with social cues, roles, expressions, expectations, etc.) while refusing to define them. At first, you made the absurd claim that we can't define anything if essentialism is false; and then agreed with me that we can have definitions but then resorted to evading defining them by way of claiming that everything has already been explained to me.

The way forward is extremely, painfully easy: just define the terms!

Says who?

Says me.

I'd say my position is both/and -- yes there are ties to sex from gender, but they are not essentialist ties

What are these ties then? How do they work? If there’s no real essence to, e.g., a woman in virtue of which she is a woman; then how is she even said to be of the female sex? Likewise, even if she is granted as of the female sex without a real essence nor exhibiting the essential properties of a female, how is gender related to sex in your view?

Many people do not like thinking like Hume.

Doctors do not deny doing ethics -- it's just a medical ethic that's informed in a certain way.

They do deny doing ethics insofar as they don’t believe they are making normative statements by evaluating and conveying the health concerns or issues with someone. Of course, they have a ‘code of conduct’ ethically that they are taught for dealing with patients.

No doctor says: “Moliere, unfortunately, you have cancer; and you are morally obligated to get treatment”. No, they “Moliere, unfortunately, you have cancer. I want to outline your options so you can make your own informed decision of what you should do.”

 I note the medical model because I don't think you're presenting a medical ethic at all, but rather a religious one

This is a false dilemma that exists prominently in Western, liberalized society. No, there is not such thing as a ‘medical’ vs. religious ethic: there’s just ethics, which guides all of our actions. This is the same fallacy people commit when they try to separate epistemic from moral normativity. It’s all just an attempt at saying “these kinds of ‘oughts’ aren’t relevant to morality: morality is this special category that we can’t really justify or pinpoint but it isn’t involved in hospitals, intellectual virtues, etc.”.

When it comes to questions of sexual health I'm going to pick the people who really just want people to be happy and healthy regardless over the people who want people to be happy in a particular way,

You are presupposing that happiness is about hedonism (which I understand you are a hedonist, so it makes sense) which is a prominent liberal view. Like I said, the fundamental disagreement between conservatives and liberals lies in the totality distinct usages of the concepts of happiness, harm, goodness, and freedom.

Happiness is not about this superficial hedonic pleasure; it’s eudaimonic.

More importantly, you are presupposing a sense of harm that acknowledges no such thing as self-harm if it makes someone happy when you say “healthy” in the above quote. Someone can feel hedonically happy and be harming themselves (and so it is really unhealthy)...such as a masochist.

I'm not religious, but if the religious want to continue to live on in the world we happen to be in -- rather than fight against it -- then they'll have to come up with some other function than advice on how to have sex.

Christianity isn’t going anywhere in the West: it is essential and integral to the very Western values we espouse; and there’s way too many members in powerful positions and institutions to get rid of them.

If I am being honest, society would collapse if we followed hedonism.

Have you seen what birth does to a vagina?

It's not pleasant.

The symmetry breaker is that the vagina is designed for it and so it is not contrary to its natural ends; whereas, the anus is not designed for it and it actively inhibits it from realizing its ends. One is with and one is contrary to the natural ends of the body part.

Either Hume's fork applies, in which case we're speaking descriptively of gender rather than normatively,

This isn’t relevant though to the OP even if I grant it. The OP isn’t facially discussing ethics: it is discussing what you would call ‘descriptive claims’.

If Hume’s Guillotine applies, then all ethics goes out the window. At best, you end up with a view like @Bannos that is a hollow-out version of moral cognitivism or you end up with a version of moral intuitionism (like Michael Huemer’s); or, worse, you end up being a moral anti-realist. Just a companions in guilt response here.

or it does not, in which case while you want to discuss human ontology ethics happens to apply since ontology and normativity aren't separated without an is/ought distinction of some kind.

Ethics ultimately applies, but it isn’t immanently relevant to the discussion about ontology. In principle, someone could agree with my formulation of gender and sex and reject moral naturalism. This is a false dilemma.

Let's do it by example and start with an easy one. What makes water water to you?