Matthew

The lack of blue in ancient texts is a famous observation that has been discussed for 300 years. Says who?

Ok the Hillary helping Kamala with her black accent was funny. The rest from this week show the typical right wing lack of humor I've come to expect.

There is no problem with using a biological definition of women. For the vast majority of the human species there are two biological sexes.

Lol very helpful etymology lesson.

That would be interesting to know. But how people feel about things in their own private homes is less relevant than how institutuions and organizations treat the issue. Within professional spaces, business, Medical, academic, military, etc there are not traditionalist static ideas about women.

Ok, you're asking if most people in the world accepted something bad, would it be acceptable. Acceptable to who?

This question you keep asking is circular reasoning. If most people in location X thought something to be acceptable, would it be acceptable?

Because society is not homogeneous. Not everyone has the same social norms and moral priorities. Others confrom to the consesus.

Yes, at least in the eyes of that society. Why do you think our society accepts so many injustices through history and today? You're making a wishful thinking argument. Just because you wish for reality to be simpler doesn't mean the way it actually works is false.

Then why did most ancient cultures have no word for blue, or the words and concepts they do have for such colors do not neatly correspond to our own? The differences between family concepts over time and space prove there is nothing static about it. I agree that there are many biological caregiving and nesting behaviors that transcend human culture. But most of our family traditions and concepts are cultural products. Well like these other examples, there is the root objective reality, in this case human learning and socialization. But every aspect of how it is done is a cultural creation.

Social norms arbitrate what is accepted, and those norms change and differ from one place to the next.

They aren't though. Sorry that reality is more complex than you wish it to be.

The range of frequencies that we call blue are static objective realities, but how we conveice it culturally and and label it is a fabrication. Being biologically related to someone is objective, but every aspect of the family concept is a cultural creation and changes over time and is done differently by peoples around the world. Same is obviously true for educational methods, norms, and institutions from one culture to the next.

Validity is irrelevant. There is no basis for one person to judge the thoughts another person has about their own self. But if a person appeared to me to be male, that's what would be communicated to me and I would reciprocate with them on that basis unless they comminate some reasonable preference for being regarded in some other way.

It's not a departure from reality to acknowledge that some things exist only in human culure.

I agree, and on one hand I don't think each individual actually defines most of it for themselves, and on the other hand most of it IS meaningless. These are things within a culture that people make together through their interactions, like all other social constructs. I could say that being a true man is defined by eating sauerkraut for breakfast, and that Slavic ethnicities are defined by sleeping with your shoes on, and true fatherliness means bathing in Dr Pepper. But none of these would communicate manliness, slavicness, or faltherliness to other people. But if a few people start doing something something together, then we end up creating and sharing a meaning together, even though it may not be based on anything real. Thus pancakes become breakfast food and elf on a shelf becomes a thing. This is partly why conservatives get upset when the majority of society creates new meanings and moves on without them.

So we could make a list of what defines fatherliness. Provides for family, supportive, role model, solid dad joke skills, etc. There are lots of different things that people world imagine as true fatherliness. What if a man didn't have some of the defining traits? Suppose he lost his job and has no sense of humor. Does that make him not fatherly? If everyone can just make up their own style of being a father, is fatherliness just meaningless?

How so?

In terms of tangible, yes. But again just because something exists in the social/ cultural realm doesn't make it less real in it's impact. A good example might be being a biological father vs the more nebulous concept of fatherhood. Fatherhood is a vague cultural construct, but it has just as profound effects on people's lives and experiences as the tangible biological aspect (maybe more). But it doesn't have the same objective meaning. Someone can choose to be a father to someone else in the non biological sense.

Exactly, for most people the social systems we live in do the thinking for us and we are socialized to conform to norms of how to behave, dress, talk, and all the other performances of gender that we do without thinking or deciding anything.

This is not so much a problem as you may think it is. You're describing all social constructs. Race doesn't actually exist, ethnicity, marriage, family, schools, companies, big macs, the color blue, etc. None of these things objectely exist outside of collective human imagination as we interact in a society together. One sociologist famously argued that even though such things are not objectively real, they are nonetheless real in their effects. The systems and ideas society has created around gender do serve some very meaningful functions.

Maybe, though if that's the case there is a severe dearth of originality. I can't say I've consciously thought much about my gender to decide how to do it. Have you?

Well gender is a trait that exists within society and has norms associated with it. Those norms don't have to be traditional as you see them. But groups tend to impose subtle pressures to induce conformity to the norms. So if one was 100% presenting as a man for example, but personally identifying as a woman, this likely would be perceived as a signigicant norm violation even in places with very progessive views about gender. So my point being, yes a person can think whatever they want about their identity, and yes gender is a nebulous and inconsistent social construct that is ever changing. But most people in society tend to conform to their culture's current unwritten norms on the subject.

Again, good question. This is not just a conundrum for trans people, but a very human question for everyone. Learning what it really means to be a man or woman etc is a very personal quest. But also there is some weird and unhealthy insecurities people often connect to masculinity and femininity and pass onto their kids.

Yeah i agree with everything i read from him on the subject. Yes that sounds correct. Can't imagine someone can yet change their DNA and every physical aspect of their biological sex.