Transgender Discrimination in Canada

[TimG]

But to me, if someone has a Y chromosome and was born with a dick, they're a dude. Even if their dick gets lopped off afterwards, willingly or unwillingly.

What about men with two X chromosomes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome

The unfortunate reality is some people are, from a biological perspective, neither male nor female (or both).

Edited April 5, 2012 by TimG

[cybercoma]

Blah blah blah. Maybe to you "gender" is a matter that can be changed and decided on a whim. Merely a matter of "identity". Maybe I'd like to be a black man. Unfortunately for me, the color of my skin puts the lie to that. Just like my penis puts the lie to any aspirations I might have of being a female.

You can go on and on about your idea of how people should be able to define their "gender identity" separately from what they biologically are, and that's fine, people are free to do that. Just as people are free to believe that after they die they'll be magically transformed into an energy being that will be telepathically judged by a mystical sky fairy that will assign them to a realm of either eternal bliss or torment depending on how well they followed the mistranslated writings of a three thousand year old book written by nomadic shepherds. Our society, being a free one, lets people believe and pretend all kinds of crazy things.

But to me, if someone has a Y chromosome and was born with a dick, they're a dude. Even if their dick gets lopped off afterwards, willingly or unwillingly.

As a scientist and engineer, I deal with physical reality. You prefer the world of people's wishes and emotions, where simply willing to be another gender somehow changes what you are. Sorry, but the universe doesn't work that way. We cannot bend reality to our will with just the power of our minds.

I understand you've been raised and socialized into thinking about sex as a binary, but in "reality" it's not. You're ignoring everything about that infographic I posted. Even biological sex has a continuum from male to intersexed to female. The reason you don't hear about intersexed people is that they're stigmatized, so they're likely going to hide that fact and many people have their intersexed children surgically altered to be "normal." So we put children under the knife and surgically alter them because we want their sex organs to fit our idea of normality, rather than accepting them for who they are and allowing them to be intersexed.

That's just biological sex. Gender identity is not the same as gender expression and those two things of course are on a continuum. Some men are more masculine than others and some women are more feminine than others and this has nothing to do with sexual orientation, which was the fourth category on that infographic.

I get it. You don't understand these distinctions and you can't wrap your mind around the fact that these things are not fixed binary categories. This doesn't give you the right to ostracize, stigmatize, and demean people that don't fit into your narrow-minded view of "reality" that doesn't incorporate everything that actually exists in reality.

[BC_chick]

As a scientist and engineer, I deal with physical reality. You prefer the world of people's wishes and emotions, where simply willing to be another gender somehow changes what you are. Sorry, but the universe doesn't work that way. We cannot bend reality to our will with just the power of our minds.

Sure, physical matter changes all the time. I can boil water and make steam can't I? What was once liquid is now vapour. And I didn' do it with "the power of my mind", I used a stove and kettle.

Same thing can happen on an operating table.

Now if someone wished their penis away and considered himself a woman, then yes, you'd be right in saying we can't bend reality with the power of our minds. But there's much more to it here than just wishful thinking.

[Bryan]

A person can have surgery and take hormones to APPEAR to have changed their gender, but that doesn't mean they really have. Talackova is not really female, he just looks like one as long as he keeps taking those hormones. Can I have surgery and hormone therapy to legally change my AGE? Why not? I could make myself look significantly younger if I really wanted to, how is that different? What if I say I "identify" myself as a younger person?

[cybercoma]

Bryan, there's a difference between sex and gender.

In any case, this issue has been resolved and Miss Universe has now stated publicly that it doesn't matter what sex a person was born with. If they're a woman by gender, then they meet the qualifications for the competition.

Edited April 17, 2012 by cybercoma