There have been many words used to describe people with my skin tone over the years. But “black” seems to have stuck. And even though my skin is clearly (a rather delightful shade of) brown, I’ve never had any problem with that label. Being black isn’t a role or a culture or an “identity,” it’s just a commonly understood descriptor for people with African ancestry.
We have to stop pandering to this deluded minority that is destroying the concept of what a woman really is. Aggressively so!!! When I see the President of the United States buying into this performative, misogynistic crap (Dylan Mulvaney interview), it just makes my blood boil. Enough!!!!!!
Where are the liberals aggressively defending J.K. Rowling? Why is it that seemingly only the right wing calls out the misogyny? I can't ally myself with them. Where are the liberals?
I align with this so much. I think the problem is that these prescriptions are elitist conceits and elites are nothing, if not tribal. There is a high price to pay for becoming an elite. You are not allowed to express any individuality. I know this because my husband and I have successfully climbed the ladder from poverty/blue collar to the UMC. But, we are appalled at what we have found there in terms of the posturing and prejudice required to become a member of the club. We just can't swallow it and so live between 2 worlds with a definite soft spot for blue collar directness and authenticity.
So, the liberals are all busy paying fealty to the the elites upon whom their jobs and livelihoods depend. That's where they are. There is very little moral courage in this country. That said, I will say that I've noticed a vibe shift and that more people and also, increasingly, institutions, are fighting back against the most extreme behaviors emanating from woke ideology. This is a good trend.
I have also noticed an additional social trend — an increasing backlash against individual autonomy and a return of calls (on both the left and the right) for shaming to be used to create a more ordered society. Particularly shaming applied to sexual choices and behaviors. On the left, they defend their calls as a means of protecting women from their own bad choices and the predations of men (Louise Perry). They soften this with the stipulation that men, too, should be shamed for their sexual choices. I ask you, on what planet will men ever be shamed for their sexual choices? The brunt of such shaming, should it become ascendant, will always fall on women.
Instead of shaming, why not increased education on human sexuality - I mean really go there, really dig into it and demystify the whole thing for kids on an age appropriate level - combined with increased access to birth control? What is wrong with this approach? Why does shaming (domination) have to be the solution? Why not education and uplift?
Yes there is mimetic pressure to conform. I see it in my social peers who seem nervous about heterodoxy in any respect.
Most people it seems are just trained seals. Me? I just lose “friends” with my opinions. Friends are more fungible than personal integrity. 100% worth it.
What is UMC? United Methodist Church? I know nothing about them.
Your second point kind of flew over my head. I’m not for shaming either and all for increased sexual education. But I think I’m missing something...
"Yes there is mimetic pressure to conform. I see it in my social peers who seem nervous about heterodoxy in any respect."
In an experiment, a person who didn't know he was the experimental subject entered a waiting room full of people quietly sitting. Suddenly everyone took off their jackets. The subject waited a moment, not sure what was going on, and took off his jacket too. Then they all took off shirts, again not exchanging a word. The subject didn't wait so long this time.
As you might expect, before long everyone in the room was nearly naked. At no point did the subject ask any questions, he just did what everyone else was doing.
OK it isn't Stanley Milgram, but you'd think he would have at least spoken up.
This is one thing about humanity that has irritated me all my life. Some quirky phrase comes out and within weeks everyone is talking about reaching out, sharing, ask becomes a noun, target becomes a verb, and out of nervousness about "misgendering," the singular "they" gets used all the time.
Yes it’s really amazing how our decisions are consciously or unconsciously dictated by external, social forces. Rene Girard called them “models of desire.”
You should take a peek at Luke Burgis’ Substack page on Girard’s thought. Burgis also wrote a great book recently called “Wanting.” A good portion of the trans explosion is driven by mimicry, even though I would be accused of “hate speech” for pointing this out.
Since a statement of neutrally uncontroversial scientific fact, or even the search for scientific truth, have both been labeled "transphobia" by adherents of this mephtic little cult, I really don't give a pooty about what they might call "hate speech" anymore.
I've grown weary of politeness in the face of absurdity of roles and self-proclaimed identity. Where the hell are the feminists?
Feminism has become pointless in a world where women don't exist except as a social construct. The ultimate patriarchy, we'll just call ourselves women and crush the world of Title IX women's sports. It's all equal now.
"What is a woman?" is the death of womanhood. In a quest to display "liberal" credentials they have thrown women under the bus.
And all of the Democratic politicians who represent me in my supposedly "liberal" coastal Southern California district refuse to take a stand. I am so pissed at my own party, and at spineless "liberals" who refuse to take on the illiberal progressive agenda on race and gender.
The feminists are speaking up and being punished for it. Cancelled, abused, sacked, smeared, persecuted, being sent rape threats — and yet, they persist. If you cannot hear women's voices that's your cue to understanding how actively silenced and de-platformed we are. If a woman wrote what Steve writes on Medium she'd be banned without notice, her account would just disappear (I know women this has happened to). Kudos to Steve for artfully dodging this fate.
But in some ways your question 'where are all the faminists' is fair. There are some feminists — liberal feminists I guess — who are cheering this on, as though participating in their own erasure. It has taken me a long time to figure it out, but they are basically the most elite of liberal women. They know they're unlikely to need a rape centre or a DV shelter, they have private health insurance and can pick and choose their carers so they'll never be in a public hospital ward forced to have intimate care by a man calling himself a woman. There is no cost in this to them so they have the luxury of being 'good people', eschewing their privilege (which they feel guilty about), to campion the latest underdog, and getting points for talking down to the 'bigots', but at no expense to themselves. Frankly, it's almost masturbatory.
I've been on the left all my adult life, but I'm from a blue collar background, I know how to separate myself from their excesses, but I also understand them to a degree (not fully).
Regarding the person who does not deny being biologically an adult human female, but just doesn't feel like the English word "woman" applies to them - I have the question of "why should that matter?"
To be more specific, what makes people think that the purpose and function of descriptive labels is to be pleasing the person or object being described?
If somebody doesn't "feel like" a mammal, should society consider that they are not a mammal? If somebody doesn't feel like a "convicted felon", does that mean they should not go to prison? Does an elm tree need to enjoy being labeled "elm"?
Basically, I'm saying that descriptive labels (for everything) have always been determined by society, around the world and throughout history and prehistory, in all societies since the invention of language, rather than the rather odd concept that they should be idiosyncratically determined, Humpty Dumpty style.
It's fine for that person to say "I personally have a vague and indescribable negative emotional reaction to being labeled as a woman", but that should be preceded "I am a woman as society uses that word, but ...". Both they can be true: the word applies, and the person has a subjective feeling. There is no sense in making each individual's subjective feelings override the societal definition.
(Individual names are different. If someone wants to be called Lee instead of Terry, no problem - so long as it's not being done for deceitful purposes, like avoiding accountability for a crime, or stealing somebody else's identity.)
“We should all be free to embrace or reject gendered stereotypes, to whatever degree makes us happy, without fear of stigma or discrimination or violence.”
I agree about the violence, but not about stigma or discrimination. Again, exempting the actual dysphoric, “trans” is a fad whose followers crave attention and I don’t believe that people who set out to be annoying deserve any respect.
As a book that I'm currently reading (Gender-Critical Feminism by Holly Lawford-Smith) puts it, there are two camps: those who see gender as personal identity and those who see gender as social norms & expectations. One is a positive interpretation of the word and the other is often negative, or at the very least, comes from a critical stance. It's fascinating to me how, for decades, the critical group has seen the word as meaning a kind of trap that hurts many women and men, while another group rooted more in Judith Butler & postmodernism & of course wokeism has reimagined the word to be a freeing concept. Has the word "gender" itself been redefined by the later, much like words like "racism" have been reimagined by DiAngela et al?
Not sure exactly where I land, although modern gender-critical ideology is where a lot of my thoughts & opinions tend to be. I really dislike most of what I've read by Butler and Foucault, but I also reacted strongly against proto-gender critical feminists like Dworkin & MacKinnon.
It looks to me that you & Adhib fall in the gender-as-social-norms group and Noaim falls in the gender-is-my-identity group? It's a challenge having conversations when two groups aren't using the same definitions LOL. That said, I agree that that was an incredible slam dunk. I wonder if my reaction places me in Adhib's camp.
Reading Gender-Critical Feminism has been very illuminating for me so far, even when I disagree, and it has clarified my own thoughts on this topic. Highly recommended, and I haven't even gotten halfway through it!
I adopted the feminist (then called "women's lib") perspective on confining "gender roles" many decades ago, and I continue to hold the view (partially modified by the science which has emerged since then, which supports there being some degree of inbuilt proclivities associated with biological sex)
Today, there is the concept of "gender identity", which is quite different; thus the different name.
If we accept that "gender roles" and "gender identity" are different, then there is only one "camp", and we can all understand both terms.
It seems to me the only sense in which there might be "two camps" is if people want to fight about the unqualified single word "gender" and whether that should mean "gender role" or "gender identity". That seems to be to an unfruitful and unnecessary dispute; just use the unambiguous two-word terms instead. (And of course, some would add "gender expression", etc).
Caveat 1: This is in terms of using language to communicate with each other. I acknowledge that some people may accurately understand what's meant by the term "gender identity" and yet believe that gender identity isn't a real thing, just like understanding what a "ghost" or a "soul" means without needing to agree on the reality of same.
Caveat 2: There is some confusion when one delves more deeply into what a "gender identity" consists of. It's often described as something sorta-biological or sorta-like the kind of soul or mind being incarnated in a body, which would transcend culture. But in the cross sex trans identification, it seems to manifest as wanting society to perceive one as fitting into the culture-specific gender roles or stereotypes associated with the other sex. So if the local culture associates dangly earrings with the female biological sex, a cross sex trans person would want to follow that stereotype in order to be perceived as having the culturally specific "gender identity" typical of biological females. In other words, when we get down to details, there is some interplay of gender identity and gender roles. But this is an entirely unnavigable mess, if we use "gender" alone to mean both/either "gender identity" and "gender roles".
Yes. I'm pretty much the same type of feminist. I am a woman. But my gender doesn't necessarily define me. I have built a self and a life that I like, not one that confines itself to a gender role per se. I am outspoken and have a big, commanding voice, for instance - both stereotypical male qualities. But, I am unapologetic about it even though I do take some arrows for it. I recognize that I could earn more social capital if I confined myself to my gender role (soft-spoken, demure) but my spirit doesn't feel comfortable doing that. So, I do me and ignore the loss of perks and social capital. Women's lib efforts definitely helped me here.
Thomas Sowell is correct when he asserts that life is a series of trade-offs.
Sorry for the only tangentially related take here, but every time it is repeated that women are soft-spoken or demure, even during the not-so-distant time when most were home-makers, I am also reminded of countless stories and also my own observation of women that were very sure and vocal of what they wanted, and often their husbands simply complied. I just don't think women were ever uniformly cowed, despite uneven economic and educational opportunities. Once upon a time, good men highly valued their women to the point of conceding many points of real decisions and power. I just don't buy this whole 'little lady' narrative that is just assumed of our not-so-distant past. From whence rose the lionesses of today? Their lioness mothers of course and their fathers who believed in them. The stereotype is tired and was never really true for many, many women.
I think the idea of the sweet demure damsel was patriarchy's wishful thinking and a projection. The complex reality of women as a real human being (especially the sexual side) is just too threatening an idea, so we hang onto the myth. I think your observations are correct. Remember that children's rhyme about girls being made of sugar, spice an all things nice, and boys made of snails and puppy dog's tails? Little boys are the sweetest, most trusting people on earth, while little girls are ready to run the world by age 7. We all know it and see it in our real lives but the myth is obviously too valuable to let go of, but it's probably well past time we did.
That hit home. I felt bad for my son who has an older sister as I could not possibly be as close to him as I was with her. I was wrong. He was/is sweeter. To this day many years later, we cannot part ways without him expressing his love many times.
Passion guided by reason: 'If we accept that "gender roles" and "gender identity" are different, then there is only one "camp", and we can all understand both terms.'
Agreed, of course. Perhaps everyone associated with The Commentary would agree. But that's a tall order for most of the "we" in that sentence! Because that's everyone else LOL. And the confusion persists with every usage of that catch-all word "gender"...
For example, on the very application that I personally send out to potential council members for a government council I oversee, there is a question "What is your gender? (check what best describes your current gender identity):" with Male, Female, Trans Female, Trans Male, Genderqueer/Gender non-binary, Not Listed, and Decline to State as answers. This very question - approved by the council itself and therefore I have no ability to update it - conflates the word "gender" with gender identity.
When gender is used to mean gender identity on a regular basis, then folks who use gender to mean gender norms will constantly have to define how they are using the word gender. And vice versa.
Will medical doctors capitulate and perform body integrity identity disorder (BIID) affirming surgeries like they do gender affirming surgeries? What is the essential difference in transgenderism, transableism?
We have to stop pandering to this deluded minority that is destroying the concept of what a woman really is. Aggressively so!!! When I see the President of the United States buying into this performative, misogynistic crap (Dylan Mulvaney interview), it just makes my blood boil. Enough!!!!!!
Where are the liberals aggressively defending J.K. Rowling? Why is it that seemingly only the right wing calls out the misogyny? I can't ally myself with them. Where are the liberals?
I align with this so much. I think the problem is that these prescriptions are elitist conceits and elites are nothing, if not tribal. There is a high price to pay for becoming an elite. You are not allowed to express any individuality. I know this because my husband and I have successfully climbed the ladder from poverty/blue collar to the UMC. But, we are appalled at what we have found there in terms of the posturing and prejudice required to become a member of the club. We just can't swallow it and so live between 2 worlds with a definite soft spot for blue collar directness and authenticity.
So, the liberals are all busy paying fealty to the the elites upon whom their jobs and livelihoods depend. That's where they are. There is very little moral courage in this country. That said, I will say that I've noticed a vibe shift and that more people and also, increasingly, institutions, are fighting back against the most extreme behaviors emanating from woke ideology. This is a good trend.
I have also noticed an additional social trend — an increasing backlash against individual autonomy and a return of calls (on both the left and the right) for shaming to be used to create a more ordered society. Particularly shaming applied to sexual choices and behaviors. On the left, they defend their calls as a means of protecting women from their own bad choices and the predations of men (Louise Perry). They soften this with the stipulation that men, too, should be shamed for their sexual choices. I ask you, on what planet will men ever be shamed for their sexual choices? The brunt of such shaming, should it become ascendant, will always fall on women.
Instead of shaming, why not increased education on human sexuality - I mean really go there, really dig into it and demystify the whole thing for kids on an age appropriate level - combined with increased access to birth control? What is wrong with this approach? Why does shaming (domination) have to be the solution? Why not education and uplift?
Yes there is mimetic pressure to conform. I see it in my social peers who seem nervous about heterodoxy in any respect.
Most people it seems are just trained seals. Me? I just lose “friends” with my opinions. Friends are more fungible than personal integrity. 100% worth it.
What is UMC? United Methodist Church? I know nothing about them.
Your second point kind of flew over my head. I’m not for shaming either and all for increased sexual education. But I think I’m missing something...
"Yes there is mimetic pressure to conform. I see it in my social peers who seem nervous about heterodoxy in any respect."
In an experiment, a person who didn't know he was the experimental subject entered a waiting room full of people quietly sitting. Suddenly everyone took off their jackets. The subject waited a moment, not sure what was going on, and took off his jacket too. Then they all took off shirts, again not exchanging a word. The subject didn't wait so long this time.
As you might expect, before long everyone in the room was nearly naked. At no point did the subject ask any questions, he just did what everyone else was doing.
OK it isn't Stanley Milgram, but you'd think he would have at least spoken up.
This is one thing about humanity that has irritated me all my life. Some quirky phrase comes out and within weeks everyone is talking about reaching out, sharing, ask becomes a noun, target becomes a verb, and out of nervousness about "misgendering," the singular "they" gets used all the time.
People piss me off.
Yes it’s really amazing how our decisions are consciously or unconsciously dictated by external, social forces. Rene Girard called them “models of desire.”
You should take a peek at Luke Burgis’ Substack page on Girard’s thought. Burgis also wrote a great book recently called “Wanting.” A good portion of the trans explosion is driven by mimicry, even though I would be accused of “hate speech” for pointing this out.
Since a statement of neutrally uncontroversial scientific fact, or even the search for scientific truth, have both been labeled "transphobia" by adherents of this mephtic little cult, I really don't give a pooty about what they might call "hate speech" anymore.
LOL! You crack me up! They piss me off, too! ;-)
UMC: Upper Middle Class
I was just riffing on anti-liberal social trends. It was a nonsequitur. Sorry for the confusion. Just on my mind lately.
I've grown weary of politeness in the face of absurdity of roles and self-proclaimed identity. Where the hell are the feminists?
Feminism has become pointless in a world where women don't exist except as a social construct. The ultimate patriarchy, we'll just call ourselves women and crush the world of Title IX women's sports. It's all equal now.
"What is a woman?" is the death of womanhood. In a quest to display "liberal" credentials they have thrown women under the bus.
And all of the Democratic politicians who represent me in my supposedly "liberal" coastal Southern California district refuse to take a stand. I am so pissed at my own party, and at spineless "liberals" who refuse to take on the illiberal progressive agenda on race and gender.
The feminists are speaking up and being punished for it. Cancelled, abused, sacked, smeared, persecuted, being sent rape threats — and yet, they persist. If you cannot hear women's voices that's your cue to understanding how actively silenced and de-platformed we are. If a woman wrote what Steve writes on Medium she'd be banned without notice, her account would just disappear (I know women this has happened to). Kudos to Steve for artfully dodging this fate.
But in some ways your question 'where are all the faminists' is fair. There are some feminists — liberal feminists I guess — who are cheering this on, as though participating in their own erasure. It has taken me a long time to figure it out, but they are basically the most elite of liberal women. They know they're unlikely to need a rape centre or a DV shelter, they have private health insurance and can pick and choose their carers so they'll never be in a public hospital ward forced to have intimate care by a man calling himself a woman. There is no cost in this to them so they have the luxury of being 'good people', eschewing their privilege (which they feel guilty about), to campion the latest underdog, and getting points for talking down to the 'bigots', but at no expense to themselves. Frankly, it's almost masturbatory.
I've been on the left all my adult life, but I'm from a blue collar background, I know how to separate myself from their excesses, but I also understand them to a degree (not fully).
But hey, I didn't see any of this coming.
Well said. Yes, we all determine what cost we are willing to pay for things where costs are not the same.
Oh I am just so tired...
Yep me 2. Please just make it stop
Me three
Yep.
I can accept transgender because dysphoria is real, albeit a thousandth as common as claimed by TikTok kids.
Nonbinary is an attention-starved con and deserves no dignifying. “I don’t feel comfortable being labeled as what I am.” But she isn’t transgender.
She should do the world a favor and put a cork in it.
Regarding the person who does not deny being biologically an adult human female, but just doesn't feel like the English word "woman" applies to them - I have the question of "why should that matter?"
To be more specific, what makes people think that the purpose and function of descriptive labels is to be pleasing the person or object being described?
If somebody doesn't "feel like" a mammal, should society consider that they are not a mammal? If somebody doesn't feel like a "convicted felon", does that mean they should not go to prison? Does an elm tree need to enjoy being labeled "elm"?
Basically, I'm saying that descriptive labels (for everything) have always been determined by society, around the world and throughout history and prehistory, in all societies since the invention of language, rather than the rather odd concept that they should be idiosyncratically determined, Humpty Dumpty style.
It's fine for that person to say "I personally have a vague and indescribable negative emotional reaction to being labeled as a woman", but that should be preceded "I am a woman as society uses that word, but ...". Both they can be true: the word applies, and the person has a subjective feeling. There is no sense in making each individual's subjective feelings override the societal definition.
(Individual names are different. If someone wants to be called Lee instead of Terry, no problem - so long as it's not being done for deceitful purposes, like avoiding accountability for a crime, or stealing somebody else's identity.)
Fighting new battles in a war won long ago. Kinder Küche Kirche is dead.
This is a new war, Chris. An existential one for women. The old war over traditional gender roles is superficial by comparison.
Love this.
One of your best yet. Get your butt on television and let it rip!
“We should all be free to embrace or reject gendered stereotypes, to whatever degree makes us happy, without fear of stigma or discrimination or violence.”
I agree about the violence, but not about stigma or discrimination. Again, exempting the actual dysphoric, “trans” is a fad whose followers crave attention and I don’t believe that people who set out to be annoying deserve any respect.
As a book that I'm currently reading (Gender-Critical Feminism by Holly Lawford-Smith) puts it, there are two camps: those who see gender as personal identity and those who see gender as social norms & expectations. One is a positive interpretation of the word and the other is often negative, or at the very least, comes from a critical stance. It's fascinating to me how, for decades, the critical group has seen the word as meaning a kind of trap that hurts many women and men, while another group rooted more in Judith Butler & postmodernism & of course wokeism has reimagined the word to be a freeing concept. Has the word "gender" itself been redefined by the later, much like words like "racism" have been reimagined by DiAngela et al?
Not sure exactly where I land, although modern gender-critical ideology is where a lot of my thoughts & opinions tend to be. I really dislike most of what I've read by Butler and Foucault, but I also reacted strongly against proto-gender critical feminists like Dworkin & MacKinnon.
It looks to me that you & Adhib fall in the gender-as-social-norms group and Noaim falls in the gender-is-my-identity group? It's a challenge having conversations when two groups aren't using the same definitions LOL. That said, I agree that that was an incredible slam dunk. I wonder if my reaction places me in Adhib's camp.
Reading Gender-Critical Feminism has been very illuminating for me so far, even when I disagree, and it has clarified my own thoughts on this topic. Highly recommended, and I haven't even gotten halfway through it!
I adopted the feminist (then called "women's lib") perspective on confining "gender roles" many decades ago, and I continue to hold the view (partially modified by the science which has emerged since then, which supports there being some degree of inbuilt proclivities associated with biological sex)
Today, there is the concept of "gender identity", which is quite different; thus the different name.
If we accept that "gender roles" and "gender identity" are different, then there is only one "camp", and we can all understand both terms.
It seems to me the only sense in which there might be "two camps" is if people want to fight about the unqualified single word "gender" and whether that should mean "gender role" or "gender identity". That seems to be to an unfruitful and unnecessary dispute; just use the unambiguous two-word terms instead. (And of course, some would add "gender expression", etc).
Caveat 1: This is in terms of using language to communicate with each other. I acknowledge that some people may accurately understand what's meant by the term "gender identity" and yet believe that gender identity isn't a real thing, just like understanding what a "ghost" or a "soul" means without needing to agree on the reality of same.
Caveat 2: There is some confusion when one delves more deeply into what a "gender identity" consists of. It's often described as something sorta-biological or sorta-like the kind of soul or mind being incarnated in a body, which would transcend culture. But in the cross sex trans identification, it seems to manifest as wanting society to perceive one as fitting into the culture-specific gender roles or stereotypes associated with the other sex. So if the local culture associates dangly earrings with the female biological sex, a cross sex trans person would want to follow that stereotype in order to be perceived as having the culturally specific "gender identity" typical of biological females. In other words, when we get down to details, there is some interplay of gender identity and gender roles. But this is an entirely unnavigable mess, if we use "gender" alone to mean both/either "gender identity" and "gender roles".
Yes. I'm pretty much the same type of feminist. I am a woman. But my gender doesn't necessarily define me. I have built a self and a life that I like, not one that confines itself to a gender role per se. I am outspoken and have a big, commanding voice, for instance - both stereotypical male qualities. But, I am unapologetic about it even though I do take some arrows for it. I recognize that I could earn more social capital if I confined myself to my gender role (soft-spoken, demure) but my spirit doesn't feel comfortable doing that. So, I do me and ignore the loss of perks and social capital. Women's lib efforts definitely helped me here.
Thomas Sowell is correct when he asserts that life is a series of trade-offs.
Sorry for the only tangentially related take here, but every time it is repeated that women are soft-spoken or demure, even during the not-so-distant time when most were home-makers, I am also reminded of countless stories and also my own observation of women that were very sure and vocal of what they wanted, and often their husbands simply complied. I just don't think women were ever uniformly cowed, despite uneven economic and educational opportunities. Once upon a time, good men highly valued their women to the point of conceding many points of real decisions and power. I just don't buy this whole 'little lady' narrative that is just assumed of our not-so-distant past. From whence rose the lionesses of today? Their lioness mothers of course and their fathers who believed in them. The stereotype is tired and was never really true for many, many women.
I think the idea of the sweet demure damsel was patriarchy's wishful thinking and a projection. The complex reality of women as a real human being (especially the sexual side) is just too threatening an idea, so we hang onto the myth. I think your observations are correct. Remember that children's rhyme about girls being made of sugar, spice an all things nice, and boys made of snails and puppy dog's tails? Little boys are the sweetest, most trusting people on earth, while little girls are ready to run the world by age 7. We all know it and see it in our real lives but the myth is obviously too valuable to let go of, but it's probably well past time we did.
That hit home. I felt bad for my son who has an older sister as I could not possibly be as close to him as I was with her. I was wrong. He was/is sweeter. To this day many years later, we cannot part ways without him expressing his love many times.
That's so lovely.
Of course context matters. In the world I grew up in, being outspoken was cause for loss of social capital and/or censure. YMMV.
Passion guided by reason: 'If we accept that "gender roles" and "gender identity" are different, then there is only one "camp", and we can all understand both terms.'
Agreed, of course. Perhaps everyone associated with The Commentary would agree. But that's a tall order for most of the "we" in that sentence! Because that's everyone else LOL. And the confusion persists with every usage of that catch-all word "gender"...
For example, on the very application that I personally send out to potential council members for a government council I oversee, there is a question "What is your gender? (check what best describes your current gender identity):" with Male, Female, Trans Female, Trans Male, Genderqueer/Gender non-binary, Not Listed, and Decline to State as answers. This very question - approved by the council itself and therefore I have no ability to update it - conflates the word "gender" with gender identity.
When gender is used to mean gender identity on a regular basis, then folks who use gender to mean gender norms will constantly have to define how they are using the word gender. And vice versa.
Will medical doctors capitulate and perform body integrity identity disorder (BIID) affirming surgeries like they do gender affirming surgeries? What is the essential difference in transgenderism, transableism?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19132621/