"She", not "he", guys

[henry quirk]

"fuck you, I don't care about you, I'll do whatever I want".

Certainly, that's one possible interpretation.

Just not the only one.

I'm sure when Norton demanded to be called 'emperor', some refused for the reason you cite above. Others, I'm sure, refused to call Norton 'emperor' because, in fact, he was not an emperor.

#

"I really, really don't see gender in the same way you do, henry."

And we don't have to.

Since this is the closest I'm gonna get to a 'let's agree to disagree', I'll just say: thanks, Dana.

#

"He made this thread to make sure everyone knew that he did it just to be an enormous jerk."

That's one interpretation. Another is, it irks me when folks demand I toss away what's real in favor of not-real.

#

"I hope that answered your question."

You did. Thank you for the civility. Your post raises other questions for me, but I'll save those for a later time.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by BrianR

I cannot really speak for Ibby. She will have to answer for herself. But I will venture to say that Ibby is not a transsexual. She is further to the male side of the gender spectrum than I am. She is exploring her identity and looking for her place in the world. That's fine. I know where I belong.

I take exception to that... i sure as hell know where I belong too. I'm a bit of a tomboy, but that doesn't mean i'm not trans*.

[BigV]

Good morning hq.

Originally Posted by henry quirk

"Ibby's genitals being her business, not yours"

Agreed. What is my business, however, is the demand to ignore what is real (Ibby being male) in favor of making him 'feel' better about himself.

Do you have a cite for this assertion? I don't remember any demand from Ibby to ignore anything. This seems to be your main complaint, the keystone of this thread you started. Where did this happen? I am trying to see things from your perspective. You don't like to be told what to do, especially when it is in direct conflict with your thoughts on the matter. That's completely understandable.

BUT, there are parts where I have trouble extending this line of thought, the first being no memory or knowledge of such a demand. If you can, would you please show me where this demand is being made?

Secondly, the whole idea of what pronoun to use is not something that is always unambiguously definite. We use pronouns with some latitude all the time. I refer to you as "he", but that's just a convention. I don't know you, I don't know about your genitals, your state of mind, your attitudes, your chromosomes, none of that. In fact, what I can say about you with confidence is that I type posts in response to posts associated with your username. Those posts have no gender. But I use that pronoun nonetheless.

What is right and fair to be referred to as "he" is widely variable, and so is what is right and fair to be considered "male". I get being hung up on language--I do. I couldn't let Pam's remarks about a penis being a physical deformity go unchallenged. Just language, right? But I had to respond. And I did, and so did she, it got worked out. I see your tilting at this windmill in this light. We, humans, use language to work stuff out. Your inability/refusal to capitulate to Ibby's demands is clearly justified, to you. To me, and to others who have commented here, it is not justified, it is simply a rejection of broadly accepted conventions of cellar etiquette, social norms, and casual usage of language among regular people. You're just saying "no".

That's fine, fine, really. But it's not "right". You might be able to say with a great deal of certainty something about Ibby's chromosomes, you might be able to confidently aver to a physical description of his genitals. Those kinds of things are amenable to objective measurement. Being male is not as objectively, atomically measurable. And the usage of a given pronoun is even less so. You can choose to use whatever words you like, but the logic of your argument--Ibby has xy chromosomes therefore has a penis therefore is male therefore requires the use of the pronoun "he"--breaks down under scrutiny in our immediate frame of reference. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that is what your logic looks like from here.

****

Originally Posted by henry quirk

within the context of the 'source' of maleness, the source of femaleness.

As I say in post 164...

'XY imparts certain characteristics to the flesh (as a whole). You possess these characteristics because you are XY (male, 'he'). How you choose to accentuate or diminish those characteristics is up to you. Your reasons or reasoning for accentuating or diminishing these characteristics is yours to suss out and is wholly irrelevant to me (or this thread). The source of those characteristics, however, remains the same (regardless of 'where' or 'when' you happen to be, or, what you want, or perceive yourself, to be).'

I don't agree. xy imparts certain characteristics to the flesh, like a penis. But that's not all that makes me male, and importantly, there is MUCH about me, much of what I do that manifests my maleness that has nothing to do with my penis. It's a part (a big part, ha ha) of my maleness, but not the majority.

Think about the experiences you have throughout the day, using a very helpful linguistic handle like a pronoun that is masculine or feminine, but without actually knowing about genitals. The cues used to reach that grammatical conclusion are the kinds of things I'm talking about that justify "he" or "she". I use those, and so do you, without actually knowing what's in their pants. It is the running total of these inputs that is the "source of maleness, the source of femaleness". A penis or a vagina, the direct physical result of one's chromosomes, contributes to this running total, and in most folks, it is a reinforcing contribution. But not always. You have certainly had the experience, or at least can imagine dealing with someone you assessed to be male only to find out later that that person didn't have a penis. In that case, her genitals aren't adding to that running total. I reckon in Pam's case, or Ibby's case, or Calpernia's case, their genitals are a factor that detract from that running total; their sum total is female *despite* their genitals, not because of them. Genitalia is a factor in gender, not a conclusion. I believe you are confusing causation and correlation.

tl;dr

hq=penis is male, V=no it is not.

****

Originally Posted by henry quirk

Sun,

"HQ is referring to Calpernia as "he"."

Because he's a guy.

Given your standards for determining what gender pronoun to use (chromosomes, genitalia), how can you support this statement?

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

henry was worried that when he used "he" to refer to Ibby, people might view it as an oversight. He made this thread to make sure everyone knew that he did it just to be an enormous jerk.

scf, please!

you *know* I drink a lot in the morning

[Undertoad]

a rejection of broadly accepted conventions of cellar etiquette

this should be permitted at all times imo

[DanaC]

Permitted yes. Unchallenged? *shrugs*

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

this should be permitted at all times imo

Are you suggesting anarchy? Chaos?

"I demand you delete that post, as I find it intolerably irritating."

***

Now, I wonder what will happen with this paradox I've set. A broadly accepted convention of cellar etiquette is that posts are not deleted. It is not universally so, many posts are deleted but they are almost always related to spam. Yet, if you "permit" my demand, the post will go away, my rejection of the convention will have triumphed. Your desire will also be granted.

We shall see.

[henry quirk]

"I don't remember any demand from Ibby to ignore anything."

He demands to be called 'she'. To do so I have ignore the fact that he is 'he'.

#

Stop asserting I fixate on 'cock'. The mention of 'cock' (as sexual characteristic extending out from genes) is not the crux of my position.

If 'you' need to fixate on 'cock', please do.

#

'He' denotes a state of being, in this case a state of being dictated by a specific chromosome.

You wish to conflate all manner of shifty, cultural, notions about maleness into my position.

Stop it.

In this thread I'm only addressing the foundation for 'he' and she', for real and not-real.

#

"how can you support this statement?"

It's an assumption based on his self-description as 'transgender woman' meaning he, at one time, had male physical characteristics (characteristics extending directly from a specific chromosome pattern) and that he altered or diminished those characteristics (but not the source of those characteristics).

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by BigV

Are you suggesting anarchy? Chaos?

For fux sake. No, I'm saying that you don't get to claim that your idea of what "conventions of cellar etiquette" are, means anything at all.

Always THINK

Never GROUP-THINK

[footfootfoot]

Did we already talk about how many legs a sheep would have if you call its tail a leg?

Here's what the folks over at snopes have to say

Originally Posted by http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=32;t=000450;p=0

I think, though, that the larger quote from Stearns's work helps reinforce the use of the anecdote with respect to the issue of slavery, which is how Lincoln is said to have used it a decade later,

quote:
The law treats [man, or a slave] as a person and as a thing, classing him under both categories; but were he not a thing, were there no exchangeable value in him, the law might call him one day, all day, it would not make him one. "Father," said one of the rising generation to his paternal progenitor, "if I should call this cow's leg a tail, how many legs would she have?" "Why five, to be sure." "Why, no, father; would calling it a leg make it one?"
In fact, the anecdote had been in use in the abolitionist movement itself at least as early as 1840,

quote:
(From "Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Sketches of Debates at the Annual Meeting," The Liberator, 28 February 1840.)

[On 'The Church and the Ministry,' Thursday evening, Jan. 23.]

[Mr. Bradburn] This discussion reminds me of the boy who said to his father, "Father, how many legs would this calf have, calling the tail a leg? 'Why five, my son.' 'No, father, he can not. He would have only four.' 'Why, calling the tail a leg, you said, my boy.' 'Ah father! but calling the tail a leg, does not make it so, you know.' So also I would say to that gentlemen. You may call him an abolitionist any length of time you choose. It will not make him one.
It's hard to know, I think, whether Lincoln himself ever actually made use of the anecdote, but he certainly gets linked to it by sometime in October, 1862, after issuance of the first part of the Emancipation Proclamation,

quote:
(Appearing in Dawsons Daily Times and Union [Fort Wayne, Indiana], 21 October 1862. Reprinted from the Albany [New York] Argus and Atlas.]

WHERE ARE THE ARMED ME? -- Greeley, Andrew, Blair of Michigan, and other Abolitionists, promised the President a million men, if he would issue his Emancipation Proclamation. In vain did Lincoln protest; in vain did he cite the stories of the Pope, who issued a bull against the comet, and the slave who told his mater that his calling a pig's tail a leg, would not make it so. He was assured that if he would but spread his edict before the people, armed men would spring out the earth at the stamp of his foot.


(From The Weekly Standard [Raleigh, North Carolina], 29 October 1862.)

OLD ABE GETS OFF ANOTHER JOKE. -- A couple of Abolitionists having called upon Old Abe to persuade him to issue his Emancipation Proclamation -- that is, before he issued it -- he got off the following good thing and knock down argument against his own act:

"You remember the slave who asked his master -- if I should call a sheep's tail a leg, how many legs would it have? 'Five.' 'No, only four, for my calling the tail a leg would not make it so.' Now, gentlemen, if I say to the slaves, 'you are free,' they will be no more free than at present."


(From "Irenaeus," "Letters from the City," The New York Observer and Chronicle, 22 January 1863.)

THE PRESIDENT AND DR. CHEEVER.

Just before the first of January, Dr. Cheever was appointed by a ministers' meeting, at which a lawyer presided and a newspaper reporter was secretary, to go to Washington and help stiffen the backbone of the President in the matter of the Proclamation. At the interview, as it is described by Dr. Cheever to his friends, the President was as usual in excellent humor . . . As the conference [with the President] continued, the President expressed his fear that the Proclamation would not amount to much of anything, and the doctor predicted great things from it. Mr. Lincoln said it reminded him of a farmer out in Illinois who asked his little boy a question in figures. "If you call a sheep's tail a leg, how many legs will you have?" "Five," said the boy. "No, it won't, you fool," said the farmer, "calling a thing so, don't make it so!"

The President seemed to feel that calling a man free and making him so were not exactly the same thing.

[...]
In any event, other early appearances of this anecdote (at least in the American press) go something like this,

quote:
(From the New-Hampshire Gazette [Portsmouth], 1 July 1834.)

'If you call a sheep's tail a leg, how many legs will a sheep have?' -- 'Five.'

'Will calling a sheep's tail a leg make it a leg?' 'No.'

If then calling a sheep's tail a leg don't make it a leg, will calling a Tory a Whig make him a Whig. -- Cayuga [Patriot].


(From The Cincinnati Weekly Herald and Philanthropist, 27 December 1843.)

Says Bill to Jack, how many legs would a calf have by calling a tail one? 'Five,' answered Jack. 'No, 'twouldn't,' says Bill, 'because calling the tail one leg wouldn’t make it so, would it?'


(From The Watertown [Wisconsin] Chronicle, 30 October 1850.]

A little boy, some four or five years of age, once asked his father how many legs a calf would have, provided they called the tail one. The father, reasoning upon principles usually considered sound in those days, very naturally replied, "why, five, my son." "No," said the boy; "calling the tail a leg does not make it one."

[BigV]

Total fail.

Originally Posted by henry quirk

"I don't remember any demand from Ibby to ignore anything."

He demands to be called 'she'. To do so I have ignore the fact that he is 'he'.

To paraphrase: "Cite or it didn't happen." Don't go all tw on us and shift the responsibility away from you to support your statement.

Originally Posted by henry quirk

Stop asserting I fixate on 'cock'. The mention of 'cock' (as sexual characteristic extending out from genes) is not the crux of my position.

If 'you' need to fixate on 'cock', please do.

You introduce the word 'cock', not me. You, yourself, open this very thread with "penis". Remember this?

Originally Posted by hq

If he has a penis, is genetically male, then -- despite *self-definition -- he is 'he'.

Not the crux of your position? It is the ONLY factor in post after post after post from you. Chromosomes --> physical characteristics --> gendered pronoun. You say fixation, I say focus, focus on your own words.

Originally Posted by henry quirk

'He' denotes a state of being, in this case a state of being dictated by a specific chromosome.

No. "He" is just a pronoun that is used in many ways, all over the place. In this case, a specific chromosome "imparts certain physical characteristics", not the meaning of words.

Originally Posted by henry quirk

You wish to conflate all manner of shifty, cultural, notions about maleness into my position.

Stop it.

In this thread I'm only addressing the foundation for 'he' and she', for real and not-real.

Your definition of the foundation of 'he' and 'she' is unrealistically strict and narrow. It is incomplete and unrealistic. Given the completely rigid understanding of gender and pronouns you demonstrate, I was going to say you lack imagination. But that would be wrong. If you truly believe what you're writing, you have no lack of imagination, you simply lack reality.

Originally Posted by henry quirk

"how can you support this statement?"

It's an assumption based on his self-description as 'transgender woman' meaning he, at one time, had male physical characteristics (characteristics extending directly from a specific chromosome pattern) and that he altered or diminished those characteristics (but not the source of those characteristics).

Here you contradict your own argument. You're all "It's the chromosomes, stupid" but here you are just going on someone's statement. How is that verifiably "real" and not "not-real"? It's ok to assume, but your justification for that assumption is some distance from what you proclaim is the gold standard of evidence. You rely on some of the same cues, some of the same shifty cultural notions we all do, but draw a different conclusion, weighting chromosomes at 100%, and nothing else matters. There is no dictionary in the world that defines "he" as "having xy chromosomes".

[Cyber Wolf]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

"womanhood is not defined by a lack of a penis"

Agreed. It's defined by chromosome.

Not to put too fine a point on it, no it's not. The X chromosome only defines the female physical structure in a species. A molly (female cat) isn't a woman but it is a female. She has a body that can have babies and hormones that trigger estrus (her period) and she's slutty when there's toms around, etc. But she's not a woman (universally defined as a human) nor is this 'womanhood'. All of that behavior is largely based on hormones and what these hormones are instructing the body to do and where we humans differ from that is through the ability to recognize what we're doing and suppress/divert that behavior (in some cases) to somehow influence a social interaction. Manners and religious tenets are some methods of altering that behavior and neither of those have anything to do directly with which chromosome you won.

Womanhood, as it's generally defined, is comprised of societal expectations, pretty much everything that is expected of, allowed, given to or taken from a woman because the body that human has dangly bits on the chest and not between the legs. There are manners/mannerisms for women that men don't exhibit (and the other way around), there are expectations for women that men aren't expected to do, etc.

During embryo formation, there's a ton of things that can go awry and one of them is the formation of a human chimera. This can happen when a zygote or even an embryo absorbs a second (or more) embryos. This is how we get people with two different blood types in their body or two completely different types of hairs on their head (ie a blend of fine Norwegian blond and thick Mediterranean brown). If something as invisible to the eye as a blood type can be blended that way, I don't see why all or part of an XX zygote's endocrine system couldn't be absorbed by an XY zygote. If this XY comes to full term and gets born, you'll have a male human baby that will eventually be getting the hormone cocktail that a female human should have and less or none of what a male should have.

All that would be well and good in terms of survival, with the possibility that it'd be less likely for him to mate because he wouldn't give off the visual and hormonal triggers that would attract the female humans. It would also go unnoticed until after the child has started school and truly begins his social training, interacting regularly with other males and females of similar age. But the issue is, once he's old enough to start seriously taking in the role his apparent gender plays in society, he's not going to feel right about it because no one else like him will seem the same way. He'll be steered towards things that a young XY male with XY-expected hormones should be interested in, but he'll find himself more interested in what the XX-expected hormones are telling him. Then, over time, society will either tell him "No, you're wrong! Shape up, you little pussy!" or "Be who you are, free spirit!" or both at once, depending on what the parents and immediate surroundings are like. So, he'll pretend all his life, for fear of societal repercussions, or he'll act on it, despite the societal repercussions. Or he'll kill himself because that'll seem easier than choosing.

In a nutshell (see what I did there?), this kid is gonna have a bad time either way and it all began waaaay before any concept of woman- or man-hood came into it.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

For fux sake. No, I'm saying that you don't get to claim that your idea of what "conventions of cellar etiquette" are, means anything at all.

Always THINK

Never GROUP-THINK

ffs indeed.

conventions of cellar etiquette exist. I defy you to deny this.

I "THINK" that one of those conventions is that we refer to each other by the way each of us introduces ourselves. This self-naming, this self-definition happens all over the board, and all over the board those definitions are used, almost universally, as the person who has stated the definition has stated the definition.

As an example, we used to have a well established user name "Br****a". The person behind that user name (asked and had some administrator-level person) changed the user name to something completely different, Trilby. There is a convention, a widely accepted belief and/or action, to adopt this new name. This is considered good etiquette. It is not my idea. I am not making it up. I am not "defining" it, I am pointing it out. Its meaning is that it exists.

Many times there are multiple names, nicknames if you will, that are also used. There are conventions around these names too. For example, you are sometimes referred to as UT; I am sometimes referred to as V. This convention is not a breach of cellar etiquette, but calling Lola Bunny or sexobon by their previous handle would be in bad etiquette since they've specifically asked to be disassociated with those descriptions. It's not me making it up, it's just me observing it. Specifically, deliberately, repeatedly disregarding a dwellar's reasonable request to be referred to in a particular way is a breach of etiquette. That IS my THINKING, irrespective of the group I'm in or not in.

[Sundae]

No necessarily germane to this discussion, but prompted by CW's excellent post above.

We had a child at my school with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY syndrome). This was apparent in some of the classic symptoms of learning difficulties, poor speech and motor control and coordination. But it also meant that when he reached puberty he might develop female sexual characteristics, for example growing breasts.

All we could offer him at our school was meeting his Special Educational Needs. He's going to need more specific help in the future.
"Treatment may include hormone therapy, cosmetic surgery, speech therapy and counselling."

[BigV]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

Did we already talk about how many legs a sheep would have if you call its tail a leg?

Here's what the folks over at snopes have to say

this is easy footfootfoot. There's a pretty well defined difference between a tail and a leg. Calling a tail a leg does not make it one. I agree completely with this.

Men, property, slaves, freedom, these terms are not as simple as a lamb's tail. What a man is depends more on context, as does slavery and freedom. Gender is much closer to these than it is to a lamb's tail when it comes to absolute definition.