Rishi Sunak wades into debate over trans people, declaring no one can change sex
(inews.co.uk)
from nogooduser@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 05 Oct 2023 05:56
https://lemmy.world/post/6323543
from nogooduser@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 05 Oct 2023 05:56
https://lemmy.world/post/6323543
All the news on his speech seems to be about HS2 but I think that this is important too.
#world
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Trans people are literally just trying to get on with their lives while bigots obsess about them.
The same type of people said the same things about women getting the vote, interracial couples, and homosexuality.
I hope history continues to move in the right direction and leave these nosey fucks as nothing more than shameful memories.
How would you refer to them? Trans men as “she” and trans women as “he”? Or just avoid using any pronouns?
Does it matter? They just want to be left alone, they’re being left alone. The opinions of people they don’t even want to interact with have no bearing on their lives, so long as they’re genuinely being left alone. No laws against being transgender, no discrimination against transgender people in hiring or whatever, no harassment, but some people are going to use pronouns based on sex instead of gender because they personally don’t buy it. Is that OK?
I think a lot of people would be happy to settle into this camp. Happy to oblige but allowed to keep their opinion without being villainized.
Wait, what do you mean “happy to oblige”? Nobody abliges in my scenario. Everyone just leaves each other alone.
Yes, that’s what I mean. The stated request was that trans people just want to be left alone. Most people would be happy to do that. I agree with you.
If you change your name, and I believe people shouldn’t be able to change their name, is it ok for me to only use your old name?
How do you know my old name? You aso me my name and I tell you.
Someone choosing their own name is already common enough, and is not a question of distortion of language. It’s not the same as pronouns.
Answer the question, is it ok or not?
Its irrelevant for this topic of discussion. Pronouns are a linguistic element with already clearly defined rules, proper nouns are chosen and have always been chosen. To answer you I’d say calling someone by some name other than theirs to be disparaging is not OK, referring to someone using a pronoun corresponding to their biological sex is perfectly OK.
I get what you mean, but the analogy does not work so well. Names are inherently individual. We got used to know hundreds of them. So when you’re meeting a new person, you expect to learn a “new” name just for that person. Likewise, most people don’t make a fuzz if you get their name wrong the first couple of times. It’s something which has to be asked, and learned.
On the other hand, gender is mostly inferred, and we used to use only two of them. So when you’re meeting a new person, you’re expected to already know the correct gender. Likewise, most people react insulted if you misgender them, even if only once. It’s something you’re supposed to just know.
My point is, many people have a strong social training to correctly guess the gender of a person before talking to them. To suppress this automatism and replace it with an active ask-individually-approach can be stressful, although we have a similar scheme with names already.
So if someone decided you were trans and started calling you by the wrong pronouns, you'd be ok with that?
Like if they personally just don't believe your presented gender and want to publically harrass you about it, are you allowed to put up a fuss in this scenario of yours? Or is that OK?
I don’t particularly care. It’s not really harassing me, when they address me they’d say “you”. They’d be doing it in conversation with someone else. I wouldn’t hang out with someone that did this, but it wouldn’t make me angry or anything, it’s literally not my problem at all, I know who and what I am.
Being an asshole was never forbidden. I can call a cis man a she all I want. Just because it isn’t illegal doesn’t mean that there are no consequences. Like people will just disassociate from me and my boss might fire me for bullying.
What do you mean by “consequences”? You want to punish people for believing a man can’t be a woman, even if they don’t go around harassing transgender and calling them names and fucking with their lives?
Intentionally misgendering someone is a dick move and generally people don’t want to hang around dicks. So first consequence is you’ll have other dicks for friends. Except, they’re dicks, so probably not gonna be very good friends each other.
I also hope you are self employed cuz intentionally misgendering people in the workplace is not a good look either. Better hope no one in earshot has a trans friend or family member.
No one’s saying you can’t be Your Best Inner Bigoted Self. We’re just saying the rest of us think it’s ugly and weak minded.
Alright, so you’re OK with leaving alone people who use pronouns to refer to biological sex, you don’t want to be their friend or whatever but you leave them alone, don’t harass them, don’t try to get them fired and if they get a job somewhere that doesn’t care then fine, leave them alone?
If this hypothetical person can’t see the forest for trees after all that, yeah sure
I never said people should be punished for thinking that. If people aren’t harassing or bullying people they aren’t being assholes.
Also consequences doesn’t just mean punishment. If someone is being an asshole by constantly misgendering a trans person on purpose and people don’t want to hang out with them anymore because of that behavior that’s a consequence but not a punishment.
So you’re OK with that? Not personally associating with people that use pronouns to refer to biological sex, but let them be themselves and do their thing and associate with who they want?
You do realize that this is the situation that already exists?
Yeah, but it’s not without contention. Some people believe it should be illegal to use pronouns in reference to someone’s biological sex. I’m just asking people if they’re OK with it, if they like that, to distinguish from people who do that and people who harass and berate transgender people. When someone says “they just want to be left alone” I’m trying to get whether they view that distinction as valid or not.
You’re conflating a number of issues.
Edit: This is from a US perspective despite the article.
Should a teacher be required to call a child by their preferred pronoun? Of course; the child has no choice in the matter of attending school, and forcing a child to endure constant humiliation at the hands of their steward is an insane thing to require.
Should it be illegal to misgender someone on the street? No, we have the freedom to speak our mind in this country. If one puts themselves out there as a bigot though, they need to be prepared for the social repercussions of that speech.
Should it be illegal to misgender a coworker? Consider a situation where you start a new job. Your coworker starts calling you “cuck” over and over again. You tell him that you’re not a cuck, but he says that you look like a cuck, so that’s what he’s going to call you. You go to your boss, and tell them that your coworker is being disrespectful, but he says that he’s not going to get between the two of you about personal identity issues. There is a case for a lawsuit for creating a hostile work environment, and it’s a civil matter at that point.
The most concerning question is: why is it so important to you to be an asshole to other people?
I’m not am asshole to other people.
The interesting thing about pronouns is that the only pronoun used to directly address someone is not gendered, it’s “you”. So it is not actually possible to directly misgender someone.
The words “he” and “she” aren’t slurs. Comparison to the word “cuck” don’t make any sense. Should a job require someone to use preferred pronouns? Well I go back to what I was discussing about free association, if they want to sure, if they don’t that’s OK too, but going after a workplace without such a requirement takes things a bit farther than just wanting to be left alone.
And as far as teachers, I actually don’t think kids should be forced to go to school, so that would really be a different issue. If they’re old enough to determine their gender they’re certainly old enough to educate themselves or determine if they even want an education.
If you are intentionally misgendering people, then yes. Yes, you are. You’re actively doing something that somebody asked you not to. You’re making their identity about you. It’s ridiculously self-absorbed.
Another thing you’re wrong about. “Them” is a pronoun. “He” and “she” are pronouns that directly address someone if you’re talking to a third party with the person in the room; this is really not that hard.
Pretend that the coworker was misgendering you as a cis person instead. The argument still stands. Are they creating a hostile work environment? We have laws about that.
Why is it important to protect the bigot’s livelihood but not that of the person being misgendered?
Fortunately we still educate kids in this country, so I don’t understand the relevance here.
The only people making it illegal to use certain pronouns are conservatives. You’re making the worst kind of straw man argument.
Yes I’m ok with that, like I said being an asshole is not illegal.
Well that’s good, I 100% agree with you. But judging by the votes I’m getting for asking this question, I don’t think most people that support the transgender movement do.
I don’t think people who downvote you think being an asshole should be illegal. They just think you’re an asshole.
Why would they think I’m an asshole? I have not misgendered someone, I have not even stated my opinion on that. I’m just asking, if that’s the compromise would you all be OK with it.
You know that there have always been effeminate men and masculine women, right? They might not even be trans, they just look close to the other gender. You’d still be an asshole for calling them the wrong gender, why would trans people be any different?
This requires some obsession on the part of the person who would have to try to learn everyone’s gender and sex just so they can purposefully identify and misgender this trans person.
You may be surprised to know that there are a lot of those people.
It’s usually quite obvious what someone’s sex and gender are.
That’s only how it feels, as you only notice it at all on people where it is “obvious”. And even then, people get it wrong, cis people have been harassed by transphobes often enough. Just be nice.
I would bet you a significant amount of money that in a line up of humans I could get more than 95% accurate. I think even a young child could.
Yeah I mean you can get 95% by just saying everyone is cis, that’s just not an schievement
You’ll still be an asshole and will rightly be treated like one.
From now on your pronoun is “moron”.
As used in a sentence: You see this guy? Moron tried to be smart but it didn’t work.
It’s simple, gender can be changed but sex cannot. End of story, anyone who argues otherwise is objectively wrong.
yet
You’re not technically wrong, but it’s a nuanced issue and people should treat it as such rather than black and white.
Sunak saying “no one can change sex” without any qualifying statements is just designed to inflame and divide people.
No it’s designed to gain support from ignorant bigots who have nothing better to do than think about other people’s genitals all the damn time, but are completely incapable of actual learning anything that isn’t shoveled down their throat by a far right psychopath who stands to gain from what they’re saying.
It’s designed to offer a firm take on the nuanced issue. A lot of people feel like they are tired of being told they are crazy (on both sides).
It feels like if someone (self) inserts gender where he says sex here, they are looking for reasons to be upset.
Clown fish start life as males, and become female in adulthood. Gobies can switch back and forth between male and female. So far, we know of maybe 500 species of fish that can change sex.
I understand people are not fish, but I'm not sure we should be so quick to declare something about people "can't be changed" with enough time, knowledge and science. Sex and gender are both complicated systems with lots of opportunity for unexpected variations affecting seemingly unrelated parts of a person.
It's even possible for your body to have more than one set of chromosomes, it's called Chromosomal Mosaicism and is detected in around 1-2% of pregnancies. Not all of those pregnancies make it full term, and not all mosaics are retained by the foetus, but in a world of billions of people it still ends up being a lot of people who are sexually diverse.
Biology is not simple. Do not underestimate the weird things your body can randomly surprise you with.
Most people generally assume we’re talking about current technological limits, unless otherwise stated, lest we end up with “yeah, everything is possible because DNA editing is possible”.
Even without technological intervention, we know some kinds of chemical exposure and cancers can alter chromosomes and literally change your X into a Y or vice versa. Or even turn it into a different shape than X or Y. Sometimes it a chromosome just goes missing entirely. Genetics are not always good at following the rules and they can break or perform strange new equations with mistaken values whenever a new cell is made. Organics are messy like that
Chromosomes delete, combine, duplicate, change and/or fuse bits of other chromosomes in unexpected places more than you might expect. It can happen to an embryo a few cells big right through a person's life.
Given the male sex is defined by the presence of any Y chromosome though (if we go by chromosome sex determination alone), if an arm breaks off the 46th chromosome after the embryo is established as XX, that XX foetus can develop as XY. Has it changed sex in the womb since it changed chromosomes? Are they female because they were conceived as XX, or male because they were born XY? It happens.
And if a foetus has Chromosome mosaicism, with both an XX and an XY embryo that fused into one foetus, it can be born with both sets of working genitals. Because they usually determine sex visually, they might only see the XY genitals and classify it as male. But the blood tests will sometimes show XX and sometimes XY, as much as 50% of the time if the fusion happened early. Which sex is that person in that case, and are they only 1 sex?
Are they still male becaude they have a Y if the first implanted embryo with XX chromosomes absorbed a smaller XY embryo, and therefore the final body is mostly XX?
And If a person with mosaicism as an adult surgically removes their XY-typical set/parts of their body including genitals, are they still XY? Even if the XY cells can be removed completely because they're only a small part of the person? Because that can happen too.
It only gets more complicated and uncertain from there, because there are a lot of variables at play when there's loads of organic data manipulation. But weird shit can and does happen for reasons we don't yet understand or know about. Depending on how you define sex and the point of sex determination, it is very likely someone has already changed sex.
Gender isn’t objective, and so people who disagree cannot be objectively wrong. That is an objective fact.
I dare you to take HRT for a couple of years and then say that again (obviously not really, but you clearly don't give a shit about biology, which would prove you wrong, and are only here to spread ignorance in the name of transphobia)
Depends how you define sex.
If you just mean physical appearance then yes you can change your sex through hormones and surgery.
If you mean DNA then no, most AMAB will all have a X and a Y chromosome in every one of their cells which would technically make them male “sex”, despite whatever gender they identify as.
You can change your gender but you can’t really choose your biological sex. But it’s semantics really and not totally flushed out yet either.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/27226402-c0be-48be-8467-e2742d2c7036.jpeg">
So transphobes can just ignore gender as a concept and treat sex as all there is and you can’t call them out because they are “technically correct”?
Strawman
Hey, will you look at the time!
Its ‘generate political cover for the Tories privatizing the NHS’ o’clock again!
Tonight on BBC news, loads of shit happened in the world but strangely we’re started with “The NHS is failing” as top headline, again
🧐
I think if anything this is more important.
Sure, HS2 is a complete shambles and an embarrassment and we should be criticising what's going on, but this is a calculated and deliberate attack on human rights, and is a significantly bigger red flag that I wish more people took seriously.
It’s also worth noting that HS2 is in shambles because Sunak, as chancellor, defunded and interfered with it
He is a despicable right-conservative populist who obviously says this for all the wrong reasons but that does not change the fact that the statement by itself is a correct one. Humans can change their gender, that is possible because gender is a more or less internalised, socio-cultural and therefore psychological construct. The sex of a human on the other hand is an inherent, biological and physiological quality, written into each cells DNA. Therefore the sex of a person could only be changed by replacing chromosomes in every single cell of the individuals body. I very much hope for all trans people that it will become medically possible to change their sex in the future but at this point it is simply not medically possible and to deny this truth will not make the lifes of trans people better.
It’s really not necessary to bend over backwards to defend him. If he was talking about chromosomes he’d have had no reason to say anything because it would just been a pointless non sequitur with no political relevance. He obviously meant it as an attack against trans people’s existence.
I never defended him and I don´t get why you project such nonsense on me after I clearly wrote:
Are you unable to separate between the person and the statement?
Is this your idea of bending over backwards to defend someone?
Your definitions of sex and gender are not in universal use, and they are not the definitions used by Sunak. So his statement was not “correct”, because what it meant was not correct.
Interesting! What definitions are in universal use?
I think my definitions of sex and gender and the definitions of the Council of Europe seem pretty congruent though:
source
Good point, I assume that he (as the conservative-populist he is) probably meant to say gender when he said sex and that he wanted to imply that people can not change gender (which is obviously false because gender is a social construct and not an inherent biological quality).
All that does not change the fact that the statement “people can not change their sex” itself is a correct one though. As far as I understand logic, if somebody says something correct while meaning something incorrect, that does not change the true statement into a false one.
No definition is in universal use.
He meant to say exactly what he said, and it was incorrect. He was not using your definition of sex. He was using it in the same sense as “I had a sex change operation”.
Or “Now I want to change the sex on my birth certificate”. Do you also chime in to inform people it’s wrong to do that?
This is true insomuch as you define sex as the 46th chromosome, but an argument can be made that that is overly simplistic. Nearly every cell in our body experiences some amount of sexual differentiation, and this is often mediated by Testosterone and Estrogen exposure. The complicating part is that trans people undergoing hormone replacement therapy do dramatically change their hormonal profile, and while some tissues are only meaningfully sensitive to sex hormones early in development (no amount of HRT is going to change your skeleton, for instance, or cause someone to grow a uterus), other tissues do remain sensitive to sex hormones and can meaningfully differentiate in adulthood causing significant medical effects. Estrogen, for instance, promotes blood clot formation, which is why (cis) women have a higher rate of them. Trans women who take estrogen, as would be expected, also have a higher rate of blood clots compared to cis men. If trans people are only changing gender, and gender is a strictly social phenomenon, we can't really explain this. Likewise, Testosterone can promote higher cholesterol levels that lead to heart attacks, which is why men have higher rates of them. Trans men taking Testosterone also experience this.
So, the fact of the matter is that trans people taking hormones go through biological changes that exactly parallel natural sexual differentiation, albeit in limited form. This has direct clinical relevance, as a trans man seeking cardiovascular medical support should not be treated the same way as a cis woman. Given this, there is a sound argument to be made that "biological sex" as defined in this way simply isn't sufficient to describe these kinds of people. At a biological level, they really do represent a kind of intermediate state in sexual differentiation, and this bears medical significance.
What it doesn't really bear, however, is social significance outside of very close intimate personal relationships. Regardless of whether you think having a strongly gendered society is a good thing or not, the fact is that we don't determine social gender through magical Chromosome-Scopes, but rather a complex mix of perceived traits, both of the body and things like voice, hair, clothing, personality, etc.
Very interesting and I agree with everything you wrote.
I just wish one day all people who feel a need to do so will be able to transition entirely, not just socially but also biologically.
Yes we can… It’s the exact same as consuming a drug which changes how your body works. Arguing otherwise is akin to saying people who drink coffee have a different sex than those who don’t.
My point is that binary sex is an incomplete metric that doesn't accurately describe the biology of trans people. My wording was a bit clunky there, but if the meaningful traits that sex describes are mediated through hormonal profiles, and hormonal profiles do not necessarily match the 46th chromosome, there's a strong argument to be made that what we're really describing when we're talking about sex in humans is not the value of a chromosome, but rather the pattern of sexual differentiation throughout the body, and the fact of the matter is that that is not a strict binary. Binary sex based on chromosomes is not capable of meaningfully distinguishing between a cis woman and a trans man despite there being many significant biological differences between them that are produce in the exact same way as they are between cis women and men.
Well, looks like he is a bit behind on sciences. Maybe a few decades or so. Not unusual for a politician.
Imagine knowing the last 13 years of Tory rule have been such a disaster that you have to spend all your time whipping up a fury against .01% of the population in the gutter press to the point where transphobic hate crimes have risen in Britain by like 60%