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None of that cajoling or anything, trying to break it back out of its self chose gender, either.
Instead of imposing gender roles, you're imposing gender neutrality. In any case, you are imposing something on your child, and you're doing so with absolutely no fore knowledge of what the long term effects will be.
That's a political statement, and it's you making your child a political guinea pig.
The link is blocked for me, but did you just use one person out of 6.5+ billion as a supporting evidence for your argument that it is "possible"?
Though, you know, the more I think about it, the more I find that the notion "All gender differences are socially imposed" is a non-falsifiable claim.
Say that Pop ends up assuming a number of behaviors stereotypical to his/her sex, what will proponents of the "gender as complete social construct" theory have to say about it?
Ultimately, perhaps we just won't be able to glean anything from studying this, as we've failed to glean any really useful information from gender-effect-on-development experiments in the past.
but giving a female kid a pink room and nothing but dolls is just as imposing. Consciously or not parents all program their kids to understand social norms and what is expected of them.
Gnome if you really want to make that argument it's not much of a stretch to apply it to anything you teach a kid.
Okay this is that bullshit "only parents know how to be parents" line.
Please don't continue this tangent.
They're really not.
For every aspect of masculinity and femininity as conventionally measured, people will vary all over the shop. Being male or female is measured as an aggregate of these properties by people. Some boys will be super masculine in some ways, and quite feminine in others. There's no reason why we shouldn't try to liberate these properties from the restrictive categories and let people express their personalities; if the built in differences exist, they will emerge naturally instead of as a result of coercion/social pressure.
But they are taking it farther than this. I already do this with my little girl. They are going beyond just being open, reasonable people, in to the territory of being secretive about the gender, which takes it from "Good parenting" to "bizarre".
My mother attempted to do this. I had a yellow room and was bought all manner of different types of toys.
It wasn't good enough, though. My dolls were still Barbies rather than action men, my clothes had kittens on them instead of trucks, so I ended up caving to social pressure and going female. Had my parents been stricter with keeping both options open to me and making a point of not letting me be swayed by outside influences, I think I'd be a lot happier today than I am now.
I would be (not pedo) interested in how they decorated the kids room when they first delivered.
Given that my argument is "it is possible for people to be transgendered or have ideas about what gender they are much younger than most people believe"
Yes, yes I did.
Touch a sore spot a little? It's a completely valid question to ask, and I'm sorry you don't like it.
Yes it did a bit, and I apologize.
However, this argument line is still bullshit, and an invalid question.
Good thing nobody here is making that claim.
If there are indeed biological sex differences, this is the way we will coax them out as well.
I, for one, am totally behind this experiment.
This is just one of the positive outcomes of this experiment.
The reasoning is about as valid as, "Houston's full of fatties, I bet you're a real porker."
Outside of your realm of experience is not the same as bizarre political guinea pig.
I really cant figure out if I think this is a great or horrible idea.
One counter point for the depression/suicide argument is .... doesn't that happen sometimes when traditional gender roles are enforced?
No, I'm not implying you are, Feral.
I don't think that it's a complete strawman either, though. I've seen more than one instance of this point being argued for.
It doesn't help that often people will polarize themselves for the sake of debate, and in the case of the whole "nature versus nurture" (blegh) debate polarization is particularly harmful.
"Mommy, what's the difference between girls and boys?"
"Nothing Pop, it's all a construct of society."
But we have no way of knowing this one way or another, it seems.
As you have previously conceded, gender is indeed a social construct.
But it is worth also noting that even "the construct of your genitals" is badly defined, because biological sexual ambiguity is surprisingly common: there is a chromosomal definition (i.e., whether or not you have a Y chromosome) and a phenotypic definition (i.e., the type of sex organs you might be born with). The two do not necessarily cohere, and the phenotypic definition has of course a myriad of ambiguous presentations in between the two ends of "male" and "female".
Yes it does, quite often.
Not to be mean, but ask Lieberkuhn about it sometime
So you're saying that having actually done something doesn't have a valid effect on how you perceive something?
I don't see much wrong with it. Obviously the parents believe that gender is a meaningless social construct and that self determination of gender is better. If they're wrong, the kid will gravitate towards 'traditional' maleness/femaleness and that's gonna be the end of that.
If they're right, the kid will get to pick what he or she wants to be. What's wrong with that? From cross-dressing to gender-reassignment, I just don't care much about someone's sexuality or gender. Do whatcha want. There are worse things than a world where humans view clothes as wearable by any sex and kids play with toy cars AND dolls.
It's a particularly stupid debate because both sides are comically wrong, and both sides believe that admitting the other side is right will cause the END OF MORALITY AS WE KNOW IT
Two classic stinkers from NvN arguments:
1) Environment = chosen (this is a standard one in "OH GOD THE GAYS")
2) Gene effects are consistent and independent of the presence of other genes (lol epistasis)
in fact there are so many I could go on forever, but I won't.
eDIT:
Roughly 1/100 births are slightly ambiguous, with 1/1000 requiring some kind of corrective surgery (this is genitalia).
I can cut a tree down with a hatchet, doesn't mean it is always the best tool to use.
In D&D?
Haha seriously I'm completely fucking crazy and I blame dresses
No, but it does mean you've actually cut a tree down, and now you know a hatchet probably isn't the best tool. If someone who's never cut a tree down comes up and say "Dude, a hatchet is the wrong tool, use an axe", they may be right, they may be wrong, but they can't possibly be sure, they've never tried cutting a tree down with a hatchet. (Of course, we all know cutting a tree down with a hatchet is stupid...I wish the daily decisions I have to make with a kid were as simple as the tool to cut a tree down with).
It is actually a complicated question, even though it's certainly not something you should lie about or withhold.
My guess is that it will explode in their faces because no one will allow Pop to use either the boys restroom or the girls restroom, and I will laugh.
"I'm a parent. You should listen to me when we discuss parenting." But we don't know anything about your parenting. I mean, your little girl could be shanking people at daycare.
Yes.
I definitely don't have a citation for that, so take it as you will.
I mean, I don't think it's absurd to say "Someone in D&D was arguing a ridiculous position", it happens all the time
I think a big part of the problem here is that "sex" is the first way we try to classify people upon meeting them. If somebody's sex is obfuscated, it creeps a lot of people out. (I'm going to throw Winky an evo-psych bone here - I think the ability to identify others of your species by sex is evolved.) So to find out that a child is being raised in a way that doesn't allow an easy heuristic, it spins people into a gender panic.
So (ignoring sample size for a moment) if the child does go to their own group, that's a blow for the old "Patriarchy enforces gender identity" argument, whereas if they mingle or go to the opposite group, that's a blow for "gender identity is inherent and unaffected by social factors".
So yeah, that'll be fun to never read about because no newspaper is going to follow this more than once.
Or, they use whichever restroom that pertains to the gender they most currently resemble and use the privat stall
In addition, a small child of either gender is usually exempt from 'bathroom rules' when accompanied by a parent, and also I am fairly sure Sweden has co ed bathrooms, but someone feel free to correct me.