How Many Genders Are There? - Page 6 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Polls on politics, news, current affairs and history.

How Many Genders Are There?

One
No votes
0%
Two
26
63%
Three
2
5%
Between four and ten
No votes
0%
Between eleven and twenty
1
2%
Twenty one or more
1
2%
Other
11
27%
#14940869
Pants-of-dog wrote:The most realistic relationship between wearing a pink dress and changing gender would be if the man changed his gender identity (so that he was no longer a he) and then started wearing such dresses to outwardly signal that this person is a woman.


But he is still a man though, you know that right?
#14940873
I bet PoD would have shagged Dudley Clarke and would claim that it was totally normal.

Image

These pictures were taken by general Franco's police in Madrid while Clarke was spying for Britain but luckily the Spaniards just assumed that he was gay not a spy so they fined him and let him go. :lol:

Before posing as a woman in Spain he had successfully done some spying in Portugal leading Guy Liddel from MI5 to say "I'm afraid to say that after his stay in Lisbon as a bogus journalist he has got rather over-confident about his powers as an agent."

Anyway the point is that is he was there PoD would have smashed him and he would claim that it was not at all odd.
#14940877
If you guys want to have a real mind messing: read this.

Refugees from Amerika:
A Gay Manifesto


San Francisco is a refugee camp for homosexuals. We have fled here from every part of the nation, and like refugees elsewhere, we came not because it is so great here, but because it was so bad there. By the tens of thousands, we fled small towns where to be ourselves would endanger our jobs and any hope of a decent life; we have fled from blackmailing cops, from families who disowned or ‘tolerated’ us; we have been drummed out of the armed services, thrown out of schools, fired from jobs, beaten by punks and policemen.
And we have formed a ghetto, out of self-protection. It is a ghetto rather than a free territory because it is sill theirs. Straight cops patrol us, straight legislators govern us, straight employers keep us in line, straight money exploits us. We have pretended everything is OK, because we haven't been able to see how to change it - we've been afraid.

In the past year there has been an awakening of gay liberation ideas and energy. How it began we don't know; maybe we were inspired by black people and their freedom movement; we learned how to stop pretending form the hip revolution. Amerika in all its ugliness has surfaced with the war and our national leaders. And we are revulsed by the quality of our ghetto life.

Where once there was frustration, alienation, and cynicism, there are new characteristics among us. We are full of love for each other and are showing it; we are full of anger at what has been done to us. And as we recall all the self-censorship and repression for so many years, a reservoir of tears pours out of our eyes. And we are euphoric, high, with the initial flourish of a movement.

We want to make ourselves clear: our first job is to free ourselves; that means clearing our heads of the garbage that's been poured into them. This article is an attempt at raising a number of issues, and presenting some ideas to replace the old ones. It is primarily for ourselves, a starting point of discussion. If straight people of good will find it useful in understanding what liberation is about, so much the better.

It should also be clear that these are the views of one person, and are determined not only by my homosexuality, but my being white, male, middle class. It is my individual consciousness. Our group consciousness will evolve as we get ourselves together - we are only at the beginning.

I. ON ORIENTATION
1. What homosexuality is: Nature leaves undefined the object of sexual desire. The gender of that object is imposed socially. Humans originally made homosexuality taboo because they needed every bit of energy to produce and raise children: survival of species was a priority. With overpopulation and technological change, that taboo continued only to exploit us and enslave us.

As kids we refused to capitulate to demands that we ignore our feelings toward each other. Somewhere we found the strength to resist being indoctrinated, and we should count that among our assets. We have to realize that our loving each other is a good thing, not an unfortunate thing, and that we have a lot to teach straights about sex, love, strength, and resistance.

Homosexuality is not a lot of things. It is not a makeshift in the absence of the opposite sex; it is not a hatred or rejection of the opposite sex; it is not genetic; it is not the result of broken homes except inasmuch as we could see the sham of American marriage. Homosexuality is the capacity to love someone of the same sex.


2. Bisexuality: Bisexuality is good; it is the capacity to love people of either sex. The reason so few of us are bisexual is because society made such a big stink about homosexuality that we got forced into seeing ourselves as either straight or non-straight. Also, many gays go turned off to the ways men are supposed to act with women and vice-versa, which is pretty f---ed-up. Gays will begin to turn on to women when 1) it's something that we do because we want to, and not because we should, and 2) when women's liberation changes the nature of heterosexual relationships.

We continue to call ourselves homosexual, not bisexual, even if we do make it with the opposite sex also, because saying "Oh, I'm Bi" is a copout for a gay. We get told it's OK to sleep with guys as long as we sleep with women, too, and that's still putting homosexuality down. We'll be gay until everyone has forgotten that it's an issue. Then we'll begin to be complete.

3. Heterosexuality: Exclusive heterosexuality is f---ed up. It reflects a fear of people of the same sex, it's anti-homosexual, and it is fraught with frustration. Heterosexual sex is f---ed up too; ask women's liberation about what straight guys are like in bed. Sex is aggression for the male chauvinist; sex is obligation for the traditional woman. And among the young, the modern, the hip, it's only a subtle version of the same. For us to become heterosexual in the sense that our straight brothers and sisters are is not a cure, it is a disease.

II. ON WOMEN
1. Lesbianism: It's been a male-dominated society for too long, and that has warped both men and women. So gay women are going to see things differently from gay men; they are going to feel put down as women, too. Their liberation is tied up with both gay liberation and women's liberation.

This paper speaks form the gay male viewpoint. And although some of the ideas in it may be equally relevant to gay women, it would be arrogant to presume this to be a manifesto for lesbians.

We look forward to the emergence of a lesbian liberation voice. The existence of a lesbian caucus within the New York Gay Liberation Front has been very helpful in challenging male chauvinism among gay guys, and anti-gay feelings among women's lib.

2. Male Chauvinism: All men are infected with male chauvinism - we were brought up that way. It means we assume that women play subordinate roles and are less human than ourselves. (At an early gay liberation meeting one guy said, "Why don't we invite women's liberation - they can bring sandwiches and coffee.") It is no wonder that so few gay women have become active in our groups.

Male chauvinism, however, is not central to us. We can junk it much more easily than straight men can. For we understand oppression. We have largely opted out of a system which oppresses women daily - our egos are not built on putting women down and having them build us up. Also, living in a mostly male world we have become used to playing different roles, doing or own shit-work. And finally, we have a common enemy: the big male chauvinists are also the big anti-gays.

But we need to purge male chauvinism, both in behavior and in thought among us. Chick equals N***** equals queer. Think it over.

3. Women's liberation: They are assuming their equality and dignity and in doing so are challenging the same things we are: the roles, the exploitation of minorities by capitalism, the arrogant smugness of straight white male middle-class Amerika. They are our sisters in struggle.

Problems and differences will become clearer when we begin to work together. One major problem is our own male chauvinism. Another is uptightness and hostility to homosexuality that many women have - that is the straight in them. A third problem is differing views on sex: sex for them has meant oppression, while for us it has been a symbol of our freedom. We must come to know and understand each other's style, jargon and humor.

III. ON ROLES
1. Mimicry of straight society: We are children of straight society. We still think straight: that is part of our oppression. One of the worst of straight concepts is inequality. Straight (also white, English, male, capitalist) thinking views things in terms of order and comparison. A is before B, B is after A; one is below two is below three; there is no room for equality. This idea gets extended to male/female, on top/on bottom, spouse/not spouse, heterosexual/homosexual, boss/worker, white/black and rich/poor. Our social institutions cause and reflect this verbal hierarchy. This is Amerika.

We've lived in these institutions all our lives. Naturally we mimic the roles. For too long we mimicked these roles to protect ourselves - a survival mechanism. Now we are becoming free enough to shed the roles which we've picked up from the institutions which have imprisoned us.

"Stop mimicking straights, stop censoring ourselves."

2. Marriage: Marriage is a prime example of a straight institution fraught with role playing. Traditional marriage is a rotten, oppressive institution. Those of us who have been in heterosexual marriages too often have blamed our gayness on the breakup of the marriage. No. They broke up because marriage is a contract which smothers both people, denies needs, and places impossible demands on both people. And we had the strength, again, to refuse to capitulate to the roles which were demanded of us.

Gay people must stop gauging their self-respect by how well they mimic straight marriages. Gay marriages will have the same problems as straight ones except in burlesque. For the usual legitimacy and pressures which keep straight marriages together are absent, e.g., kids, what parents think, what neighbors say.

To accept that happiness comes through finding a groovy spouse and settling down, showing the world that "we're just the same as you" is avoiding the real issues, and is an expression of self-hatred.

3. Alternatives to Marriage: People want to get married for lots of good reasons, although marriage won't often meet those needs or desires. We're all looking for security, a flow of love, and a feeling of belonging and being needed.

These needs can be met through a number of social relationships and living situations. Things we want to get away from are: 1. exclusiveness, propertied attitudes toward each other, a mutual pact against the rest of the world; 2. promises about the future, which we have no right to make and which prevent us from , or make us feel guilty about, growing; 3. inflexible roles, roles which do not reflect us at the moment but are inherited through mimicry and inability to define equalitarian relationships.

We have to define for ourselves a new pluralistic, rolefree social structure for ourselves. It must contain both the freedom and physical space for people to live alone, live together for a while, live together for a long time, either as couples or in larger numbers; and the ability to flow easily from one of these states to another as our needs change.

Liberation for gay people is defining for ourselves how and with whom we live, instead of measuring our relationship in comparison to straight ones, with straight values.

4. Gay 'stereotypes': The straight's image of the gay world is defined largely by those of us who have violated straight roles. There is a tendency among 'homophile' groups to deplore gays who play visible roles - the queens and the nellies. As liberated gays, we must take a clear stand. 1) Gays who stand out have become our first martyrs. They came out and withstood disapproval before the rest of us did. 2) If they have suffered from being open, it is straight society whom we must indict, not the queen.

5. Closet queens: This phrase is becoming analogous to 'Uncle Tom.' To pretend to be straight sexually, or to pretend to be straight socially, is probably the most harmful pattern of behavior in the ghetto. The married guy who makes it on the side secretly; the guy who will go to bed once but won't develop any gay relationships; the pretender at work or school who changes the gender of the friend he's talking about; the guy who'll suck cock in the bushes but won't go to bed.

If we are liberated we are open with our sexuality. Closet queenery must end. Come out.

But: in saying come out, we have to have our heads clear about a few things: 1) closet queens are our brothers, and must be defended against attacks by straight people; 2) the fear of coming out is not paranoia; the stakes are high: loss of family ties, loss of job, loss of straight friends - these are all reminders that the oppression is not just in our heads. It's real. Each of us must make the steps toward openness at our own speed and on our own impulses. Being open is the foundation of freedom: it has to be built solidly. 3) "Closet queen" is a broad term covering a multitude of forms of defense, self-hatred, lack of strength, and habit. We are all closet queens in some ways, and all of us had to come out - very few of us were 'flagrant' at the age of seven! We must afford our brothers and sisters the same patience we afforded ourselves. And while their closet queenery is part of our oppression, it's more a part of theirs. They alone can decide when and how.

Link
These people think the natural state of humans is homosexuality. That "traditional" marriage to them is false and just role playing. They think straight people are actually the ones that needs liberating. Not just gay people, but actually all of us.

This makes more sense where all this modern state initiative draws its inspiration. It draws it from homosexuality, mass enforced on the whole society. In the way, it is actually meant to make us all gay. Or sorry I mean, to "liberate" us all.

Holy Molly, these people are nuts.
#14940879
Drlee wrote:I am not convinced that it is.


People change their gender identities. This is a fact. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the original gender identity is imposed on them by society, and the inner identity eventually surfaces and becomes dominant. Either way, the gender identity goes from one state to another (one sex to another, or from repressed to dominant).

Gender roles also change. It used to be that teaching was a man’s profession. Now it is a woman’s role. I believe high heeled shoes have a similar history.

That is not really what people do. Some choose to impersonate the other sex. Those who resort to surgery to change their sexual appearance are something far more difficult to explain away as a mere expression of a social construct.

Referring to gender as a simple social construct is an insult to those who feel victimized by their birth sex.


I see now that I should have been clearer about the distinction between gender identity and gender roles. For that, I apologise.

You are correct when you say that “those who resort to surgery to change their sexual appearance are something far more difficult to explain away as a mere expression of a social construct”. It is, instead, an expression if gender identity.

Gender roles are cultural. Social constructs.

Gender identity, on the other hand, seems far more complex.

———————————

SolarCross wrote:But he is still a man though, you know that right?


If you are discussing my example of someone who was born male and then changed their gender identity and started filling female gender roles, how would they still be a man?

Are you discussing their sex designation? If so, that would be independent of their gender identity and the gender roles they fill.

———————————

@Decky

I can never tell if you are making fun of brocialists, or are one.
#14940880
1. Lesbianism: It's been a male-dominated society for too long, and that has warped both men and women. So gay women are going to see things differently from gay men; they are going to feel put down as women, too. Their liberation is tied up with both gay liberation and women's liberation.


Then I recommend that the considerable number of lesbians who adopt male dress, speech and mannerisms, stop doing that.

This article is so full of nonsense that one hardly knows where to start. It is obviously written by someone who is really not that smart. I am sure he/she will find a great many followers.

I lived in San Francisco. It is a city in political drag. It is at its heart a deeply conservative city that dresses like a liberal one for parties. Blackjack will know exactly what I mean. Ask him.
#14940885
Pseudo intellectualism is hallmark of Progressivism. Indeed, nothing but rationalization of ones homosexuality and self projection on the rest of society. I'm sure it feel right in their gut though.
#14940887
Pants-of-dog wrote:If you are discussing my example of someone who was born male and then changed their gender identity and started filling female gender roles, how would they still be a man?

Are you discussing their sex designation? If so, that would be independent of their gender identity and the gender roles they fill.


Did he change his chromosomes to match his dress?
#14940901
Still confused about gender I see SolarCross. If Ronnie Barker dresses as a women, his gender himself remains male - as I expect his personal state has not changed. Although his character that he is playing is female - as that is the 'state' he wants his audience to believe. For example, is 'Mrs Brown' the character male or female? If you were going by sex, the character has to be male as O'Carroll who plays her is male. But the audience doesn't think like that. They go by cultural cues. So they associate her as female.

That is quite straight forward to understand right? Where the confusion seems to be is on personal identity. Dressing in a pink shirt or removal of a penis won't change your gender. Gender is the 'state' of being male or female. So the only way to change genders is believing you are in the wrong body and acting accordingly.
#14940940
SolarCross wrote:Did he change his chromosomes to match his dress?


If we had the technology to change our chromosomes, would that be a sex change?

Please answer my question as to how this person would still be a man. Thank you.
#14940957
B0ycey wrote:Still confused about gender I see SolarCross. If Ronnie Barker dresses as a women, his gender himself remains male - as I expect his personal state has not changed. Although his character that he is playing is female - as that is the 'state' he wants his audience to believe. For example, is 'Mrs Brown' the character male or female? If you were going by sex, the character has to be male as O'Carroll who plays her is male. But the audience doesn't think like that. They go by cultural cues. So they associate her as female.

That is quite straight forward to understand right? Where the confusion seems to be is on personal identity. Dressing in a pink shirt or removal of a penis won't change your gender. Gender is the 'state' of being male or female. So the only way to change genders is believing you are in the wrong body and acting accordingly.


Cross dressing actors and comedians like Ronnie Barker are doing the equivalent for gender as other actors and comedians did for race by doing blackface (yeah think about that). A white person using bootpolish to change the appearance of his skin tone is no more a change of race as putting on lipstick and a padded bra is a change of gender. I think we agree on this much as you go on to say in your second paragraph, to paraphrase, that it is all in the mind.

However identities are not whimsical things which exists solely in the world of ideas, they are names for bundles of properties, phenotypes. "woman" is a identity which is used to name a person with a womb, XX chromosomes, breasts, vagina and all the rest. If a man impersonating a woman by imitating their fashions, forging the physiology with fake breasts etc and imitating female mannerisms makes his illusion very well he may fool some people into believing he is actually a woman but it is still a disguise, essentially a lie. For those that claim they are in the wrong body they are suffering from a mental illness, that is all. You are simply asserting we should let the mentally ill be our taxonomic masters and this is totally unacceptable.

A real gender change is beyond the ability of medical hacks at this time.

---------
@Pants-of-dog

A real gender change would have to go down all the way the chromosomes anything less is a bodged job. If it does not have an XX it is not a woman.
#14940958
SolarCross wrote:A real gender change would have to go down all the way the chromosomes anything less is a bodged job. If it does not have an XX it is not a woman.


You made a mistake there. You wrote “gender change”when you should have wrote “sex change”.

Again, sex is biological and objective.

Gender roles are subjective social constructs.

We were discussing gender before. You seem to have no reason to say that the person is still a man if they have a female gender identity and are filling female gender roles.

I have asked you twice why this person is still a man and you have not answered the question. Instead, you focus on sex. I now invite you, for a third time, to answer my question.

Instead, you seem to be focusing on the incompleteness of modern sex changes.

In a hypothetical world where we could change chromosomes, would that be considered a complete sex change by you? Would you then consider someone who did that to no longer be the same sex and gender that they were when they were born?
#14940965
Pants-of-dog wrote:You made a mistake there. You wrote “gender change”when you should have wrote “sex change”.

Again, sex is biological and objective.

Gender roles are subjective social constructs.

We were discussing gender before. You seem to have no reason to say that the person is still a man if they have a female gender identity and are filling female gender roles.

I have asked you twice why this person is still a man and you have not answered the question. Instead, you focus on sex. I now invite you, for a third time, to answer my question.

Instead, you seem to be focusing on the incompleteness of modern sex changes.

In a hypothetical world where we could change chromosomes, would that be considered a complete sex change by you? Would you then consider someone who did that to no longer be the same sex and gender that they were when they were born?


What do you mean by filling "female gender roles"? Being pregnant? Breast feeding? Giving birth? Because if you just mean "cooking the dinner" there are bunch of tough men who work as chefs who would probably like to test the edges of their cleavers on you. You are literally calling male nurses, chefs and school teachers "women".
#14940984
Two Sexes. Two Genders.

Sex Informs Gender in Sane Individuals.
#14940989
SolarCross wrote:What do you mean by filling "female gender roles"? Being pregnant? Breast feeding? Giving birth? Because if you just mean "cooking the dinner" there are bunch of tough men who work as chefs who would probably like to test the edges of their cleavers on you. You are literally calling male nurses, chefs and school teachers "women".


You still have not answered my question. Would you like me to repeat it?

Since we were specifically discussing wearing pink dresses, I was obviously referring to wearing pink dresses when I discussed "filling gender roles".

The example of chefs is an interesting example of gender roles. Women are expected to cook in the home for free, while doing the same job for money is considered men's work.

This is a clear example of how economic roles are based on sexism as well as classism. Thank you for bringing it up.

And again, gender roles are not the same as gender identity. Just because someone is filling a gender role that is associated with the other gender, it does not mean that their gender identity is changed.

Are you clear on the difference between gender roles and gender identity?
#14940995
Pants-of-dog wrote:You still have not answered my question. Would you like me to repeat it?

Since we were specifically discussing wearing pink dresses, I was obviously referring to wearing pink dresses when I discussed "filling gender roles".

The example of chefs is an interesting example of gender roles. Women are expected to cook in the home for free, while doing the same job for money is considered men's work.

This is a clear example of how economic roles are based on sexism as well as classism. Thank you for bringing it up.

And again, gender roles are not the same as gender identity. Just because someone is filling a gender role that is associated with the other gender, it does not mean that their gender identity is changed.

Are you clear on the difference between gender roles and gender identity?


If you believe all that then for accuracy you should self-identify as insane, :lol: .
#14940997
SolarCross wrote:If you believe all that then for accuracy you should self-identify as insane,


You are talking to someone who thinks spanking is child abuse, but removing that child's genitalia so they can become a different gender is model parenting.

It epitomizes western decadence and collapse and they celebrate it.
#14941000
SolarCross wrote:If you believe all that then for accuracy you should self-identify as insane, :lol: .


Victoribus Spolia wrote:You are talking to someone who thinks spanking is child abuse, but removing that child's genitalia so they can become a different gender is model parenting.

It epitomizes western decadence and collapse and they celebrate it.


Feel free to show me where I am incorrect or delusional. Thanks.
#14941007
Victoribus Spolia wrote:You are talking to someone who thinks spanking is child abuse, but removing that child's genitalia so they can become a different gender is model parenting.

It epitomizes western decadence and collapse and they celebrate it.


Indeed, and they want its collapse, that is the overarching goal behind all their nonsense. Ultimately it is a profound misanthropy at work that goes way beyond ordinary hostile nationalist propaganda aimed at an enemy state, which to me suggests a non-human originator, or puppet master. They are a 5th column but not for a human enemy. :eek:
#14941011
Pants, your pseudo intellectualism is tiresome.

I think you should stop role-playing as an intellectual and stop self-identifying as such. You really need self reflect on your identity issues.
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