In my personal opinion, most of my questions and answers attract a lot of comments. Most of the time I am happy about it, sometimes it gives me frustration. Especially having the luck asking the most voted question on this site
First of all, I am really happy if someone corrects my English gram...
@James I found a bit of information on that proposal to define sex that you mentioned. The good news is that the way that it's being reported is incorrect. The bad news is that it kinda looks like it is being reported incorrectly for the sole purpose of stirring up more anger and trouble.
@AndyD273 As far as I can tell the author of that video is being intentionally obtuse and misleading. The gender vs. sex semantics are important and central to the issue. The NY Times isn't conflating them mistakenly or maliciously. If you actually read the article it's quite clear.
The US government has legal protections in place against discrimination based on sex, such as Title IX. As transgender issues came to the forefront during the Obama administration Obama worked to extend those protections to apply to transgender individuals by favoring a more expansive definition of the legal term sex to include gender identity.
By trying to more narrowly define “sex” as having nothing to do with gender identity the Trump administration is trying to remove these federal protections from trans people. It’s really not that complex. Wikipedia has a decent summary of the history of Title IX but there are other laws the issue pertains to as well.
@MikeNichols The way I understand it, gender and sex do have different definitions, and should not be used interchangeably. That's where the NYT is being misleading at best. One area it is important is in regards to medical treatment. There are drugs which are more effective on people with XX chromosomes than they are for people with XY chromosomes. This isn't opinion, it's science.
@AndyD273 I'm not arguing that gender and sex don't have different definitions. I'm arguing that legally, the term "sex" is often used to in legal documents. There is an open question as to whether laws prohibiting sexual discrimination should also apply to transgender individuals. The Obama administration has favored this expansive interpretation and thereby afforded trans people these protections. The Trump administration is trying to rescind these protections.
The NY Times is not reporting anything incorrectly and they aren't trying to stir up anger and trouble. They are reporting on the facts, that the Trump administration is changing the legal definition of sex to exclude transgender people from certain legal protections. This is inarguable.
@MikeNichols I haven't seen any non-biased sources yet saying that any protections are trying to be removed. As far as I can tell it's a chicken little situation.
And they aren't trying to change the legal definition of sex. That is the legal definition of sex. Gender is the one where transgender is an issue
And this doesn't seem to be doing anything regarding gender
Sure. "The Trump administration determined that the question of access to sex-segregated facilities should be left to the states and local school districts to decide." I approve of this. It's not the governments business, and they should stay out of peoples personal business. "using the person's sex as assigned at birth and could not be changed... The memo stated that the government needed to define sex on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable". Sex is assigned at conception. Unless CRISPR editing for adults takes off there is no way to change a …
@AndyD273 OK, great. That's a fine political opinion. I don't necessarily disagree. The point I am trying to make though is that the NY times isn't being misleading. The Trump administration restricting the definition of "sex" to purely biological does effect the rights of transgendered people. The NY Times isn't lying or stirring up trouble.
Say there is a crime scene, and they find blood trace. They run it for dna, and get the results back. Says it comes from a male. Later on they find the person, who identifies as a woman. The blood isn't lying.
Where I feel that they are is that they use sex in one line, gender in the next, as if they are the same thing. Now, maybe they are right on the end result. Maybe not. But it's intellectually dishonest to change the meaning of words just to try to sway opinion.
If the real facts can't support their point, maybe their point has flaw
@AndyD273 I think the issue here is that Obama had already tried to combine these two terms sex and gender, right? The Obama administration wanted Title IX, which specifically prohibits discrimination "on the basis of sex", to also apply to gender and sexual orientation. So now, legally these two terms and conflated so when the Trump administration wants to narrow the definition of sex to biological sex, it's fundamentally a change to how the government views gender. That makes sense right?
@AndyD273 If you want to be scientifically accurate DNA testing doesn't always correspond to biological sex. There are plenty of XY women out there, many of whom don't even know it along with all sorts of other variations. The blood can occasionally lie. I believe it's why most sex testing in sports now uses only testosterone levels, which are obviously influenced by environmental factors as well.
There are 20+ genders and growing. There is a male that identified as a woman, who then identified as a dog (not making this up). There really does need to be something with real meaning. The problem is that Obama tried to combine sex and gender, as if they are the same, and they aren't. Now, if he had just added stuff to Title IX to have gender be it's own thing with it's own protections, then fine.
@AndyD273 Remember that laws are written by human beings in language and do indeed need interpretation. Sex and gender have been substantially conflated for thousands of years because gender roles in society have been drawn along sex lines.
Here's an example: the state department reissues passports when you transition. The phrasing they use for that is that this is a "change of sex marker"
And, indeed, on the passport that field is listed as "sex"
and they ask for a doctors note indicating that you have transitioned from male to female. or vice versa
So I think it's very reasonable to assume that when a legal document says "sex," it is worth questioning whether or not that was intended to mean "gender" unless there is another legal document poiting out that this particular usage has one meaning or antoher.
@AndyD273 I'm sure if Obama could have easily added something to Title IX or passed another federal law respecting the rights of transgender individuals he would have, but I imagine the politics of the time maybe that prohibitively difficult.
Am I the only one who doesn't care about people's gender's/chosen identity? What does it matter? Does someone choosing to identify as male/female/platypus really impact me in any way? In my experience it doesn't. I don't get it, I don't really understand it, but it also doesn't matter to me. Identify as whatever the hell you want. As far as bathrooms go...I just don't care that much.
I think the trump definition is actually the way to move towards fairness. Consider this: everyone should be equal, so why should we define differences between people that are mostly semantic.
Following James's logic, if you don't care about someone's gender expression, then there should be no distinction between people with different gender expressions in the eyes of the law.
Now, on the other hand, there are measurable, real differences in biology between men and women as traditionally defined, so it makes sense to confine differences in political treatment to actual differences between people.
@James I agree with this for the most part. As the father of 3 little girls I'm less thrilled about some middle aged lady with a penis going into the bathroom with them.
But so long as everyone acts decently, I don't care what any other person does, who or what they sleep with, what they want to dress up as, whatever.
@kingledion So the point where my logic fails to make good policy. There are people, I don't know what percentage, that really care about this, either from a supporting or condemnation perspective, which means under the law you may need protections for a group...
Yes. That should not be something done by executive fiat, but by the will of the people. Black people and white people are not biologically different in any meaningful way, yet the mistreatment of the former by the latter caused the Civil Rights Act to be passed.
@AndyD273 Yeah my theory is that perverts and predators are...well...perverts and predators. I have no idea what the data shows regarding percentages of non-traditional gender identity and sex crimes...I'd hazard a guess that the rate is no higher than the rest of the population but I don't know that.
I think the issue with "why does it matter" is that there exists people for whom it does matter. If we want to say "just do whatever" and simultaniously permit same-sex marriage (why shoudl the government care?) and discrimination (the government isn't doing the discrimination, why should they care?). However, if we wish to compel those for whom it does matter to act a certain way, then we have to have the government (or societal structures) step in
But frankly, despite the rhetoric, I don't really see much evidence for systematic mistreatment of trans people these days; at least not in the last 5 years.
@kingledion So I have limited experience with trans people: one person who underwent transition at my workplace. I can say there is at least one point of evidence for systematic mistreatment of trans people.
@James Probably not. I'd actually be slightly more concerned with posers. "Hey, if I put this on, I can go where vulnerable targets are, and no one can say otherwise."
@CortAmmon My experience does not include any trans people who were 'stable' in the first place. In my mind it is hard to disambiguate the problems caused by transitioning from the problems the people involved were already causing.
My hunch: People that have never had direct experience with a non-traditional gender are freaked out/scared/etc and that leads to this idea that they are somehow more likely to be perverts and predators than the average traditionally oriented person. Since politicians are scum bags they feed upon this fear and make it seem like trans people are going to rape children in seedy bathrooms. All in all if we actually went and met people we are not familiar with things would be better
@MikeNichols Transitioning is a medical procedure that reduces your combat fitness. I am strongly against allowing medically fit members of the military to voluntarily damage themselves on the government's dime.
@AndyD273 Yeah but it seems to me that is just a perv/predator and needs an asskicking. That possibility shouldn't stop someone who doesn't have ill intent. I mean...by that logic all bathrooms should be individual stalls with doors and totally private.
@James I do think some of the challenge is that the rhetoric is that the bathrooms need to be perfectly safe when, as you point out, everyone understand that that isn't true. It just doesn't line up with the rhetoric.
@Hosch250 I hate the both sides comment, it seems to equivocate the sides by saying hey there are assholes over there and over here so our points about topic x are equally valid.
@kingledion Trump's twitter mentions medical costs but it doesn't just ban transitioning. It bans transgender people. 123 Of course, the military said no so it never happened, but it seems naive to suggest that transgender people aren't facing discrimination, particularly from the current administration.
One interesting argument I heard made me think a little; What about the woman who has been raped by a man, now being forced to go into a private, very vulnerable place with people with penises. Even if they don't have any bad intentions, that kind of fear isn't a good way to live.
@MikeNichols Hooters has been able to successfully prevent men from acting as waitstaff for 20+ years, despite multiple sex-discrimination lawsuits. But no one is saying that men are being discriminated against. First, you have to recognize that there is a big difference between general discrimination and specific discrimination. The latter can be quite justifiable: men will enver be Hooters waitresses, women will never play in the NFL.
@MikeNichols In that case, I hold that the military has strong job fitness related reasons to reject transgender applicants.
@AndyD273 That sucks, don't get me wrong, but if we legislate based on assholes acting badly and try to legislate behavior that clearly doesn't work. You punish the person who did whatever it was.
@James Which, honestly, suggests to me that its going to be difficult to get genetic similarity into the argument in a meaningful way without accidentally legalizing beastiality and forcing everyone to go vegetarian due to murder laws.
@James I agree, and it is wrong to blame all men for the bad actions of one. I just don't like the idea of the government saying "look, that's bad, but deal with it."
@AndyD273 That is actually one of the more fascinating dichotomies. "Look that's bad, but deal with it" vs directly opposing the bad. I find it very reasonable to say that we bin our government into that simple 1-dimentional way of thinking. But I find almost all of the answers to these problems require thinking at right-angles to the problem.
The general answer is for the govenrment to say "We see this is bad... and we are changing our course because of it," without having to call for a ramming speed attack. However, I don't think many people (if any) trust the government to take such a nuanced approach
I remember a scene from the Neil Stephenson Book, Diamond Age, where one of the main characters is sentenced for some trumped up charges (he was guilty, but they spun it much worse). He was sentenced to 100 lashes, 99 of them suspended if he helps the government with their current effort.
It was an astonishingly effective process, which worked out well for all parties. But the amount of trust one would need to place in such a system....
@kingledion If women are fit to serve in the military and men are fit to serve in the military then how does transitioning from a man to a woman or vice versa make you unfit?
For instance, doctors that deal with trans people say that giving hormone suppressants at a before puberty is counterproductive and actually harmful; a male taking them in order to limit male characteristics will find it actually impossible to have the transition operation to female. You have to have something to work with, or you can't do it.
But in california they either have or want to make it illegal to deny parents from giving those to their children.
Legislating it with out a full knowledge of the situation is actually harming the people they say they want to help.
If the situation was allowed to evolve naturally, with all the messy bits that implies, those kinds of things would work themselves out with less harm.
@AndyD273 Of course, we evolved naturally, with a brain, and H. sapiens has never evolved in isolation without a society complicating things. Now I'm curious if I can find a "primitive" society where there's mens work and womens work, but there's a curious small percentage of those who are permitted to cross over to the other line.
I don't think that's the kind of thing I'd find in those societies, but I've been proven wrong before. And god knows they're enough Disney movies about the topic.
@CortAmmon 100 lashes would probably be pretty close to a death penalty. I don't think that bargaining for my life on exaggerated charges counts as a trust situation. Totalitarian dictator governments typically are efficient, so long as you don't care about those pesky human rights that keep getting trampled all over the floor.
I don't remember if I read diamond age. I've read a lot of his other books, and I think I read that one a decade or so back, but I'm kinda drawing a blank on the details.
You may want to make up an extinct nilotic people. The current locals the Mursi and Suri people in Ethiopia would be good inspiration. Since you want a tribal people you are not going to find much about extinct ones since they would leave very few records but that leaves you open to add or chang...
Oh, and because I like to link my sources, studies on the effectiveness and risks of medication with male and female biology: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3644551/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18929073
That moment when you push execute on a SQL update statement, realize that you left an important bit out, only to figure out that you accidently wrote it in such a way that it did what you wanted too anyway. That was a wild 25 seconds.
@JohnLocke It's a large table, but part of the time was spent trying to get it to cancel, and another part was spent trying to figure out what kind of damage there was, and if I'd have to restore from a backup, and then the last couple seconds was spent double checking that it had actually done what I wanted it to after all and why.
Also I'm estimating. It might have been more or less. 25 seemed like a reasonable number.
@AndyD273 I think this is a false but common/oft repeated narrative. Any government actions in a nation this large and diverse is going to piss off someone. When you are legislating at a federal level for 300 million people you are going to make some happy and some un-happy. So to say the government always screws things up is, I think, disingenuous.
@James Ok, handling and managing native tribes. Dealing with the conservation of Yellow Stone, especially with regard to the wolves. Japanese confinement camps. Prohibition. Compulsory sterilization of undesirables. Now, "always" is a bit sensationalist, but it's depressing how often the government does something in ignorance just because "we have to be seen doing something" when just letting go would be so much better.
The saying goes "the best thing about our government is that they are so inefficient, so that it takes forever to get things done, which limits the harm they can do."
@AndyD273 That's great, but that is all viewed with the benefit of hindsight. Look I am not saying government doesn't screw up, it clearly does. But government is run by humans, who work off what information they have at the time in the situation they find themselves experiencing. The government does...tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of things annually (depending on how detailed you want to get) and 99% never even cross most people's radar.
No one goes on the news or calls a congress person to say "Hey I wen't to the DMV today and everything was quick and great."
@Hosch250 The context of the discussion was transgender rights. Do you not think the federal government should stay out of this contentious issue that is better left for states to decide? That was my interpretation of your statement.
@Hosch250 I suppose I was quick to jump to conclusions because the state's rights argument has a long history of being used in opposition to civil rights. That's the context I usually see it in. Sometimes it is important to make some people happy and other people unhappy.
I'm more a don't ask/don't tell style. I don't care what you are, so long as you leave me alone. And if you try to found out what I am, I'll creep-list you whatever you are.
Not that that style can really be taken by a government.
@Hosch250 Maybe instead of focusing on the business, focus on the people? You shouldn't be able to force me to do anything on a personal level against my will.
Take the wedding cake business that didn't want to violate religious belief by participating in a gay wedding. It was a sole proprietorship small business, where he was the only employee. Saying he has to make the cake is no different from pointing a gun at him and saying make the cake or else. That's wrong.
Now if another employee at the same business felt differently, then there would be nothing wrong with that employee making the cake. The first employee didn't violate their religious principles, and everything is good. If it is a very large business then there should be no problem finding many who would have no problem with it. If the business as a whole though said "we refuse" then it is discrimination.
Well, IMO, an African American was born that way. Someone with a gender-identity different from their chromosome-based sex wasn't. And a very simple proof is that they can change their mind on a whim and do it multiple times in their life.
On a very basic level is there any difference between the government pointing a gun and saying "bake the cake" and the government pointing a gun and saying "don't bake the cake"?
So let's say an individual runs a store. Sole proprietor. Are they permitted to not sell their product to whomever they want based on whatever criteria they want?
A waiter should be allowed to be an asshole and not serve a person of color. And the resturaunt should be allowed to fire them for being an asshole and violating the terms of employement
The thing is, hardly anyone complains because it's so easy to bring them down with a boycott.
For example, I don't have to sell to a Nazi.
Any more than I have to sell to anyone else who voluntarily chooses to do something or support something I don't like.
That's where I draw the line. If the person is in an act or belief that they have control over, then I don't have to support them in it or anything else.
The "whatever criteria they want" has restrictions.
That's why civil rights lawsuits are hard--because the business has to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that they are actually intending to discriminate against the group.
@MikeNichols I don't know anything about you, but lets say that you were a person of color. Would you want to go into a restaurant and buy food if you knew they were nazis who hated you, but were only serving you because if they didn't they'd be closed up?
@MikeNichols Race or sex, I agree with. Religion, I'm don't disagree with, but I'm not certain I 100% agree with either, because the person voluntarily chose to believe in that.
@AndyD273 Is it the only movie theatre in my town? Is it the nearest gas station from where my car broke down? Is it the nicest grocery store in the area? Is it the best private school in the area? There are plenty of reasons why I might want to use a particular store.
Just so long as the government itself doesn't, and can't, refuse to do business with them over it (based on the separation of religion and state laws).
Like I said, I agree with anti-discrimination laws on anything and everything that someone can't help. Including the new laws about discriminating against disabled people, even though it makes a ton of work for me as a dev.
Personally, I think the government should have to "do business" with everyone regardless of anything (other than convicted traitors, perhaps). Businesses and people, if the other party can't help what they don't like about them for sure, and mixed about anything else.
And, FWIW, I accept any personal harm that comes from the laws being passed this way, such as me being discriminated against because I wear my hair weird or because I don't vote the same was as someone else.
@Buffy I agree with you. I hate trying to guess other people's "hints". It's extremely subjective what an "hint" is or what's the meaning behind the hint. If you need to tell me something just say so, or I'll keep going down my road no batter how hard you get at hinting. At some point I'll just continue for pettiness, because I find disrespectful that adults are unable to talk to other people and have to resolve to "hinting" for long periods of time when just talking once could have solved the issue. — Bakuriu36 mins ago
In many stories, there are precursor artifacts that often have miraculous powers. Often, those artifacts are hundreds, if not thousand years old. But, looking at our own technology, most of our devices wouldn't last more than few decades. Even those designed to last, have lifetime of no more than...
Why did these people make these things is the basic question
I have 50 answers for that and I haven't really thought about it.
Knowledge storage, entertainment, to confuse future generations, its actually a baseball for a futuristic version of the game, its an uber weapon they couldn't destroy. Its a navigation device to lead back to the precursor homeworld, lets see what else
In my personal opinion, most of my questions and answers attract a lot of comments. Most of the time I am happy about it, sometimes it gives me frustration. Especially having the luck asking the most voted question on this site
First of all, I am really happy if someone corrects my English gram...
The Factory Floor
The Factory Floor