Gender Fluidity and Identity

Discussion in 'Research' started by morphghost, Feb 12, 2016.

  1. NeighborVoid

    NeighborVoid Active Member

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    I'm arguing the opposite, actually. I say that culture is irrelevant in defining a label because it doesn't mean anything. It does not define; it merely connotes, and everyone has a different connotation for the word. The purpose of language is to communicate a thought, and a word without a definition defeats its purpose.

    Again, what does the label of "American culture" actually mean? If someone is a biological male, it describes them as having XY chromosomes. If someone is part of American culture, how does it describe them?
    Are they literally animals just because they say they are? Are you willing to refer to them as literal animals?
    I can agree with your definitions for ethnicity and nationality, but specific cultures are so lacking in concrete denotations that they're overall meaningless as a label.
     
  2. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I never used the phrase "American culture." I didn't know where you got it and why you thought that I was the person to talk to about it, and now I finally realize--are you responding to my post where I said that in the United States people identify with different cultures?

    I'm not referring to "American culture." I'm referring to the fact that in the United States, many (most?) people think of themselves or their ancestors as being "from" somewhere else. So they often take on that "somewhere else" as a cultural identity.

    I specifically mentioned the United States in this context because I don't know if other countries, where more than a tiny percentage of the people are actually native to that place (native in the sense that they can trace their ancestors a long way back and still end up in that country), have the same phenomenon.

    My ancestry is German, English, and Scottish, with the German and English coming to America more recently than the Scottish. If I had spent a lot of time with my German grandfather, and if I had enjoyed the many German traditions in St. Louis during the childhood years when I lived there, I might well identify as "German." Neither of those things were true, so as it happens I don't identify that way. But if I did, I wouldn't be willing to accept, "You're only twenty-five percent German! You can't have that as part of your personal identity!"

    I could identify as "German" while still remaining aware of the fact that I was not born in Germany, and that I have only one-quarter German ancestry. Those facts, and my recognition of those facts, are not inconsistent with my identifying as German.

    I don't know what you mean by this. It sounds like you're saying that culture is meaningless, which you can't be saying, so I wait for an explanation.
     
  3. NeighborVoid

    NeighborVoid Active Member

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    It's not about whether or not it's acceptable for one to identify with a cultural label. I'm saying that identifying with a cultural label literally does not provide any new information as to one's identity. It's a meaningless label.

    If the label of "American" does not mean "born in America", then what specific information can you extract from that label? A baker is a person who bakes. An American - if not a person born in America - is what?
    If so, what meaning does your label carry?
    Specific cultural labels are meaningless. The word culture itself is not.
     
  4. NeighborVoid

    NeighborVoid Active Member

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    The problem with individuals being the only ones who can define their identity is that definitions for labels become meaningless and circular.

    "What does being an American mean?"
    "It means that you're an American. It means that you identify as an American."
     
  5. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    So who has the authority to identify me as a "Trekkie"? Where do I submit my application?
     
  6. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    I don't get it. What is wrong with being a man or a woman? You can be a feminine man, or a masculine woman, or you can be a masculine man, or a feminine woman. Hell you can be a woman that likes getting muddy and driving four-wheel drive trucks but at the same time wearing a beautiful dress and make-up. You can be a man that likes playing football and fishing but from time to time you like to get pedicures and manicures. You are an individual, embrace it. Why would you want to become an "it?" What's the significance in it? What's the reasoning? If you are worried about how other people view you, that's your problem, you just need to let it go. By changing yourself to a non-gender person is just a cop-out in my opinion.

    As far as the op goes, unless there is a point to making your main character non-gender, I would just see it as a distraction to the reader. Unless your book is like 1984 where there was a purpose to show that everyone is being made to be a cog in the big machine, then I think you are just over-complicating things.
     
  7. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    Agender, gender fluid and intersex are not a choice remotely. You have just spat in the face of their suffering by suggesting that all those people who have been bullied or even attacked/killed are choosing it. You are right, why would they choose it?
     
  8. NeighborVoid

    NeighborVoid Active Member

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    You identify as a label, and others identify you by that label.

    I can tell from the label of "Trekkie" that you like Star Trek. However, being a part of "Trekkie culture" could literally connote anything, and is meaningless as a result.
    It could mean :
    -knowing the exact script of episode 281 of season 471
    -dressing up as the characters for LARP
    -frequently watching the show
    -etc.
    -a combination of any or none of the above

    These cultural labels are infinitely vague and carry no meaning because of it.
     
  9. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    You seem to assume that a lack of rigidity equals a lack of meaning. I don't agree.
     
  10. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    I'm not going to argue with you over this, because I am stating my opinion, because as many times people say, "I associate myself as agender (or something along those lines)." I think it is just a way of trying to place a label on theirselves when what they really are is just an individual that can't embrace their uniqueness.

    It isn't the same as a homosexual, transgender, or bi-sexual person that are born that way. In my opinion.
     
  11. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    Labels aren't meaningless. You just identified that it is broad, that's all. It means someone is who is some way a large fan of the show.
     
  12. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    And your reason for believing that issss???
    How do you beat science?
     
  13. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    You do realize for every scientific study you present I can present one that says the opposite? It's my opinion and that's as far as I'm going to go with this. I stand by the point I made to the OP, unless it is a real important part of the story or the series, I would avoid the subject altogether.
     
  14. NeighborVoid

    NeighborVoid Active Member

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    Functionally, cultural labels are as vague as the label of "thing". Let's compare the two.

    "I am culturally American." That could mean that I like firearms and football. Or not. It could mean the opposite. There's no information you can gain from me telling you that. It could mean anything.

    "I am a thing." That could mean that I am Cthulhu. It could mean that I'm an abstract idea. It could mean anything.

    If the purpose of language is to communicate ideas, what ideas do you communicate with a cultural label?
     
  15. Feo Takahari

    Feo Takahari Senior Member

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    @Lewdog: For me, a lot of it comes down to my conception of what my body would be if I had a body that was me. Some people think of themselves in male bodies or female bodies, and they're assigned to cis or trans based on that. The body that would be me, rather than just something I'm stuck in, would be a bit of both.
     
  16. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    I am 98% certain, accounting almost exclusively only for the principle of absolute doubt, that there are way more studies that says it's innate. Who's studies are you reading?
     
  17. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    You realize that you made up the "culturally American" thing, right? I never referred to American culture. So I'm not interested in defending your example against you.
     
  18. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    What exactly is the "it" that you refer to? You seem to be merging sexuality and gender and other concepts all in a single mishmash, making them all medical issues, and linking them to surgery.
     
  19. NeighborVoid

    NeighborVoid Active Member

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    The reason I did that is because you're grouping culture, ethnicity and nationality into a single label.
     
  20. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    And?
     
  21. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    Ahh, what? I was talking about Lewdog saying "non-gender"= genderfluid, intersex and agender people are choosing it and how unscientific that is.
     
  22. NeighborVoid

    NeighborVoid Active Member

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    The same label defines different things under different context.
     
  23. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Go to Boston on St. Patrick's day.

    Walk up to people during the St Patrick's Day Parade and tell them, "You're not Irish! That's a nationality and you're in the wrong nation! Most of you were probably born in Boston! Stop calling yourself Irish!"

    Tell me how that goes.
     
  24. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    Little to do with our previous discussion about the cause of transgenderism if that's what you're thinking.
     
  25. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I feel the urge to say, "You keep saying science. I don't think that word means what you think it means."

    You have a fairly absolute faith in science and expertise. You seem to feel that reality needs science to define it, and that when science defines something, it's pretty assured to be right.

    You ignored my previous post about gender--ignored it utterly, and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe because it referred to your age. But I'm going to refer to your age again. I suspect that as you get older, and see science utterly change its mind about enough things, your faith in science may be more measured.
     
    Lewdog likes this.

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