HungryTurtle comments on Can the Chain Still Hold You? - Less Wrong

108 Post author: lukeprog 13 January 2012 01:28AM

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Comment author: MixedNuts 10 February 2012 03:52:30PM 3 points [-]

Sorry, but why are you telling us all this? Yeah, feminism is pretty interesting (at least it interests me) but why are you giving a lecture on it? It would seem that most people interested in a spontaneous intro to feminism have already received it, and are currently picking nits with the five-sex model of intersexed people or post-third-wave developments.

(...plus, c'm'on, second-wavers totally sucked at telling gender from sex. Just ask Bindel or Daly about trans women.)

Comment author: HungryTurtle 10 February 2012 04:05:54PM 2 points [-]

I apologize if I offended you. You stated something you believed to be true that I knew to not be true. I thought you would want to know that you were wrong since I assumed the goals of this cite is to become "less wrong." I did not mean to lecture; I just thought a more detailed explanation was what you wanted rather than just a jargon packed sentence or two. Jargon is used because it condenses a huge amount of ideas and intellectual data into a few words. I did not realize that it would be offensive to explain it in this way. Honestly I thought I was responding to you not the general body, and I was really excited to share this idea with you because I find it fascinating. Like you said I am new, I will try to adjust quickly to the norms here.

Comment author: MixedNuts 10 February 2012 04:24:23PM -1 points [-]

You stated something you believed to be true that I knew to not be true.

Nah, we agree on the facts. You just posted a reminder that the thing I said had happened wasn't happening anymore. Maybe you mean TimS, not me? That's still not really wrong - Tim said "sex is the biological bits, gender is the construct around the social bits" and you said "sex is more like the construct around the biological bits".

Correcting people is still a good idea in general.

Comment author: HungryTurtle 10 February 2012 05:10:10PM -2 points [-]

Ah sorry I did mix you two up.

you said "sex is more like the construct around the biological bits".

Correct, except the construct is not only built around the biological bits, the construct transforms the biological bits. We actively weed out sexes that are not male or female, and in doing this over time we breed humans to meet our desired dichotomy.

Comment author: MixedNuts 11 February 2012 12:56:57PM 1 point [-]

the construct transforms the biological bits

Yep, sorta like gender roles affect gender, so if you wear dresses you can't be a Real Man, etc.

We actively weed out sexes that are not male or female, and in doing this over time we breed humans to meet our desired dichotomy.

The second part doesn't follow from the first. We give intersex babies unnecessary surgeries, but these surgeries try not to cause sterility (correct me if I'm wrong), we don't discourage fertile intersex people comfortable in the gender they were raised as from having children, we don't selectively destroy gametes and embryos likely to result in intersex children, and we certainly don't chide binary-sexed people from having children likely to be intersex. (We do sterilise trans people, though.)

Comment author: Vaniver 11 February 2012 03:55:52PM 1 point [-]

Aren't most intersex individuals infertile to begin with? It also seems valuable to point out that the sterilization of trans people is generally at their request.

My experience with intersex individuals is limited to one, but he deeply wishes he had had the 'unnecessary surgery' when he was young instead of after years and years of infections.

Comment author: MixedNuts 11 February 2012 04:13:44PM *  0 points [-]

Aren't most intersex individuals infertile to begin with?

Lots are, lots aren't, I have no idea where to get reliable stats.

the sterilization of trans people is generally at their request

Much of the time, but "you must be permanently sterile to change your legal sex" is a completely unnecessary law. I've known someone who isn't getting a vaginoplasty just in case uterus grafts become possible in her lifetime and the op would compromise that. Trans men don't usually get bottom surgery, so sterility is impermanent (just get off T when you want kids); many do get hysterectomies, but only get their ovaries removed because of legal requirement. And there's no reason not to freeze gametes.

he deeply wishes he had had the 'unnecessary surgery' when he was young instead of after years and years of infections

Well yeah, that's one reason we shouldn't give kids surgeries just to make their junk look normal - so that we can actually believe doctors when they say it would improve their health.

Comment author: HungryTurtle 13 February 2012 10:11:44PM 0 points [-]

No you are correct. My response would be that an inefficient cleansing is still a cleansing. At this time we do not stop intersex people from procreating. We do highly stigmatize in society and we do traumatize them by denying their existence as natural and forcing/pressuring them to undergo extreme operations. Isn't this a more PC way of intentionally limiting their reproduction?

Imagine if you were playing a game where you had to obtain 100 signatures to win and before that game I told everyone else in the room that you were a child molester, and if they gave you their signature that meant they wanted a child molester to win. It would make it significantly harder for you to win right? This situation is analogous for the intersex person's situation in a society that views anything existing outside the traditional dichotomy as unnatural. They are stigmatized. It becomes significantly harder to find a job, mate, to feel self-worth, build confidence, trust, all the things humans need to successfully establish themselves and their genes in society. Sure, there is a lower tier of society bracketed off for them. They can work in the carnivals, whorehouse, etc, but they are in some sense blocked from "normal" society.

It would be interesting to look at suicide and marriage rates among hermaphrodites in Europe and America. Which would you guess is higher?