CharonY

I literally do not care. My name makes it difficult for folks to figure out my gender and I have been misgendered (in writing). Folks get my name wrong very often. I accepted that this just comes as being a foreigner with a weird name. I am slightly annoyed that folks that know me for years keep misspelling my name (especially in high-profile situations) and I do sometime feel I should be more outspoken about it. But emotionally I literally do not care. But thanks for trying to force your view on me. I have not seen that anyone has argued against that. That could be said consequence. Folks interpret your action and while might think it is courageous, others might interpret it differently. Personally I tend not to assume based on initial reactions (again, being foreigner and all that) but based on subsequent interactions. For example not wanting to use, say "ze" but finding another way to accommodate folks (e.g. using their name) sounds like a perfectly fine compromise to me. Some might disagree, and we can have a conversation about that. In contrast, if we start with a an untenable premise (e.g. not using "ze" lands you in prison) then it is an attempt to curb discussion. You have not worked in service, do you? If you are repeatedly and publicly discourteous, especially in an outward facing position, you better believe that your job is in peril. However, if folks are terminated due to discrimination laws, it is insufficient to label them as something, there will be a test that needs to meet the standards of discriminatory behaviour. And generally a one-off is rarely sufficient evidence for that. The way you describe it, it seems that if just someone calls someone else a bigot, it would result in firing, which of course is silly. And you know what, in contrast to your assumptions how things are, let me also give you a refutation of your first point. In Canada serious misconduct in the workplace is a cause for termination without severance. Like with discrimination, there are a series of tests that apply. But what could be considered misconduct related to rudeness? One, for example is insolence. This would include " derisive, contemptuous or abusive language, generally directed at a superior". It depends of course how you define discourteous, but: Another possibility would be breach of company policies which can have a wide range of demands, provided that they are lawful. Thus, depending on how discourteous you are, you can in fact be fired for that without being called a bigot.

I find it highly ironic that you do not recognize that this is freedom of expression at work. She said her thing and her colleagues as well as students did theirs. While I am not a fan of this kind of discourse, what would be a viable alternative? Compel her critics to remain silent? Freedom cuts both ways.

Absolutely, this is why I think the discussion should be more about how we should navigate these conflicting viewpoints rather than having a strong categorical stance. In a society we need to accommodate each other to a certain degree and I do not think that we can draw strict lines in the sand. These lines will be blurry and shift depending on the situation and with whom you interact. And it has been so since the beginning of time, and many of our habits and rituals stem come from that. Changing social mores are always going to be a challenge but at some point society settles on, well, something. I do think that public discussions have changed a bit due to the internet, which allows impersonal and superficial involvement in many, many issues, often with limited information. But then maybe that is just how getting old feels like.

Depends on the context. If I was your boss and with an ego problem I might resent someone calling me by an imaginary name (it's Mr. Fred for you). If so, depending on what kind of worker protection exist one might either directly fire you or at least ding your evaluation (and use that to fire you). You seem to forget that once you address folks, you are not alone anymore and whatever you do reflects on you. Folks are not fired for using wrong pronouns. They are used for establishing a certain pattern of behaviour. What pattern might result in firing or promotion varies a lot. Also as a general point, let's assume that a company institutes a policy of using preferred pronouns, a certain dress code and a given official language. Would you be equally against all of these policies and would you be surprised if you are let go if you violated those?

So do you introduce yourself with a name? I mean, that is like deciding for everyone else what your identity is, isn't it? Do you accept whatever folks decide who you are? In your righteous indignation you seem to forget that each interaction between individuals is governed by a range of social norms, ranging from language, how folks are being addressed and what potential consequences are. It goes back again to what we discussed a dozen pages earlier that you basically want those rules set up in a given way that your freedom of expression trumps all consequences, a situation that had never existed in human history (married folks know what I am talking about...). Of course you may decide that you are not going to be coerced to greet folks or niceties, for example. But on the same note you cannot complain that folks may not like you for that reason.

That is a very good description what I was trying to convey.

In addition, biological mechanisms have some level of stochasticity so the transition can be imperfect but depending on what you research it might be ignored because it does not help with your study. Yet obviously biologically it happens. You might as well look at hormonal level, which are a continuous variable so you could even asses different degrees of differentiation rather than a binary one. It just depends on how precisely you measure. And that is a common theme in nature, most things run on a continuum as biochemical systems are rarely just on and off. If we wanted to be really precise one could create a quantitative measures that would span the whole continuum between male and female. Whether that is useful for us (as observer) is a different story. But nature does not really care, it is just provides the mechanisms.

Two things, first of all if you need to look at things on a case-by case level with a swath of organisms not falling into that category, we are clearly not talking about an universal categorization. As such already here your claim has to be qualified. I.e. we are now talking only about a subset of species rather than an universal concept, aren't we? In fact sex determination is also not quite as straightforward. I am not a zoologist, but depending on species folks have established species specific determinants that help folks identify either sex. Yet there are cases where some of these attempt fail or have led to interesting observation. I already mentioned gender mimicry where a female looks pretty much exactly like a male. Even genetic markers are not universal as in the example of fishes (and other animals) who can change their sex. So if a classification can only applied to certain species and even then has additional qualifiers (i.e. the sex is only fixed for a specific time period) then it is hardly an universal concept now is it? And this is exactly the point Arete has made, biological concepts only apply within certain limits and are simply not universal. Thank you for confirming that I am wasting my time trying to engage with you.

Maybe I was not quite clear. Recall that Arete established that rigid pigeon holes are rare (or perhaps non-existent) in biology. MigL seemed to object to that and implied that nature has in fact these. He then claimed that all biologists would classify species as male or female. It is not quite clear what he means, as obviously you cannot classify like that, but I assumed he meant that biologists would classify all members in a species rigidly as either male or female. Strangely he also mentioned asexual reproduction (though worms are actually not a good example), where this does not make sense and I have added hermaphrodite species. These two examples already indicate that this categories (male vs female) are clearly not universal even if we just think roughly about certain species. I then added another example indicating that even in species where male and female distinction could work, if you look at, say an individual clownfish and classify it as male, it is possible that some time later due to some influences that individual has then become female. In other words, even it looks rigid from a high (species) level, biology can break these categories we made. Going back to clownfishes, the gonads of functional males has both testicular as well as ovarian tissues. The latter is in immature state but can mature rather quickly to create functional ovaries (based on some neuronal pathways which are only partially explored IIRC). So even if go down deeper into the tissue and cellular level, the distinction between male and female is quite fuzzy as the tissue can change from one to the other. Given all those biological mechanisms and fuzziness it simply does not make sense to even presume that these categories are universal. Rather, they apply within a certain context (and even then often with a given but hopefully acceptable error rate).

Because MigL has implied that categories in nature are rigid: There are claims made that male and female are universal and the examples indicate a) on the species level there are plenty of organism that are not either male or female and that b) even within an individual there are species in which their sex is fluid to some degree. I am not sure what your example was supposed to add to that.

I am not sure whether I should answer ridiculous questions. I have not seen folks waving hands, but I have not idea why it should bother me (in Germany folks often knock on tables). All language is made up, so I am not sure which one you refer to. I am not sure whether we are the same species, as recently I have the sneaking feeling of talking to a chat bot.

Not sure, I do not teach imaginary labs. All my students are actually real people.

More likely introductory textbooks where simple basic concepts are explained. The more you learn the more specific your definitions become. What you do now is akin to me making grand claims regarding GR based on what little introduction to physics I might remember. Also note that a claim that a textbook refers to a certain concept still does not make it an universal concept in biology. I am not sure what your overall claim here is. Sex dimorphisms exist, but they are not a universal concept. Heck, sexual reproduction is not an universal concept. As we can find exceptions for basically anything we need to make case-by-case distinctions whenever they become relevant. If you have the rigid idea in your head that every species has two sexes, and try to apply to every species on earth you obviously will end up with many with categorizations that simply won't follow the actual biology (I mean, good luck distinguishing female from male snails).

Studies have also been shown that if you present folks with images of folks looking like themselves, they are more willing to assume that they need support because they had a stroke of bad luck, whereas if you show images of folks different from them they are more likely to assume that they are underserving. Well and some of them pay a whooping $750 in income taxes.

This is also wrong. It would ignore hermaphrodite species as well as species that are able to change their sex. Also how do classify a species according to their sex? That only works on individuals? If we move away from animals it gets even trickier. Also may I note that it is weird that you contradict yourself in the same sentence and then just ignore that? So by far not an universal concept that can be applied the same way to all species. Also, you are aware that the species concept is also a human construct (ring species, microbial concept of species etc.)? As Arete and I have said many times here, the use of such concepts is often useful , but nature does not really care about our neat categories. So even if such a seemingly strict category such as species is not really universal, why would you expect to find many universal concepts in biology to begin with? And this is also wrong of course as there are many, many (animal) species were there are barely any outward sex markers and then there are animals who use camouflage to appear like the different gender. And here is another strawman. No one said that there are no gender dimorphisms. Just that in nature these differences are not as rigid and universal as you think they are. Assuming that biology follows rigid made-up structures and force your assumptions on your observations would be bad science, not following the evidence. And obviously we are again on the presumed issue of enforced speech and I would really like to see some evidence here.

For some context, I have been working in North American universities for quite a bit more than a decade (and in Europe before that). In that time only one student made a request of using a different name, because they transitioned but the enrolment was still under their old name. There was also a faculty in a different department who transitioned and wanted to make their colleagues aware of the situation in a rather thoughtful email. Meeting either of them post-transitioning I would not even have thought or knew about it (paperwork notwithstanding). Out of curiosity I occasionally asked colleagues from different universities across North America (and Europe) and so far not a single person across perhaps a dozen or so universities have even heard of a single case of these alternative pronouns being used. The only gender neutral pronoun that is being used is "they" but that one has been on and off in the English language for hundred of years so that is rather easy. But if even stereotypical "woke" university students are not using it at all (much less excessively) why is the internet filled with outrage about these pronouns? One important thing to understand is that it is actually part of the moral outrage machinery of our right wing. It is somewhat connected to the religious right, whose influence seems to be waning (or at least perceived to do so). In order to bolster their influence they often create these moral outrages (other examples include homosexuality, then gay marriages, another current one is critical race theory). The tactic is usually the same, misrepresent the situation (if you use the wrong pronoun you will be put in jail, folks will be allowed to marry their pets, CRT is about feeling ashamed being white etc.) and create enough buzz that makes people fight over these strawmen, rather than addressing the actual reality of things.

Exhale valves are *bad*. If you are unknowingly infected, it allows you to freely spread the virus around. N95 masks without valves but worn tightly, i.e. air enters and escapes exclusively through the material work very well to reduce risk.

An interesting cultural practice in which gender expression is decoupled from sexual identity is that of Albanian sworn virgins. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_sworn_virgins Women are taking chastity vows and are considered to be men going forward. This particular fad has been around for about 500 years.

That is ridiculous. Even on this board we have many threads discussing how especially biology defies human desires to neatly categorize things. It is like claiming that nature made the decimal system and all others are fake. Edit: crossposted

It is a bit annoying that you just put up a link without seemingly having read it (or scrutinized it). Let me do your work for you. First of all these are not three comedians, the first and third link both refer to the same case in which a comedian (Mike Ward) was fined for making fun in his piece of a disfigured singer (Jeremy Gabriel). I am not sure why you think this is about insulting the LGBTQ community and ultimately the comedian did not have to pay on the grounds of freedom of speech. So that leaves one example in which a comic used slurs against a lesbian couple. I will add that this happened in 2007, so quite a bit before C-16. Now, while this may be a good starting point to discuss limits and issues of freedom of expression as well as the issues of anti-discrimination laws- none of these two cases has anything to do with pronouns or misgendering. As such it seems like a poor attempt to find something resulting in lazily posting a quora answer of all things that does not even address the main part of your claim. Darn, that was annoyingly similar to grading assignments.

Is there something going to be discussed here?

And again, there weren't. And definitely not plural. You repeat this claim but it is simply not true. No one said that is is not a piece of legislation. That would be a strawman. What folks said is that a) legal experts have examined it and explained that it does not lead to persecution based on misgendering alone because they would either need to meet the threshold of hate speech, call for genocide, or discrimination. These are actually high hurdles. It seems that in your imagination this legislation has resulted in the aforementioned loss of jobs. However, if you re-read the threads (where the evidence is actually not presented) and perhaps one or two articles on the bill written by actual lawyers and legal scholars, you would come to a different conclusion.

Well, health care could depend a bit. If it is biomed, it generally would not be a minus. It can be a big plus obviously if they expand to that area, but for the rest it would depend more on your specific roles and skills. There is often also the ever-important (but nebulous) "fit" where your lingo has to line up as closely as your target as possible, to indicate that you belong.

It also depends on how well they see the experience translate into their workflow. I mean, I suspect that an ag company would not be too bothered whether you have experience with cannabis or any other plant. Another thing to think about is how the CV is built. Maybe there are some issues there.

In other species it seems to be related to that. Parthenogenesis is often observed if few or no male partners are found as well as under certain stress conditions. But overall it does not seem to be the favoured mode of reproduction, otherwise it would be far more common (which could be related to loss of genetic diversity).