New words for new genders?

Perhaps we should refer to species specific names that have worked for different animal groups for eons.

How about Goose & Gander? lolololololol

Well, in Spanish, EVERYTHING is either male or female. Even objects. So because everything has a gender, gender actually plays less of a role, if that makes any sense.

I suppose in the future, ‘it’ will become less derogatory. Or gender will just play less of a role. I don’t think there could be any new “gender neutral” pronoun.

No, there’s only two genders. No need to further complicate the issue.

So your belief is that anything that isn’t a masculine man or a feminine woman is either a mistake or a lie, Nullo?

Nothing is so black and white. I think we need some new words, myself.

I propose he/she/ce (s-eh), him/her/cer (s-eh-r), and his/hers/ces (s-eh-s (not s-eh-z)) for a new catch-all gender-neutral pronoun. As for the other ones, I dunno.

@Nullo: Wrong.

@Fenris: A lie or a confused person.
@MacBean: Wrong.

@Nullo : Please elaborate on how associating with a non-traditional gender is confusion, and what would constitute a lie in your sex/gender system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun

That is to say, there are a few work-arounds out there. The most common ones I’ve seen in use (on the intertubes, rather than in the real world) are ‘zie’ and ‘hir’.

How about yo!

@Pandora : +1 ^_^ Got a kick outta that.

@Fenris ;D

@Fenris Because there are only two genders: male and female.
One lies when he deliberately misrepresents the truth. To claim that there are more than two genders when there are not, with the intent to get others to think that there are, is to lie.

@Nullo : And I’m asking how you arrived at the basis of your primary premise, that there are only two genders.

On an unrelated note, How close do y’all think the co-evolution of traditional gender norms and gender-binary language is?

@Fenris
Elementary, dear Watson: I use my eyes. We have men, who are male, and we have women, who are female.

@Nullo : so you refute any possibility of a man assuming female gender norms, obsolecing calling “himself” by male pronouns, and vice versa? How do you grammatically deal with hermaphrodites?

@Nullo how are you defining ‘man’ and ‘woman’ – on the basis of biology, or cultural norms, or a mixture of both, or something else?

@Nullo or anyone. I always thought there was a difference between the biological sex of someone and their gender. You could be physically male but be considered female in gender and vice versa.

@HTDC : That’s the great lesson of the 21st Century: everything is relative and nothing is mandatory or normal, or expectable.

@Nullo: You can keep calling me a liar as long as I’m allowed to call you an ignorant asshat.

@seldomseenkid Biology, mostly.
@HTDC There’s not.
@Fenris That’s what you think. :P
@MacBean I had you down as“confused.” If you are lying, I’ll be happy to change that designation.

@Nullo: I’m not lying or confused, thanks.

”Sex is determined biologically and refers to an individuals physical anatomy – genitalia, facial hair, body structure and composition. Sex refers to the biological characteristics that separate male from female”.

”Gender is determined by social interaction, exchange, and absorption of peer, familial, and larger cultural values that determine gender identity and affiliation. Gender can be considered fluid in the sense that one can challenge their own gender identity, in some instances holding it completely opposed to their sex.”

From this site.

So…no difference huh?

@Nullo: Your views are a little archaic. #_#

See, this is the problem.

It is such a touchy issue. First line of defense is to attack.
One of those subjects that it is my way or the highway.

Too bad, we could ALL learn plenty if we put our person issues aside.

Sticking only with the facts.

Well, sticking only with facts, there is a difference between sex and gender, and there are not “only two genders,” despite the fact that @Nullo doesn’t have personal experience with this.

Now that the facts established, where would we like the discussion to go from here?

Gender – ‘Gender’ refers to the socially constructed roles of and relations between men and women.

@MacBean Using “gender” as a separate concept from “sex” is a recent development, one that I hold to be contrived. Consider:
gender
c.1300, from O.Fr. gendre, from stem of L. genus (gen. generis) “kind, sort, gender,” also “sex” (see genus ); used to translate from Gk. Aristotle’s grammatical term genos. As “sex” took on erotic qualities in 20c., gender came to be used for “sex of a human being,” often in feminist writing with reference to social attributes as much as biological qualities; this sense first attested 1963.
From the Online Etymology Dictionary

@HTDC That is a definition invented to suit the whims of the likes of @Fenris.
Consider: Bulls are male. Cows are female. Ganders are male. Geese are female. Roosters are male. Hens are female. Men are male. Women are female. It’s not rocket science.

@absalom They do have a long history, but cannot be dubbed “archaic,” since the prevailing viewpoint in this thread is not more than a few decades old.

@absalom The more so because my own viewpoint still has the backing of literally billions of people worldwide.

If this comes down to a popularity contest (as many social issues do), my side wins.

@Nullo: Do you reject all advancements in thought, or just ones that make you look/sound like an asshole?

@Nullo Wow. Grow up. There’s more than two sexes these days. I’m sorry you can’t accept it, but don’t be an ass about it.

I’m sorry if I offend anyone but I think I understand where Nullo is going with what he is saying. I am genetically (physically) spanish. Lets say I am raised by another race and consider myself to be that race. Does that make make me oriental, white, or whatever race? If I die, and my genes are analyzed, I am will be labeled as female, hispanic heritage.
Not how my mind associated my race.
True there are those born with both organs that make them both male and female and there is already a label for them. Hermaphrodite. So purely on a physical level you have, male, female and hermaphrodite. I don’t get gender neutral. I’m not sure its possible to be born without organs. You would have to be born without male or female chromosones.
I do understand it in the sense that one doesn’t feel inclined to not be one way or another.

@everyone: Nullo has an opinon, like everyone else, and even though OP has a differing viewpoint from him, he’s allowed his opinion. He even gave his reasoning. Cut him some slack please.

@Nullo : Thank you for explaining. Your binary explanation is noted.

However, I don’t know why I deviated from the subject anyway – this thread is not about the legitimacy of the recent separation between social constructs and biology, but rather about English’s lack of flexibility in handling the rapid growth of new constructs and ideas today, and how we should help it along in evolving the language to become a bit predictive.

@Fenris If @Nullo started spouting woefully outdated opinions about something like race, nobody would suggest cutting him any slack. What makes it acceptable to do this when the target is gender? Why should he be allowed to show up on this thread to call people liars or say they’re just confused because he’s stuck on old and incorrect ways of thinking?

@MacBean : Just trying to keep a flamewar from starting. I’m trying to encourage everyone to prove one another wrong inductively.

He’s also allowed to show up on this thread to call people liars or say they’re confused just because that’s his opinion because Fluther is an open forum where everyone is allowed to participate and the the mods haven’t seen fit to remove him just because his views aren’t ours. If you find his comments offensive, report him. I’m not going to make an attempt to hide the fact that I hate his opinion, but he has a right to say his peace.

If any of you say you disagree with anyone, back it up with inductive reasoning and testimony from accredited experts. That’s the responsible way to argue.

@Nullo

“If this comes down to a popularity contest (as many social issues do), my side wins.”

Unfortunately it does not come down to a popularity contest. It’s not any kind of contest, for that matter, and to look at it as such (and say things like “my side wins”) is incredibly juvenile, lazy, willfully ignorant, depressingly characteristic of American binarism.

@Fenris WIth regard to the supposed intent of your question: I feel that a language ought to be let to grow naturally. Induce artificial change and structuring in one part and then you move on to the next, and the next, and so on, until the fine cheese that is English is remade into the food pills that we were supposed to be eating in the future. Besides that, a lot of social engineering is done by manipulating language, and I hate social engineering.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will reply to my detractors.

@MacBean
Do you respond to all challenges to your POV with insults?
I’d hardly call deciding (arbitrarily or no) that a man can be female an advancement in thought. More like an indulgence in folly at best, or out-and-out delusion at worst?

@rangerr Come to your senses, Grasshopper. There are exactly two sexes, as ever there have been. Ask any biologist. One of the things about Science – real science, that hasn’t been taken over by an agenda – is that wishing does not make it so.

@absalom I said “if.”
All the same, I’m rather inclined to think that this is about the popularity of an idea. Should a woman decide that she is, in fact, a porcupine, then there would be a push to get her head examined. But should she instead decide that she is not female – a similar delusion – she is assured by the likes of you that it’s perfectly alright on the basis that they think that it should be.

@Nullo

The problem words here are “similar” and “delusion”, the latter of which is plainly presumption.

Your examples are not similar. Someone suffering from the delusion that she is a porcupine will look in the mirror and “see” a porcupine. More importantly, such a delusion interferes with daily life, contaminates one’s human sense of self.

But someone suffering from gender confusion, or someone who has adopted an alternative gender, looks in the mirror and still sees clearly, without delusion, that she possesses breasts, a vagina. She simply feels that her sex (q.v. breasts / vagina) is not perfectly representative of her gender, which is to say that gender is an internal state, a feeling, and something that develops with a relationship to sex but is not shackled to it. But until she begins to see a penis when she looks at her pelvis, it is not a matter of delusion.

This discrepancy between gender and sex, while challenging / confusing / frightening to those who experience it (and apparently to others like you) is for the most part innocuous and becomes a necessary part of a person’s identity—a person’s human identity. There is nothing harmful or classifiably unhinging about the phenomenon; and by the same token few could deny that the more harmful event is actually the reinforcement of strict gender roles.

As far as I can tell gender is like a feeling or a sensation in somebody. You would not tell someone who feels angry that he is delusional, that he cannot be angry, cannot be feeling anger when he knows he is. Of course, gender is not quite the same as emotion, but his experience with his anger, as well as with his gender, is often something he cannot avoid.

I find it ridiculous that you are able to dismiss this as a delusion, the same kind of mental malfunction to which homosexuality was once relegated in the popular mind of psychologists and “literally billions of people” at various junctures of human history.

Okay, okay, okay…

Let me ask you all this. What gender am I?

@Nullo: No, because not all challenges to my POV are personally insulting to me. In this case, yours is. It demeans, belittles, and marginalizes me and people like me.

@MacBean You are amazing, who cares what anyone else thinks?

@rangerr: Thanks, bb. I try to keep that attitude but it’s really really hard when it comes to this. I don’t even necessarily need people to be okay with grey-area gender stuff, but it pisses me right the fuck off when they argue that it doesn’t exist.

Okay, just never mind my post.

@loser: I wasn’t ignoring you, I just wanted some tool who doesn’t know just what kinda stud you are to answer the question. ♥

@loser : Your sex is male, but we don’t know enough about you to know if you’ve adopted a feminine, masculine or neutral gender.

@Pandora : we don’t have dignified pronouns to deal with hermaphrodites.

@Fenris Okay, so you’re acknowledging more then one gender! Great! Hopefully, Nullo is paying attention!

@MacBean Your awesomeness is stunning!

Since hermaphrodites can’t be accurately described as he, she, him, or her, then how about shehe and a contraction of herhim- herm?

E.g., I find herm very attractive: shehe is one hot person! :-p

Man, so glad I didn’t read this long ago…who knew @Nullo thought I was a big fat liar this entire time, lol

I guess I’m a big fat liar as well!

@loser Ah well, at least we’re happy.