knightly

I'm disappointed that nobody's mentioned Pony Island yet.

You seem to be assuming that they didn't vote for no apparent reason.

It's been so frustrating to have to put up with Democrats that try to enforce a Republican-style party line instead of building the coalition they need to win.

It's even more frustrating when they put a hundred times more effort into trying to build a coalition with members of the party they claim to be a threat to Democracy instead of their own left wing.

"Thoughts and Prayers"

Seems a fitting epitaph for America.

Hey @1984@lemmy.today, did you forget about me?

Who are you talking about that is insisting there can be no deviation from the norm?

Right-wingers, the only people who have ever had a problem with diversity.

Banning words and discussions is absolutely the wrong way to go.

I'm confused about what you mean, because the only people doing that are the "Don't Say Gay" Florida Republicans.

And my point is very simple. Don't ban words.

I get the feeling that you're going to be angry when I point out that the only people banning words are the ones who want to make it illegal to teach kids that people like me exist.

Have open discussions. Don't support censorship of opinions or words.

Make up your mind, do you want to actually have open discussions or do you think that avoiding censorship of the "opinions and words" of discriminatory groups is more important than the presence of the groups they discriminate against?

Stop trying to control what people should think, and stop trying to teach them what you think is right.

...

What do you think "teaching" is?

But I think instead of trying to change words and ban conversations, maybe it's better to teach people to accept and even enjoy more variations?

This is naive.

How are we supposed to teach people to accept variation when they insist that there can be no deviation from the norm?

Because right now it's a bit ridiculous. We are told to ignore obvious differences between people so nobody feels marginalized.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. Just a moment ago you were complaining that the language we use to talk about this topic was a problem, now we're supposedly telling people not to talk about it? Pick a lane!

I think it's fine that everyone gets to say what their gender is, as long as the archetypal roles stay the same - man or female.

But otherwise, sure, people can define their gender how they like.

I'm noticing a contradiction here.

Gender can be a word for how people define themselves, as long as we instead use "archetypal roles" to define what our physical body looks like.

And for those of us who don't fit those archetypes?

I think what is frustrating is when people start to say that we shouldn't include our physical body type at all in discussions. That's taking it too far in my opinion.

Generally, it is considered impolite to talk to strangers about one's genitals.

Going to the doctor and not telling what body type you are makes diagnosis impossible in same cases.

The medical setting is one of the few contexts where talking about one's anatomy isn't considered a faux pas.

And for what reason? That part doesn't make any sense to me.

Do you want the historical explanation of how puritainism affected our culture?

Race, body type, and other things are important to know in many cases.

They're relevant a lot less often than you'd think.

I'll take this as a good faith question, and the short answer is that gender is a lot more complicated than that.

Yes there are two archetypal roles involved in sexual reproduction, but even that isn't so simple. There isn't just one feature that defines male or female, but a combination of traits including chromosomes, gametes, anatomy, hormones, etc. In the real world, some folks are born with features that don't all agree with one or another archetype. Intersex people aren't common, about 1 in 2,000, but their existence proves that sex isn't just a binary. There's diversity to sex that requires a more complicated scheme to account for everybody.

Gender, likewise, doesn't follow the one-or-the-other model. Most folks are cisgender, but some folks have a gender that doesn't agree with what people assume their sex is, or no gender at all, or a gender that doesn't fit into the man/woman spectrum. It gets complicated quickly because gender is where sex and society intersect. Some cultures have different expectations based on gender, and some even have more than two recognized genders. That's why we say "gender is a social construct", because we all get to define for ourselves what it means to be a man, woman, or otherwise. And that's also how gender is constructed, it's a social project we all engage in collectively whether we realize it or not. Most just pass along the traditional gender roles that were passed to them, but those can change rather rapidly as society changes, like when clean-shaven faces became "manly" in response to WW1 soldiers having to shave so that their gas masks could maintain a good seal.

Precisely.

Gender isn't binary, there is no such thing as a male or female nipple. That distinction is something that Humans made up.

Irradiated water is fine.

You're thinking of radioactive water, which is water with radioactive stuff in it.

Subjecting regular water to regular amounts of radiation is fine, even if it's high-energy gamma rays. If there's enough radiation to make water itself radioactive then you have bigger problems than radioactive water.

The argument could be made economically rather than ideologically.

Capitalism has a failure mode where too much capital gets concentrated into too few hands, depressing the flow of money moving through the economy.

But Capitalists start crying "Socialism!" as soon as you start talking about anti-trust.