Gender theory

Magnum Vaeltaja wrote: Dean wrote: A Person wrote: Dean wrote: Judith Butler is not a biologist so quoting a philosopher at me is pretty much the same as quoting the bible, if you believe that then good for you, if you don't then good for you - and to be perfectly honest that is all you can say about philosophy. Surely you also would have to discard a biologist's work since it depends on the philosophy of biology. Really? The philosophy of science is not science. Philosophy does not affect physiology.  Exactly, even if biologists are being guided in their research by philosophical principles, they're still leaps and bounds more credible to speak about biology because they actually use empirical evidence and collect reproducible results experimentally.

Evidence and results mean nothing if you don't interpret them. Besides, biological determinism is silly.

HackettFan wrote:   Philosophy of science (e.g. Karl Popper) is great stuff. It's about how science should proceed. When philosophy takes the place of science, then it's not such great stuff. The idea that gender is a distinct notion from sex and that gender works on a continuum is not even controversial in psychology. For this reason, I don't think that puberty is particularly relevant to this question, as some other posts have supposed. Individual deviations from prescribed gender roles occur very early even at pre-school ages. The question is what is the curriculum and what level of sophistication does it entail? If it's mainly as an anti-bullying effort, I think it might be worthwhile. However, because of the huge gulf between what is readily accepted in psychology versus what the mainstream populace just assumes as a gut reaction, I think we should educate the adults (the educators, parents, politicians, ...) first.

Edited by Magnum Vaeltaja - October 06 2016 at 21:53

A Person wrote: Magnum Vaeltaja wrote: Dean wrote: A Person wrote: Dean wrote: Judith Butler is not a biologist so quoting a philosopher at me is pretty much the same as quoting the bible, if you believe that then good for you, if you don't then good for you - and to be perfectly honest that is all you can say about philosophy. Surely you also would have to discard a biologist's work since it depends on the philosophy of biology. Really? The philosophy of science is not science. Philosophy does not affect physiology.  Exactly, even if biologists are being guided in their research by philosophical principles, they're still leaps and bounds more credible to speak about biology because they actually use empirical evidence and collect reproducible results experimentally. Evidence and results mean nothing if you don't interpret them. Besides, biological determinism is silly.

Interpretation of results is part of the process of science itself. The philosophy of science isn't needed. And biological determinism may be silly but it's true so.

Gender identity is about one's self-concept. It does not detrmine what sex one is attracted to. For instance, a person with a male sex organ can identify as female yet be attracted to other females.

If I understand correctly, I do agree with Rogerthat that proposed sociopolitical motivations should be summarily tossed out.

Edited by HackettFan - October 07 2016 at 14:55

rogerthat wrote: HackettFan wrote: Gender identity is about one's self-concept. It does not detrmine what sex one is attracted to. For instance, a person with a male sex organ can identify as female yet be attracted to other females. Thanks, this is kind of what I am trying to address by separating sex from gender.  Sexual attraction is biological and the example you have given is exactly what I am talking about.

Sexual attraction is not 100% determined biologically.

I would respond to more thingsbut i'm ttoo tired.

Sex is clearly by definition 100% biological, but I don't think it would be impossible to completely change one's sexual attraction by psychological and/or physical indoctrination.

rogerthat wrote: Vompatti wrote: Sex is clearly by definition 100% biological, but I don't think it would be impossible to completely change one's sexual attraction by psychological and/or physical indoctrination. I agree, but which would be an undesirable way to go about it. It has to be purely internal and voluntary.

@Vompatti. I think it would be impossible to "completely" change a person's attraction. One would presumably have to manipulate the stimulus-response behavior of an individual in question over time until the new behavior becomes entrenched. However, behaviorism is wrong; there is a mind that intercedes in the middle of any stimulus-response pairing (response now expanding to include perceptions, attitudes and goals in addition to behaviors). Priming stimuli do have automatic subliminal effects on people, but they can only do so if a mental schema for the perception, attitude, goal or behavior already exists. Now new schemas can also be created and potentially entrenched with additional activation, but only if they do not conflict with current goals and competing schemas. A stimulus may even have the opposite of the intended effect, as with an instruction like "don't press the red button". My message from all this is that, though, there might be some genuine success in shifting some people's sexual attraction, it would be limited to a subset of people who were for some reason already receptive (e.g. have a bisexual disposition to begin with, or are (religiously) goal-driven to "normalize" their attraction). Shifts in attraction among such a cherry-picked group would still have prior competing dispositions that would remain susceptible to future re-activation, and so still not be complete and total.

Edited by HackettFan - October 08 2016 at 10:11

HackettFan wrote: Gender identity is about one's self-concept. It does not detrmine what sex one is attracted to. For instance, a person with a male sex organ can identify as female yet be attracted to other females. If I understand correctly, I do agree with Rogerthat that proposed sociopolitical motivations should be summarily tossed out.

The T wrote: If a man/woman is raised in complete isolation (I know, impossible, anyway...) and is presented with a woman and man for the first time after puberty, who will he/she be attracted to?

And more importantly, in which language will he/she express his/her preference?

TeleStrat wrote: My earlier answer to the original question about teaching this topic to young school children was no. After reading some of the replies my answer is still no. Most of the conversations here are at the college level (out of necessity?) so why would anyone expect elementary school, middle school or even high school students to understand. BTW, what are people hoping to gain by trying to change a child's sexual attraction?

I don't think anyone has suggested changing a child's sexual attraction, nor their gender identification. The question was whether (and how, I guess) to educate youth about accepting variations in gender identity. Along with the discussion has been some debate as to the distinction between gender and sexuality. Along with this there was a dispute about whether there was a sociopolitical determination at play with sexual identity (or gender identity?) and what domain of study it really belonged to. The question of whether sexual attraction could changed, I believe, was put forward in this latter context (i.e. sociopollitics is malleable, is the psychology of it also malleable?). Someone will let me know if I got something wrong here.

Also, it is one thing to make the calculation that the sophistication of a proposed curriculum is not age level appropriate. This not the same as saying there is not a need for some kind of curriculum. Gender identity conflicts do not wait for puberty or adulthood, and the lack of acceptance over gender identification does put children at higher risk for suicide.