Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT: 2500-2504 (29 July- August 2, 2013) Weekly Comic Discussion Thread

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Valdís:
(Method locked it like the same second I was pressing Post, but he's doing me the courtesy of not deleting all I wrote. I'd prefer it if it wasn't locked, but split into Discuss or something, since I'd hardly intend on silencing any responses or such, wiserd. Even if I'm being a snidey-butt about some things in it. :laugh: )


--- Quote from: wiserd on 07 Aug 2013, 16:31 ---there are a lot of men with low muscle mass.
--- End quote ---

So if he moved to a warrior culture where the average man will have a lot higher muscle mass then he'd turn into a woman until you ascertained otherwise? Through the power of statistical predictive models, which one would have arbitrarily chosen to focus on this particular trait within? :-P


--- Quote from: wiserd on 07 Aug 2013, 16:31 ---Please note that I never said anything about what someone "wanted to seem." That is a whole new kettle of worms (Bigger than a can. And even worse, we're out of fish)  that you are opening, not me.
--- End quote ---

Seeming female, as we are, as opposed to being ignorantly labeled male. That being the clear implication of having such a view of her personality. As though it's too "unfeminine" - whatever that's supposed to mean - to be a woman.


--- Quote from: wiserd on 07 Aug 2013, 16:31 ---
--- Quote ---just as how it isn't a compliment to say "you're passable [as cisgender]" as a synonym for being pretty.
--- End quote ---
I assume you mean because it's damning with faint praise.  Kindof like "you won't completely bomb the test."

--- End quote ---

..Wow. No, it isn't an insult because it's just "getting a passing grade on the scale of cisgender attractiveness". It's an insult because it presumes that being attractive is automatically a cisgender trait. That the only way for trans people to acquire it is to try to be cisgender. That we are inherently inferior to cis people. That I should be glad to disassociate myself from some of the better people humanity has to offer in order to be accepted by those who would police cisnormativity. That being how I want to be is automatically an attempt to conform to their test of cisgenderitude.

It does not suddenly remove the thing I am taking issue with by tagging on "Even if you were a cis woman you'd be good looking" at the end of it, as though not just getting a passing grade, but actually getting a high one. The test itself is bullshit. Or 'predictive model', as I'm sure you'd prefer to call it.


--- Quote from: wiserd on 07 Aug 2013, 16:31 ---
--- Quote ---You said a character "doesn't seem female" and went on to talk about how none of the women you know behave like that, therefore it is nonsensical for there to be a woman who does.
--- End quote ---
Where are you getting the " therefore it is nonsensical for there to be a woman who does." Please quote the line.
Hint: I didn't say that. The first part, sure. The second part? No, you're making that up.
--- End quote ---

Right, of course I'm making it up.

I saw this part in a sleep deprived hallucination, I'm sure: "If we were critiquing a story about the Victorian era and a character wore pants for casual activities, it would be completely in line to note how unusual/anachronistic that was and ask what the author was saying about the character."

That there being an analogy to how May is in this given situation, given that she is the "a character" originally in question. That is stating that her behaviour is nonsensical given her setting, where she is portrayed as female, simply out of your narrow view that women aren't like that, given that you didn't know of any. It seemed as alien to you as a carefree pants-wearing lady during the Victorian Era would seem if you were reading such a work.


--- Quote from: wiserd on 07 Aug 2013, 16:31 ---
--- Quote ---That it warrants extra scrutiny for falling outside of your norms (but apparently you're not being normative about it)
--- End quote ---
Yes. Put in more mundane terms; unusual is not the same as bad. Why is this so confusing? Do you associate conformity with being good?
--- End quote ---

That's not a response to what's in the quote, yet you ask me why such a non-related statement is "confusing"?

You think me telling you that it's bullshit to feel entitled to pry into non-normative people's lives just to satisfy your own confusion about their supposed norm-breaking equals me saying that conformity is good? Since when the fuck did we have to ask your permission to tread outside how you've decided to categorize our existence? I thought you've specifically said such a thing would not be the case, so why, all of a sudden (since you're saying it wasn't the case before), do we now warrant extra scrutiny? Because otherwise you won't accept us and instead treat us as whatever your biased views of genders makes you personally think we are?

I mean, I get the tendency to do that, sure. Just look at all the Cisgender psychologists who still force "Real Life Experience"s on trans people before getting the treatments we need. Literally keeping tabs on us to make sure we're "trans enough" and essentially enforcing the wearings of skirts and use of makeup. Even if they're women who don't use those things themselves. But we'd have to show we really mean it for realsies.

Putting people you don't quite "get" under extra scrutiny just for not being part of your strange definitions is saying that being unusual is bad.


--- Quote from: wiserd on 07 Aug 2013, 16:31 ---
--- Quote ---and statistical correlations are not determinants.
--- End quote ---
Never once said they were. Quite the opposite. Multiple times. Who are you arguing with?
--- End quote ---

The actual outcome of the things you're saying. Automatically presuming everyone in a group is one way or is worse at some things is not "having a useful predictive model of the world". It's just being a prejudiced butt. Someone having a trait that another has deemed less common for group X doesn't mean they're actually part of group Y. They just happen to be someone from group X who has that trait. A woman who is good at math is not less of a woman than one who is not. It's arbitrary.

A lot of people would say I'm "really a guy" because I probably have XY chromosomes, but just because they're more commonly found in men doesn't make me any less of a woman. Because they don't define anything of what it means to be a woman. On the other hand I'm pretty shit at math, so I guess it all balances out in the end. :roll:


--- Quote from: wiserd on 07 Aug 2013, 16:31 ---If you tell me one more time that my beliefs are a game, I will tell you that your beliefs are a game. I suspect you will take it  much worse than I have. Consider treating others as you would like to be treated. Being "marginalized" does not excuse you from that.
--- End quote ---

Oh, you mean like how doubting what gender someone is by literally saying that you "Like to play 'One of these things is not like the other'." doesn't turn that into a game? Give me a break. Like your "beliefs" even comes close to dealing with someone's identity in such a manner. :roll:


--- Quote from: wiserd on 07 Aug 2013, 16:31 ---If you want to tell me that you're okay with whatever I say and whatever I think, so long as it's based on evidence and some measure of compassion, by all means say that.
--- End quote ---

I never said I wasn't. But don't expect me to respect the beliefs themselves.

Also a pro-tip: Everyone thinks their beliefs are "based on evidence" - they believe things for a reason. It's just that a lot of people either find very poor evidence compelling or they draw erroneous conclusions. I'm not denying all of the things you're saying about statistics etc., I'm saying your view of what it actually tells you is mistaken.


--- Quote from: wiserd on 07 Aug 2013, 16:31 ---What I object to is an argument of the form "If you believe X then we will not like you, so you should not believe x." People try that sometimes. It doesn't work so well with me.
--- End quote ---

Sure, they try it all the time. If I cared too much about that then I'd be dead by now.


--- Quote from: wiserd on 07 Aug 2013, 16:31 ---Yes, it's a model that works for most of the population. And when it's not the case, there's usually a reason for it. Someone with normal testosterone but stereotypically feminine features may be androgen insensitive. So we start with a typical case and then ask why a particular subject diverges from it. And the result is a working mental model.
--- End quote ---

What you fail to realize is the bias inherent in this. The model itself would remain largely identical, it's our presumptions within it that would change.

We've also already been over this. If it only works for "most of the population" then your model is wrong and needs adjusting. Just as how Newtonian mechanics may be "good enough" in most cases, but they're not a model of reality.

pwhodges:

--- Quote from: Valdís on 07 Aug 2013, 22:50 ---(Method locked it like the same second I was pressing Post, but he's doing me the courtesy of not deleting all I wrote. I'd prefer it if it wasn't locked, but split into Discuss or something, since I'd hardly intend on silencing any responses or such, wiserd. Even if I'm being a snidey-butt about some things in it. :laugh: )
--- End quote ---

I had decided to lock this before I noticed that the other mods had got there while I was sleeping.  I had also thought about breaking it out into Discuss, but decided that this was not appropriate in this particular case because the discussion is not so much about a philosophical point as about an individual's attitudes and understanding.


Wiserd, I am not going to address any more individual points in your postings, but to make a couple of general points for you to mull over.  This discussion has arisen from two characteristics of what you are writing: (1) the continuing use of statistical concepts to categorise individuals - which is plain wrong use of statistics; and, (2) your insistence on categorising people, or aspects of them, in a specific way (masculine vs feminine).

The first point I will leave aside - it can be learnt about, and in any case the second is far more concerning.  I suggest that you look inside yourself and ask why does this categorisation into masculine and feminine matter to me at all?  If you can't see why this might be a concern, then as a mental exercise change "masculine" and "feminine" to "black" and "white" or "Jewish" and "non-Jewish" (both also equally binary-looking divisions which actually aren't so), apply the mirror of history, and see if you understand better the danger of what's going on in your mind.  Ultimately, insisting on dividing people up in a specific way, as you have been, is actively attempting to deny them their individuality, to reduce them to ciphers, and (being dramatic here) to deny their humanity.  This may not be because you consciously want to belittle them, or some of them, (as historically is shown to be a common result of this), but it may be that there is some reason you can't easily deal with them as individuals.  I'm not in a position to know why this might be, but hope that you can reflect on it, with the help perhaps of friends and family as well as what has been written here, and learn to understand yourself and your relationship with others better as a result.

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