Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Akima]

Or sex is a matter of biology, while gender is a social construct. Neither is binary.

[Zingoleb]

Sex is indicated by external genitalia, internal genitalia, chromosomes, secondary sexual characteristics, and hormonal levels.

Gender is more complicated. 

[dr. nervioso]

Well hey guys, today's my birthday.

Now I only have one year left to get out all this teenage angst

[Carl-E]

Good luck with that! 

And I will be celebrating your birthday by climbing the nearest belltower... again.  Remember those pics that didn't come out last week?  Time to try again! 

[Papersatan]

My story conflates sex with gender because the people in it did.  They decided what color baby clothing to get me based on my genetic sex. There is no other reason to be interested in the sex of a baby, other than to start thinking about the gender it will be raised as.  That may be fucked up, but it is the way things are.

[Patrick]

Gender can be more complicated. 

ftfy. Mine's fairly simple, see.

Frankly I think the only reason I'd give a shit about what sex the baby was is for the sake of pronouns.

[Zingoleb]

Well, your gender identity and presentation are in alignment with your birth assignment, so, yeah. Cisgender people do have it a lot easier. But I started to go into the idea of gender as biologically essential vs. gender as social construct and decided to restrain myself a bit.

[Jace]

Gender can be more complicated. 

ftfy. Mine's fairly simple, see.

Frankly I think the only reason I'd give a shit about what sex the baby was is for the sake of pronouns.

You can always take the pseudo-sociopath road and call babies "it."
(or for the gender neutral version, "zit"  )

[pwhodges]

Now in SF. Wheee!

[Zingoleb]

You can always take the pseudo-sociopath road and call babies "it."

I don't see that as sociopathic. I'm just incapable of looking at a baby and having it register as 'human'.

[nekowafer]

Because if a full grown person did the same things a baby does it would be creepy as fuck.

(or for the gender neutral version, "zit"  )

This made me giggle far more than it probably should have.

On another note, my boyfriend was just diagnosed with mono. Please say I don't have it oh god please please.

[Zingoleb]

That's why I only date poly people.

[nekowafer]

...so you can get a whole group of people sick?

[Lines]

Gender is a social construct. Babies don't have the ability, or even capacity really, to understand gender and state what gender they are. It is assigned to them at birth by their parents. (Unless they're radical enough to wait until the child is old enough to make their own decision... There's an article about this, I can't remember if I bookmarked it or not, I'll try to find it.) Sex, however, is what you are born with. It is biological to your core. Yes, you can take hormones and have surgery, but it will not change the fact that you are either XX, XY, XXY, XXX, etc. However, once you are old enough to understand your gender, it may or may not match your sex. However, babies are babies and frankly for a while, they really aren't going to give a crap what color they're wearing so long as they are warm and well fed.

Personally if I ever have a girl, I'm telling people not to buy me pink stuff. I don't like pink and unless my daughter says she wants something pink, I'm not going out of my way to give her pink stuff. (I mean, I won't get mad at pink, but I want her to have any and ALL colors, not just pink.) Also the whole culture surrounding gendering the wants of children is stupid.

[Zingoleb]

...so you can get a whole group of people sick?

poly/mono

nevermind

[Zingoleb]

Also @Linds:

Gender is partially a social construct. If it is purely a social construct, then explain to me, please, why a large number of transsexuals (and, well, trans* people in general) feel from an incredibly young age very aware that the gender they were assigned does not match the way they feel inside? The most common refrain I hear is that a trans woman grew up basically having the femininity beat out of her because boys are supposed to be masculine, but that sort of social reinforcement didn't seem to take, now did it?

On the other hand, gender is an immensely complicated word and can mean so many different things. I'm talking specifically about gender identity - it seems to me that you're talking about the (nearly arbitrary) gendering of things in our culture (colours, in this case - but it extends to clothing, names, anything you can name has gendered assumptions about it).

[nekowafer]

Wee I get jokes

Oh wait no I don't actually

[Lines]

Zing, I'm talking about the gendering of babies. And it's not the gendering of stuff...it's how that stuff affects the child (and believe me it does) and how people treat babies and toddlers based on what gender they believe that child to be. That doesn't mean it's going to stick, but a baby has absolutely no idea what gender is and based on social constructs during their childhood, they'll come to believe a certain idea of what gender is. Come adulthood, that opinion is most likely going to be different. And specifically for your friends, I doubt they remember much from years 0-2, which is mostly what I'm talking about. Very few people remember anything from those years just because of how the brain develops over time.

Also, not all people who feel that their gender doesn't match their body will say so. Your trans friends were able to break away from social constructs, but not everyone is able to do so, especially not when they feel that what they feel is inherently wrong...which is due to social constructs. I mean most people don't even understand that there is more to gender than male and female.

[Zingoleb]

I agree completely and have nothing else to add lest I get ranty about binarism.

[pwhodges]

Maybe any further discussion of gendering of babies should be away from the blog thread; it could sustain its own discussion thread if anyone wants to continue at this point.

I had, curiously, no image of what San Francisco would be like; the only landmark I could name was the Golden Gate Bridge - and I knew what BART stands for.  After walking around for barely an hour, I can say that I like it.  Any place that can have trams and trolley buses and cable cars and buses just has to be all right.

[dr. nervioso]

So I have decided to get an apartment next year which means

-I am going to have to pay 1000 or so dollars as per the contract I signed, saying that I would live on campus for two years or pay the exit fee if I left before the two years was up
-I am going to have to find someplace to live that is fairly priced, in decent condition, and preferrably in walking distance from school
-I am going to have to find a roommate or two

The last part gives me the most anxiety. Right now I live in what someone I ate with at dinner referred to as "the bro hall." I am not a bro. I do not particularly connect with the bro mindset. I do not really enjoy that many sports and while i have been trying to connect with my floor, it's really hard when we have almost nothing in common. The point being, is while I am aware that roommates do not need  to be BFFS or even close friends to live together peacefully, I'd like to have that experience.

Right now, I am having trouble finding people I relate to, I have friends, but there isn't really anywhere the friendships can go because me and them don't really have much common ground. I'm trying, me and the other person always try to find something in common, but it always slips away. It sucks not having anyone to talk to about music with, that's a basic need for me. But while I am into The cardigans, Taking Back Sunday, and Peter Bjorn and John, everyone else seems to be into dubstep or dance music.

Well it's late and this post is becoming a complaint letter about my social life, so I'm just gonna leave it at that. But if anyone has suggestions about apartment hunting, please feel free to give me any advice

[Patrick]

I had, curiously, no image of what San Francisco would be like; the only landmark I could name was the Golden Gate Bridge - and I knew what BART stands for.  After walking around for barely an hour, I can say that I like it.  Any place that can have trams and trolley buses and cable cars and buses just has to be all right.

Dude Paul, I'm in Berkeley this weekend. If there's time in your itinerary for a trip out there, I'd be delighted and honored. I'll sing you songs!

Blog: My fellow Troubadorks Matt and Paul + their lovely ladies Adara and Lanee and I went to Monterey to see the famous aquarium and Cannery Row today! It was a fantastic time full of good friends, good food, and good fun. We wound up going to a mirror maze/laser "bank heist" game where the mega-cute girl working there was super cool.

After all that, we decided to eat, but didn't know where to go, so Paul used Lanee's phone to call the mirror maze place and ask the girl if she knew anywhere good. This was a ruse to put me on the spot by having me talk to her and ask her to join us for drinks later. I did so extremely awkwardly, but she accepted, so we swooped her and hit the bar.

tl;dr now we're all friends, I have her number, and Lanee got a text saying nice things about me. Best band outing ever.

[Jace]

My Fellow Troubadorks

I would like to propose a motion to change the name of your band to this.
Further amendments that would be considered would be dropping the "My Fellow"

[Carl-E]

I used to follow a band called the Dorkestra.  Names like that work! 

[pwhodges]

Fun back at the office, it seems. The anti-virus package used by the university (Sophos) is flagging its own updater as a virus!

[Carl-E]

... it could be right.  I've had a few mock-updates in the past. 

[Patrick]

My Fellow Troubadorks

I would like to propose a motion to change the name of your band to this.
Further amendments that would be considered would be dropping the "My Fellow"

Pt. 1: I'm afraid we're far too deep in love with the name we've got now. I can work on pt. 2 but no promises, it's just how I talk!

[Barmymoo]

Ugh. Why did I decide that today was a good day for my first tutoring lesson with a new student? I am still jet lagged, I have nowhere to store my luggage, I am not certain my bike isn't a pile of rust so I will have to walk, and I just want to sleeeeeep. I guess it's lucky that I have something to get up and out for, because I'm meant to be out of this guest room by nine thirty. At least tomorrow I can sleep for as long as I want.

[Redball]

Was there any adrenaline to be found in tutoring a new student?

[Patrick]

The Girl and I have talked on the phone both nights since meeting. I haven't crushed this hard on anyone in a very long time. ohgodwhatdoido

[Jace]

Put all of your penises in her.

[Jace]

ALL OF THEM.

[Jace]

ALL. OF. THEM.

[Patrick]

I only have two

[Jace]

ALL. OF. THEM.

[Zingoleb]

Be more like your avatar, Patrick.

[dr. nervioso]

I only have two

Superglue plus dildos

[pwhodges]

Bye bye USA; hullo jet lag!

[Barmymoo]

How is the jet lag feeling? I think I'd have got over mine far faster if I stopped staying up so late earlier on...

There are so many things I want to do, and not enough time or money to do them all

[pwhodges]

Seriously overslept this morning, so late in to work - but feeling fine.

[Lupercal]

So a very good friend of mine wrote a radio play last year that we got commissioned for our local student radio. After a change of department heads things started to go downhill, but he suffered through many edits and meetings and finally got the date for today, 6pm. What happens? It isn't played. Instead, there is just two hours of autopiloted indie garbage instead - no one was actually in the studio.

Pretty annoyed, as this guy worked really hard on it and hey, I star in it, so I was peeved not to have had this programme on when suggested. I'm going to be raising all kinds of hell over this, but for the time being we'll either get it re-commissioned or just sling it on YouTube.

Also, I 'changed' my hours just for one day today - worked 8am till 4pm, meaning I got home at 5:45pm which is so much nicer than getting home at 7.30. But is it too early in my employment-length to be asking to do awkward crap like change hours? Probably.

[Patrick]

I've had a great day. People at work were awesome, my one manager who sucks genuinely went out of her way to try and be helpful, and not a lot of serious lifting for once (that shit suuuuuuucks, got stuff in there that weighs what I do). Got to chill with the bandmates, got to chill with a lot of folks who rock. My friend Brandon (originally from here) is visiting from his new home of Portland. Fuuuuuuuck I am happy to see that guy. Some cats, you don't see or talk for months, and they come back and it's like you had a great night together just yesterday.

I love rad days.

[Barmymoo]

Lupercal, unless you changing your hours would require other people to change theirs, or there is some other reason why they need you at those hours, I don't see why it isn't worth asking. As long as you're not belligerent about it the worst that can happen is they say no.

[Zingoleb]

I just had an impromptu midnight date with a pretty cute girl and together we polished off a very large can of beer (her polishing) and half a bottle of wine (my polishing)

I feel very polished.

[Pilchard123]

I might be getting a new computer soon. It's a little more than I was planning on spending, but I've got fed up with waiting for prices to drop and I wanted to get myself a leaving-college present anyway.

[Lines]

No you don't, that jackass who is keeping it does. And if he knows the guy, that's pretty low to not give it back.

[Barmymoo]

You don't want to accidentally steal my laptop, do you?

[LTK]

"Well, to prove the authenticity of your claim, I'll ask you a riddle: What kinds of fetish porn are there on this laptop?"

[ackblom12]

"All of them."

[jwhouk]

/end_thread