Thought provoking article.

[Rakuall]

Give this a read. It offers a new take on gender identity, one which I think is more appropriate than our 0/1 system now. It suggests a gender identity scale, and I think that's a great new way of expanding our bucket of available labels. (let's be honest, no one wants to be labeled, but everyone applies at least some labels. I think the way to ease out labeling is to provide so many that no one knows which apply. After that, we can narrow it to decent human and indecent human.)

Anyway, I wondered what you lot think of this, and where you might consider yourself to fall on a new --(Female)0-100(Male)-- scale? I'm probably in the mid 80's.

[Dro]

...Is it?

I mean, kids do stupid stuff all the time. Bringing "Gender roles" into things is making something from nothing.

[Rakuall]

But carrying it on into high school (where a gender identity starts to form) and adult-hood (where it is well established) is not kids doing crazy things. Did you even read the whole thing?

[Dro]

You honestly think this kid will carry on wearing capri's and dresses in high school?

I think we should Identify or at least describe gender roles before we get into this.

[Rakuall]

I don't know what the kid will do as he grows older. There are other people, at other stages of their lives, brought up. Again, read the whole article before commenting on it.

[Dro]

I did the first time Rak, reading it more won't change my opinion.

[baconslice]

It's basically moot point. Sex (ie boy/girl) is fact, but gender is ambiguous, and these "roles" only serve to categorise individuals. Whether other peoples choices bother you or not is up to you. But i say, you want to wear z skirt, go for it. Even if I think it's weird.
I also feel this post applies to gaming, in that how many people when you tell them you play warhammer, stereotype you?
Ultimately the answer is, stereotypes are a difficult subject,

[Deleted]

Rating people on a gradient between 2 ends is the same as being put in either category with a softer tone. Be whatever you wish/feel and don't worry about labels. I hear a lot about this all the time and have spent a lot of time around people who this is a big issue is. Funny thing is, they are the only people ever bringing it up and simultaneously feeling offended about being labeled with gender terms. What we need is empathy and embracing of difference. Not a new label system. If the gradient became standard, the next generation will feel frustrated that it's a 2d scale and will find a 3rd axis to toss in.

[WestRider]

Even Biological Sex is more of a continuum than a binary setup. Why wouldn't Gender Identity be different?

@60mm: The problem is that a lot of people have a lot of trouble thinking about things beyond their own personal experience if they don't have words to put on them. Language is an integral part of how we think about the world, and categorizing is a big part of that. Beyond that, too many people take the idea that everyone is equal to mean that everyone is the same, and unless you have explicit ways of describing differences clearly and non-judgementally, they are taken as defects, perversions, damage. Clear communication is key to understanding of what lies beyond our own personal experience.

Even within ourselves, it can be hard to understand without the right terminology. It has become so much easier for me to live my life in a way that consistently works since I was able to put labels like "depression", "anxiety", "addiction", "insomnia", and "genderqueer" on things that I'd been feeling all my life. If it's not being discussed, and you don't see anyone else out there who seems to be feeling the same things you do, the only rational result is to conclude that what you are is somehow wrong or broken. Just knowing that it's a thing, that others feel the same way, makes a huge difference in accepting oneself, and learning to deal well with the challenges and benefits that your differences may entail.

[ziyousansz]

This is something I discuss with my wife a bit, because it's one of her big-ticket fascinations. The way I look at it may be simplistic, but I feel it's applicable:

Gender identity is something on a gradient scale, and no two people are identical. You have as many gender identities as you have humans living at one time. You can lump them into roundabout groups based on certain things, but at the base, you have a 1:1 ratio of gender identities to living people. Why, then, go through the issue of labeling everybody with one?

Now, this is where she and I differ. My nihilistic tendencies lean me to the "it doesn't matter" camp, while she crusades on this topic. The kid in the article will develop down his own path, no doubt. Everyone does.

[WestRider]

Aug 11, 2012 1:31:50 GMT ziyousansz said:

Gender identity is something on a gradient scale, and no two people are identical. You have as many gender identities as you have humans living at one time. You can lump them into roundabout groups based on certain things, but at the base, you have a 1:1 ratio of gender identities to living people. Why, then, go through the issue of labeling everybody with one?

Again, because many, perhaps most, people, can't really understand things outside their own experience effectively if they don't have labels for them.

And the first reaction to things that are not understood is to fear them. Which usually leads next to something unpleasant, one way or another.

[ziyousansz]

I can understand that, Westrider. The problem I've always had with labeling is that it becomes double-edged easily.

The real problem is the revulsion factor some carry towards certain ideas. As long as those feelings are in place, the situation never really clears up. There's no easy way to break this, either, since it's formed from a complex mixing of education, personal beliefs, and peer consensus. Education is usually the easiest way to tackle this, but it takes a long time and the communities don't often reflect what kids are learning. Usually it takes a good amount of interaction with a certain community before the community becomes tolerated, and longer to gain acceptance. The early stages are always messy, because human nature is to make a big mess of everything it can (personal belief).

This is where you get to the issue. On the one hand, you have created a label and begun a community that is vying for acceptance and understanding. On the other hand, you have created a community that is "strange" enough to be feared but small enough to be attacked. Given sufficient time, most of this will give way to tolerance and acceptance, but it never fully goes away. If you've ever wanted an idea on how long it takes to fully achieve tolerance, just look at how many anti-Semites are left in the world.

So, the good side is that you can join with others, better learn about yourself, better identify yourself, and have acceptance within a community of your peers. On the other side, it never truly gets better, and at some level you have to accept that people are just people and most will never grow past a certain level.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

[WestRider]

If you don't start trying to create some kind of group, tho, you're just stuck being a weirdo out on your own, and you'll never make progress toward that kind of education and community because no one will even know that whatever group you're part of is a thing.

And yeah, it takes a long time, but I kind of have this hope that as we get more and more technology that lets us communicate better and more broadly, we'll get at least a bit better about coming to understand each other faster.

And it is possible to make progress. It wasn't that long ago, really, that being Irish or Italian in the US left you as bad off as being Black. Even if only in some very small areas, by very small steps, we are doing better as a species as time goes on.

[Psychichobo]

The problem is biologically humans are a pack animal and tend to reject and fear anything considered different. Minority groups tend to get the brunt of this as a result, and in situations where the humans are young and still in school it's difficult to stop such hostility from developing. Labels do help in this situation since it affirms a particular type or group that can in time become an accepted norm.

The problem it does have however is that it can force people into feeling they have to be in a category, which is what the gradient system is meant to combat. Gradually if we remove distinct labels and create a society where people simply aren't called straight, gay, bisexual or even graded whatsoever, but rather simply treated as who we are, we will be able to prevent some identity crisis or confusion.

However, again, we are pack animals biologically and certain instinctive behaviours are hard to deny. Westrider mentioned that being able to identify his particular problems helped him tremendously, and as intellectually inquisitive beings we like to have distinct facts at our disposal. It's difficult to stop the human psyche from reverting to the simplest explanation - I know a lot of older people who were very much into tolerance and free speech who now are pretty right wing. It's a more difficult struggle than it initially seems.