“Gender-affirming” can be used in a couple of ways. One is just generically by itself, suggesting that a male announces he’s a female or a female announces she’s a male, and someone with no qualifications at all to diagnose or treat gender dysphoria, e.g., a school teacher, takes the announcement at face value and encourages the person to “be who they are,” or some such thing. “Gender-affirming” can also be used in a phrase, often “gender-affirming therapy.” Is that really the job of a therapist, to “affirm” whatever self-diagnosis a patient presents with, perhaps accompanied by a little pat on the head? I thought the job of a therapist was to get to the root of whatever is causing a problem in a patient’s life and to work with them in a way that enables them to move forward. And the root of the problem may not be what the… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Gender
It’s Great to Be an American
Stanford University has released a guide to eliminate “harmful language.” I haven’t read it. It must be pretty extensive as it has 10 “harmful language” sections: ableist, ageism, colonialism, culturally appropriative, gender-based, imprecise language, institutionalized racism, person-first, violent and additional considerations. Among the words the university urges people to avoid is “American.” People are instead urged to use “U.S. Citizen” because “American” typically refers to “people from the United States only, thereby insinuating that the US is the most important country in the Americas.” The Americas, the index notes, comprises 42 countries. Well . . . the United States is the most important country in the Americas. Or if it isn’t, what is? Anyway, this guide reminds me of a couple of things. George Orwell used to say “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” And Salman… Read more →
What Does “Woke” Mean?
Recently I’ve heard “woke” defined as being awake to injustice, particularly racial injustice. That takes the edge off it. It makes it sound like a good thing, except to the extent that it propagates untrue ideas like racism is everywhere, or anything you don’t like is racist. Having an awareness of injustice is universal though, isn’t it? Although people have very different ideas about what’s just or unjust, everyone has their own sense of it. It doesn’t require a new word. We have words like “compassionate” and “empathetic” that seem to mean the same thing. I don’t think even the person or persons who coined the word “woke” meant it to be as inoffensive as “being awake to injustice.” I think it was intended to be confrontational. Here’s another possible definition: Making sweeping, prejudicial generalizations about race, gender and sexual orientation. I like that definition better. I think it’s useful… Read more →
The New Transgender Standard
A person's gender is what they say it is or what Natalee Bingham says it is? Also: a person who is clearly a man in a dress says another can't be female because they don't look female. https://t.co/542CEueO2B — Paul Epps (@paulepps) November 25, 2022 Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Assigned at Birth
As in, “He was assigned male at birth.” It sounds like other options were available, doesn’t it? Like a child being assigned a name or a house at Hogwarts. Is there any plausible scenario where the child would be assigned anything other than male at birth? Suppose the doctor said, “I assign this child as female.” And then the parents freak out and say “Are you fucking nuts?! He’s not female, he’s got a penis.” “Hmmm,” says the doctor. “Well . . . you’ve got me there.” If it wasn’t so easy to determine the sex of a newborn at a glance — it doesn’t require a medical degree — you could go with a DNA test, since every cell in the human body is marked male or female. That never changes, no matter how many hormones you take or how many surgeries you have. It’s biological and permanent. In… Read more →
See You in Hell, Educators
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings mortals! Even though an alarmingly high percentage of Americans think the sun orbits the earth, can’t find the Pacific Ocean on a map, half the residents of Detroit can’t read, rather than teach basic literacy, science or geography, K-12 public school teachers in the U.S. will be teaching “expanding” gender identities and “evolving” sexual orientations. This instruction will be informed by the National Sex Ed Standards: Core Content and Skills, K-12 (Second Edition) I included a link to it because you will not believe me when I tell you what’s in it. For example: BY THE END OF THE 5TH GRADE, STUDENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO: Distinguish between sex assigned at birth and gender identity and explain how they may or may not differ. Define and explain differences between cisgender, transgender, gender nonbinary, gender expansive,… Read more →
Non-Toxic Masculinity: Women and Children First
According to Titanic Belfast (“She was alright when she left here”), 72 percent of the women aboard Titanic survived vs. 19 percent of the men. (In 1912, people were arbitrarily divided into only two genders!) “Women and children first” — who came up with that idea? Men! Had they wanted to get in a lifeboat, they could have just pitched the women into the sea. But no . . . You go ahead, honey. I’ll just stay here on the boat and drown. Read more →
5 Questions on the Covington Story
A group of black men taunted a group of white kids as faggots, incest babies and niggers (one kid was black). Would the story have been reported differently if the men were white and the kids were black? Would the story have been reported differently (or at all) if a white guy was banging a drum in an Indian kid’s face? Would the story have been reported differently if no one was wearing a MAGA hat? Would the story have been reported differently if the kids were girls instead of boys? (Again, assume no MAGA hats.) Should morality of action be calculated based on race, sex and hats? (I’m going to say no to this one.) Read more →
They Submitted Fake Papers to Peer-Reviewed Journals — Here’s What Happened Next
Three writers produced 20 intentionally outlandish academic papers and submitted them to the best peer-reviewed journals associated with fields of scholarship loosely known as “cultural studies” or “identity studies” (for example, gender studies) or “critical theory.” Seven of the papers were accepted for publication and seven more were still under review when the authors elected to end the experiment. Their point would seem to be that scholarship in these fields is based less upon finding truth and more upon attending to social grievances. Just about anything can be published, so long as it falls within the moral orthodoxy and demonstrates an understanding of the existing literature. The authors summarize their methodology as follows. (I’ve inserted the material in brackets from elsewhere in the article, which you should look at in its entirety because there’s too much good stuff to summarize.) What if we write a paper saying we should train… Read more →
What Did You Think “Woke” Meant?
It's weird that sweeping, prejudicial generalizations about race, gender and sexual orientation are now offered by some and accepted by others as woke. https://t.co/A8udKbtVh6 — Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) December 12, 2017 Read more →
Gender Sliders
First time I remember seeing this on a web form: Possible UI design trend: no more dropdowns or radio buttons for Gender, replace by sliders. Read more →