Gendering animals serves to normalise bioessentialist conceptions of gender. When we gender animals, we forget that sex is assigned. We begin to believe that sex is literally ~in~ the body.
Honest, I am supposed to be working, but I had to peek in, saw this and realized that one of my arguments against the idea that gender overrides sex has now been destroyed. I surrender. If gender is assigned at birth in all the beasties and flowers (bee suck my lady pistil if you disagree!) then I can no longer tell someone with confidence that humans are not able to change sex any more than other animals (besides clownfish and Jurassic Park Dinosaurs.)
Holy tap-dancing Christ on a cracker how dumb are these people? Even if their pet ladybrains hypothesis is true it’s still 100% in the body. It is now confirmed to be a religion (not that I wasn’t already convinced, this just nails it down).
Animals don’t a gender. They have a sex. This really isn’t that hard.
In some languages they do. And that can be sex-specific or species-specific (e.g. Latin “aquila” eagle, feminine regardless of the animal’s sex, or Hebrew “yona” dove, feminine regardless of the animal’s sex).
But it’s not the animal that has that gender. It’s the word that the languages use to refer to the animal that has that gender. That can affect to some degree how speakers of the language perceive the animal (there’s a lot of debate about that), but it has no effect on animal behavior.
Gender, in both the way feminists talk about it and the way TRAs talk about it, applies only to humans.
More and more often, I find myself thinking of the quote attributed to Mark Twain: “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.’
Who is “assigning” sex to animals, anyway? Are there evil patriarchal Lion Doctors who oppressively assign the sex to the cubs, denying the essential lady-lion nature of the beastie on the left?
You have to admit, this is at least self-consistent with their ideas about human sex. One of the things I always wondered is ‘why are humans the only animals they apply their ideas to?’ Well, here you go, the logical consequence of gender ideology.
I mean, it’s dumb as hell, but it’s consistent, which in a way makes it more sensible than your typical gender ideologue.
My father was a dairy farmer. When a calf was born my father would turn it over to check its sex. Heifer – kept to be raised for milking. Bobby calf – to the factory for immediate slaughter. Poor bawling beast (and its frantic mother as we took it away) – if only it had identified as a heifer it could have had a few years in the fields and in the cow shed with the rest of the herd.
Also my dad would have been very happy to “assign” the calves female – that would have doubled the number of milk producers.
Fond memories of the hilarious hack during my college days when signs appeared in various places on campus, notably in the tunnels, saying No Toad Sexing. The phrase has apparently turned into some kind of shibboleth in the decades since.
Sometimes it’s a problem for me that GC finds itself citing The Federalist, FOX News, The Post-Millenial, and garbage people like Bari Weiss and Ben Schapiro.
I also don’t like it when people I enjoy reading or listening to pronounce that Meaghan Murphy or Graham Linehan are horrible people as if it’s just a given that they are. And that “TERFs” are just evil, hateful creatures.
Then I think about the rape and death threats uttered and posted by transwomen against GC feminists. And the transwomen who claim to have period cramps. And the serial rapists claiming to be women. And Jonathan Yaniv. And Barbie Kardashian. And how the fact that the scores of young women desisting or trying to de-transition is never mentioned when people talk about “medical care” for trans youth. How TRA’s are, in fact, denying the existence of de-Trans people.
Anyway, some serious stuff to chew on from that twitter thread :
Me: I have said this before, but I share your (pain?). Writers and internet communities I otherwise enjoy blithely buy into the whole trans ideology. Even bloggers who are rigorously rational when it comes to religion somehow accept the whole “what I say and feel is what is true” argument which is the core of trans ideology. Which, given that I am not a woman being replaced by TWAW activists, is one reason it bugs me so…the sheer irrationality.
@KBPlayer #16, it reminds me of one of my then girlfriends university biology lab partners. They were doing an exercise where they had to give a rat a vaginal swab (I don’t know why), then kill the rat and dissect it and identify the reproductive organs. Her partner was having trouble finding the correct bits and the tutor came over to have a look.
T: That’s a male rat!
S: Oh! Maybe that’s why it bit me when I did the swab…
Coda, as the male rat was in the same cage as all the female rats, the hoped for swab experiment was scrapped, because non of the rats were supposed to be pregnant.
You see, there’s this this army of mandrill midwives roaming the savannah, anointing newborn animals with gourd juices and dirt and assigning them a sex, before carrying them up a rocky outcrop and dramatically thrusting them into the sky to be cheered by all the other animals in the vicinity. Blasting out Elton John tunes is optional.
KB, my dad raises dairy castoffs to supply boutique beef to Seattle’s finest hipsters. So thank your dad for colonializing them with gender binarism; otherwise my dad couldn’t get them for free.
Honest, I am supposed to be working, but I had to peek in, saw this and realized that one of my arguments against the idea that gender overrides sex has now been destroyed. I surrender. If gender is assigned at birth in all the beasties and flowers (bee suck my lady pistil if you disagree!) then I can no longer tell someone with confidence that humans are not able to change sex any more than other animals (besides clownfish and Jurassic Park Dinosaurs.)
Go Laurel! (Sigh)
Holy tap-dancing Christ on a cracker how dumb are these people? Even if their pet ladybrains hypothesis is true it’s still 100% in the body. It is now confirmed to be a religion (not that I wasn’t already convinced, this just nails it down).
Those animals are so beautiful. Thank you for those photos, Ophelia!
Animals don’t a gender. They have a sex. This really isn’t that hard.
In some languages they do. And that can be sex-specific or species-specific (e.g. Latin “aquila” eagle, feminine regardless of the animal’s sex, or Hebrew “yona” dove, feminine regardless of the animal’s sex).
@GW,
But it’s not the animal that has that gender. It’s the word that the languages use to refer to the animal that has that gender. That can affect to some degree how speakers of the language perceive the animal (there’s a lot of debate about that), but it has no effect on animal behavior.
Gender, in both the way feminists talk about it and the way TRAs talk about it, applies only to humans.
Stop colonializing those lions!
From the same Twitter writer. Ugh. https://twitter.com/ButNotTheCity/status/1407843430785560578
More and more often, I find myself thinking of the quote attributed to Mark Twain: “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.’
Who is “assigning” sex to animals, anyway? Are there evil patriarchal Lion Doctors who oppressively assign the sex to the cubs, denying the essential lady-lion nature of the beastie on the left?
Just to be pedantic here:
Pistil is the female structure of the plant, so it isn’t a great analogy. To be a good analogy, it would need to be suck my lady stamen.
Sorry. My inner (and outer) botanist is showing. Years of studying botany cannot be overcome.
You have to admit, this is at least self-consistent with their ideas about human sex. One of the things I always wondered is ‘why are humans the only animals they apply their ideas to?’ Well, here you go, the logical consequence of gender ideology.
I mean, it’s dumb as hell, but it’s consistent, which in a way makes it more sensible than your typical gender ideologue.
My father was a dairy farmer. When a calf was born my father would turn it over to check its sex. Heifer – kept to be raised for milking. Bobby calf – to the factory for immediate slaughter. Poor bawling beast (and its frantic mother as we took it away) – if only it had identified as a heifer it could have had a few years in the fields and in the cow shed with the rest of the herd.
Also my dad would have been very happy to “assign” the calves female – that would have doubled the number of milk producers.
Well, it would certainly lead to some interesting milking experiences.
I almost checked myself before posting, too. :)
@Rob #14 – Yes, a kick from a stroppy cow was bad enough. A stroppy bull…
Fond memories of the hilarious hack during my college days when signs appeared in various places on campus, notably in the tunnels, saying No Toad Sexing. The phrase has apparently turned into some kind of shibboleth in the decades since.
Sometimes it’s a problem for me that GC finds itself citing The Federalist, FOX News, The Post-Millenial, and garbage people like Bari Weiss and Ben Schapiro.
I also don’t like it when people I enjoy reading or listening to pronounce that Meaghan Murphy or Graham Linehan are horrible people as if it’s just a given that they are. And that “TERFs” are just evil, hateful creatures.
Then I think about the rape and death threats uttered and posted by transwomen against GC feminists. And the transwomen who claim to have period cramps. And the serial rapists claiming to be women. And Jonathan Yaniv. And Barbie Kardashian. And how the fact that the scores of young women desisting or trying to de-transition is never mentioned when people talk about “medical care” for trans youth. How TRA’s are, in fact, denying the existence of de-Trans people.
Anyway, some serious stuff to chew on from that twitter thread :
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/24/opinions/attacking-transgender-people-is-attacking-science-turban-gill-peterson/index.html
Me: I have said this before, but I share your (pain?). Writers and internet communities I otherwise enjoy blithely buy into the whole trans ideology. Even bloggers who are rigorously rational when it comes to religion somehow accept the whole “what I say and feel is what is true” argument which is the core of trans ideology. Which, given that I am not a woman being replaced by TWAW activists, is one reason it bugs me so…the sheer irrationality.
@KBPlayer #16, it reminds me of one of my then girlfriends university biology lab partners. They were doing an exercise where they had to give a rat a vaginal swab (I don’t know why), then kill the rat and dissect it and identify the reproductive organs. Her partner was having trouble finding the correct bits and the tutor came over to have a look.
T: That’s a male rat!
S: Oh! Maybe that’s why it bit me when I did the swab…
Coda, as the male rat was in the same cage as all the female rats, the hoped for swab experiment was scrapped, because non of the rats were supposed to be pregnant.
Brian M #10
You see, there’s this this army of mandrill midwives roaming the savannah, anointing newborn animals with gourd juices and dirt and assigning them a sex, before carrying them up a rocky outcrop and dramatically thrusting them into the sky to be cheered by all the other animals in the vicinity. Blasting out Elton John tunes is optional.
KB, my dad raises dairy castoffs to supply boutique beef to Seattle’s finest hipsters. So thank your dad for colonializing them with gender binarism; otherwise my dad couldn’t get them for free.
What a pack of numpties. (All the better comments were taken already, curse my timezone!)
Come now, Holms. This topic is not exhausted. Nobody has yet mentioned those supervillains of colonialist gender-binary imposers, the chicken sexers!
https://psmag.com/magazine/the-lucrative-art-of-chicken-sexing
They each arbitrarily limit the hopes and dreams of one yellow fluffball every three seconds!
@Rob#20
Very funny. A cat neighbour has started to pay me calls. I’m assuming he is a gentleman caller because he is big, ugly and has a horrible yowl.
@Papito #22
My dad was a dairy farmer in the days before hipsters. I imagine the calves were turned into dog food.