“As long as you’re having a debate without being transphobic, then you can have a discussion and a debate. TWAW, TMAM.”
So we can discuss and debate as we wish… provided we start from the TWAW position. That is, so long as we concede the very concept being contested, which renders the first statement a lie.
One wonders whether they believe that, say, bovines or cats or dogs or chickens are also born without a sex. Or is it just humans that have to await the magical gender fairy?
@Papito – You do wonder if Butler has any brothers or sisters, or ever owned a pet rabbit.
I am heavily influenced on this issue from my dairy farming background. A calf would be kept if a heifer, and sent to the factory if bobby. It was inspected soon after birth and its fate would be decided. The poor beast would have chosen female if it could.
This does make me think that people like Dawn Butler must be from a totally urban background. These days children are taken to farms to be shown that meat, milk, wheat for flour etc are actually grown. They don’t just arrive in packets at the supermarket. The brutal facts of sex are very apparent in husbandry. It’s part of the total alienation from nature (though surely she’s watched enough David Attenborough to note the difference between eg lions and lionesses).
The other aspect is how sheltered this view is from societies where the sex differences are highly differentiated – from places like India where girl children are aborted, or traditional Muslim societies where the sexes are segregated. In our society up to quite recently the birth of a boy was celebrated with cigars and general congratulations while girls were seen as a stopgap to next time. (That was before men were generally present at the birth – it was very much a women’s and doctor’s business). That isn’t the case any longer, and the 2 sexes have similar educations, and job opportunities that are not much differentiated in sedentary work at least.
You would have to be cosseted to think that sex is something you can choose, and that won’t make much difference anyway to your worldly prospects, except for your inner feelings about what pursuits you follow.
“Violent and vicious debate” eh?
“As long as you’re having a debate without being transphobic, then you can have a discussion and a debate. TWAW, TMAM.”
So we can discuss and debate as we wish… provided we start from the TWAW position. That is, so long as we concede the very concept being contested, which renders the first statement a lie.
One wonders whether they believe that, say, bovines or cats or dogs or chickens are also born without a sex. Or is it just humans that have to await the magical gender fairy?
@Papito – You do wonder if Butler has any brothers or sisters, or ever owned a pet rabbit.
I am heavily influenced on this issue from my dairy farming background. A calf would be kept if a heifer, and sent to the factory if bobby. It was inspected soon after birth and its fate would be decided. The poor beast would have chosen female if it could.
This does make me think that people like Dawn Butler must be from a totally urban background. These days children are taken to farms to be shown that meat, milk, wheat for flour etc are actually grown. They don’t just arrive in packets at the supermarket. The brutal facts of sex are very apparent in husbandry. It’s part of the total alienation from nature (though surely she’s watched enough David Attenborough to note the difference between eg lions and lionesses).
The other aspect is how sheltered this view is from societies where the sex differences are highly differentiated – from places like India where girl children are aborted, or traditional Muslim societies where the sexes are segregated. In our society up to quite recently the birth of a boy was celebrated with cigars and general congratulations while girls were seen as a stopgap to next time. (That was before men were generally present at the birth – it was very much a women’s and doctor’s business). That isn’t the case any longer, and the 2 sexes have similar educations, and job opportunities that are not much differentiated in sedentary work at least.
You would have to be cosseted to think that sex is something you can choose, and that won’t make much difference anyway to your worldly prospects, except for your inner feelings about what pursuits you follow.