It’s now orthodoxy that a man can become a woman?

That’s a question of the soul being misaligned with the body.

That’s not a scientific question at all.

That means that it’s a claim for which there is no evidence, and no means of proving or disproving -except for the obvious fact that none of us believed it until 5 seconds ago.

Teleological issue.

@RobinMarie wrote:

@Tanischri87 wrote:

It really didn't.

@walesmaven wrote:

This "stuff" always existed; we just did not address it.

Tell that to the indigenous people.

Humans can clock sex the vast majority of the time. It is how there are so many of us. Any adult knows this and is lying if they claim otherwise.

Gender is a set of stereotypes and a hierarchy of male (masculine) above female (feminine). I have no interest in reifying gender/sex role stereotypes.

Tell the women in women’s prisons who have male rapists with all their male body parts showering with them that it’s no big deal and there are bigger problems in the world.

Tell the rape victims who were raped by males using their male members, and then are forced to go through a trial not only hearing everyone else call the male “she,” but being told by the judge she must call her rapist “she” or SHE, the victim, will be fined, that it’s no biggie and she should think about Ukraine.

Tell the women who are being pushed out of spaces they have only recently been allowed to enter, by males, that it’s not important.

Tell the future gay and lesbian children who are being experimented on with off-label drugs that will make them sterile, lose bone density and more, that it’s no biggie and they should worry about climate change.

Tell the 7 children who were abused on at least 30 occasions by a particular male pedophile in the UK when they were children (age 6-15) that their abuser just declared he’s a woman and that it’s a hate crime to call him “he,” and that there are more important things to worry about.

Tell the woman in Norway facing jail because she tweeted that males aren’t women that she should think of other things.

Tell the rape victims in Vancouver who have their shelter graffitied and with a dead rat nailed to the door because it is the only shelter for rape victims that doesn’t allow males in the province, and perhaps country, that no one cares about them because we’re thinking about the next pandemic.

Two spirit people and hijiras never before claimed they were actually females or women. They were effeminate and/or gay males. It is only after the west pushed these ideas that in India some hijiras now claim they are actually women.

I have done more shops for a client that is one of the companies I hate most in the world than any other project, and I grudgingly leave politics at home. I will use “the cashier,” etc. if the idea is not to show who we are talking about. But I will not use “they is” or use “she” for a male under any circumstances under any threat or for any amount of money. I hope that shops that require that language make it clear before they’re assigned.

@shopnyc wrote:

Sex and gender are two different things. Sex is biology, and anatomy. Gender is how one sees themselves and expresses that; it's subjective. See [www.genderbread.org]

If gender is separate from sex, then why are sex change operations the "solution" to gender dysphoria?

Why are gross stereotypes and caricatures of women the substitutes we are seeing by the alphabet people?

If this is the case, then there is no particular social value in these distinctions -particularly when observing mystery shops. Sex would be a much more useful presentation for describing individuals accurately, and quickly. And it would not necessitate playing make believe.

There are many many many women across the globe-billions of us (in our own respective languages)-who do NOT accept this language as it is primarily used to erode hard-won protections for women. There are two, and only two, sexes. Anyone familiar with abusive relationships can recognize the gaslighting involved in telling a woman she is phobic for recognizing who the males are, or the absurdity that male puberty does not mean greater speed and strength and size. Ableists who claim that intersex people aren’t male or female are only harming those with DSD’s.
Gender has always been used to keep women down, and more women each day who formerly had accepted these linguistic changes are realizing the harms they bring. Gender is inherently not “neutral,” as it is a hierarchy, and any casual research into the matter will show that very often the women’s space is turned into “gender neutral,” while the men’s space is as intact as their body parts for 90% of those who ID as trans.
Lesbians are being threatened with rape if they don’t declare that lesbians can have male members.

(and yes to whoever said it, like I said, obviously I am not going to do any shop that requires this and will try to avoid the client generally in my own life. I said I hope this information is in the details of the shop before being assigned).

@Rousseau wrote:

@shawnthewoman wrote:

I came across one of these shops that specifically wanted me to use "they" in place of "he" or "she." As soon as I read the instructions, I could hear my eighth grade English teacher yelling in my ear how that was improper grammar. Instead of using "they" I used "the associate." I noted at the end of the report that after having spent most of my life trying to perfect my writing skills, I was not about to begin using improper English in my reports. The report was approved.

Language evolves. "They" is now an accepted gender-neutral singular pronoun. Hopefully your former English teacher has evolved with the language.

@BirdyC wrote:

I prefer a term that had been bandied about at one time: ze. Perfectly clear as a third-person singular noun. Eliminates the he/she/they conundrum altogether if one is writing about a person of unknown/unstated gender or unknown preference as to pronoun. I'm not sure why that didn't catch on. I wish it would.

Yes, I also think "ze" is a good solution.

@shopnyc wrote:

@BirdyC wrote:

I prefer a term that had been bandied about at one time: ze. Perfectly clear as a third-person singular noun. Eliminates the he/she/they conundrum altogether if one is writing about a person of unknown/unstated gender or unknown preference as to pronoun. I'm not sure why that didn't catch on. I wish it would.

Yes, I also think "ze" is a good solution.

Think we can start the evolution/revolution? LOL. Only that we could. I've advocated for this in a language group I belong to, and the response was about 50/50.

Why am I showing up as starting this thread when all I did was give an unwelcome opinion in the actual thread in the Shopping discussion?
I’m not even the first post here in this section, nor did I start the thread in the MSC area. And if you’re going to move all the unacceptable replies, then at least move a copy of the original post as some background.
I see that it was all the unacceptable comments and they added two acceptable ones for good measure.

ETA Actually maybe it’s not acceptable to opine on what someone’s pronouns should be and there should be an infinite number of them declared by each person. Maybe that’s why those two were moved along with the heresy.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2022 12:38AM by Notme2021.

Thank you. The silver lining?I want to express that no poster or thread here is the subject of my wee rant.

Activism is my target.

The entire issue of sex/gender activism that has brought other people's sex and gender into my face offends me! !!!!! May I now start posting this in a new variation of me too?! I simply do not want to know anyone's gender, sex preferences, and related activities. They are all people of one sort of another, by nature or so-called nurture. I do not want or need more than than that. But activism has foisted this upon me. What could be wrong with taking a few giant steps backwards and removing this information from the pervasive in your/my/everyone's face to a wider relating space in which we could inquire of others with no expectation of response, or ask if we may share information with persons of interest or in whom we might entrust such information?

Look out, activism! You have offended me to the point of wanting to initiate a counter effort against you. Take that, offensiveness! Yah!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2022 02:39AM by Shop-et-al.

I think this was moved to general chat when it became more a discussion of roles, preferred pronouns, etc., than of shopping. So, @Notme2021, I don't think you were singled out as having started the thread. I think, and I could be wrong, that your post was probably just judged the starting point of the divergent discussion.

I, for one, am glad that it didn't get shut down, since some people seemed to want that to happen. I find this an enlightening conversation and a learning one. Never a bad thing.

But if you look at the first post in this new thread, it’s not me. (So to speak). So it makes no sense to put me as the thread starter. I was just the one that said more of the unacceptable opinion.
Two of us were singled out because of our opinions in the thread. (It’s possible we have very different reasons, and politics, etc, idk, but all the same unacceptable).

Like I said to the moderator in the original one, there are lots of posts of people in that thread talking about schools and triggers and non-shopping things that didn’t get moved. So it was not a matter of not talking about shopping.
Anyway, I’m not happy and I’m going to post here now but I’m not sure about continuing with this forum.

Shop et Al: I actually have v different views on that. Heterosexual couples don’t keep their heterosexuality a secret and do throw it in people’s faces, so I don’t think homosexuals need to hide either. That was the original meaning behind “Pride” My issue is that “gender” isn’t a sexual preference, that trans rights activism specifically is harmful to women and children, and like tanischri said, this is very new. Therefore it is a social phenomenon, it’s not just a matter of who people are. People with prejudice against gays and lesbians used to say that homosexuals would try to turn straight people gay. Now we have a phenomenon where that actually is happening: turning children and young people “transgender.”

I can tell you that in the 70’s/‘80’s in high school I was friends with a lot of people who were the so-called weirdos, the outcasts, troubled kids, and also the more radical and different kids, the LGB kids, and was in different youth groups where kids talked about everything happening in their lives, and I did not hear one single female say they were triggered by being referred, in the third person, as “she.” (Nor did I hear any male say they were born in the wrong body which was a very small group of males so that I did not know any) This included girls talking about rape, talking about hating men catcalling them, etc. Same goes for college etc. It’s new; it is not at all like sexual orientation—gays and lesbians have always existed and can be found in writings from Ancient Greece and before, etc. It’s a trend, it’s abusive to women for all the reasons I gave above in my other posts, and it’s a lie. Sex can’t be changed. Sex is noted at birth, no one is “assigned” anything, except for the fact that females are assigned negative qualities to go go with their sex and females positive qualities. Trans rights activists say that if you don’t abide with stereotypes, you’re not actually your sex. This isn’t smashing stereotypes or smashing “the gender binary,” it’s reifying them. If you look at any “transgender”organization around the globe, or any definition anywhere, it is full of stereotypes like clothes and presentation. A 12 year-old “tomboy” is now an actual boy. A man who has long hair (yes, hair is on the list) could be considered to be under the “trans umbrella.”

Another way to see that it’s a trend is to look at not just the numbers, but the sex of kids referred to “gender identity” clinics. The numbers used to be small and it was something like 90% boys and 10% girls. (Gender dysphoria is real, but it is pretty specific and was never a fad and was primarily experienced by boys). Now the numbers have shot up and it’s 90% female and 10% male. This is not gender dysphoria (which is best treated without telling a boy he’s really a girl) but a social phenomenon like eating disorders and cutting. It’s a social phenomenon that is especially affecting ore-lesbians and young lesbians. You can actually see photos of teenage girls with mastectomy scars who also have scars from self-harm/cutting. It is one of the most tragic sights I have witnessed. Their surgeons saw those self-harm scars and said “I’ll help you cut for real with a scalpel.” They should lose their licenses and be sent to jail if not hung like after the Neuremberg trials for experimenting on children and mentally unstable young adults who cannot consent to this surgery. Also, if you look at kids who traditionally suffered from gender dysphoria and were treated with talk therapy or just weren’t told they were actually “trans” and given time to deal with it, the vast majority “desisted,” or no longer had the dysphoria or thought they were the opposite sex once they passed puberty or reached adulthood or early 20’s. AND only 1% of them, when asked after desisting, said they were heterosexual. (The others were gay/lesbian orb”other” which I assumed was “I don’t know” and bisexual). So after worrying about gay conversion therapy, many liberals are now actively promoting it. Except that when children go on puberty blockers, nearly all continue to full cross-sex hormones and don’t “desist.” And they are then infertile and have a host of medical issues and side effects. So it’s gay conversion therapy with sterilization and medical harm. There was a workshop at a conference called “smashing the cotton ceiling.” The cotton? The underwear of lesbians. The workshop was on how males who identified as trans could get lesbians to have sex with them. That is gay conversion therapy via rape.

And the trend is growing: while the numbers of those children and young adults being medicalized is increasing drastically, the numbers of those just saying they identify as trans or “non-binary” have gone up even faster. Except that it’s in certain schools, and can be seen spreading as soon as a few kids identify that way. Demonstrating again that it’s a social phenomenon.

This trend is only being pushed back via activism: feminist and some other activism around the world (we are more behind here in this country). So activism per se isn’t the problem imo. (I am an activist by inclination and former profession, but from when activism meant actually attacking real problems and winning real solutions).

@BirdyC wrote:

I think this was moved to general chat when it became more a discussion of roles, preferred pronouns, etc., than of shopping. So, @Notme2021, I don't think you were singled out as having started the thread. I think, and I could be wrong, that your post was probably just judged the starting point of the divergent discussion.

I, for one, am glad that it didn't get shut down, since some people seemed to want that to happen. I find this an enlightening conversation and a learning one. Never a bad thing.

I have had enough and then some of all of it. The cumulative effect of technology, progressive ideas, and "rights" has cluttered the world with a disproportionate amount of gender/sex/sex. *scurries away to watch movies that are known for their presentation of other ideas about humanity*

I like ze as well.

i work through the schools and found the best way is to use second and third person