21–30 of 85 posts
> Time is a constant. Verifiably false, but pedantic.
If you abandon common sense and gender is a construct, race and age should be a construct, or however you want to call it, people should be able to change it.
For a second I thought I was reading The Onion. I do however like the philosophical nature of the question: If people can change their gender based on they feel, why can’t they change their age?
> If people can change their gender based on they feel, why can’t they change their age? One of these is subjective. The other is not.
For a second I thought I was reading The Onion. I do however like the philosophical nature of the question: If people can change their gender based on they feel, why can’t they change their age?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
i think the important difference with age is that there are hard legal implications that go along with it, that SHOULDN'T exist over the dimensions of sex and race. The one that flies out at me is retirement or senior benefits. There may be some options only available to people of color, or women, but not as widespread as the implications of age. If this passed, could I become 65 and start withdrawing my 401k penalty…
> i think the important difference with age is that there are hard legal implications that go along with it, that SHOULDN'T exist over the dimensions of sex and race There are many incentives for women. Think about tax cuts for starting a company, etc. etc. Do you want to remove those incentives? > If this passed, could I become 65 and start withdrawing my 401k penalty-free? Well, women (at least in Italy or Europe I…
I'm from the US and haven't heard of this before. Is there a widespread rationale for this? As a whole, women live longer, so equating "retired years" doesn't seem plausible.
In the US, you get (easy) access to 401k and IRA at 59.5 years old, and social security can't be claimed until 62. Gender doesn't matter.
I don't see why one can change sex, but not change age, race, etc.
It's an issue of fact vs expression/perception. There was a moment in time when you started breathing outside of your mother's womb. There is usually a witness and time is a one-way metric. Gender expression is a different, more complex matter. There has always been "grey" areas from an anatomy perspective and I think there is consensus that other factors affect this as well. Race, depending on context, is even more…
Yes, extremely rare ones. It's not clear to me what the existence of the occasional XXY individual, etc., has to do with the idea that gender is just a social construct.
For a second I thought I was reading The Onion. I do however like the philosophical nature of the question: If people can change their gender based on they feel, why can’t they change their age?
"Gender" is a social construct but while "old" or "young" is a social construct "69 years old" isn't really.
If he looks as young as he feels, then he doesn't need to legally change his age to say he is 49 on Tinder.
> Time is a constant. Verifiably false, but pedantic.
Scientists can prove someone's gender by looking at his/her chromosomes, can't they (if you take exceptions, there are people born with 4 arms, or even 2 heads: was a new species created, or it's just very rare exceptions?)..? If you abandon common sense and gender is a construct, race and age should be a construct, or however you want to call it, people should be able to change it.
Only in the vast majority of cases. There are XX, XY, YY, XXY, and even more esoteric versions!
I don't see why one can change sex, but not change age, race, etc.
i think the important difference with age is that there are hard legal implications that go along with it, that SHOULDN'T exist over the dimensions of sex and race. The one that flies out at me is retirement or senior benefits. There may be some options only available to people of color, or women, but not as widespread as the implications of age. If this passed, could I become 65 and start withdrawing my 401k penalty…
> Time is a constant. Verifiably false, but pedantic.
Scientists can prove someone's gender by looking at his/her chromosomes, can't they (if you take exceptions, there are people born with 4 arms, or even 2 heads: was a new species created, or it's just very rare exceptions?)..? If you abandon common sense and gender is a construct, race and age should be a construct, or however you want to call it, people should be able to change it.
Gender is a social construct. But they can't tell that for physiological sex either. Humans have a whole host of secondary sexual characteristics, most of which are more important than genitals in determining how other people categorize them. But even ignoring all of that, chromosomes don't strictly determine what sex characteristics someone ends up with. AIUI a lot of this has to do with the presence or absence of a testosterone wash in-utero (which itself is supposed to be determined by chromosomes, but this doesn't always work).
There have been documented cases of women with XY chromosomes who not only exhibit all the usual female sexual characteristics, but even have working ovaries and have carried babies to term. In fact, while I don't have it handy, there was a story not that long ago about a woman with XY chromosomes successfully having a baby, and then they discovered that her mother also had XY chromosomes.