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Man, 69, loses legal battle against temporal reality in effort to become 49

washingtonpost.com

31–40 of 85 posts

Re: Man, 69, loses legal battle against temporal reality in effort to become 49

#31
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because words have meaning and none of those things are arbitrary.

Why, is gender arbitrary? There are albino blacks, blonde latinos, etc.

Sure there are, and all of those things are determined by biology, not choice. That said, this is a topic that could go off the rails and sideways very quickly...

Re: Man, 69, loses legal battle against temporal reality in effort to become 49

#32

> 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.

That's... not what I meant.

Re: Man, 69, loses legal battle against temporal reality in effort to become 49

#33
post #4

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?

“Age” and “gender” in this case are just entries in a government database somewhere. There’s no deep philosophy to it. Trans people wanted to be able to change their gender, so they fought hard for it—that’s what you need to do to get policies like this changed. If people want to be able to change their age, they’ll have to fight for that too.

Re: Man, 69, loses legal battle against temporal reality in effort to become 49

#34

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.

That's a violation of the terms of service.

Probably so. Do most people on Tinder abide by the ToS? If he looks 49, who is going to report him for a violation? If someone does report him, how hard is it to make a new account?

Re: Man, 69, loses legal battle against temporal reality in effort to become 49

#35
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No they can't. 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…

So the answer is that they in fact can in the _VAST_ majority of cases. An extremely rare exception doesn't negate the rule.

Re: Man, 69, loses legal battle against temporal reality in effort to become 49

#36
post #12
post #4

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.

People are male or female by genetics and have a personal perception of themselves as something other than that gender.

I can totally see how someone might be 69, but still running triathlons, and want to identify with an effective age that is 49.

I fail to see how these two cases are different.

Re: Man, 69, loses legal battle against temporal reality in effort to become 49

#37
post #12
post #4

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.

But on a birth certificate they show sex, not gender.

Re: Man, 69, loses legal battle against temporal reality in effort to become 49

#38
post #5

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…

The fact is that these differences im sex exist (and increasing). I would happily change my official gender to be able to be a board member (now that California is limiting it). But if I needed, I would maybe change my official gender just to be able to fall into the gender quota and get a job.

Re: Man, 69, loses legal battle against temporal reality in effort to become 49

#39
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Gender" is a social construct but while "old" or "young" is a social construct "69 years old" isn't really.

69 years old (more or less on earth or in space) is no different than Male or Female (more or less). The difference is in relative subjective granularity.

In what sense is the time since birth subjective?

Excepting general relativity time dilation Interstellar situations, that is.

Re: Man, 69, loses legal battle against temporal reality in effort to become 49

#40
post #33
post #4

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?

“Age” and “gender” in this case are just entries in a government database somewhere. There’s no deep philosophy to it. Trans people wanted to be able to change their gender, so they fought hard for it—that’s what you need to do to get policies like this changed. If people want to be able to change their age, they’ll have to fight for that too.

I think "sex" is in the government database, not gender.
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