pride coloured chameleons, the rainbow one saying: "someone has a gender you don't understand? that's how stuff works sometimes. i dont understand french but the language still exists"

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[–] 19 points 7 months ago

Can't imagine how boring the world would be without stuff I don't understand.

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago

    Don't you know language is just a social construct. Its not real. /s

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  • [–] 38 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    French exists despite my best efforts.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    There's a lot of things I don't understand. But I know that every person has the right to live their lives in whichever way they see fit. That's all it takes really.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    But what if they have really poor taste in food?

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  • [+] 37 points 7 months ago* (14 children)
  • [–] 29 points 7 months ago

    Reminds me of a quote from Nevada by Imogen Binnie:

    "Yes, gender is a social construct, but so are traffic lights, and if you ignore those, you get run over by a car. Which is also a social construct."

    (Recited from memory, probably not word-for-word accurate.)

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago

    To some extent, I agree. However, making up new words and terms can be the beginning of the "social" part of the social construct. For instance, part of why I'm so attached to "bisexual" as a label rather than terms like pansexual is that learning of bisexuality was the first time I realised that it was possible to be attracted to more than one gender; previously, I had thought that because I had experienced attraction to boys, that I must be straight. This led me to not even notice the attraction I felt towards other girls until I learned that bisexuality was a thing

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    How does this not have any downvotes except mine

    this is blahaj zone how did transphobia (which the mods then removed) end up with 38 upvotes and 0 downvotes

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    lbz doesn't do downvotes, which means communities hosted on lbz don't do downvotes, and any downvotes received are ignored, without federating them out.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    bad idea

    downvotes can show that people see something wrong with a comment and will make less people see it

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Too many people see trans people making any comment at all as something that needs to be downvoted.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Transphobes are not welcome on Lemmy. Those who hate me or my LGBTQ+ homies for not conforming with their pointless and archaic expectations should fuck off. We have freedom. Even if I were to conform with their expectations I'd still want freedom and rights for all. These hateful morons should be banned from this network. Paradox of tolerance.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Expressing transphobia is not welcome on lemmy. You only have to look at the amount of upvotes "subtle" transphobia and "just asking questions" transphobia still gets to realise that there are still lots of transphobes around that have just learned to keep it close to their chest. They still express it through votes though

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago

    I'm gonna need a French chameleon.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    But you can learn French. There are grammars and dictionaries explaining how it functions. It's not beyond anyone's comprehension, assuming some patient work.

    Educating and explaining will help LGBT more than treating it as a sacred mystery. People used to act bewildered when faced with the concept of homosexuality. Today nobody dares to take such a stupid position, because it's too obvious that homosexuality is nothing magical or particularly illogical. I hope trans and all the other gender/sex-based identities will go down the same route.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago

    There is a limit to what people are able to understand without direct lived experience though. I agree that we shouldn't shy away from educating people — in saying that, I hold my experience as a cis person who learned about gender by being in community with trans people close to my heart. However, although I can "simulate" gender dysphoria by imagining how I would feel if living as a man (something I have reflected on a couple of times due to experiencing misogyny as a woman in science), it can't give me the perspective of someone who had grown up experiencing it, for example.

    I think there's a balance to be struck, where we can educate and explain things to people, but we must also not expect that this will always be possible. It's okay to sometimes shrug and say "I don't get it, but I don't need to". Through understanding and internalising this, we can leverage the power of relevant situated perspectives.

    To give an analogy, most of my scientific expertise is in biochemistry, and I don't know tons about most topics in climate science. Having a background in the sciences means that I'm probably more able to quickly parse the scientific literature than most interested laypeople, but this barely scratches the surface on some incredibly complex topics. However, it's not necessary for me to understand all of this in order for me to be able to understand where my expertise fits into the big picture (and when I would be wise to take a step back and yield the stage to someone who knows more than me)

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago*

    One can learn about other genders too? The difference is when someone refuses to learn French they don't then turn around and say "that language doesn't exist, you're just crazy" because of their lack of understanding. But a gender identity that doesn't fit in "man", "woman", or "nonbinary" gets treated that way even within the trans community.

    Just to be clear, I agree about educating people about gender.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    All flags are ok!

    Except the French flag...

    jk man, peace

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    I don't care if you're Fr*nch, but you shouldn't do it in front of my children! /j (just in case)

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Does Fr*nch really exist though

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    As a French gal

    Va lécher des chiottes !
    Amicalement

    :P

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Kinda ran into this concept when discovering new concepts or sciences. Yeah the new stuff gonna be unintuitive and potentially hard to learn, but it both exists and functions

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  • [+] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    Le Français n'a que deux sexes mais... Les choses ont un genre aussi :) Une chaise, un parasol.

    French has only 2 genders ( no it) but we also have gender for things :) In French a chair is female (she) and a sunshade/sun umbrella is male (he)

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    There are genders as in biological terms that are mostly binary with some exceptions. And there are genders as a concept humans made up to communicate, just like languages.

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