Has Gender/Orientation Gone Too Far?

[BeachKid00]

I just want to speak my mind on what I think is a pretty big problem.

From the day I was born, I was taught that there were two genders: male and female. I knew that men and women needed to make love to make a baby, and thus I thought people were only attracted to the opposite sex. By middle school, I began to understand the concepts of LGBT - only the four components of that phrase.

However, over the past few years, I have seen a growing - and in my opinion, troubling - phenomenon. It would appear that many, many people (especially those who browse the SJW blogs of Tumblr) are making up their genders and sexual orientations. Just a few years ago, phrases such as pansexual, demisexual, polyamorous, genderqueer, and genderfluid did not exist. What is even more disturbing is the ability for anyone to assume any form of character, i.e. Trisexual Squirrel from Pluto.

Why is this troubling me, you ask? On the surface, it may seem ideal, but in reality, it will make the world a LOT more confusing, especially for children. They may not take these absurd identifications as seriously as adults, and they will be able to be whatever they want, whenever they want, and the school system will be okay with it. This may really screw up some kid's gender identity in the future.

Also, with a lot of these new identifications, they can be traced back to the big LGBT. For example, my sister identifies as asexual. From everything I know, asexual means you do not have sexual attraction towards anyone or anything. But according to her, it means gender is not a factor in sexual attraction. This essentially is the exact same thing as pansexuality, which in itself can be brought back to bisexuality.

See that? We just changed someone's orientation identity to one that the average Joe can actually understand!

To conclude this rant, I don't care if you're gay. I don't care if you're bi. I don't give a shit if you're trans. But don't you dare flip shit on me if you tell me you identify as a trigender horsekin, and I call you a nutjob.

[Hyper]

The whole gender identity thing... I have no well defined opinion on.

But I do find a lot of these terms reduntant and ridiculous.

I cringed a little when VT went from just having Male/Female gender marks to everything else imaginable including... *Deep breath* ''cisgender''...

I do wish we could establish a question here, so this would be an actual ROTW topic.

So maybe I'll hijack it and do these:

• Are these new gender identifiers necessary?
• Are they and should they be based on real science?
• Do they help people or cause more problems? Like OPs mentioned fears of distortion or confusion for younger kids in this sea of Gerbal-SuperBronie-Hankerchief-Sexual sexualities.

[Uniquemind]

People be weird and fragmented; don't overthink it.

Just study psychology and you'll see how many different fetishes and attractions exist out there.

[Sailor Mars]

I sexually identify as an ancient elven demigod alien race, that has infested and invaded the planet Earth 7,000,000 years ago and I am their spawn. I am, however, romantically attracted to the off-hybrid species of the wolf and fairy beings of the Amazonian forests. If you do not accept me as a fellow Elven demigod warrior from a far away planet, then you are oppressing me and my rights, and should be burnt in hell for your ignorance and intolerance. I'm now going to force all my racial and sexual "history" and if you are even the slightest bit annoyed I shall curse you with the words of my ancient people.

Not saying that everyone who has a confusing ass sexuality is like that but... *cough cough*

[Drewboyy]

This post is offensive towards atheist-cisgender-asexual-wolf-cats everywhere. How dare you!

[Jinglebottom]

You know, "straight", "gay", bi" and "transgender" were more than enough. :what:

What's a polyamourous biromantic demisexual? Or a genderfluid androgynic transsexual?

[phuckphace]

our universities offer a lot of makework degrees that don't have a particularly useful market. I suspect the gender stuff was invented from whole cloth by people who didn't want to feel like they wasted their time and 80 grand studying intra-ethnic African feminism. I call them Marxists in jest, but it's actually just your garden variety capitalist rent-seeking in sleek, official academic disguise.

[Vlerchan]

What's a polyamourous biromantic demisexual?
It's someone that forms a romantic attraction to more than one gender [biromantic] - that just forms a sexual attraction to just does that there's a strong emotional attachment to [demisexual] - and that practices nonexclusive sexual relationships otherwise [polyamorous]. Bit exact but I don't see the problem.

Or a genderfluid androgynic transsexual?
That one doesn't make sense. You can't be androgynic and transsexual at the same time.

Genderfluid refers to someone that feels there there gender isn't fixed and varies from time-to-time.

---

I also don't care. I also don't see the need to have kids categories people on the basis of loaded generalisations.

Though I think that -Kin identification have no rational basis and are as such meaningless.

[Jinglebottom]

It's someone that forms a romantic attraction to more than one gender [biromantic] - that just forms a sexual attraction to just does that there's a strong emotional attachment to [demisexual] - and that practices nonexclusive sexual relationships otherwise [polyamorous]. Bit exact but I don't see the problem.


That one doesn't make sense. You can't be androgynic and transsexual at the same time.

Genderfluid refers to someone that feels there there gender isn't fixed and varies from time-to-time.

---

I also don't care. I also don't see the need to have kids categories people on the basis of loaded generalisations.

Though I think that -Kin identification have no rational basis and are as such meaningless.
Thanks for explaining. :) Sorry, my ignorance is showing.

[sqishy]

• Are these new gender identifiers necessary?

In my view, they are not fundamentally necessary. With that same view, I question the necessity of the terms of male and female too. It is about the usefulness of a definition, not an all-or-nothing strict generalist judgement.


• Are they and should they be based on real science?


I'lll take what you mean by 'real science' to be strict/'hard' science.
They are not strictly scientific; they are not biological terms, and I don't know much about sociology/psychology regarding what extent they are present in those, but I have not heard of them being used in a technical manner there either. As with my first reply, to question them with regards to science is to question the 'traditional' genders of male and female too, so they should not be based on hard science. It is about usefulness, not an aim to live a scientific theory.


• Do they help people or cause more problems? Like OPs mentioned fears of distortion or confusion for younger kids in this sea of Gerbal-SuperBronie-Hankerchief-Sexual sexualities.
I don't see problems beyond confusion. If there are greater problems then it could be that the person may be seeing gender as an encompassing aspect of themselves which needs to be given a definition because they depend on it. In other words, the terms themselves only have as much power as one gives. If people are worrying over it a lot, then they are looking at it wrong. Gender itself is a huge and complex aspect of one's life, but definitions of gender need not be.

[Stronk Serb]

I sexually identify as an attack helicopter. Ever since I was a little boy I had dreams of soaring over the oil fields, dropping sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People told me I was retarded and that I should seek treatment, but I will have a plastic surgeon install rotary blades on my back, a 30-mm cannon and Hellfire missile pods. If you deny me my need to kill extensively and needlessly, you are a heliphobe and should check your vehicle privileges. Thank you for understanding. I also identify as genderqueer pansexual trisexual decasexual omnisexual genderqueer helicopter-kin and you must know that and accept me even tough I am a complete douchebag towards you.

[Miserabilia]

It has. I related with something I read recently,

that for us the generation that didn't want to be labeled, we ended up with hundrderds of new labels for ourselves.
The label is becoming more important; focues shifting from equality to difference . Ofcourse the idea is to celebrate the differences, but it's gone too far for my taste.

People want to be different and special and there's a type of special social benefit too it too.