Gender is indeed based on what an individual feels like. That’s a perfectly reasonable way to categorize people - it’s also for example what religion is based on. It’s just hard to implement systems where you give different rights to different genders when there’s no way to check what gender someone is besides asking them. Probably the best solution is to just treat people the same regardless of gender so nobody has an incentive to lie.
Comment on Men Overran a Job Fair for Women in Tech
JasSmith@kbin.social 8 months ago
Cullen White, AnitaB.org’s chief impact officer, said in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter, that some registrants had lied about their gender identity when signing up, and men were now taking up space and time with recruiters that should go to women. “All of those are limited resources to which you have no right,” White said. AnitaB.org did not respond to a request for comment.
Who picks their gender identity? The individuals or Cullen White? If anything this underscores the insanity of identity politics. If gender is whatever an individual feels like, then this event was just thousands of women and non-binary folks, and White needs to stop being such a bigot. However I think most of us understand that this is nonsense.
psychothumbs@lemmy.world 8 months ago
JasSmith@kbin.social 8 months ago
Probably the best solution is to just treat people the same regardless of gender so nobody has an incentive to lie.
I couldn't agree more.
Psychodelic@lemmy.world 8 months ago
This is an excellent take! Especially considering everyone has historically been treated fairly and there’s no reason to consider the compounding effects that would’ve likely occurred due to generations of white men getting preferential treatment
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Clearly the solution is to allow discrimination!
JasSmith@kbin.social 8 months ago
As yes, the Ibram Kendi school of, “I NEED to be racist to correct historical racism. My racism is good though, promise.” All racists think their racism is justified. It’s not. You’re just racist :)
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Just because gender is a complicated matter, it doesn’t mean people can’t be dishonest about it. Trying to invalidate transgender people for the lies of male registrants intruding on women’s spaces is doubly shameful. Really, transphobic people love to put up a flimsy mocking pretense that they are a different gender to discredit trans people.
Even entertaining this argument seems like a mistake, but trans and non-binary people are a small minority. It’s extremely unlikely that they would outnumber cisgender women.
It’s sad to see this sort of two-faced transphobic talk taking starting to take root in Kbin and Lemmy. It’s bad enough how much of this happens in other places.
cricket97@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think it points out the fact that saying you are something does not mean you are that something. Anyone willing to lie (lots of people) can abuse this freedom to the detriment of the protected group. self id cannot be a thing if you want to exclude a certain group, because you have no basis to call them out, no matter what your hunch may be.
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 8 months ago
When I talk of “transphobes trying to discredit trans people”, it’s about your kind of talk that I’m talking. Now you want to make it about trans people and their right of self-id, because cis men are being shitty. Entirely the wrong group of people.
cricket97@lemmy.world 8 months ago
you don’t know they are cis
JasSmith@kbin.social 8 months ago
It's not clear from your comment. Are you also accusing the trans women at this conference of lying about their gender?
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I am accusing the cisgender men at the conference of lying about their gender and I am accusing people in this thread of playing coy about the fact that is trivial for someone who 100% sees themselves as a man to tick F rather than M on a form if that will get them an advantage. Especially if they think being transgender happens on a whim.
If they are transphobic, they even get to discredit actual trans people while they take advantage of an opportunity that wasn’t intended for them. It wouldn’t be the first time transphobic people pretend to be trans just to cause problems.
You did read my comment, I hope. Do you truly believe there are more transgender women and non-binary people than cisgender women in tech, to the point they would outnumber them?
serial_crusher@lemmy.basedcount.com 8 months ago
I am accusing the cisgender men at the conference of lying about their gender
Wait, this is confusing. Cisgender man would mean they identify as men. But if they were lying about their gender… are you accusing them of secretly being women?
Otome-chan@kbin.social 8 months ago
How do you distinguish between the people who genuinely identify as nonbinary and those who are dishonestly doing it?
cricket97@lemmy.world 8 months ago
What if they’re not transphobic but rather just taking advantage of the less competitive playing field cough cough
agent_flounder@lemmy.one 8 months ago
If gender is whatever an individual feels like, then this event was just thousands of women and non-binary folks,
The event could be “thousands of women and non-binary folks”. Did all these male-presenting people identify as women or non-binary just to be able to attend this event?
What do you think identity politics is, exactly? Just a way to make changes you don’t like to make you unhappy? It couldn’t possibly be about people trying to make social changes so they’re not constantly treated like shit. Oh no. The horror.
jimbo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
To the casual observer, identity politics seems to be a bunch of people competing to see who can put the most minority group names and acronyms in their social media profiles.
JasSmith@kbin.social 8 months ago
The event could be “thousands of women and non-binary folks”. Did all these male-presenting people identify as women or non-binary just to be able to attend this event?
According to their Chief Impact Officer, yes. Apparently they "lied about their gender identity when signing up."
What do you think identity politics is, exactly?
Performative politics centred around identity. White is perfectly happy to pretend that men can be women - until it impacts him.
huginn@feddit.it 8 months ago
These aren’t guys who claim transgenderism or non-binary identity, these are men.
Gender is what an individual feels like: and it’s a consistent feeling regardless of their circumstances.
Nobody in good faith argued that your gender changes at the drop of a hat or whenever convenient. The transgender people I know have experienced significant suffering for decades due to a mismatch in feeling vs societal impositions.
White isn’t being a bigot: you are with your terf talking points. Fuck off.
JasSmith@kbin.social 8 months ago
They didn't poll anyone already at the conference. This is Cullen White making a prima facie observation of people who present as men and claiming they "lied" about their gender identity when sighing up."
It sounds like both you and White feel entitled to dictate to others their gender.