(November 21, 2024 at 7:36 am)Sheldon Wrote:

(November 21, 2024 at 7:30 am)Paleophyte Wrote: According to The APA Dictionary of Psychology:

"the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for different genders. In a human context, the distinction between gender and sex reflects the usage of these terms: Sex refers to the biological status of being male, female, or intersex, whereas gender implies the psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural aspects of gender (i.e., masculinity, femininity, nonbinary, nonconforming, or other gender)."

So you'd want to look at the person's behavior, much like everything else that a psychiatrist or psychologist is likely to do. Or are you suggesting that a psychological diagnosis isn't objective?

Well he claimed that we only have the subjective claim of the patient, which isn't true of course.

See my question above.

If a person behaves "like a man" but reports that they are a woman, what do we conclude?

(November 21, 2024 at 7:33 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(November 21, 2024 at 7:20 am)Paleophyte Wrote: Actually, it already has. According to the current version of the DSM-5 "It is important to note that gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder." The disorder that commonly arises in gender dysphoria is a result of the stress produced when a person's experienced gender doesn't match with societal and cultural expectations. Or in simpler terms, society is the problem and we're sorry that you need a therapist to deal with it.

That's good to know. I'm glad that the professionals are coming around.

Psychiatry is notoriously subjective in its diagnoses. The fact that something can be a disorder one year and not one the next is a little troubling.

I know a psychiatrist in the US who works in a big hospital. One of her duties is to interview patients who are seeking gender reassignment surgery. Her job is NOT to determine what gender the person really is, but simply to say if the person is in a sufficiently rational and calm state of mind to make a big decision. After all, there are manic-depressives who can decide things in a manic phase which they wouldn't decide at other times. During the manic state it's dangerous for them to have access to a credit card, much less major surgery. 

She tells me that in a very small number of cases she has recommended that the person not be approved for the surgery yet. She has recommended a longer waiting period and further counseling. But she says that in every such case the patient has simply gone to a different psychiatrist and gotten the answer they want. So apparently even professional opinions of this type are not cut-and-dried, but include a large subjective element.

No human method can be infallible of course, and the reliability of branches of science vary of course, but this does not mean that they are entirely subjective. Thus science's insistence on keeping an open mind, and that all facts must remain tentative in the light of new evidence, and its ability to admit of an error, and rethink their position in the light of new evidence, is in fact one the methods greatest strengths. 

Knowing something was wrong  or incorrect, still advances knowledge. Clinging to unfalsifiable or demonstrably incorrect doctrine and dogma has the opposite effect. 

Lets remember your claim was that all we had was the subjective opinion of the patient, this clearly is not the case. This is also a complex issue, as we are not just dealing with objective facts, but subjective moral judgments.

(November 21, 2024 at 7:35 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(November 21, 2024 at 7:32 am)Sheldon Wrote: Dear oh dear but you are the  king of straw men, where di i remotely claim dysphoria was gender? 

You didn't. I wasn't sure why you brought it up because it is a different question from determining gender.

Well clearly if there are objective markers for identifying gender dysphoria, this demonstrates that gender a) does not always reflect biological sex, and b) that we are not limited to entirely subjective claims about gender, as you claimed.

(November 21, 2024 at 7:46 am)Sheldon Wrote:

(November 21, 2024 at 7:33 am)Belacqua Wrote: That's good to know. I'm glad that the professionals are coming around.

Psychiatry is notoriously subjective in its diagnoses. The fact that something can be a disorder one year and not one the next is a little troubling.

I know a psychiatrist in the US who works in a big hospital. One of her duties is to interview patients who are seeking gender reassignment surgery. Her job is NOT to determine what gender the person really is, but simply to say if the person is in a sufficiently rational and calm state of mind to make a big decision. After all, there are manic-depressives who can decide things in a manic phase which they wouldn't decide at other times. During the manic state it's dangerous for them to have access to a credit card, much less major surgery. 

She tells me that in a very small number of cases she has recommended that the person not be approved for the surgery yet. She has recommended a longer waiting period and further counseling. But she says that in every such case the patient has simply gone to a different psychiatrist and gotten the answer they want. So apparently even professional opinions of this type are not cut-and-dried, but include a large subjective element.

No human method can be infallible of course, and the reliability of branches of science vary of course, but this does not mean that they are entirely subjective. Thus science's insistence on keeping an open mind, and that all facts must remain tentative in the light of new evidence, and its ability to admit of an error, and rethink their position in the light of new evidence, is in fact one the methods greatest strengths. 

Knowing something was wrong  or incorrect, still advances knowledge. Clinging to unfalsifiable or demonstrably incorrect doctrine and dogma has the opposite effect. 

Lets remember your claim was that all we had was the subjective opinion of the patient, this clearly is not the case. This is also a complex issue, as we are not just dealing with objective facts, but subjective moral judgments.

OK, that's fair. 

We have the subjective testimony of the individual, and then we have the judgments of the professionals, which may change over time. And we have a sort of cultural consensus, a sort of Overton window, as to what we hold to be true concerning gender. Though we don't want to determine truth through majority vote, of course.

Knowing that something was wrong or incorrect does indeed advance knowledge. But we want to distinguish between advances in objective knowledge and changes in what we hold to be acceptable culturally. If someone were to say "It's wrong for a man to dress like a woman," this is not objectively wrong like a geocentric universe. It's held to be morally wrong, and this is not an objective question. 

Quote:Well clearly if there are objective markers for identifying gender dysphoria, this demonstrates that gender a) does not always reflect biological sex, and b) that we are not limited to entirely subjective claims about gender, as you claimed.

See Paleo's response above.

He says that the symptoms of the dysphoria are caused by cultural conditions, not by the person's gender. So I don't think that the presence of gender dysphoria can be taken as objective evidence that a person is one gender or another. Only that they feel a certain way about their gender, and that society causes them to react in certain ways to those feelings. "I feel that I have a body of the wrong gender" is subjective testimony. What they used to call a disorder is simply the stress caused by society's reactions to that testimony. 

I agree that we have to keep an open mind, and just accept that we hold some things to be true despite a lack of objective evidence.

(November 21, 2024 at 7:37 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(November 21, 2024 at 7:36 am)Sheldon Wrote: Well he claimed that we only have the subjective claim of the patient, which isn't true of course.

See my question above.

If a person behaves "like a man" but reports that they are a woman, what do we conclude?

I don't have enough objective information yet to form a sound belief about your hypothetical, but a qualified psychiatrist could test whether they are suffering from gender dysphoria or not, as was pointed out above. Again if you're interested in how psychiatry evaluate gender dysphoria, I can only suggest you go look into it.  

I certainly wouldn't liken them, or anyone else, to a "hideous murderous monster", even metaphorically. As the thread author did in a sweeping and generic way, and without demonstrating any objective evidence of course.

(November 21, 2024 at 8:08 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(November 21, 2024 at 7:46 am)Sheldon Wrote: No human method can be infallible of course, and the reliability of branches of science vary of course, but this does not mean that they are entirely subjective. Thus science's insistence on keeping an open mind, and that all facts must remain tentative in the light of new evidence, and its ability to admit of an error, and rethink their position in the light of new evidence, is in fact one the methods greatest strengths. 

Knowing something was wrong  or incorrect, still advances knowledge. Clinging to unfalsifiable or demonstrably incorrect doctrine and dogma has the opposite effect. 

Lets remember your claim was that all we had was the subjective opinion of the patient, this clearly is not the case. This is also a complex issue, as we are not just dealing with objective facts, but subjective moral judgments.

If someone were to say "It's wrong for a man to dress like a woman," this is not objectively wrong like a geocentric universe. It's held to be morally wrong, and this is not an objective question. 

Exactly so, moral observations ultimately rely on subjective opinions, so they are separate from objective observations. We can make a moral judgment in the absence of all the objective facts, we likely do this all the time, sadly for some their moral judgments don't have preventing or avoiding unnecessary suffering as an uppermost concern, or at all in some cases, in those judgments.

(November 21, 2024 at 8:08 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(November 21, 2024 at 7:46 am)Sheldon Wrote: No human method can be infallible of course, and the reliability of branches of science vary of course, but this does not mean that they are entirely subjective. Thus science's insistence on keeping an open mind, and that all facts must remain tentative in the light of new evidence, and its ability to admit of an error, and rethink their position in the light of new evidence, is in fact one the methods greatest strengths. 

Knowing something was wrong  or incorrect, still advances knowledge. Clinging to unfalsifiable or demonstrably incorrect doctrine and dogma has the opposite effect. 

Lets remember your claim was that all we had was the subjective opinion of the patient, this clearly is not the case. This is also a complex issue, as we are not just dealing with objective facts, but subjective moral judgments.

I agree that we have to keep an open mind, and just accept that we hold some things to be true despite a lack of objective evidence.

I agree with the first part, but not the second, I need believe nothing for which there is no objective evidence, though what I do with that disbelief is relative of course, as some claims are trivial. I would not go out of my way to express doubt if it served no purpose, and might cause harm.

I don't think I "get" the behaves like a man thing. I have lived a long time and have met a lot of men and there is quite a range in how they act.

Obviously, Bel thinks there is a certain way...or should I say, he read somewhere there is a certain way, to act if you are a man.

(November 21, 2024 at 8:08 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(November 21, 2024 at 7:46 am)Sheldon Wrote: No human method can be infallible of course, and the reliability of branches of science vary of course, but this does not mean that they are entirely subjective. Thus science's insistence on keeping an open mind, and that all facts must remain tentative in the light of new evidence, and its ability to admit of an error, and rethink their position in the light of new evidence, is in fact one the methods greatest strengths. 

Knowing something was wrong  or incorrect, still advances knowledge. Clinging to unfalsifiable or demonstrably incorrect doctrine and dogma has the opposite effect. 

Lets remember your claim was that all we had was the subjective opinion of the patient, this clearly is not the case. This is also a complex issue, as we are not just dealing with objective facts, but subjective moral judgments.

Well clearly if there are objective markers for identifying gender dysphoria, this demonstrates that gender a) does not always reflect biological sex, and b) that we are not limited to entirely subjective claims about gender, as you claimed.

Quote:See Paleo's response above.

He says that the symptoms of the dysphoria are caused by cultural conditions, not by the person's gender. 

They're not mutually exclusive, as was explained earlier, since gender is primarily a social construct, so it can reflect biological gender, or not, when it does not, then we see gender dysphoria. The addition of bigotry, based on cultural stereotypes obviously does not help. 

Quote:So I don't think that the presence of gender dysphoria can be taken as objective evidence that a person is one gender or another. 

I don't understand what you think "is one gender or another" means? Gender identity and biological sex, are not always the same, gender dysphoria occurs when a person's gender differs from their biological sex, this can be objectively evaluated beyond the purely subjective claim. 

Quote:Only that they feel a certain way about their gender, 

I doubt this is how psychiatrists evaluate gender identity, and the resultant gender dysphoria. Why would we assume this is just a feeling, we don't do that when people claim to be gay? Well some people do obviously, the old "they're not born that way, it's a lifestyle choice" nonsense. 

Quote:"I feel that I have a body of the wrong gender" is subjective testimony.

On its's own, but then so is the bare claim someone is gay, and we have already shown that psychiatry can evaluate the claim with objective markers. 

Quote:What they used to call a disorder is simply the stress caused by society's reactions to that testimony. 

Using that rationale one could claim people aren't really gay, they're just reacting badly to negative feedback about they feel their sexual orinetation is? I have to say I am dubious that it is that simple. 

(November 21, 2024 at 6:47 am)Belacqua Wrote: It's a disorder. 

The same used to be thought of gayness.