GA Freeman discusses the use of language around trans issues.

This is the Georgia Freeman and ASA here to discuss transsexual and transgender issues
Please check out my website at www.gafreeman.com
Let’s begin as we always do with definition:

mammal (ˈmæməl) n
(Zoology) any animal of the Mammalia, a large class of warm-blooded vertebrates having mammary glands in thefemale, a thoracic diaphragm, and a four-chambered heart. The class includes the whales, carnivores, rodents, bats,primates, etc

female mammal - animals that nourish their young with milk

gender dysphoria unhappiness with one's biological sex or its usual gender role, with the desire for the body and role of the opposite sex.

hermaphrodite [her-maf´ro-dīt]
an individual with hermaphroditism, presence of tissue of both male and female gonads; the ovaries and testes may be present as separate organs, or ovarian and testicular tissue may be combined in the same organ (ovotestis)

transsexual [trans-sek´shoo-al]
1.. a person whose external anatomy has been changed to resemble that of the opposite sex.

This video is based on the discussion between Blair White and contrapoints in this is a discussion on trans issues, Blair White is a trans woman who is seemingly conservative and very focused on open discussion, reasonable argumentation, values and talking about her concerns with the trans community and social justice.
Blair is in fact biologically male and has taken on certain characteristics that give her the appearance of the female including surgical and hormonal changes.
Contrapoints calls himself a non-binary gender queer meaning he thinks of himself as a non-binary gender and prefers the pronoun she.
They had a good discussion around the use of language about trans issues during this conversation but I really found that my need for clear language and communication was not met. I was left with the feeling that to have a good discussion and to be able to clearly debate trans issues that the best way to do this would be to start with clear definitions.
In Debate and argumentation, If there is no agreement on definitions then there can be no clear discussion. In this video I watched these two talk past each other because they did not seem to be speaking the same language and there were never any clear definitions reached.

It is my opinion and interpretation that from the way contrapoints argues that he did not want to be tied down to any particular definitions regarding transgender's and transsexual people and in fact called objective, descriptive words for descriptions of transsexuals unkind. Calling a description of reality unkind is a purely emotional appeal and was not relevant to the discussion at hand and proved to me that he did not want clear definition.

For me, this brought up a very specific need for clear definitions when talking about any trans concerns in a biological sense.

For example, a biological female be defined as a human being who has the physical organs of mammary glands, ovaries, uterus, Fallopian tubes, vagina, cervix, labia, Fallopian tubes, a specific body fat composition specific to females as well as hormone levels that are typical to human females with a predominance of Estrogen and progesterone and lower testosterone and this all exists within a typical range.

A biological male is defined as someone who lacks all those physical organs and traits in a negative sense and positively has testicles and penis, vas deferens, epididymis, prostate and a y chromosome. Typically with a different distribution of body fat and hormonal load with more testosterone and less estrogen and progesterone.

A mammal is defined as a large class of warm-blooded vertebrates having mammary glands in the female, a thoracic diaphragm, and a four-chambered heart but all mammals seem to have a physical body and a consciousness that is difficult to describe. All mammals have a consciousness which gives everyone the ability to use their own body to perceive the material world and interact with it in an objective way, reacting and adapting to what is perceived in the world.

All mammals have similar physical organs in terms of heart, vasculature, lungs, stomach pancreas kidneys Bladder, liver, brain, oral cavity and a system to expel liquid and feces that include some sort of: and Bladder, urethra, rectum and anus. These are commonalities that all mammals have in everything from cats, rats, dolphins to people. The differences between mammals are there are male organs and female organs and this is what separates the two genders.

There are specific differences for male and female genders in a purely animalistic and natural sense. Nature doesn't care about your preferences or your feelings or of and individual feeling like a different gender or gender dysphoria because nature is only concerned about keeping the species alive. Therefore, male bodies are specifically designed to generate sperm and deposit that sperm into the female’s uterus where if an egg is fertilized, then a baby is created. The female is designed to carry and support this baby, amazingly ejecting the baby out of her vaginal tunnel, ultimately with the ability to feed that baby with breast milk from her memory glands. These are the specific differences between male and female.
Having set the basis of what the two biological genders are and illustrated this with scans of individuals, now I am confident that we can discuss individuals rather than general characteristics. The description and definitions above do not reflect any given individual but an average concept of the male and female and the specific organs and traits that are easily identifiable simply based on biology.

After explaining the general concept, I will now address the individual. Any individual may feel that they are a different gender than they physically are. This is called gender dysphoria and is a tragic problem for that individual, However, feeling like something different than you are does not make you physically different than you are. You can certainly ask those around you to call you whatever you want to be but you can never actually be a male and convert to a female. There is no fluidity or ability to be anything besides what you are.

Language and communication are based on clear definition. It is impossible to say that gender is fluid as it is a ridiculous statement on its face. There is no meaning or argument behind this. If you are saying that you have a mental state of being where your consciousness feels or identifies as different than your body presents, then this is clearly a separation of your consciousness from reality and this is called a mental disorder.

We can a recognize that with any given male, some males will have different physical characteristics of their average gender than others. These different characteristics do not make one more of a man or male than someone with less of certain characteristics. It simply means that one has different characteristics than the other. For example, a larger penis does not make a biological male a bigger or better man. Greater musculature do not mean that you are or less of a man. A stronger jaw, a prettier face that is narrow and beautiful in its aspect, wide hips and a fat distribution that looks feminine or being extremely skinny does not make you more or less of a man. Each of these characteristics exists on a spectrum of characteristics of an individual.

A given individual can be affected by hormonal load which can change based on diet, trauma, abandonment, parenting, stress, violence or any other number of thing is. One’s mental state can be affected by any of the same things. At any given moment, an individual can hate themselves and want themselves to be different then they are but we don't consider this to be self -dysphoria.

The woman can have many of the same characteristics in greater or lesser extent as they are a mammal at base. However, their physical organs reflect those within the normal range of a a biological gender, and a female for this discussion. An individual may have wider or narrower hips but this is not reflect on you being a female. You may have more or less musculature or leanness or thickness but this does not reflect on you being more or less female. You may have a larger jaw or a deeper voice but this does not reflect in you being more or less female. You may have bigger hands or bigger feet but this does not reflect on you being less of a female. You may have more hair or even demonstrable facial hair but this does not reflect as more or less of a female. These are simply expressions of an individual’s characteristics as a mammal and as an actual male or female.

I contend that I have explained and illustrated male and females. This discussion has covered the average characteristics but their can exist characteristics that are out of normal or are in fact an abnormality or an aberration from the norm such as a hermaphrodite. This is obviously a physical abnormality but it does not reflect as that individual being worth less or of any less value as a human. It means they will have a different experience life and will have their own problems to deal and finding a way to accept themselves as they are but it does not mean there is some different gender based on a genetic abnormality.

A transsexual is someone who has taken actions to change their physical appearance to mimic that of another gender. Examples of the actions are changing hormone load, hair distribution, body fat composition, voice changes, muscular distribution changes, bone density changes, breast implants, lip injections, etc. A body will respond to the addition of foreign hormones into one’s body and this can change physical characteristics and appearance but does not change one’s biological sex organs. One may permanently injure themselves where some of the changes won't reverse but many of the changes will reverse if the hormones are stopped.

Additionally, one can make surgical modifications to change physical external traits to represent or mimic a different gender. For example, a male can remove his penis and testicles and sterilize himself. They can create open in the space left by these organs that physically represents the vagina but if not cared for properly will heal and close as any wound in a healthy body will do. This wound can be treated as a vagina but it is not a vagina as it is simply an opening being used as a masturbatory instrument for a penis. The vagina is a specific physical organ on a woman or female that attaches to the cervix and uterus and is for the transport of semen to the Ova or egg. The vagina is an anatomical organ of mammals specifically for transporting a baby mammal from a uterus to the world. A healed wound track is not a vagina.

Those are some of the physical attributes that can be changed to create a trans male or female.

Additionally, there is another group of people that maintain their original sexual features and are biologically male or female and insist that their genders are non-binary. As an individual that is acting in a way that is not aggressive and not interfering with my life then I don't care what they want to be called. They can make an argument for it and I can consider calling them that or not or simply not calling him anything at all. If I consider myself a friend and we are in a relationship then I will call you by your preferred gender, most likely. Other than that you are by definition, a biological male or female, then the standard and accepted use of language allows me to call you by what I physically observe you.

There is no social construct and if you have these physical characteristics then you are defined by language as a gender. Ultimately, if you are trying to ignore, modify, build your own language then it really doesn't matter what you want to call it. You have the physical characteristics you have and those reflect either the ability to produce sperm or an egg, and you can either create the raw material to fertilize an egg or you create and house an egg and grow a child to birth. Other than that you have the mammalian characteristics of a male or female.

Ultimately we are speaking in language and in this case the English language and you are using your physical ears to listen to me or your eyes to watch the video or to read what I am proposing. If you can understand English, then you know that English and all language works based on common agreement of terms and cannot exist otherwise. There is no social contract, there is only agreement on definition of terms that allow us to communicate.

If one begins with the physical characteristics of being able to create the raw material to fertilize an egg and then goes through the process of destroying the organs that allow that to happen and modifying those organs to take on the appearance of the opposite gender, adding hormones, modifying one's physical appearance to mimic a different sex, then one has simply altered oneself to mimic someone else.

This individual has not physically become a new gender because they cannot create the opposite of what they were born as. In fact, they have now lost all capabilities of procreation and are no longer able to pass along their genes. They cannot suddenly create an egg, allow a male to fertilize an egg and then carry that egg to birth. They cannot produce the raw material to fertilize an egg and so they have destroyed their ability to procreate and now they are only a mimic of a biologically oriented mammal. You are what you are and you can never change what you are, you can only obscure it.

There is no moral or ethic in self-modification or sexual reassignment as long as it is chosen voluntarily and you pay for it yourself. If you are not stealing from others by using government money taxed from others to pay for your body modifications. If you enter into a voluntary agreement and finance it through your own means, then there is no issue or morality in this choice. It is your body and you can do with it what you want. As a self-owner or an individual with a property right in your own body, you have the right to do with it as you please as long as you do not force someone else to pay for it.

You can tattoo yourself, pierce yourself, cut your hair, cut your skin, whatever you want and there is no reason to oppose this. You can take your teeth out, put new teeth or metal implant in, wear braces to straighten your teeth, Dye your hair. You can add implants to mimic the appearance of breasts but this only mimics the breasts as you cannot add mammary glands that functionally act as breasts do. You can do nothing more than mimic the physical appearance of breasts surgically. Mammary glands are a physical characteristic that you're born with or without. You can cut off your penis and testicles if you choose to and sterilize yourself. You can close your vagina and build a fake external device looks like a penis.

These are all things that you can choose to change or but this is not change what you physically are. You are what you are and you can make physical modifications but beyond that you are what you are and who you are.

If one wants to identify themselves as a specifically different label other than what they physically are and use fuzzy language to miss-identify themselves, then there is nothing to stop this. Any individual can call themselves whatever they want but the people around them have no duty to call them anything. the only duty anyone has is to respect another’s property rights and not physically violate them. They have no duty to call them anything, unless they choose to.

If you're a man wearing a wig, lipstick and a dress because you are a transvestite and like wearing women's clothes then you can do that and in a civil society where we respect property rights then no one should interfere with you in any physical way and you have every opportunity and right to dress and act that way. No one has a duty not to laugh at you though or call you names or be nice. They only have the duty not to threaten you or physically aggress against you. You cannot make other people not notice how non-standard you look or make it so that children or other individuals don't notice or say something to you or about you. You have chosen to put on different clothes and present yourself in a different way than the norm and there are of consequences to this. There are social norms and violating them brings risk.

A social norm is simply something that is routine and standard and not novel in the current area. For example, a transvestite may be widely accepted in downtown Atlanta but in rural Georgia they would be stared at and potentially mocked. There is simply a different level of acceptance and this is the social norm in that area. Another example of this is social norm would be dressing to be accepted as a businessperson in a business setting as this makes acceptance and personal intercourse easy and more natural. However, there are wide variations in the appearance of a businessperson, a male can have long hair or facial hair or different colored suits or ties or shoes or socks or an open or closed collar, etc. I am certain that I could accept the man wearing a dress in a business meeting if they were honest and introduced the idea openly but I might not ever think of them as she and always have a problem calling them she.

As long as the people around the man wearing the dress leaves them alone and does not physically aggress against them or threaten them or hurt them in any way then they have fulfilled their duty respecting property rights. They have no duty to think or act in any other way except to leave them alone and allow them to operate and work without interference. That individual has made the choice to appear like this and they must live with the consequences of other people's opinions and preferences. They have no control over the way other people perceive or think or talk about them. They can only accept and request the respect and dignity of not being aggressed against or threatened.

As long as we do not violate each other space or physically aggress against one another, we can coexist peacefully even if we think each other are ridiculous.