LGBTQ+ Rights Worldwide

That's probably how it happened. People assumed that when you talked about "men" you meant male ones and over time the definition shifted until it specifically meant just that.

How it actually happened was that 'wermann' and 'wifmann' aren't singular, they're plural. People used to just say 'wer' and 'wif' when talking about singular people. Wer fell out of fashion, replaced by just 'mann' ('person') when the title 'Herr' ('lord/ruler') became more prevalent and important and 'wer' and 'Herr' are easily confused. At the same time, wifmann dropped the f, while wif elongated its middle vowel (to sound like the modern word that stems from it: wife)

At some point after 'men' replace 'manner' as a plural for 'man', some people (we don't know who, but probably either monks or educated nobles whose first language was Norman French) started using 'woman' as a singular and 'women' as a plural, in order to make the language more consistent.

This is why we still pronounce 'women' as 'wiman' (because it comes from actual spoken Old English), while pronouncing woman as 'woo-man', because it's a made up word that had no spoken equivalent until a bunch of French-speaking Normans learned English entirely from text books and their way of writing and speaking influence the common tongue.

So not because 'male is default'.

Edited by Robrecht on Mar 5th 2020 at 2:00:47 PM

Depending on noun context, "man" can sometimes be used in a gender-neutral context if used to describe humanity in general or talking about non-gender statistics. That being said, the more technical term of describing someone gender-neutral is "people" (plural) or "person." For gender-neutral pronouns, usually "they", "their", or "them" are the most appropriate pronoun for transgender people who don't identify themselves as either male or female.

Apparently, gender specific nouns can sometimes be used as gender-neutral nouns. Take for example, Casey Mongillo's Wikipedia page (who is a non-binary voice actor). The page list them as "voice actor" despite "actor" is generally used as a male specific noun, yet the Wikipedia page appropriate gender-neutral pronouns with they, them, and theirs. The more appropriate gender-neutral term for voice actor would be "voice artist", but people use the term "voice actor" to describe a person who specialize in voice acting regardless of male/female context because it is often used to describe an occupation.

Edited by DarkPaladinX on Mar 5th 2020 at 5:03:19 AM

I should point out that the Latin "homo" also meant "specifically a man as opposed to a woman".

They basically had two words for "man" and "woman"; homo and viri for man; muller and femina for woman.

Viri and femina were unambiguously "man" and "woman", but homo and muller were more poetic, and could mean man and woman as abstract concepts.

This, however, basically translated as "homo" being used in the same sense as "mankind", and "muller" taking on negative connotations (like "maid" or woman in the sense of "Dammit, woman!").

This doesn't contradict the etymology of man and woman in English because Romance languages are, naturally, their own branch of the tree.

The acting profession is an odd duck, though.

Because it took so long to become reputable for both genders, it's got baggage. It's also taken longer for the girls to stop being seen as "prostitutes who also act".

Heck, Hollywood still struggles with the whole casting couch culture that's thoroughly based on the concept that you can ask your employees for everything. <_<

Having said that, being a dancer is still pretty bad. Even a classically trained ballet pro has to work hard to avoid the crowd who still sees "dancer" to mean "prostitute who also dances".

Ditto for "prostitutes who also sing" or "prostitutes who also do gymnastics" and other "sporty prostitutes" (not restricted to the girls). -_-'

Entertainment is fucked up, yo.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Mar 8th 2020 at 4:43:17 PM

It all comes down to the stigma against prostitutes. Without it, they wouldn't need to hide in other entertainment professions.

Eh, no. That is incorrect.

I believe we do have a linguistics thread buried somewhere in OTC, if people maybe want to consider moving this tangent there.

Looks like the GRA reform is going to involve banning supported transition for under-18s and possibly a British version of the Bathroom Bill.

-sigh-

Buh. Are they cribbing this nonsense off American Republican state governments or what?

This is the hardest right government the UK has had for decades, and the UK is virulently transphobic for some fucking reason. They certainly didn't need to copycat the States, and this isn't very surprising, but it still sucks to see them do such contemptible stuff. And it falls into the BS "they're making kids change their sex when they're TOO YOUNG" narrative too, Liz Truss specifically mentions the risk of people deciding to detransition as a reason not to transition before 18 even though this doesn't happen nearly as often as people say they do.

It's unclear whether trans kids will have access to hormone blockers under the "no transition before 18" bit, which is really quite worrying.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Apr 24th 2020 at 10:07:50 AM

I have a question: just how bad is the anti-LGBT bias in the pshycological community? I just saw a Twitter thread of people's horror stories and wanted to get y'all's opinions.

It is going to vary a lot from psychological education to another.

Disclaimer, I do not live in the United States but I AM a Psychologist. Another important detail is that I am not a clinical psychologist. It is not my specialization. But I of course know psychologists who are clinical and I defer to them in those matters.

Anyways.

It will vary a lot because even though Psychology is a science, you can get to practice it without understanding it as one. That is to say certain frameworks within psychology exist that give free reign to understanding issues without appropriate testing for validity or reliability to your postures.

And these concepts are so dense, and so deeply ingrained in the realm of Psychology that they cannot be rooted out overnight - heck I doubt they can be possibly ousted completely.

There are psychologists who subscribe to this framework, amongst other things, because it is way easier to practice when you don't have to offer mathematical proof of your research. These guys don't so much research their theory as they go market-hopping for conclusions that match their wack-ass hypotheses.

So it's a good market for confirmation biases thinly veiled under actual clinical practices and it's kinda pathetic. And that's why you will find a lot of variation within psychology.

Edited by Aszur on May 21st 2020 at 2:43:58 PM

Alt-right homophobes are using 4chan to plan a terrifying cyber attack on the LGBT+ community during Pride month

It is amazing how much effort some are investing into harming people who have never done them any harm and never will and whose lifestyle does not affect them in the slightest.

For some good news, Costa Rica has become the 1st Central American country to legalize same sex marriage. It was made law after the courts had declared the existing ban unconstitutional.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52808947

Good for them!

A shame that it's taken so long.

Speaking as someone from Costa Rica...yes and no.

First off, the briefest recapitulation I can manage of the situation. Two parties had power for over 60 years. One of the parties is involved in huge corruption scandal: Basically dies.

For the first time in decades, a third party was elected for over 3 elections now.

One of the things the party did, was send a consultation (An official question, so to speak), to the Inter American Court of Human Rights (Of which Costa Rica is a founding member), which asked if its resolution demanding all member states make gay marriage a thing was binding or not.

Shortly before the latest elections (this is bit important), they sent the answer: Yes. It was binding and was above our constitution.

A minor, neo pentecostal, hyper conservative party said "Vote for me and I will remove us from the Organization so we don't have to make Gay Marriage a thing". Come election day, the neopentecostal party went to second round

The third party won the second round very handily. But the neopentecostal fundamentalists still won seats.

With these seats, coupled with the fact most of the traditional parties are conservative, the process was slowed. But due to the fact it was a binding resolution from an authority above our constitution, there was a deadline.

The conservative clowns did their best (Read: pathetic and hilarious) efforts to slow down the inevitable. They completely failed, despite the fact one of their members (Eduardo Cruickshank) was recently voted literally president of the Assembly. Their last ditch attempt was to attempt to postpone it just to get a few more days of non gay marriage.

Even now, a few stranded lawyers are kicking and flailing (and risking their right to exercise law in the process) by trying to go after it.

So it sounds good, but it left some rifts and downright empowered some of the most dangerous aspects of conservatism embedded like a splinter in our system.

That said it will be great to go to my brother's wedding.

Edited by Aszur on May 29th 2020 at 10:38:23 PM

Ah, I see. A shame that it's not a purely positive change. But it's good that they've failed to stop it.

Thanks for the information

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on May 29th 2020 at 9:50:03 AM

Congrtulations to your brother! ^_^

Well, Rowling's at it again.

It's against forum rules to post links without context. Please summarize what you're linking to in case people can't or won't click on your link.

She accidentally pasted some TERFery into a tweet sharing fanart of her online kids book

And then she went full Malfoy with

"My lawyer will hear of this"

This is probably the wrong thread to be asking this in, but - since it's now Pride month, I have a feeling I'll end up talking with my relatives about LGBT business; which would be fine, except they've always given me mixed signals about their views on Trans people and Trans rights. It doesn't help that they like to wind me up with ironically un-PC humour (which I'm usually fine with, though I know a lot of folks wouldn't be) and I'm not great at reading people, so that complicates matters further. And we're all middle-class white people in a (UK) Conservative-leaning area, which I understand is the most fertile breeding ground for TERFism in this country.

I've been thinking lately of sending them something, like an article or some statistics (or an article with statistics) to get a better handle on how paranoid I'm being, if at all. Or at least being educational. :V Is there anything you'd recommend?

Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Jun 1st 2020 at 4:41:56 PM