Dunning Kruger

Thank you for your reply.

I appreciate that you recognize that masculinity and femininity are concepts, and that these can co-exist and blend within many people’s experiences.

Unfortunately, the “I don’t care” position that you’ve described does still sound to me like the practice of “colorblindess.” For instance, it sounds like you are describing a similar false dichotomy; where you are saying, broadly, that either you “just don’t care” about a person’s experience of their identity features; or that, if you do care about a person’s experience of their identity features, then you would be forced to use that information to “ponder stereotypes.”

What about a third option? Could you see people as individuals rather than stereotypes; while also acknowledging that our experiences are affected by the contexts of our lives; including multiple layers of relationships with ourselves, each other, and broader societal forces?

This sounds similar to the “I just don’t see race” perspective.

Do you also just not see race?

If they’re different, what differentiates these topics in your thinking?

Respectfully, HubertManne, it seems like you have not really thought about this topic very deeply from a perspective other than your own yet.

I myself am old enough that I can appreciate your comment that “my whole life sex and gender terms were one and the same,” but many things change across the course of our lives, and “no one is even forcing me to study or anything now” is not a reason to stop learning and growing as a person.

If you are willing, I’d invite you to read this article on Minority Stress: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10712335/

Or, you might also read this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_stress , especially the section “Health outcomes among sexual minorities.”

Here is a snippet from the introduction of the first article:

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Overview

The foundation of minority stress theory lies in the hypothesis that sexual minority health disparities are produced by excess exposure to social stress faced by sexual minority populations due to their stigmatized social status (relative to heterosexual populations). Since its introduction, which focused on sexual minorities, minority stress theory has been expanded to include gender minorities [3–5] in particular describing the role of gender non-affirmation as a stressor for transgender and nonbinary people [6].

Minority stress is distinguished from general stress—stress that all people may experience—by its origin in prejudice and stigma. Thus, a stressor, such as losing one’s job, could be a general stressor or a minority stressor depending on whether it was motivated by prejudice against sexual and gender minority people as opposed to, for example, economic downturns that impact all people regardless of sexual and gender identity.

Meyer [2] described both distal and proximal stress processes. Distal stressors include stressors that originate from people or institutions that impact the LGBT person. These include discriminatory policies and laws [7] acute major life events (e.g., losing a job, being victimized by violence) [8], chronic stressors (e.g., living in poverty) [9], more minor, “everyday” experiences of discrimination or microaggressions (e.g., being treated unfairly or with disrespect) [10], or even non-events—expected positive experiences or events that were thwarted due to stigma and prejudice [11].

Proximal stressors arise from a socialization process in which sexual and gender minority people learn to reject themselves for being LGBT (internalized stigma) [12,13], develop expectations to be stigmatized due to awareness of prevailing social stigma (expectations of rejection) [14], and/or hide their LGBT identity as a way to protect themselves against distal minority stressors (identity concealment) [15]. Concealment may be protective in some environments, but it also limits access to social support and affirmation, complicating its role in minority stress theory [15].

Collectively, these minority stressors constitute the excess stress burden that places sexual and gender minority people at greater risk for negative health outcomes compared with cisgender straight people. Against these stressors, there are individual- and group-level coping mechanisms that can reduce the negative impact of minority stress. Thus, the overall health impact in the minority stress model is determined by the negative impact of stressful experiences and the ameliorative impact of coping, social support, and resilience.

That’s a fair perspective.

I appreciate your acknowledgement that all people have the right to their own self-determination; and I appreciate your affirmation that all people deserve to be treated with kindness and respect.

I would also ask, though, when you assert your right to your own evaluation of another person, do you also practice awareness that it is fundamentally your interpretation, and that your interpretation may be factually inaccurate?

Do you say, “My experience is that I think that person is a man,” or do you say, “I declare based on my observations that I know that that person is a man” ?

Most of the time, we have no way of knowing what sex organs someone has, regardless of the expression of their outward appearance. It’s true that we may often recognize certain characteristics that lead to familiar assumptions, but in almost all scenarios we are still either making our own guesses about someone else, or we are choosing to believe that they are whoever they say they are.

Also, when considering intersex people and other variations in sexual development, even if we guess correctly about the sex organs or characteristics that someone may have been born with, we may still be wrong about the person’s underlying genetic make up or hormone balances.

I guess I wonder, when you hold your right to determine your own evaluation of another person, is your thinking flexible enough that you can hold your own assumptions lightly?

It sounds like the assertions here are:

1. “Mass surveillance is not lawful and the government thus agreed not to do that.” Which is to say- the government will not do something if it is illegal.

2. The greater good of the work that the Department of Defense needs to do may justify infringement of some individual liberties.

3. The Department of Defense is run by lawful actors who can be trusted to make lawful decisions based on their own discretion.

Is this right?

He might