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Look either you get a rough and scratchy carpet which you can’t slip off OR you get a rug that cannot handle the vicious weather conditions and the weight of a couple people.
Well so far we have yet to see him actually hit on a lady, except Joyce and I forget how that went because I have yet to do another read through of the archives, so we have no clue how he goes about his way.
It seemed… normal. They talked, a date was arranged due to mutual assumed interests (for Joe, sex, for Joyce, marriage), date failed, Joe was angry about being punched, not about any failure to have sex.
Y’know, I was really compelled by the character development of Joyce, seeing her being conflicted by the relevations of the affect her new friends have on her that she literally is hurting inside, until I realized Joe was saying something, haha.
And great job using Roz’s attitude to move foreward the storytelling!
I think this is my favorite strip of the entire series thus far. And I wish Leslie were real and taught at my college so I could take her gender studies class because she’s awesome.
Update on the “Dexter and Monkey Master” synopses:
I’m still working on them. They’ll be pretty short. Longer than the episode descriptions on a wikipedia article for a season of a show (example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time_%28season_4%29 ) but very few will be more than just a few sentences.
Excellent observation! Leslie is a great teacher, hope she actually gets thru to Roz.
Joe is just Joe..no words can describe him.
Joyce is growing and it looks like it hurts.
I do love the character development and the expressions drawn are fantastic.
I kind of consider Roz a lost front on the cause of learning that she doesn’t already know everything (at least at her current age — maybe not in the distant future).
I’m just hopeful that she’s getting through to Joyce. Her words are affecting her, but I’m not sure in a positive way yet.
As crass as Joe might seem, I think it’s important and relevant that he’s exploring his awareness of his sexuality. I like that he doesn’t objectify or coerce women, and that he’s a supportive friend who tries to motivate Danny after his breakup. He’s a good guy.
I’m not sure I’d qualify Joe as a good guy – dude can be a real asshole.
I think part of Joe’s problem is a limited empathy – Joe can’t imagine something being important to anyone unless it’s important to him. Remember when Dorothy broke up with Danny, and Joe immediately discussed the possibility of having sex with her with Danny? Joe couldn’t imagine a breakup being a big deal, because it wouldn’t have been a big deal to him.
I think that it’s unfair to label Joe as an asshole for how he handled Dorothy and Danny’s breakup. Joe is really good at reading people and he clearly saw the signs that the two of them were through.
Since the two of them are so close Joe is able to give Danny more of a good natured ribbing to make light of the situation. If nothing else asking if Danny was subscribed to his “Do List” RSS feed is a way of pointing out that there are many other people out there for Danny.
Joe’s reaction to Danny’s girlfriend of several years breaking up with him–literally seconds afterward while it was still sinking in for Danny what had happened–was to congratulate himself on calling the exact time of the breakup and then rate Dorothy’s sexual attractiveness. He didn’t do that because he thought it would make Danny feel better (and good god, if he did it doesn’t say much for those people-reading skills!), he did it because he just didn’t care how Danny felt.
Yeah, that’s all very well and good, but why did you preface that with “life isn’t binary”? That makes absolutely no sense with the rest of the sentence.
Life isn’t binary (one or the other) just like gender isn’t binary–it’s a continuum ranging from completely female on one end to completely male on the other, but having infinite possibilities in between.
Clarification: talking about gender identity, not physical sex male/female/etc.
She’s being a bit roundabout, but the point Leslie is trying to make is that Roz has a lot to learn from others and specifically about gender. Roz implied earlier that she knew everything about gender studies (don’t need the book) and that it boiled down to “women should be treated as equals.” Leslie is trying to gently mention that there are other genders while also giving the class a life lesson.
So you know, physical/biological sex also isn’t a binary. You have male towards one end, female towards the other end, a bit of space past both of those ends, and a couple of intermediates. Things like chromosomal aneuploidy, genetic rearrangements and deletions, androgen insensitivity, etc. make things complicated. Sure, you can draw a line and say “If this person has a Y chromosome (or an SRY gene), that makes them male; if not, female”, but that grossly oversimplifies the fact that there are definite non-normative states. Creating a defining boundary out of thin air doesn’t necessarily reflect the underlying scientific reality.
Personal source: the “Sex-determination and Differentiation” class in the “Organ Systems Physiology” course at Johns Hopkins School Medical, where I got a Master’s degree.
Physical sex is also not binary. For most people, 95%+ in most communities, it is indeed either XX or XY, with female or male being the expression of that. However, there are a great many other chromosone setups, and a wide variety of physical expressions of those, from polysomy (up to, apparently, pentasomy, which is a combination of 5 Xs or Ys, usually something like XXXYY, and may be the rarest genetic state in humanity) to androgen insensitivity syndrome, which Caster Semenya MIGHT (it was reported in the news, but not sure if it was ever confirmed) have.
Because things aren’t just black and white. Sure, Joyce is wrong about a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean Roz doesn’t have anything to learn from her.
She (black hair – Roz, i think?) hasn’t offered a dichotomy though. Saying “I know this topic like the back of my hand” isn’t black-and-white thinking, it’s just arrogance. In order for the word binary to make sense there needs to be an X and a Y she says “I know this shit” and her response is “you can learn something from anyone” which is perfectly valid but nonbinary-ness isn’t really related.
Roz is Right because she thinks women and men are equal, so she can’t have anything else to learn because anything that is not Right like her must be Wrong.
The ostensible binary is “right” and “wrong”. Roz is saying her worldview is right and dares Leslie to say it’s wrong. Leslie is explaining that you can be not wrong and still not be completely right. Hence not binary.
No, you’re right that that statement alone doesn’t not present a black-and-white dichotomy, but Roz clearly thinks in terms of Right and Wrong, with herself as Right. Leslie’s trying to pierce that bubble.
Everyone is focusing on Joyce and Joe, but I seriously cringed at Roz’s remark in the first panel. “What does this have to do with Gender Studies”? Seriously, Roz? You can’t see how the progressive discovery and shaping of one’s viewpoints and beliefs could have something to do with gender studies?
Gender’s pretty fucking binary folk. XX… XY… (Pretending XXY is regular is pretending having 3 arms isn’t abnormal. I’m not sorry for hurt feelings but this is reality).
I think you’re confused. Binary means “composed of two pieces or two parts”. The fact that there is more (even within XX and XY), no matter how common or uncommon, means it’s not a binary situation.
That, and I’m pretty sure Willis wasn’t referring to X/Y chromosomes.
Oh, like that. Well to take offense to THAT part of what I said is a bit much, isn’t it? It’s like me saying “Humans have 46 chromosomes” and then getting mad at me for not including people with less or more chromosomes saying I’m insulting them for not including them into my rather general statement? There’s me being wrong and there’s making a stretch.
“Gender is binary! I’ll prove it by talking about what determines sex! And then I’ll say some really fucking condescending shit about reality, immediately after disproving myself even while talking about the wrong thing!”
After looking up gender and sex after being pointed out that I’m talking about the wrong I have to correct myself and apologize for getting it wrong. Gender ISN’T my chromosomes, that’s my sex. Fair enough.
Like David said: Gender =/= (does ntot equal) Sex . XX and XY (female/male) or intersex chromosomal configurations differentiate physiological “Sex”, and more than whether it’s binary the thing about it is that it just IS: the chromosomes are there or they are not. But, OTOH “Gender” adds to that the dimension of psychological/social/behavioral/cultural constructs that surround and relate to sex: what you and others feel think and do about it and how it affects y’all. Biology is not destiny.
Your statement that gender is binary isn’t just incorrect with regards to chromosomal combinations. There are also physical differences in the brains of trans folks that indicate that gender is an open ended set, not a binary. Here’s some of the current research:
“These data suggest a pattern (in male to female transsexuals) of activation away from the biological sex, occupying an intermediate position with predominantly female-like features”
The white matter in the brains of male-to-female transsexuals who have not yet begun hormone therapy mirrors the white matter in male brains rather than female brains.
From the abstract:
” Results revealed that regional gray matter variation in MTF transsexuals is more similar to the pattern found in men than in women. However, MTF transsexuals show a significantly larger volume of regional gray matter in the right putamen compared to men. These findings provide new evidence that transsexualism is associated with distinct cerebral pattern, which supports the assumption that brain anatomy plays a role in gender identity.”
From the results:
“For each of 22 significantly different regions (twelve within the right hemisphere and ten within the left hemisphere), cluster-specific box plots were generated to illustrate the magnitude and direction of gray matter volume differences between groups (see supplement 1 and 2). Altogether, females had the largest gray matter volumes in all but two significant clusters, which were located in the left and right putamen. Here, MTF transsexuals had the largest gray matter volumes (see Fig. 1). For the remaining clusters, MTF transsexuals had the smallest gray matter volumes, but their data spectrum largely overlapped with that of males.”
Regarding the little post down there asking you to moderate me, I’ve replied reasonably and calmly to everyone who replied to me. I hope you can see that and not think that I’m just “trolling” as the younguns’ like to say.
I had no idea. Thanks for the crash course on gender. Regardless of the lynch mob I’m glad I made this comment since I got to learn a little bit today.
“The white matter in the brains of male-to-female transsexuals who have not yet begun hormone therapy mirrors the white matter in male female brains rather than female male brains.”
Sorry – just pointing this out. I’m sure it’s just a typo, but trans women have female, not male brains, is the point.
(late reply) – they MIGHT mean “brain of people with XY chromosomes who are trans”. We use the words “male” and “female” to mean gender all the time, but they mean sex – and while still being inaccurate, being binary, and sex isn’t binary, the binary gender terms are man and woman – hence transman and transwoman, not transmale or transfemale. The point of the study seems to be that trans people with xy chromosomes (assuming they tested for that accurately) have brains differing from cis people with the same chromosomes. Or have I misread it? I’m getting journal fatigue recently…
Numbers are pretty fucking binary. A… B… (pretending C is regular is pretending having an E before I isn’t abnormal. I’m sorry to hurt feelings but this is reality.)
I have nothing to add with regards to the topic of chromosomes or being transgender (and frankly, it looks like people way smarter than me have already curbstomped HeatPhoenix with the power of science and logic, so what more could I add?). I’d just like to say how wonderful it is to see a real time demonstration how much the kind, intelligent people of this community outnumber the odd bigot. Does my heart good and makes me a little teary eyed thinking about it. You guys rock!
I had no idea a calm and logical discussion in which prove and evidence is provided to prove the contrary to my assertion involved me being “curbstomped” and me being a “bigot”. Excuse me.
Confusion about sex/gender aside, you’re also laughably ignorant about biological sex determination – Klinefelter’s is far from the only XY aneuploidy – nor do most aneuploidies break the standard sex determination rules.
However, there are conditions not linked to the sex chromosomes that can effect sexual anatomy. One of the most startling being Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, where the person is completely phenotypically female, despite having an XY karyotype. (Also, they almost invariably identify as heterosexual women – AFAIK, there are only two known cases of a CAIS individual identifying as men, and CAIS women are lesbians less often than XX women (who are themselves lesbians less often than trans women).)
Since I’m “laughably ignorant” would you have any places you could hook me up to reading more about this subject? Being “laughably ignorant” is not something I take pleasure in being. Thanks.
Wikipedia’s articles on various intersex conditions are also pretty good, at least to the extent that I’ve actually read through them, and excluding the ones that are stubs (most of the ones for abnormal sex-determining chromosome configurations other than XXY, X0, XXX, and XYY).
Joe’s life may be a glorious tapestry, but Joyce looks more like a tapestry of quiet desperation. She, like Brock before her, needs a transgendered spirit mentor to reassure her. How appropriate to the class’ discussion!
<3
Way off topic, but does anybody know where I can get the Venture Bros holiday specials in Canada? I haven't seen the last Halloween one and from what I've heard something really important happens.
Would everyone stop with the stupid std comments? Even if it’s a joke, it isn’t original or funny. Condoms don’t always remove the risk entirely, but it significantly lowers it. Just having sex doesn’t magically create disease either.
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and how many new STDs, Joe? =p
I’m betting Joe’s careful enough not to have picked up any.
I mean, just because you have sex a lot and you’re adventurous doesn’t mean that you’re stupid about it.
True… Besides, this is Joe we’re talking about. He prolly has some kind of multidimensional alien power of being immune to them
I think Joyce is frustrated that Joe might have something to offer her…
In his wrinkle? its just a sign that it grows 0_o
Joe doesn’t have a wrinkle, he has a canyon.
I believe Joyce is worried about developing wrinkles.
When you spend so much time starch-pressing your white linens any hint of color is a threat
Wrinkles? Nah, she’s gonna shatter.
In Joe’s case, hopefully that glorious tapestry wont turn out to be an aids quilt.
+1 LIKE
YOUR AVATAR IS CURRENTLY DAPHNE WEARING VELMA’S SWEATER! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!?
Actually today’s grav is Ringo Tsukimiya from the anime Uta no Price-sama, a crossdressing singing idol.
But you see it, right?
Kinda.
Crossdressing, you say?
So it’s actually Shaggy in Velma’s sweater.
And Daphne’s wig.
And Freddy’s boxers?
And old man Jenkins’ shoes?
And he would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids…!
Jinkies!
This is why I read the comments.
Was a tapestry involved in one of those positions?
He had sex with a tapestry.
…and something tells me the wants it back…
Lemme try the HTML again…
…and something tells me the Kinsey Institute wants it back…
His children shall be recreational Van Gogh recreations.
The Tapestry is actually a well known sexual position. It involves two bottles of Sake and the magic rug from Aladdin.
But, if you plan on actually getting off, god help you.
Nothing against the rug from Aladdin, it’s a pretty righteous dude, but I get the feeling it would be awfully… chafe-y…
Don’t worry. It’s magic.
… and silk … not that camel hair stuff …. ouchies ….
Look either you get a rough and scratchy carpet which you can’t slip off OR you get a rug that cannot handle the vicious weather conditions and the weight of a couple people.
Joe is the best role model.
PUAs think Joe is a rightous dude.
Joe isn’t shown being manipulative or coercive. He just liked fucking ladies who like fucking him.
What lady wouldn’t? He’s JOE.
Leslie.
Well so far we have yet to see him actually hit on a lady, except Joyce and I forget how that went because I have yet to do another read through of the archives, so we have no clue how he goes about his way.
RECAP: Joyce dated Joe and hired Mike to punch Joe in the face if he got too ‘forward’, the date didn’t go too well.
It went great for Mike.
Everything works out great for Mike. He’s Mike.
Can’t be that great. There’s still happiness in the world.
It seemed… normal. They talked, a date was arranged due to mutual assumed interests (for Joe, sex, for Joyce, marriage), date failed, Joe was angry about being punched, not about any failure to have sex.
He does, however, suggest getting Joyce drunk to have sex with her.
Oh crap yeah, I didn’t re-read first… Ok, that was creepy. But realistic, frankly.
I’m both genuinely moved by Joe’s observation and desperately hoping Joyce explodes at him next strip because that would be funny.
I think her literally exploding would also be funny.
Nah, that’s what we have Dina for.
I think she’d show up, stare, and explode, because she felt she had neglected her duties.
But it’s never funny when Dina does it.
It may not be funny, but it’s the best she can do.
I like how this shows the character development of Joyce. Earlier in the comic, she’d be slightly horrified at what Joe said. Now she’s just angry.
Just slightly? In response to a remark like Joe’s, I’d think three-weeks-ago Joyce would be staring blankly ahead in soul-shocking dumbstruck horror!
And confused, to boot! “How can there be different… positions?”
Aw, now I’m actually interested in why Joyce isn’t doing Horror Face.
I’d guess she expects this sort of thing from Joe. It’s not a mind-breaking revelation to learn that Joe likes the sex.
There probably would have been and exclamation of : “PRE-MARITAL HANKY-PANKY!”
I’m going to believe he picked up a couple from Danny.
Like the “Whine”, the “Oblivious idiot” and of course the “Please be gentle!!!”.
As long as he never uses the “Dan”, because apparently Daning things into the ground is a big turn-off.
He learned the DHAEI (Dry-Hump-an-Elvis-Impersonator).
Joyce’s expression in the last panel is aces.
Your avatar is aces.
Doo-be-doo-be-doo-bah…
A-GENT P!
DOOFENSCHIRMTZ EVIL INCORPORATED!
Doof-enshmirtz Contin-uing ED CLASS!
Yeah Joyce, people like things you don’t, someday you’ll have to learn to live with it.
For Joe, life is a glorious Tap-it-stry.
Can’t be unseen. Joe you punny bastard.
As always, Willis, your facial expressions are superb. That is the perfect supressing-the-urge-to-murder-everyone face.
Y’know, I was really compelled by the character development of Joyce, seeing her being conflicted by the relevations of the affect her new friends have on her that she literally is hurting inside, until I realized Joe was saying something, haha.
And great job using Roz’s attitude to move foreward the storytelling!
I think this is my favorite strip of the entire series thus far. And I wish Leslie were real and taught at my college so I could take her gender studies class because she’s awesome.
This is also my favorite strip, and so is the one before it, and the one before that, and the one before it before that before this….etc
Sixth panel: Joe and Roz high five.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKNZC2S6T4c&t=1m55s
Seventh panel:
Joe: “It’s only fair I teach you as many as you taught me.”
Roz: “Who says I taught you everything I know?”
Joe: “Your place or mine?”
Roz: “Both.”
Eighth panel:
(Joyce bolts out of her chair, runs away screaming.)
Ninth panel:
(Everyone stares aghast at Joe and Roz. Leslie is double face-palming.)
Update on the “Dexter and Monkey Master” synopses:
I’m still working on them. They’ll be pretty short. Longer than the episode descriptions on a wikipedia article for a season of a show (example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time_%28season_4%29 ) but very few will be more than just a few sentences.
I should be done in the next day or two!
yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
Excellent observation! Leslie is a great teacher, hope she actually gets thru to Roz.
Joe is just Joe..no words can describe him.
Joyce is growing and it looks like it hurts.
I do love the character development and the expressions drawn are fantastic.
I kind of consider Roz a lost front on the cause of learning that she doesn’t already know everything (at least at her current age — maybe not in the distant future).
I’m just hopeful that she’s getting through to Joyce. Her words are affecting her, but I’m not sure in a positive way yet.
As crass as Joe might seem, I think it’s important and relevant that he’s exploring his awareness of his sexuality. I like that he doesn’t objectify or coerce women, and that he’s a supportive friend who tries to motivate Danny after his breakup. He’s a good guy.
I’m not sure I’d qualify Joe as a good guy – dude can be a real asshole.
I think part of Joe’s problem is a limited empathy – Joe can’t imagine something being important to anyone unless it’s important to him. Remember when Dorothy broke up with Danny, and Joe immediately discussed the possibility of having sex with her with Danny? Joe couldn’t imagine a breakup being a big deal, because it wouldn’t have been a big deal to him.
I think that it’s unfair to label Joe as an asshole for how he handled Dorothy and Danny’s breakup. Joe is really good at reading people and he clearly saw the signs that the two of them were through.
Since the two of them are so close Joe is able to give Danny more of a good natured ribbing to make light of the situation. If nothing else asking if Danny was subscribed to his “Do List” RSS feed is a way of pointing out that there are many other people out there for Danny.
Joe’s reaction to Danny’s girlfriend of several years breaking up with him–literally seconds afterward while it was still sinking in for Danny what had happened–was to congratulate himself on calling the exact time of the breakup and then rate Dorothy’s sexual attractiveness. He didn’t do that because he thought it would make Danny feel better (and good god, if he did it doesn’t say much for those people-reading skills!), he did it because he just didn’t care how Danny felt.
Doesn’t objectify women? Then what’s with the whole “make out” gestures and chant he does whenever he sees two women arguing?
Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that. Good point
TOMORROW: Joyce learns that atheists can believe true things
Yeah, that’s all very well and good, but why did you preface that with “life isn’t binary”? That makes absolutely no sense with the rest of the sentence.
Life isn’t binary (one or the other) just like gender isn’t binary–it’s a continuum ranging from completely female on one end to completely male on the other, but having infinite possibilities in between.
Clarification: talking about gender identity, not physical sex male/female/etc.
I know all that, but the rest of her spiel about learning something from everyone you meet has fuckall to do with that.
She’s being a bit roundabout, but the point Leslie is trying to make is that Roz has a lot to learn from others and specifically about gender. Roz implied earlier that she knew everything about gender studies (don’t need the book) and that it boiled down to “women should be treated as equals.” Leslie is trying to gently mention that there are other genders while also giving the class a life lesson.
So you know, physical/biological sex also isn’t a binary. You have male towards one end, female towards the other end, a bit of space past both of those ends, and a couple of intermediates. Things like chromosomal aneuploidy, genetic rearrangements and deletions, androgen insensitivity, etc. make things complicated. Sure, you can draw a line and say “If this person has a Y chromosome (or an SRY gene), that makes them male; if not, female”, but that grossly oversimplifies the fact that there are definite non-normative states. Creating a defining boundary out of thin air doesn’t necessarily reflect the underlying scientific reality.
Personal source: the “Sex-determination and Differentiation” class in the “Organ Systems Physiology” course at Johns Hopkins School Medical, where I got a Master’s degree.
ARGH! I meant “School of Medicine”. (There wasn’t any classes on proofreading.)
Physical sex is also not binary. For most people, 95%+ in most communities, it is indeed either XX or XY, with female or male being the expression of that. However, there are a great many other chromosone setups, and a wide variety of physical expressions of those, from polysomy (up to, apparently, pentasomy, which is a combination of 5 Xs or Ys, usually something like XXXYY, and may be the rarest genetic state in humanity) to androgen insensitivity syndrome, which Caster Semenya MIGHT (it was reported in the news, but not sure if it was ever confirmed) have.
Also: hermaphroditism. That blurs the line as well.
Sorry if this came off a bit condescending, it wasn’t supposed to.
And I do realize sex isn’t binary, either (hence the “etc.”)
I’m just not always at my best with phrasing right before I go to bed.
Because things aren’t just black and white. Sure, Joyce is wrong about a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean Roz doesn’t have anything to learn from her.
What Jackson said.
She (black hair – Roz, i think?) hasn’t offered a dichotomy though. Saying “I know this topic like the back of my hand” isn’t black-and-white thinking, it’s just arrogance. In order for the word binary to make sense there needs to be an X and a Y she says “I know this shit” and her response is “you can learn something from anyone” which is perfectly valid but nonbinary-ness isn’t really related.
Roz is Right because she thinks women and men are equal, so she can’t have anything else to learn because anything that is not Right like her must be Wrong.
The ostensible binary is “right” and “wrong”. Roz is saying her worldview is right and dares Leslie to say it’s wrong. Leslie is explaining that you can be not wrong and still not be completely right. Hence not binary.
Ok, now it makes sense.
No, you’re right that that statement alone doesn’t not present a black-and-white dichotomy, but Roz clearly thinks in terms of Right and Wrong, with herself as Right. Leslie’s trying to pierce that bubble.
The gender binary sucks and so does Roz. LGBTMORELETTERS represent! (I represent the “T” specifically.)
I sort-of represent ‘T’. I’m bi-gender trans. Psychologically more female than male, but comfortable in my male body.
I’m a full on trans-lesbian. MTF for those who can’t figure it out.
Because I’m bi-gender, I suppose I’m both a straight guy and a lesbian at the same time… *shrug*
Everyone is focusing on Joyce and Joe, but I seriously cringed at Roz’s remark in the first panel. “What does this have to do with Gender Studies”? Seriously, Roz? You can’t see how the progressive discovery and shaping of one’s viewpoints and beliefs could have something to do with gender studies?
Life is binary. Everything is a series of 0’s and 1’s.
This is because we live in the Matrix.
Can i get a face palm! Gezz joe
Gender’s pretty fucking binary folk. XX… XY… (Pretending XXY is regular is pretending having 3 arms isn’t abnormal. I’m not sorry for hurt feelings but this is reality).
I think you’re confused. Binary means “composed of two pieces or two parts”. The fact that there is more (even within XX and XY), no matter how common or uncommon, means it’s not a binary situation.
That, and I’m pretty sure Willis wasn’t referring to X/Y chromosomes.
I think the issue is that gender was asserted to not be binary and I meant sex.
Because it’s totally okay to insult a group if there aren’t a lot of them.
Buddy, that’s exactly not what I’m saying. “He doesn’t agree with me? HE MUST HATE MINORITIES” is kind of a stretch, ain’t it?
timemonkey is referring to how you insulted people that have XXY.
I did not mean to insult anyone. But to say that XXY is not irregular…
Being irregular is not the same thing as not existing. When you say something is binary, that means that there are ONLY two options.
Also, an unintentional insult is still an insult.
Oh, like that. Well to take offense to THAT part of what I said is a bit much, isn’t it? It’s like me saying “Humans have 46 chromosomes” and then getting mad at me for not including people with less or more chromosomes saying I’m insulting them for not including them into my rather general statement? There’s me being wrong and there’s making a stretch.
“Gender is binary! I’ll prove it by talking about what determines sex! And then I’ll say some really fucking condescending shit about reality, immediately after disproving myself even while talking about the wrong thing!”
Thanks for impersonating me as an unreasonable ignorant fool. That sure showed me rather than all the other people showing me WHY I was wrong.
Your gender isn’t your chromosomes, buddy.
This is the entire point I’m trying to make.
Yeah, it kinda is.
After looking up gender and sex after being pointed out that I’m talking about the wrong I have to correct myself and apologize for getting it wrong. Gender ISN’T my chromosomes, that’s my sex. Fair enough.
Like David said: Gender =/= (does ntot equal) Sex . XX and XY (female/male) or intersex chromosomal configurations differentiate physiological “Sex”, and more than whether it’s binary the thing about it is that it just IS: the chromosomes are there or they are not. But, OTOH “Gender” adds to that the dimension of psychological/social/behavioral/cultural constructs that surround and relate to sex: what you and others feel think and do about it and how it affects y’all. Biology is not destiny.
“Like David said: Gender =/= (does ntot equal) Sex”
That’s very true. I’d much rather have sex than gender.
I see that now. Thanks folks.
Your statement that gender is binary isn’t just incorrect with regards to chromosomal combinations. There are also physical differences in the brains of trans folks that indicate that gender is an open ended set, not a binary. Here’s some of the current research:
“These data suggest a pattern (in male to female transsexuals) of activation away from the biological sex, occupying an intermediate position with predominantly female-like features”
http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/8/1900.full.pdf
The white matter in the brains of male-to-female transsexuals who have not yet begun hormone therapy mirrors the white matter in male brains rather than female brains.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news#.UcOYvPlOB0o
And then there’s this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754583/
From the abstract:
” Results revealed that regional gray matter variation in MTF transsexuals is more similar to the pattern found in men than in women. However, MTF transsexuals show a significantly larger volume of regional gray matter in the right putamen compared to men. These findings provide new evidence that transsexualism is associated with distinct cerebral pattern, which supports the assumption that brain anatomy plays a role in gender identity.”
From the results:
“For each of 22 significantly different regions (twelve within the right hemisphere and ten within the left hemisphere), cluster-specific box plots were generated to illustrate the magnitude and direction of gray matter volume differences between groups (see supplement 1 and 2). Altogether, females had the largest gray matter volumes in all but two significant clusters, which were located in the left and right putamen. Here, MTF transsexuals had the largest gray matter volumes (see Fig. 1). For the remaining clusters, MTF transsexuals had the smallest gray matter volumes, but their data spectrum largely overlapped with that of males.”
tl;dr –
Dear HeatPhoenix,
Nope.
Kindest regards,
Science
Cosigned,
Reality
Regarding the little post down there asking you to moderate me, I’ve replied reasonably and calmly to everyone who replied to me. I hope you can see that and not think that I’m just “trolling” as the younguns’ like to say.
I had no idea. Thanks for the crash course on gender. Regardless of the lynch mob I’m glad I made this comment since I got to learn a little bit today.
“The white matter in the brains of male-to-female transsexuals who have not yet begun hormone therapy mirrors the white matter in
malefemale brains rather thanfemalemale brains.”Sorry – just pointing this out. I’m sure it’s just a typo, but trans women have female, not male brains, is the point.
(late reply) – they MIGHT mean “brain of people with XY chromosomes who are trans”. We use the words “male” and “female” to mean gender all the time, but they mean sex – and while still being inaccurate, being binary, and sex isn’t binary, the binary gender terms are man and woman – hence transman and transwoman, not transmale or transfemale. The point of the study seems to be that trans people with xy chromosomes (assuming they tested for that accurately) have brains differing from cis people with the same chromosomes. Or have I misread it? I’m getting journal fatigue recently…
Numbers are pretty fucking binary. A… B… (pretending C is regular is pretending having an E before I isn’t abnormal. I’m sorry to hurt feelings but this is reality.)
Numbers are binary and then you say letters while parodying my post. I’m sorry, I don’t think I get what you’re getting at, friend.
I have nothing to add with regards to the topic of chromosomes or being transgender (and frankly, it looks like people way smarter than me have already curbstomped HeatPhoenix with the power of science and logic, so what more could I add?). I’d just like to say how wonderful it is to see a real time demonstration how much the kind, intelligent people of this community outnumber the odd bigot. Does my heart good and makes me a little teary eyed thinking about it. You guys rock!
I had no idea a calm and logical discussion in which prove and evidence is provided to prove the contrary to my assertion involved me being “curbstomped” and me being a “bigot”. Excuse me.
Confusion about sex/gender aside, you’re also laughably ignorant about biological sex determination – Klinefelter’s is far from the only XY aneuploidy – nor do most aneuploidies break the standard sex determination rules.
However, there are conditions not linked to the sex chromosomes that can effect sexual anatomy. One of the most startling being Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, where the person is completely phenotypically female, despite having an XY karyotype. (Also, they almost invariably identify as heterosexual women – AFAIK, there are only two known cases of a CAIS individual identifying as men, and CAIS women are lesbians less often than XX women (who are themselves lesbians less often than trans women).)
Since I’m “laughably ignorant” would you have any places you could hook me up to reading more about this subject? Being “laughably ignorant” is not something I take pleasure in being. Thanks.
As far as online resources go, this is a good start. It’s very basic, but it’ll give you an idea.
Wikipedia’s articles on various intersex conditions are also pretty good, at least to the extent that I’ve actually read through them, and excluding the ones that are stubs (most of the ones for abnormal sex-determining chromosome configurations other than XXY, X0, XXX, and XYY).
I’ve got to say, I’m rather astounded how quickly HeatPhoenix changed their tune. It’s something one doesn’t often see.
I’m not the kind of person that doesn’t admit when they’re wrong.
Walky-San, when you resurface from Transformers’ Fan Paradise, your sys-op judgement moderator skills are required. See above.
I think it kind of took care of itself.
Also that’s next weekend.
I love it when Joyce is mortified/horrified/shocked/disgusted.
Why does Joyce have a Band-Aid on her arm?
Flu shot. A month or so ago for us, This Morning for Joyce.
Seventeen.
Heh.
Amateurs.
Seventeen, in a semester.
He now knows every position known to man, and several known to mammals native to the ocean.
Thanks Joe. You’ve pierced to the heart of the matter.
Or in terms you’d understand, penetrated to the . . . ovaries? I’ve lost the metaphor.
Joe’s life may be a glorious tapestry, but Joyce looks more like a tapestry of quiet desperation. She, like Brock before her, needs a transgendered spirit mentor to reassure her. How appropriate to the class’ discussion!
<3
Way off topic, but does anybody know where I can get the Venture Bros holiday specials in Canada? I haven't seen the last Halloween one and from what I've heard something really important happens.
I wonder how Joyce would react to meeting an openly trans* person.
Probably confusion, more than anything else, while she tried to figure out how it jived with her worldview.
I’m not even fundamentalist and I still don’t understand.
dammit Joe, Joyce almost had a moment there!
Would everyone stop with the stupid std comments? Even if it’s a joke, it isn’t original or funny. Condoms don’t always remove the risk entirely, but it significantly lowers it. Just having sex doesn’t magically create disease either.
I think I just fell in love with Leslie.
I would aspire to be a teacher like her.
Took me a while to figure out that Joe was the one speaking there since his mouth wasn’t open at all. Joyce’s expression clued me in though.
The speech balloon leading directly to Joe’s mouth didn’t clue you in?
Once again Joe ruins everything
Wait he’s been there HOW many days?