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as in, gender ain’t quite a 1D spectrum with “boy” on one end, “girl” on the other, and “NB” in the middle as Joyce likely imagines it
masculine and feminine ain’t opposites, but in fact but two categories out of MANY different genders, some of which don’t even have names yet, or whose names have been lost to history
That is cool new way to think about it.
But look, I should warn you – first gender was a 1 dimensional, then a line, now its a 3D model. If you keep going Differential Equations are going to become a perquisite for Gender Studies and no social movement can survive making people to do calculus.
Technically we’re up to 4D, with time being the forth dimension as even the same identities shift depending on their placement in history see: Jack Halbestram’s Female Masculinities, In a Queer Time and Place
(I take every opportunity to talk about Jack Halbestram)
hey, indigenous folk from all over the world had more than two genders in their societies for thousands of years before calculus was discovered, it ain’t rocket science
re: social movement surviving, progressive politics *always* have this innate disadvantage to reactionary ones, it’s part of the reason there’s no “alt-left pipeline” which could counteract the alt-right pipeline
An informed public is the backbone of a democracy, and of a functioning society.
When it comes down to it, it will always take a relatively large amount of effort and time to be informed and up to date, to know the truth about the complex natural and artificial systems which govern our lives, so that we can wield shared power responsibly.
On the other hand, it will always take a relatively small amount of effort and time to remain uninformed, not so up to date or even downright ignorant, but nonetheless be satiated with quippy rhetoric which merely gives one the FEELING of being informed and satiates their ego and absolves their guilt regardless.
as an autistic person who’s injected STEM into my veins since i was a kid, the idea of being afraid of knowing how the world works is still like, nigh inconceivable to me (X_X)
are normies afraid knowing even a little more about the complexities of gender and climate change gonna make them gay or something? (-_-)
I almost replied with there being an alt left pipeline, but, there really isn’t one? The stormfront movement recruits at pro Palestine rallies, but that’s really more poaching leftists than anything else.
I actively want to learn at least enough to understand the basic premises of the nonbinary conversation and to be respectful while talking to people about it, but the system is so overly complex and, in my experience, most of the people involved in the conversation are so quick to condescend, gatekeep, or play the victim card that I literally can’t find an opening to make the first step of educating myself, and as the terminology gets more and more complex that problem of basic accessibility gets steadily worse and worse. How does one even begin to educate themselves on this topic? That’s a sincere question because I have been trying and failing for around a decade.
Every time I try I attempt a google search, find contradictory information, try to find someone who knows what they are talking about to explain it to me, then get ignored, condescended to, and/or insulted until I give up for awhile until the brain itch of not understanding acts up again and I start all over in a couple years, but then what little I learned last time is outdated and some of it is now apparently offensive maybe? And the process gets repeated, but worse, over and over and over again. It is a profound exercise in frustration to try to be an informed ally. It should not be remotely that difficult to get enough information to understand the basic premises of the subject, not when we’re talking about a group (or groups) that claims to want to be understood and accepted.
That hasn’t been my experience at all. Admittedly, I’ve only met a couple nbs in real life, but even online the basics have been “So you’re not male or female? And you use they/them? Ok.” Or some variation on that.
that’s the goal
once gender is too complex for the layman to fret over, that’s when we’ll be able to deliver the decisive blow and abolish gender once and for all! creating the perfect agender paradise!!!
I have it on good authority that nothing typical humans can conceptualize really needs more than twelve dimensions to model. So, take comfort that there’s an end in sight.
Something being “lost to history” doesn’t just mean it’s gone, it means we have no remaining records of it, which typically means we don’t know what it’s called.
I feel like we’ve reached the point where category theory fails. Every time somebody points out that their personal gender identity isn’t represented in the existing defined categories, a new category is spawned to cover their gender identity because all gender identities are valid, and that’s really not how categories are supposed to work.
Personally, I think a spectrum makes a bit more sense, on some level, where certain points on the spectrum can be defined without invalidating the undefined spaces in-between. Although I agree with your point that masculine and feminine don’t really work as opposing ends of a spectrum and gender doesn’t really operate as a sliding scale between them, but I do feel a spectrum is closer to an accurate descriptor than a set of categories.
I think the best descriptor would be some application of trait theory, sort of like how in personality psychology categorization attempts like the MBTI and Enneagram have largely failed to stand up to scientific rigor (supposedly, I have quibbles about how rigorous the study used to “disprove” the MBTI actually was seeing as it was only one study that focused on the validity of the official test, which has since been updated based on the criticisms of that study, and not on the validity of the theory itself but people act like that alone is enough to fully discredit it, but I digress), but the Big Five Personality Traits theory is based on and backed by rather extensive scientific research. It might be more useful to boil gender identity down to a set of traits that a gender identity can have and then have people self-describe based on which of those traits they personally have and how much they have them, possibly assigning themselves labels and even establishing pseudo-categories for the more common gender identities so we can still keep useful labels for people doing initial research into the topic as well as a shorthand to communicate one’s identity with others in a readily comprehensible format.
In short, if gender identity is really that flexible and personal (I believe that it is, that “if” wasn’t intended to imply I don’t), then categories either need to be broad and flexible, or we should stop using categories in the first place, as category theory fails when it tries to be that specific.
I mean speaking as someone who’s genderfluid, yes, the categories need to be flexible and broad, as that’s the point
as queers, we make the language for affirmation, and a really important part about that to realize is that speakers make the language, not the other way around
labels and categories are ultimately descriptive, not prescriptive
I like my human sexuality like I like my human language: with plenty of cunning linguistics, descriptivism, dialectal and sociological studies, pragmatics, and PIE.
Yes, but it is extraordinarily difficult for people who are not already immersed in that conversation to find useful information on how to respectfully join it without stepping on toes when people are constantly one-upping the number of categories, or how the categories are or are not defined. I have literally only ever encountered the language surrounding these categories when being condescended to and gatekept from learning ANYTHING about the subject. I have been trying for over a decade now to understand even the basics of the nonbinary stuff (I don’t even have the terminology to even begin to find a way to phrase that better). Google and other search engines are useless because every source I find either contradicts the others, presumes a LOT of pre-existing knowledge that I simply lack, or is so vague or technical that it basically tells me nothing. And yet every time I try asking people who claim to or seem to actually know what they are talking about, I either get ignored, talked down to, or treated like a bigot for being ignorant.
I’ve seen SO many memes about the number of genders there are, and the number keeps changing, but I can’t find a list with explanations. I can’t find a good source of information for beginners. I can’t find somebody willing to talk to me like a person about it.
I literally just want to be able to understand, and using language to deliberately gatekeep information and exclude people from the conversation isn’t very “affirming”. And yes, I get that the point is to affirm the experiences of the people the language is about, but how can one possibly be an ally, be respectful, be supportive if it isn’t possible to learn the right terminology? To understand the basic premises of the conversation? I literally WANT to be able to affirm people by using respectful terms but I’m not being ALLOWED to because the ever-evolving terminology and the ever splitting categories get in the way.
That was my point, this is fundamentally not how categories function. Categories are, fundamentally, descriptive, not prescriptive, and that means they need to be broad, vague, and include members that are exceptions to the general rule. It’s actually a very well studied phenomenon in category theory that when you try to get too specific when defining a category, the category ultimately fails because it either excludes members that are part of it, or it includes members that are not, like how giving live birth is a commonly cited defining feature of mammals and yet the platypus and echidna are both mammals that lay eggs, or flying is a commonly cited defining feature of birds, yet bats, a mammal, can fly, and penguins, a bird, cannot. You can’t just split off every exception into it’s own unique category, because otherwise they cease to BE categories, that fails the basic function of categories, they aren’t useful as terms intended for communication anymore. You can make subcategories for when more specificity is needed, that’s why we have such complex taxonomy for life, by listing ever more specific subcategories until you get down to the singular member.
But with genders are we talking about a taxonomy system with subcategories? Or is every category distinct? Is the list of genders just going to grow until every human on earth has their own unique gender term? It was already almost impossible to enter the conversation a decade ago when I first started trying and it’s only been getting harder and harder because of this terminology quagmire.
So tell me, is the goal to be accepting of people? Because that goal is categorically not being satisfied with the current system of terminology.
I’m not a doctor, so I don’t personally find the dense anatomical jargon used by doctors to be useful, but that doesn’t mean I get to rip the words “dorsal talar avulsion” out of their hands and insist they say “ankle sprain”.
That’s what those silly, hyperfine-split words mean, after all!
What do you mean I’m discarding valuable information about the exact location of the sprain? If I don’t need that information, surely it must be useless.
Yeah, like in a space like this, I wouldn’t try to get into the details of my gender. When I’m in other spaces, I may discuss it more in-depth. But if someone wants to share their experience in a space, then those terms are useful, at least to them.
I read somewhere, some time ago, that the straight-gay scale doesn’t range from straight to gay with bi in the middle, but straight and gay are on one end and bi is on the other. My source, whatever it was, didn’t explain itself.
What I imagine it is is that one axis is like “attraction to men” and the other axis is like “attraction to women” and the kinsey scale is a diagonal line between straight and gay.
Any time you make a set of categories, no matter how inclusive they are, there will be people who feel it makes them special to say they are outside of those categories.
Anyway my point is there is no way to make categories broad enough and flexible enough that everyone will happily place themselves within one. And once people start making up their own new categories, some of those categories will catch on and we’re right back where we started.
Color is a spectrum, but color is also a wheel, and color is also part of the much broader electromagnetic spectrum that extends far beyond the visible band.
Well, that’s kind of a variant on the Kinsey scale in a lot of ways. Folded in half, with “strong preference for one gender” at one end and “no preference at all” at the other.
People get antsy about these things, but a 2D line works fine, so long as you understand it’s measuring or demonstrating one thing and not the entireity of human sexuality.
Was gonna ask if there was a mailing list of some sort for new gender updates, but instead I’ll just note how happy I am to see a pro-trans Sonic meme without even looking for one.
I have always found that carbonation helps when I have trouble swallowing the pill (the bubbles hide the sensation of the pill). I haven’t needed carbonation in a long time (having menstrual cramps and bad dust/grass allergies makes you get used to having to take meds), but water would still be the worst choice in my opinion.
I’ll give it a shot. I get raised eyebrows and “Are you just drinking straight club soda” at the table on game nights, but if you really think about it, most people haaaaaate flat soda. The bubbles are the big draw, and I’ve personally found that when you take the liquid candy out, it’s just as fun to drink. Another great aspect is, seltzer and club soda are both super-duper cheap and lots of places like Dollar General have $1 bags of candy, so for the price of one “regular” soda like Coke or Fanta, I can have a big-ass drink (unflavored bubbles typically come in 1-liter bottles!) that changes flavor every sip or two, depending on how quickly I eat the candy. There’s a fuckin’ life hack for ya.
Wait until you get old. I just added another pill yesterday to my morning pills. So, I have 9 morning pills, a lunch pill, and 12 or14 bedtime pills for a grand total of 22 to 24 pills a day between prescription and OTC meds. I usually swallow the morning pills in one gulp, and while it is physically possible to swallow the bedtime pills all at once, there are 2 meds that have to be taken separately at night because they aren’t swallowed but allowed to dissolve under the tongue. Don’t get old kids, unless you’re tough. Some of those meds I have to take because I was too tough to stay dead, and now I’m paying the price for it.
Has Joyce learned to take her meds without a 2 liter of Sierra Mist? I had problems with taking pills when I was younger, but I never needed 2 liters of liquid to take them.
Can vouch for that, although I’m sorely tempted to not take the return trip next time, the body is in worse and worse shape every time I come back. Unless there is something I have to do after I get killed next time, and I have been getting strong hints that I will have to save someone from my killer, I’m staying dead. I already have a spot in the Elysian Fields unless I seriously screw up something before I get killed again. I miss out on the spa day, but I’ll get over it. I’ll have access to all the services of the resort, just not all at once like a spa day.
Surprisingly, the Philadelphia courthouse (“Court of Common Pleas”) had, last time I visited, just such a dress code. All AFAB folx who were there to work had to wear skirts or dresses.
(Which was funny, because every time I would walk down the street wearing a dress, I would get followed… street harassers and propositioners just see “dress” = “target”)
Those annual seminars. In-service and professional development meetings. Maintaining the materials folder. Coordinating with the committee. GLAAD is such a pain.
Her entire worldview has changed in a few months, she’s doing great. People don’t need to be perfect right away (or ever) as long as they’re trying and growing.
yeah that’s the fun thing about women’s autism; a social faux paus then becomes mortifying embarrassment, and you make absolutely certain to never make that mistake again, but since you’re autistic you don’t fully grasp the subtleties or contexts so you just start saying them rapid fire hoping someone will give you a facial expression that tells you when you can stop.
It’s okay to laugh at Joyce doing this because it’s Joyce.
He draws great legs, though. And gets real intense about it over at Pibgorn. Sadly, he had a stroke and Pibgorn became intermittent. I’m afraid it might by over, now. Best wishes, Brooke.
*be over*
It just occurred to me to check the Source of All Knowledge, and found that not only is Brooke an artist, he’s also a classical musician and a music educator. Which isn’t surprising, if you follow his strips.
sexual stuff aside i’m surprised joyce wouldn’t be like “let’s go on a double date” or so lol (tho i suppose this means she’s more ok with joe/joyce hooking up now, although it’d still be a bit awkward face to face to ask for some privacy or so but i imagine dan woudl be used to it if they go to his room and like “text me when ur done”)
When I first outed myself in my workplace as non-binary, three years ago now, my colleagues spent a couple of months falling over their own speech just like this…!
at least that means they were earnestly trying versus rolling their eyes, i can’t imagine anyone in my part of tx would even understand nb let alone attempt to be respectful about pronouns
Yes, they were earnestly trying, and have become a wonderfully accepting bunch of people who banded together last year to defend me from an arseh*le manager (who has since moved on). In my almost 40 years in the workplace, this is the first time I’ve ever worked for a company where I felt able to be so totally openly myself. Been here four years, now. That’s the longest I’ve worked anywhere in the last 15 years of my career.
When I came out I went from being a conservative Republican to being a liberal Democrat over a period of about 18 months. I had so many conversations like this. To this day, 25+ years later I will occasionally ask my sweetie to translate the tangled crap coming out of my mouth to acceptable liberal speak.
In the same key: Let’s say every cast member is a live streamer, regardless of any preexisting conditions that would cause them not to do that. There’s no “but they wouldn’t because”, we’re now in the reality where it’s already established fact.
What do you think each character would stream, for how long at a time, and to how big of an audience? We already know Amber does speedruns and Roz gets naked, so there’s legal precedent.
Becky and Dina would basically do a dinosaur podcast, imo. It’d be cute because love.
I also feel like Sal would raid Ambers stream sometimes, unintentionally of course.
Danny might try a music thing, either playing it or streaming teaching it due to the ukulele.
And for giggles Mary could do ASMR because there are absolutely fetish people there but there’s plausible deniability that it’s not a fetish thing.
Walky would do an episode by episode react channel of Dexter and the Monkey Master, guest starred by Dotty or Carla depending on the episode. Plus a spin of of the Ultra Car Series, too, that Carla would demand to be apart of.
I don’t think I have any other ones in mind, but I do like the idea.
Jeez, Joyce, just say “you met someone!” Covers boys, girls, 6000 genders with which I am not conversant, groups, AIs, and little furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
It’s nice that Joyce is trying to be supportive of LGBT folks and such, but she’s trying too hard. Nobody expects you to be perfect immediately Joyce. At least nobody worth hanging around with.
If anything, a former hater being perfect right away would be suspicious. Nobody trusts a 180° turn, but if you can see the curve a person makes in real time, it’s a lot easier to accept.
it’s so funny that joyce is like this because of being raised by + breaking away from a fundamentalist cult and i have similar issues from spending my formative teen years on tumblr. such is life
I just re-read Questionable Content from start to finish a couple of weeks ago, and I’m pretty certain Dr. Heteronormative was a hypothetical name for a supervillain.
Oh, yeah! I miss Jimbo, he’s fun. There’s so many characters in QC, I lose track of who says what. I wonder if Jeph’s terrible ad-riddled website can handle a tag system, so we don’t have to sift through literally 20 years of strips to find the one we’re thinking about. If he doesn’t wanna do it, I totally would.
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eh, think less “spectrum” and more “overlapping categories” :)
I, genuinely don’t know what you mean with this.
as in, gender ain’t quite a 1D spectrum with “boy” on one end, “girl” on the other, and “NB” in the middle as Joyce likely imagines it
masculine and feminine ain’t opposites, but in fact but two categories out of MANY different genders, some of which don’t even have names yet, or whose names have been lost to history
That is cool new way to think about it.
But look, I should warn you – first gender was a 1 dimensional, then a line, now its a 3D model. If you keep going Differential Equations are going to become a perquisite for Gender Studies and no social movement can survive making people to do calculus.
Technically we’re up to 4D, with time being the forth dimension as even the same identities shift depending on their placement in history see: Jack Halbestram’s Female Masculinities, In a Queer Time and Place
(I take every opportunity to talk about Jack Halbestram)
So it’s tensor analysis then, is it? Nobody’s going to stand for that.
It’s going to come down to quantum, isn’t it? We’re going to have to solve gender wave functions in 29 dimensions just to talk to each other.
“Collapse the wave function” now has some _interesting_ implications.
hey, indigenous folk from all over the world had more than two genders in their societies for thousands of years before calculus was discovered, it ain’t rocket science
re: social movement surviving, progressive politics *always* have this innate disadvantage to reactionary ones, it’s part of the reason there’s no “alt-left pipeline” which could counteract the alt-right pipeline
An informed public is the backbone of a democracy, and of a functioning society.
When it comes down to it, it will always take a relatively large amount of effort and time to be informed and up to date, to know the truth about the complex natural and artificial systems which govern our lives, so that we can wield shared power responsibly.
On the other hand, it will always take a relatively small amount of effort and time to remain uninformed, not so up to date or even downright ignorant, but nonetheless be satiated with quippy rhetoric which merely gives one the FEELING of being informed and satiates their ego and absolves their guilt regardless.
Being informed also requires caring about being informed. Which in turn requires not being afraid of being informed.
as an autistic person who’s injected STEM into my veins since i was a kid, the idea of being afraid of knowing how the world works is still like, nigh inconceivable to me (X_X)
are normies afraid knowing even a little more about the complexities of gender and climate change gonna make them gay or something? (-_-)
I almost replied with there being an alt left pipeline, but, there really isn’t one? The stormfront movement recruits at pro Palestine rallies, but that’s really more poaching leftists than anything else.
“tries to recruit” might be more accurate phrasing, I guess. I don’t think they haven’t ever succeeded, though.
I actively want to learn at least enough to understand the basic premises of the nonbinary conversation and to be respectful while talking to people about it, but the system is so overly complex and, in my experience, most of the people involved in the conversation are so quick to condescend, gatekeep, or play the victim card that I literally can’t find an opening to make the first step of educating myself, and as the terminology gets more and more complex that problem of basic accessibility gets steadily worse and worse. How does one even begin to educate themselves on this topic? That’s a sincere question because I have been trying and failing for around a decade.
Every time I try I attempt a google search, find contradictory information, try to find someone who knows what they are talking about to explain it to me, then get ignored, condescended to, and/or insulted until I give up for awhile until the brain itch of not understanding acts up again and I start all over in a couple years, but then what little I learned last time is outdated and some of it is now apparently offensive maybe? And the process gets repeated, but worse, over and over and over again. It is a profound exercise in frustration to try to be an informed ally. It should not be remotely that difficult to get enough information to understand the basic premises of the subject, not when we’re talking about a group (or groups) that claims to want to be understood and accepted.
That hasn’t been my experience at all. Admittedly, I’ve only met a couple nbs in real life, but even online the basics have been “So you’re not male or female? And you use they/them? Ok.” Or some variation on that.
I don’t think that word (perquisite) means what you think it means.
that’s the goal
once gender is too complex for the layman to fret over, that’s when we’ll be able to deliver the decisive blow and abolish gender once and for all! creating the perfect agender paradise!!!
I have it on good authority that nothing typical humans can conceptualize really needs more than twelve dimensions to model. So, take comfort that there’s an end in sight.
Just because the Gamorites were lost to history doesn’t mean that we can’t name them.
Something being “lost to history” doesn’t just mean it’s gone, it means we have no remaining records of it, which typically means we don’t know what it’s called.
Oh, those Gamorites. The things they do.
I feel like we’ve reached the point where category theory fails. Every time somebody points out that their personal gender identity isn’t represented in the existing defined categories, a new category is spawned to cover their gender identity because all gender identities are valid, and that’s really not how categories are supposed to work.
Personally, I think a spectrum makes a bit more sense, on some level, where certain points on the spectrum can be defined without invalidating the undefined spaces in-between. Although I agree with your point that masculine and feminine don’t really work as opposing ends of a spectrum and gender doesn’t really operate as a sliding scale between them, but I do feel a spectrum is closer to an accurate descriptor than a set of categories.
I think the best descriptor would be some application of trait theory, sort of like how in personality psychology categorization attempts like the MBTI and Enneagram have largely failed to stand up to scientific rigor (supposedly, I have quibbles about how rigorous the study used to “disprove” the MBTI actually was seeing as it was only one study that focused on the validity of the official test, which has since been updated based on the criticisms of that study, and not on the validity of the theory itself but people act like that alone is enough to fully discredit it, but I digress), but the Big Five Personality Traits theory is based on and backed by rather extensive scientific research. It might be more useful to boil gender identity down to a set of traits that a gender identity can have and then have people self-describe based on which of those traits they personally have and how much they have them, possibly assigning themselves labels and even establishing pseudo-categories for the more common gender identities so we can still keep useful labels for people doing initial research into the topic as well as a shorthand to communicate one’s identity with others in a readily comprehensible format.
In short, if gender identity is really that flexible and personal (I believe that it is, that “if” wasn’t intended to imply I don’t), then categories either need to be broad and flexible, or we should stop using categories in the first place, as category theory fails when it tries to be that specific.
I mean speaking as someone who’s genderfluid, yes, the categories need to be flexible and broad, as that’s the point
as queers, we make the language for affirmation, and a really important part about that to realize is that speakers make the language, not the other way around
labels and categories are ultimately descriptive, not prescriptive
I like my human sexuality like I like my human language: with plenty of cunning linguistics, descriptivism, dialectal and sociological studies, pragmatics, and PIE.
Yes, but it is extraordinarily difficult for people who are not already immersed in that conversation to find useful information on how to respectfully join it without stepping on toes when people are constantly one-upping the number of categories, or how the categories are or are not defined. I have literally only ever encountered the language surrounding these categories when being condescended to and gatekept from learning ANYTHING about the subject. I have been trying for over a decade now to understand even the basics of the nonbinary stuff (I don’t even have the terminology to even begin to find a way to phrase that better). Google and other search engines are useless because every source I find either contradicts the others, presumes a LOT of pre-existing knowledge that I simply lack, or is so vague or technical that it basically tells me nothing. And yet every time I try asking people who claim to or seem to actually know what they are talking about, I either get ignored, talked down to, or treated like a bigot for being ignorant.
I’ve seen SO many memes about the number of genders there are, and the number keeps changing, but I can’t find a list with explanations. I can’t find a good source of information for beginners. I can’t find somebody willing to talk to me like a person about it.
I literally just want to be able to understand, and using language to deliberately gatekeep information and exclude people from the conversation isn’t very “affirming”. And yes, I get that the point is to affirm the experiences of the people the language is about, but how can one possibly be an ally, be respectful, be supportive if it isn’t possible to learn the right terminology? To understand the basic premises of the conversation? I literally WANT to be able to affirm people by using respectful terms but I’m not being ALLOWED to because the ever-evolving terminology and the ever splitting categories get in the way.
That was my point, this is fundamentally not how categories function. Categories are, fundamentally, descriptive, not prescriptive, and that means they need to be broad, vague, and include members that are exceptions to the general rule. It’s actually a very well studied phenomenon in category theory that when you try to get too specific when defining a category, the category ultimately fails because it either excludes members that are part of it, or it includes members that are not, like how giving live birth is a commonly cited defining feature of mammals and yet the platypus and echidna are both mammals that lay eggs, or flying is a commonly cited defining feature of birds, yet bats, a mammal, can fly, and penguins, a bird, cannot. You can’t just split off every exception into it’s own unique category, because otherwise they cease to BE categories, that fails the basic function of categories, they aren’t useful as terms intended for communication anymore. You can make subcategories for when more specificity is needed, that’s why we have such complex taxonomy for life, by listing ever more specific subcategories until you get down to the singular member.
But with genders are we talking about a taxonomy system with subcategories? Or is every category distinct? Is the list of genders just going to grow until every human on earth has their own unique gender term? It was already almost impossible to enter the conversation a decade ago when I first started trying and it’s only been getting harder and harder because of this terminology quagmire.
So tell me, is the goal to be accepting of people? Because that goal is categorically not being satisfied with the current system of terminology.
May I suggest that we also consider when this hyperfine splitting is useful and when it is not. Ultimately, the name for what I am is Mark.
And who decides which words are useful?
I’m not a doctor, so I don’t personally find the dense anatomical jargon used by doctors to be useful, but that doesn’t mean I get to rip the words “dorsal talar avulsion” out of their hands and insist they say “ankle sprain”.
That’s what those silly, hyperfine-split words mean, after all!
What do you mean I’m discarding valuable information about the exact location of the sprain? If I don’t need that information, surely it must be useless.
Exactly. Terms of art are useful when practicioners of the art are trying to be precise. Not every conversation is like that.
Yeah, like in a space like this, I wouldn’t try to get into the details of my gender. When I’m in other spaces, I may discuss it more in-depth. But if someone wants to share their experience in a space, then those terms are useful, at least to them.
I read somewhere, some time ago, that the straight-gay scale doesn’t range from straight to gay with bi in the middle, but straight and gay are on one end and bi is on the other. My source, whatever it was, didn’t explain itself.
What I imagine it is is that one axis is like “attraction to men” and the other axis is like “attraction to women” and the kinsey scale is a diagonal line between straight and gay.
Any time you make a set of categories, no matter how inclusive they are, there will be people who feel it makes them special to say they are outside of those categories.
Anyway my point is there is no way to make categories broad enough and flexible enough that everyone will happily place themselves within one. And once people start making up their own new categories, some of those categories will catch on and we’re right back where we started.
Yes, that was largely my point, hence why I feel we’ve reached the point where categories as a system fail to be useful anymore.
Color is a spectrum, but color is also a wheel, and color is also part of the much broader electromagnetic spectrum that extends far beyond the visible band.
Well, that’s kind of a variant on the Kinsey scale in a lot of ways. Folded in half, with “strong preference for one gender” at one end and “no preference at all” at the other.
People get antsy about these things, but a 2D line works fine, so long as you understand it’s measuring or demonstrating one thing and not the entireity of human sexuality.
I’m not sure if you’re referring to gender, sexuality, or both overall, but the model you’re suggesting wouldn’t work for me for either.
I do like the color comparison decently.
“I AM AWARE OF EVERY GENDER THAT IS ADDED EVERYTIME SOMEBODY COMPLAINS”
Was gonna ask if there was a mailing list of some sort for new gender updates, but instead I’ll just note how happy I am to see a pro-trans Sonic meme without even looking for one.
Gravatar checks out
Do you suffer from Ladytimes, Uterus-Have, and Baby?
If so, ask your doctor if Hussynol is right for you.
Hussynol may cause prolonged hiatuses.
Srsly? With THAT buffer? Willis could IMPREGNATE HIMSELF, GIVE BIRTH, and still have time to recover before needing to declare a hiatus.
Willis makes Howard Taylor look unprepared.
Hussy freestyled.
Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve really interacted with Homestuck, I forgot it’s spelled Hussie. Six letters. Of course.
Me: “Oh, the buffer isn’t that – ”
**looks at buffer watch for the first time in 2025**
Me: “Holy shit! He’s nearly a full YEAR ahead now?!”
He must write like the Energizer bunny.
If Hussynol makes you erect for more than four hours, sit down.
Bed toy, not boy toy? Is this a new gender inclusive term?
Works to emphasize they were in bed together, which might not be true for a boy toy. Doesn’t rhyme, though.
Dumbing of Age Book 15: Pantless Bed Toy
*Pantsless
Joe doesn’t look at all like he’s panting.
As Sarah pointed out.
He got pantsed.
Poor toy.
So used.
Is that another 2 liter of soda? Joe, that is the thing she needs the most help correcting, try to correct towards a liter of water or something.
Holy shit, Willis is almost a year ahead?
“Baby girl”? I knew Sarah was smitten with Tony but this is almost unheard of from her.
I don’t know what the record for longest comic strip buffer is, but I know that Willis is gunning for it.
When Virgil Partch died, he had 6 years of daily strips built up, and those six years of strips published posthumously. I’ve got a while to go!
Six years!
*salutes
I have always found that carbonation helps when I have trouble swallowing the pill (the bubbles hide the sensation of the pill). I haven’t needed carbonation in a long time (having menstrual cramps and bad dust/grass allergies makes you get used to having to take meds), but water would still be the worst choice in my opinion.
Club soda’s the ideal middle ground. Lotta sodium, but at least it ain’t corn syrup and evil dyes that want your kidneys dead.
Kidney have it good for far too long.
They’ve got their own partner! Most human organs don’t! It’s so unfair!
I think “less than 2 liters” is the first approach.
Try seltzer. No sodium, just bubbly water.
I’ll give it a shot. I get raised eyebrows and “Are you just drinking straight club soda” at the table on game nights, but if you really think about it, most people haaaaaate flat soda. The bubbles are the big draw, and I’ve personally found that when you take the liquid candy out, it’s just as fun to drink. Another great aspect is, seltzer and club soda are both super-duper cheap and lots of places like Dollar General have $1 bags of candy, so for the price of one “regular” soda like Coke or Fanta, I can have a big-ass drink (unflavored bubbles typically come in 1-liter bottles!) that changes flavor every sip or two, depending on how quickly I eat the candy. There’s a fuckin’ life hack for ya.
Wait until you get old. I just added another pill yesterday to my morning pills. So, I have 9 morning pills, a lunch pill, and 12 or14 bedtime pills for a grand total of 22 to 24 pills a day between prescription and OTC meds. I usually swallow the morning pills in one gulp, and while it is physically possible to swallow the bedtime pills all at once, there are 2 meds that have to be taken separately at night because they aren’t swallowed but allowed to dissolve under the tongue. Don’t get old kids, unless you’re tough. Some of those meds I have to take because I was too tough to stay dead, and now I’m paying the price for it.
I must be a lucky boy. I’m well into my 70s, and don’t take any pill at all.
Never mind Rich Mullins, she’s going to be haunted by Wilford Brimley if she keeps this 2-liters-of-Sprite-per-day habit up.
Where’s she keeping the Starry anyway? They got a mini fridge in their room?
I drink my 2 liter zero-sugar sore-brand cola warm. See previous post about being a tough old man who has died multiple times, and won’t stay dead.
It’s very important to Joyce that her vocabulary follow the standards recommended by organizations.
GLAAD Guidelines are as sacrosanct as OSHA Guidelines!
Unless OSHA goes away.
In which case, GLAAD will be that much more important! The sole bulwark!
Has Joyce learned to take her meds without a 2 liter of Sierra Mist? I had problems with taking pills when I was younger, but I never needed 2 liters of liquid to take them.
Joe just standing in the corner like “That’s me! :D”
Apropos of nothing, “We were, of course, all ninjas” oddly fits.
ban pants
They are an illusion.
And so is death.
Who are you calling deaf? Eh?
Can vouch for that, although I’m sorely tempted to not take the return trip next time, the body is in worse and worse shape every time I come back. Unless there is something I have to do after I get killed next time, and I have been getting strong hints that I will have to save someone from my killer, I’m staying dead. I already have a spot in the Elysian Fields unless I seriously screw up something before I get killed again. I miss out on the spa day, but I’ll get over it. I’ll have access to all the services of the resort, just not all at once like a spa day.
Shorts are okay though.
Yeah I like shorts, they’re comfy and easy to wear!
I prefer shorts, but it’s not going to get above freezing today and even I’m not going outside in shorts.
Only if they’re short-shorts. On that note, who likes short-shorts?
We llike short-shorts!
My favorite Philly protest chant:
“¡No, no, no! ¡No más pantalones!”
Yeah. Everyone should wear skirts
Surprisingly, the Philadelphia courthouse (“Court of Common Pleas”) had, last time I visited, just such a dress code. All AFAB folx who were there to work had to wear skirts or dresses.
According to the website, that’s no longer the case. It’s still a gendered dress code, but at least all can wear pants.
But I have had several employers (and even one college) that prohibited half their population from wearing pants: skirts or dresses only.
(Which was funny, because every time I would walk down the street wearing a dress, I would get followed… street harassers and propositioners just see “dress” = “target”)
Oh, yeah, and one elementary school, too. Forgot.
(See, e.g., Peppermint Patty.)
The cause static which destroys l33t c0mp0nentz!
Joe: heh that’s me
I prefer Period Killer pills!
I also prefer a real character so buh bye Julia.
Anyway, Sarah is cute here.
Was more supposed to be pain killer pills for me, but since the results weren’t that great, I might lease the term period killer pills from you.
Every once in a while, I’m reminded that I actually do like Joyce because she’s just ridiculously adorable.
You have to be reminded?
Joe’s smile in panel 5 is so funny. “that’s me : D”
Man, having to stay GLAAD certified is my least favorite part of being gay. Way too many updates to the exam between renewing my certification smh
Those annual seminars. In-service and professional development meetings. Maintaining the materials folder. Coordinating with the committee. GLAAD is such a pain.
This period of an ally can be very entertaining to watch, provided it doesn’t last *too* long
Actual woke people don’t make a big deal out of it if they say something wrong, Joyce! You’re making it all about you again!
It is part of the learning process and she is doing her best!
Her entire worldview has changed in a few months, she’s doing great. People don’t need to be perfect right away (or ever) as long as they’re trying and growing.
yeah that’s the fun thing about women’s autism; a social faux paus then becomes mortifying embarrassment, and you make absolutely certain to never make that mistake again, but since you’re autistic you don’t fully grasp the subtleties or contexts so you just start saying them rapid fire hoping someone will give you a facial expression that tells you when you can stop.
It’s okay to laugh at Joyce doing this because it’s Joyce.
Aww Joe looks so chuffed with being described as a pantsless bed toy in panel 5 ^^
Sarah, are you wearing a bustier? Because something is boosting your yays.
Love, true love.
Joyce, stop. You’re making me feel embarrassed just watching you and being reminded of myself.
That’s the thing about making comics – you don’t need to draw legs always… unless if it’s
69 Mouse-Ear Blvd.Aren’t you glaad you told us that?
He draws great legs, though. And gets real intense about it over at Pibgorn. Sadly, he had a stroke and Pibgorn became intermittent. I’m afraid it might by over, now. Best wishes, Brooke.
*be over*
It just occurred to me to check the Source of All Knowledge, and found that not only is Brooke an artist, he’s also a classical musician and a music educator. Which isn’t surprising, if you follow his strips.
He’s very passionate about drawing legs. Often those legs don’t seem to follow the normal rules of human anatomy though.
Sarah is about to beat Joyce to the slipshine race.
Didn’t Joyce already get a slipshine?
sexual stuff aside i’m surprised joyce wouldn’t be like “let’s go on a double date” or so lol (tho i suppose this means she’s more ok with joe/joyce hooking up now, although it’d still be a bit awkward face to face to ask for some privacy or so but i imagine dan woudl be used to it if they go to his room and like “text me when ur done”)
Joyce, nobody in the comments would accuse you of being heteronormative.
Really? I think she’s still got a ton of heteronormativity going on in there.
This is so cute and I love it, Joyce is adorable. trans btw
When I first outed myself in my workplace as non-binary, three years ago now, my colleagues spent a couple of months falling over their own speech just like this…!
at least that means they were earnestly trying versus rolling their eyes, i can’t imagine anyone in my part of tx would even understand nb let alone attempt to be respectful about pronouns
Yes, they were earnestly trying, and have become a wonderfully accepting bunch of people who banded together last year to defend me from an arseh*le manager (who has since moved on). In my almost 40 years in the workplace, this is the first time I’ve ever worked for a company where I felt able to be so totally openly myself. Been here four years, now. That’s the longest I’ve worked anywhere in the last 15 years of my career.
When I came out I went from being a conservative Republican to being a liberal Democrat over a period of about 18 months. I had so many conversations like this. To this day, 25+ years later I will occasionally ask my sweetie to translate the tangled crap coming out of my mouth to acceptable liberal speak.
Fuck the Allowed Lingo, everyone is a gamer now.
You take that back!
Sounds good.
In the same key: Let’s say every cast member is a live streamer, regardless of any preexisting conditions that would cause them not to do that. There’s no “but they wouldn’t because”, we’re now in the reality where it’s already established fact.
What do you think each character would stream, for how long at a time, and to how big of an audience? We already know Amber does speedruns and Roz gets naked, so there’s legal precedent.
Becky and Dina would basically do a dinosaur podcast, imo. It’d be cute because love.
I also feel like Sal would raid Ambers stream sometimes, unintentionally of course.
Danny might try a music thing, either playing it or streaming teaching it due to the ukulele.
And for giggles Mary could do ASMR because there are absolutely fetish people there but there’s plausible deniability that it’s not a fetish thing.
Mary as a scripture-whispering fetish streamer makes too much sense and I’ve decided it’s canon.
Walky would do an episode by episode react channel of Dexter and the Monkey Master, guest starred by Dotty or Carla depending on the episode. Plus a spin of of the Ultra Car Series, too, that Carla would demand to be apart of.
I don’t think I have any other ones in mind, but I do like the idea.
Dina & Becky doing a combination dinosaur and fundamentalist deprogramming show would be fun.
God damn. “Tightly wound” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Too true
Joyce is trying, at least
I mean, yeah, Joyce, you also have to consider where Sarah’s suitor(s) may fall on the clown/horse spectrum, too.
My girl got laid <3
Jeez, Joyce, just say “you met someone!” Covers boys, girls, 6000 genders with which I am not conversant, groups, AIs, and little furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
@mark: But then she’d be like “oh wait maybe you’ve been poly this whole time and met multiple people!” or so rather than some”one” 8D;
She’s a little confused, but she’s got the spirit
“Doctor Heteronormative would be a bongoin’ name for the main villain dude”
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1526#
The mastermind behind the Incelerator!
That strip is part of a NrrdCon-at-Smif-University story arc. I was just at (kind of) such a thing last weekend. Lots of fun! (less blood, though)
There was also a book cover ad for one of Jimbo’s books which mentioned him, as I recall. It might have been a guest strip however.
Well, at least she’s aware she’s failing at the normative part.
Guys and Ladies Alliance Against Decency
It’s nice that Joyce is trying to be supportive of LGBT folks and such, but she’s trying too hard. Nobody expects you to be perfect immediately Joyce. At least nobody worth hanging around with.
If anything, a former hater being perfect right away would be suspicious. Nobody trusts a 180° turn, but if you can see the curve a person makes in real time, it’s a lot easier to accept.
i’d hope ppl would give her slack and not give a knee jerk reaction if she slips and says something rude
but i think other than a ‘new’ chara introduced, everyone knows joyce well enough to see her fretting over putting her foot in her mouth in the past
I like Joyce because she always tries her best to be a better person.
joyce really is trying
but honey could try a little less and shes be perfect
It is rather endearing
it’s so funny that joyce is like this because of being raised by + breaking away from a fundamentalist cult and i have similar issues from spending my formative teen years on tumblr. such is life
sarah calling joyce baby girl is so fuckin cute
…weirdest possible icon for that comment
But goes well with the user name.
Anyone remember Dr. Heteronormative over on QC? Just wondering how many people remember him and where he was in the QC universe.
I just re-read Questionable Content from start to finish a couple of weeks ago, and I’m pretty certain Dr. Heteronormative was a hypothetical name for a supervillain.
Somebody linked it up above. Jimbo the romance author liked it as the name for a villain.
Oh, yeah! I miss Jimbo, he’s fun. There’s so many characters in QC, I lose track of who says what. I wonder if Jeph’s terrible ad-riddled website can handle a tag system, so we don’t have to sift through literally 20 years of strips to find the one we’re thinking about. If he doesn’t wanna do it, I totally would.
Not to be confused with Dr. Laser Vengeance, nemesis of the Teen Robot Mystery Squad.
Relax Joyce you know Sarah its not rude to assume based on what you know even if it did turn out to be wrong.
y’all it is so confusing to be rereading this comic for the first time in almost a decade and be met with this page
book 15 title: i’ve never been so sure of how unsure i am