I agree with you, although I am a little confused. I think that trying to regulate the use of terms and control the language (if that's what you mean) by changing the name and definition of things is not very intelligent, to say the least. In the end, you can't control everything from above, and even the law, it has never been fully enforced, because in all the societies I know of, illegal acts have been committed.
You cannot control the behavior of a people simply through laws, but laws must always be adapted to the people. If we try to change the meaning of a word, people will find a new word and use it, and stop using the old word. Or at least that's how I think it works. This is the reason why, when the Roman Empire fell, despite the fact that all the ancient cities still pretended to speak the same language, namely Latin, in France they spoke differently from Spain, and there differently from Italy, to give an example. That is why different languages developed. It is very difficult to prevent this from happening, even today we see that different regions of different countries speaking the same language use different words. Trying to change the meaning of words like “man” or “woman” by legal means, I believe, is governments plowing in the sea.
I agree with what you say. “Manhood” and “womanhood” are names of real things, denying it or trying to steal such terms, will only make us disagree in words, but not in deeds, because we are not changing reality with this. Changing the interpretation of a word does not change the reality to which the word originally referred. It's just a linguistic battle.
I don't have much more to add to what you have said, I agree with you, and if I think of anything else I will add it.
Cheers!
I agree, it's exactly as you say with the usage of terms.
I'm someone who, in principle, doesn't see the need for a person to change their appearance to solve their problems.
Yesterday, when I was at my painting class, there was a woman there who was in her late fifties and she was talking about her plastic surgery on her eyes. Our instructor then made a joke: ‘Why, do you want to remarry?’ he asked her. Another woman asked, ‘Will the health insurance pay for it?’
I once had this debate with my friends many years ago because they both thought that there was nothing wrong with having surgery ‘if it makes you feel better’. I asked why the feeling was there in the first place and what appearance has to do with how you feel. They were annoyed by me, but from then on they knew that I wasn't interested in the topic and that I had questioned their beliefs and couldn't be expected to agree with them.
Today, you can not only surgically change your appearance, but you can also officially change your sex to any fantasy name you want. It becomes a problem when it becomes a big trend. And all official places where people come together (universities, schools, large employers, state administrations) want to enforce the law. You are right that most laws are simply on the books, nobody knows them and they serve as a point of reference in case they are needed. It's passive, not active.
The phenomenon of this law, however, is that, strangely enough, people should or must want to know it and wherever hierarchical work structures exist (which is basically always the case), it becomes an integral part of company policy.
If you compare this with the gay liberation, there are clear differences. Gays have never insisted that they should be called "gay" and those who did not call a gay man a gay man were accused of discrimination and should suffer the consequences. You didn't choose to be ‘gay’, you either were or you weren't. A gay man in his right mind would certainly not have wanted people to constantly pay attention to him and make his sexuality the main topic of every meeting. On the contrary, it didn't need to be that way. Just like heterosexual people don't make a fuss about their sexuality all the time, why should they?
To actively enforce a law makes law making become absurd. Law does not need to be enforced, it is there for the worst case and when nothing else can be done about a case of conflict. It waits, so to speak, until it's needed. But it does not make itself to be needed by push.
I think that cosmetic operations are like changing the appearance of something on the surface while everything else remains the same. From a biological point of view, one cannot pass on the changes made by operations to one's offspring. This means that we are pretending to be something biologically, and thus trying to deceive other people's minds, when in reality we are not that. Of course, there are probably other things at play than biology, but as the changes are to the body I think it is an important factor nonetheless. The body is not just its appearance, as some might want to believe, I think.
Yes, I agree with you, it becomes a problem when it gets to the point that they want to impose it by force. Do you think most people are in favor of this or just a noisy minority? In the end, I think, it will depend on the people.
I agree with you.
Do you take painting classes? Nice. I'm guessing that painting is yours. :)
You know how to do many things.
I don't know if I'm going to be very active around here the next few days. I was planning to do so, but I'm still having problems with my computer and I don't know if I won't have access to one for a while. So I may be on and off. Let's hope to solve it.
Greetings to you!