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Greg's avatar

Yeah, despite the attempts to make "man" mean something other than "biological male" I can't help but, you know, use the language the way 99% of humans understand it. I'm not going to call people "natal males" or "biological males" when the context doesn't merit it. Obviously if you were discussing specific trans issues, that level of clarification makes sense and is necessary, but in most conversations, when I say, "I saw some guy crossing the street" I assume the listener knows I mean "a human with a penis who is biologically male."

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Jane's avatar

Yep. This is the standard among linguists, by the way: Words mean what native speakers of the language understand them to mean.

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Greg's avatar

I am all for language evolving, but if this process is synthetic and causes more confusion it might be more like GMO fruit vs "oh, what a weird thing nature made by accident!" I get tired of word games pretty quickly.

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Zagarna's avatar

I'm not sure that this is making the point you want to be making here. Most of the objections to GMO fruit are complete bullshit-- just appeals to the naturalistic fallacy with no scientific validity. By analogy, that would suggest that claims that transphobic language is "just natural" ought to be discounted.

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Sep 4, 2023
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Greg's avatar

Yes, the way we use it colloquially sometimes, as in, hey guys, is genderless. But saying, hey guys, to a group as opposed to staying “where is that guy?” are very different things, and most people would understand the difference.

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