I wonder if a binary encoding of gender would use 0 for male and 1 for female or vice versa. I can think of an argument for both.
Not exactly. Allow me to explain: ----------------------------------------------- Assuming the following: 0 = Female 1= Male (Or vice versa, take your pick.) We are clearly using the binary numbering system which contains only "1"s and a "0"s. In the world, there are two sexes that any person can be assigned at birth. (There's more than 2 possible sexes any person can be at birth, but to keep things super simple, 99.99% of people are either one or the other.) Society dictates that, based on your visual appearance and reproductive organs, you will either be viewed as "male" or "female". Given that we are using the binary numbering system, and (for 99.99% of people) there are only 2 sexes, you are either a "1" (male) or "0" (female). There is no "in between." Non-binary basically says that they do not identify as either, therefore, we can use the term "NaN" in this context. NaN, in computing terms, means "Not A Number". In this case, they do not identify as being male (1) or female (0), therefore, NaN would be more fitting than saying "0.5". If that's the case, then SAGEcreeper, in regards to your post, would be considered "NaN". ----------- "0.5" would be used more loosely, more specifically, for those who are currently in transition from being male to being female or vice versa. (Whether it be surgery and/or hormone treatment.) "0.5" would imply that they have a physical appearance and/or the reproductive organs of being male and female. Basically, saying "0.5" means "half of both". They are not "fully" male or female, they are "in between". After all, 0.5 is half way between "0" and "1". --- Also, it breaks the binary convention, but I doubt people really care when you're just trying to get a simple point across. This is just a very simple way of putting it. You could go way more in-depth about gender and sex than I just did above. However, the main purpose of my reply is simply getting my point across to you.
I thought it was clear that that was a joke. I personally couldn't care less about any of these names.
It might be! My post wasn't a joke, though. Hey, I just noticed you edited in an additional sentence. Okay, good to hear.
Yup, I edited in the additional sentence, and even improved the grammar afterwards - both took a while due to my internet for some reason being really slow on my computer today. I agree with your opinion, though.
To assume society 'views' of someones gender is widely outrageous since the whole 'boys act like this and girls act like this' is simply stupid. Just because we are born with specific bits doesn't mean anything because society doesn't have the right the assign me. Not only does assigning someone deter them, but it creates again that 'boys act like this and girls act like this' Also you statistics of '99.9%' is outrageously wrong and I will direct you to this article here that discusses that specifically in the USA that 4/10 people believe that there are multiple genders with 24% of those people feeling strongly about this stat. Yes that means approx. 6/10 Americans feel that gender is Binary BUT to assume 99.9% of people believe there are only 2 genders is outrageously wrong. I said no where that I meant the 0 or 1 as a gender. It was more referenced as how to call them and wether a 0 or 1 was appropriate. 0 = he, him, his (etc...) and 1 = she her (etc...) or vice versa. I view halfway as more of a non-binary definition since it is the best of both worlds. Therefore I feel that 0.5 = they, them (etc...) In fact all I said was '0.5 I suppose then' The whole point of the binary use was merely a JOKE and you kind of took it way out of context with your 'rant' about sexuality, gender classification, surgery, hormone treatments, and 'fullness' Also, I do not care about the 'logistics' of binary since nothing is ever 0 and 1, black and white, dogs ands cats, apples and oranges, Tomatoes and tomatoes (etc...) so the importance of your classification was merely a way of attempting to label. This thread is about Sagecreeper and I think they would greatly appreciate it if I left the whole binary thing alone since obviously people LOVE blowing a little 4 worse sentence out of context. SageCreeper I will respect your decision of being referred to as they/them since I believe you and anyone else deserve to be respected for your decisions. Cant wait for this reply and see how many times I will be quoted in this post! P.S SageCREEPER again I fully support your decision!
I think you misinterpreted the use of Joy's "99.99%" doubly. I think Joy meant that 99.99% of people either have a male or female sex. It seems like you understood that Joy thought that 99.99% of people think it impossible for someone to have another gender than male or female. So firstly, Joy was talking (as I understood it) about the actual individual persons, not about their considerations about others. Moreover, Joy was talking about sex, not about gender.
Never new that EMC was a place to be criticized about the use of repetition in order bring a point across. Yes I misinterpreted the 'Sex' vs 'Gender' but the basis of the post was to bring to light how outrageous it was for Joy to blow up a mere 4 worded sentence that I had posted.
Eh, he was just being helpful. Those 4 words you posted were not enough to make clear that you were already educated on the matter, and especially the "I suppose then" could easily be interpreted as an indication of ignorance. So I think it's cool that Joy jumped in to help! Anyway, I'm not sure if this series of clarifications is at all pleasant to SageCREEPER.
Actually, I think what happened was there was some confusion around joy’s post. Joy was making no claims about gender or sex. I read joy’s post in the context of how to assign binary values for sex in a computer system. Based on that context, your joke of ‘.5’ while may be humorous, isn’t how one would represent non-binary in a binary world. Joy’s explanation of using Null would technically be a more accurate description. Joy wasn’t attempting to correct your view on sex/gender but rather just trying to join the discussion with the knowledge they have in how one would represent non-binary in binary terms. However, in binary there isn’t actually a null value. Or more accurately, 0 would be ‘null’ in a sense. Because of the way binary works, you have to ask ‘yes or no’ questions only most of the time. So instead of saying ‘Is person male or female?’ you would say ‘Is person male?’ Then give 0 for no and 1 for yes. If 0/no, then ask ‘Is person female?’ If 0/no again, you could then assume Other/NonBinary or ask more yes/no questions to get more specific. You can get more complex questions with binary, but that requires the use of larger values than just a 0/1 bit. We begin to use bytes then, which can be any combination of eight 0s and 1s (00000000, 01011001, etc) to represent these more complex values. ———————— As for Sage, I just wanted to commend you on your courage to step out and publicly state something that can be very personal. I know how hard it is to acknowledge something that can be so sensitive and to trust others with it. Being who you are despite the pressures of the world around you trying to tell you who you are is a daily struggle, and I’m glad to see that you are taking steps to overcome that struggle. Thank you for trusting EMC with this - I hope this community is able to offer you support and a safe space while you continue to explore yourself.
I will admit to not knowing the current word use for "binary" as it applies to gender. That being said, it hasn't changed my views, but the discussion here has been enlightening as to some of arguments around the topic. Wondering if the Forums could be allowed somehow to contain that third choice for gender change... But not if it means breaking something Personally, I don't care what clothes you wear or who you love - just be happy. We are all pixels here and I try not judge but this is also a community, and as such, WELCOME BACK SageCreeper as the You that You are now !! Party emoji: :hearts: :cake:
I appreciate your post, but I wonder why you chose to represent Emoji (at least I assume that that was the idea) by descriptions surrounded by colons, instead of actually posting them. If you were on pc I guess you might not have an Emoji keyboard built-in, but it's not hard to look them up on a search engine.
"It" is technically the gender neutral pronoun in english. However, because all non-biologically gendered objects are grammatically gender neutral, people associate the use of "it" with objectification. So, for as long as english speakers don't understand the grammar of their own language, most gender neutral people prefer they/them to avoid that objectification issue. They/them is also historically an unknown/vaguely ungendered term for referring to people, so using it as a gender neutral pronoun can be also more natural for people to say since it's already incorporated into regular speech in a similar way. However, because it's typically used in a way where it's just a substitute for a singular pronoun, it's use can be questionable in that regard because some may find it offensive due to that "substitute/temporary pronoun" nature as many neutral/nonbinary/nonconforming folks don't appreciate the idea that their sexuality is in some way a temporary thing or a just substitute for one of two other options. Either way it's a touchy subject so your best bet is just refer to people as whatever the heck they want, lol.
Interestingly, if I'm not mistaken, many people do use 'it' to refer to animals, in English. "The dog is happy, it is wagging its tail."
