It's important to note that this guy regularly refers to himself as "The Gadfather."

Egad!

This guy is apparently very popular among the rational, new-atheist, skeptic, "thought experiment" crowd on Youtube, which should surprise nobody.

Rational should have had a capital "R" there, and possibly some scare quotes.

I'd give Xenocide five stars, but that would mean less stars for me.

So I just five-starred myself.

He doesn't play the 5000 pronoun guessing game.

He uses gender and sex interchangeably therefore he does not know what the word gender means. Forget ideology, this is a question of etymology.

The word gender in reference to humans (as opposed to its original use in linguistics) was started in 1955 by John Money specifically to decouple biological sex from the socially constructed gender roles he and people since them use it to describe. By very definition, the word gender refers to socially constructed roles NOT biological sex. Whether you or I or Gad Saad agree with that or not is irrelevant, it's clear from his repeated usage here that he simply doesn't know what the word actually means and yet he is a "expert" on the subject.

There's at least 4 definitions of the sex/gender relationship that get thrown around, so I get that there's a lot of confusion. There's the old folk's definition which is just a euphemism for sex. Then there's the one that defines gender as a social construction as opposed to biological sex. Then there's a newer one that says that gender = your individual sense of the gender you feel you are. The problem with this is that it's a circular definition among other things. Finally, to my knowledge, there's a really kooky fringe liberal idea that sex and gender are the same thing again because your literal, biological sex equals, and follows from, your subjective feeling of gender. That's right, if you feel like a woman even if you have testes and sperm and even have fathered a child, you are a literal, biological woman according to this fourth definition.

I agree with everything erratic said there, but again, the etymological origin of the modern application of the term gender outside of grammar is what I already described, and its very use in this way presupposes a delineation between biological sex and socially constructed gender.

In popular use it means different things to different people obviosuly, and that's the source of a whole lot of misunderstanding and bullshit of all kinds, but that's irrelevant becasue A PROFESSIONAL ACADEMIC PROVIDING EXPERT TESTIMONY IN FRONT OF A SENATE PANEL THAT WILL BE MAKING REAL LEGISLATIVE DECISIONS INFORMED BY THAT TESTIMONY IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SITUATION THAN TEENAGERS ARGUING ABOUT IDENTITY POLITICS ON TWITTER and the gross misuse of terminology that does, in fact, have a pretty specific definition says a lot about him as an authority. Language evolves, but that doesn't mean that words don't actually mean specific things.

I was just going to ask. That makes sense. I don't think you can legislate common courtesy though. Unlawful discrimination is a lot different than disrespect and refusal of accommodation. I'd address anyone the way they'd prefer, because why not? I think criminalizing people who reject or don't understand the post-modern complexities of gender is a bad idea.

I also don't think it's that big of an issue and assholes gravitate towards it as if they want to build FEMA camps for straights.

My views on "identity politics" whatever that means are:

Denial of services, justice, physical safety, housing, etc: illegal, HARD

Hurt feelings: Not illegal.

But, if you're not an asshole, it doesn't take much to extend other people a courtesy, even if it takes a slight amount more of effort.

He is absolutely percise when using "gender" and "biological sex". He is directly addressing the activist mentality of talking about sex as a continuum when they mean gender (an apparently arbitrary, self professed and nebulous social construct which has been spuriously associated with sex in the past). Governments like Canada record and certify sex, now people are talking explicitly about gender and erasing sex (you can legally change your sex in some states without a provenance trail, which is bonkers). This makes no sense for many reasons given that many health risks and interventions are significantly different across sex as well as socially relevant things like overwhelming male criminality. Gender (whatever it is) almost certainly doesn't have the primacy that sex does in these matters (but no harm in recording it as well as sex). Gaad seems to be directly addressing some of these issues (although I don't like the presumptuous and blustery statements on culture and victimhood).

OZ, I've watched this 3 times now and I don't see him using gender and sex interchangeably nor do I see him misunderstanding what gender is. I guess there are times where he switches between talking about sex and gender without calling it out explicitly so one could be confused into thinking that he's still talking about the other... I don't see anything particularly stupid about what he said either. so, I'll bite, what are you getting at?

"SENATE PANEL THAT WILL BE MAKING REAL LEGISLATIVE DECISIONS"

Hold yer horses eh, this IS the Canadian Senate we're talking aboot.

I only watched it twice but I didn't see anything even vaguely approaching "absolutely percise" use of gender and sex. I saw about 20 seconds of potentially valid (if woefully vague) criticism of certain questionable elements of the academic left, about 45 seconds of strawmanning and about 4 minutes of HOO BLOO BLOO SPECIAL SNOWFLAKES bloviating.


Anyway, JF's excellent point above has pretty much closed the book on this argument as far as I'm concerned.

I need to find a good "TERF" video to bring up some good discussion here.

My conclusion after years of argument: the only way to have a sane conversation on this topic is not to use the word "gender", ever.

Some progressive views in this area make young earth creationists look sane and reasonable.

Goddammit I didn't raise no GIRL loaf.

It's not difficult.

Baguettes are male, bagels are female, and most of the rest of them are non-binary.

Or is it gender-fluid now? I can't keep up.

Hrmm, delicious donuts filled with gender-fluid.

Donuts aren't bread you racist.

Cruelers are inherently non-binary, you insensitive prick.

Unfortunately, evolutionary psychology is full of people who just make up nonsense about early humans living like the Flinstones to line up with modern western cultural norms without bothering with any of that pesky evidence or research. It's unfortunate, because actual primatology as it relates to humans is fascinating, but it doesn't recommend that girl apes should do dishes while boy apes fight lions, so it doesn't get a lot of attention.