Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey, and welcome to Forward Thinking. I am
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick and I'm Lauren Folcabama. And this is going
Speaker 1: to be part two of an episode that we had
Speaker 1: to divide in half because it went very long. So
Speaker 1: if you have not heard part one of our episode
Speaker 1: on the future of gender, it was the one that
Speaker 1: came out just right before this one. You should go
Speaker 1: back and check that out first. Yes, and uh, we
Speaker 1: we have joining us today, Raquel Willis. Yes, we were
Speaker 1: definitely from over achievers. My name is Raquel Willis. I
Speaker 1: am a digital publisher here at how Stuff Works dot com,
Speaker 1: and i am also a writer and activist. I'm glad
Speaker 1: to be here. We are so glad to have you.
Speaker 1: So yes, so we're going into part two right now.
Speaker 1: Another thing that is import to look at in terms
Speaker 1: of the role of technology and post genderism is technology
Speaker 1: that would allow us to continue the human race as usual,
Speaker 1: even if we got to a point where people were
Speaker 1: altering their bodies, say to uh, not necessarily be men
Speaker 1: or women in the traditional sense, to be something else,
Speaker 1: to be whatever it is they want to be, right Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's let's get out of that headspace and back into
Speaker 1: the squishy, squishy meat space because because of course meat,
Speaker 1: it's electrical part the body is electrical to anyway, the
Speaker 1: ability to control whether, uh and and when and how
Speaker 1: a person wants to have kids is so huge to
Speaker 1: post genderism because of course, for some people, being a
Speaker 1: biological father or mother is core to their gender experience,
Speaker 1: and for others, definitely never doing that is equally core
Speaker 1: to their gender experience. UM So you know, okay, looking
Speaker 1: at reproductive planning, which isn't new. UM I just pulled
Speaker 1: up a pretty great article from the Indian Journal of
Speaker 1: Urology that details the use of condoms to prevent STDs
Speaker 1: and pregnancy, and it cites the first known documentation of
Speaker 1: a condom from circa three thousand b c e. It
Speaker 1: was a goats bladder. Nice. Yeah, modern technology is great,
Speaker 1: you guys. Uh. In the more recent past, uh advances
Speaker 1: in materials technology, we don't have to use goat bladders anymore.
Speaker 1: And uh and and biology and hormone therapy have made
Speaker 1: contraception and abortion very effective and safe and occasionally even affordable. UH.
Speaker 1: In in the next few years, along those lines, new
Speaker 1: forms of male birth control techniques are expected to hit
Speaker 1: the public market. Various things that can can either prevent
Speaker 1: erm uh from leaving the vast deference allowing liquid but
Speaker 1: not sperm um to be ejaculated, and also um uh
Speaker 1: male hormonal hormonal pills are are kind of sort of
Speaker 1: in the works. Um. Then then you've got the fertilization
Speaker 1: half of of baby making um And of course, in
Speaker 1: vitro fertilization is one of those just absolute modern medical
Speaker 1: miracles that increases a person's choice in in how and
Speaker 1: when to have children. Um Uh. Donor eggs or donor
Speaker 1: sperm can be combined with your own genetic material. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can even have a surrogate of volunteer carry a
Speaker 1: baby to term for you. But all of these methods
Speaker 1: involve using someone else's DNA at some point in the process.
Speaker 1: So what if you and a partner or partners who
Speaker 1: cannot biologically have children together but want to have children
Speaker 1: together uh, also want those children to be a combination
Speaker 1: of your own DNA seems feasible or seems like a
Speaker 1: reasonable thing to to want at the very least, and
Speaker 1: some searchers are are working on methods to create viable
Speaker 1: eggs from male tissue and viable sperm cells from female tissue.
Speaker 1: And it's a it's not really working terrifically well just yet.
Speaker 1: Some some methods are using stem cells and others are
Speaker 1: focusing on on other different ways to coke cells of
Speaker 1: one type, like like skin cells into becoming reproductive cells.
Speaker 1: The latter has worked in mice actually, but humans are
Speaker 1: a lot more complex than mice. And uh so you know,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe someday it could work on the gestation and
Speaker 1: birth end of the spectrum. Uh, there are oh, there's
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of interesting things going on. There's
Speaker 1: um uterus transplants. In a Swedish woman bought a brought
Speaker 1: a baby to term and a transplant and uterus for
Speaker 1: the first time. Um the woman was was born with functioning,
Speaker 1: functioning ovaries, but no uterus. So, uh, if it's possible
Speaker 1: in a female body, could it some baby possible in
Speaker 1: a male body? Mm hmmm. It's complicated, No one knows
Speaker 1: the but it's hypothetically not impossible. Yeah. And another thing
Speaker 1: that's not impossible is that you might not need a
Speaker 1: body at all. Yes, yes, what about a method for
Speaker 1: bringing babies to term? That doesn't even involve a human carrier.
Speaker 1: Researchers have in fact grown embryos for up to fourteen
Speaker 1: days in vitro in in labs. Uh. And right now
Speaker 1: it's it's ethics rather than physics that are dictating the
Speaker 1: course of this kind of research. Um, although really, I
Speaker 1: mean partially because of the ethics of it, no one,
Speaker 1: no one knows whether we have the technological and medical
Speaker 1: know how to bring a baby to term in a
Speaker 1: holy artificial womb. But of course we use our bodies,
Speaker 1: are gendered bodies for more than just baby making. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's also the physical, your physical appearance,
Speaker 1: how you want to look and and furthermore, how you
Speaker 1: want your genitals to be and uh. And there are
Speaker 1: currently some some cultural and medical taboos in our society
Speaker 1: about using surgery to change our bodies selectively, like you know,
Speaker 1: like like no one's going to disk someone forgetting facial
Speaker 1: reconstruction after a car accident, But if a woman wants
Speaker 1: to change her breast size or a man wants to
Speaker 1: change his jawline, people have opinions about that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that is a thing I didn't think about
Speaker 1: contributing to this, but people people are kind of judge
Speaker 1: e about using surgery to change the way you look,
Speaker 1: But that would be a kind of inherent aspect of
Speaker 1: post genderism, right likely not necessarily surgery always, but having
Speaker 1: various methods of controlling different physical expressions of gender, right right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, partially I think this this taboo is
Speaker 1: because of the inherent medical risks involved with with with
Speaker 1: some of these treatments, especially surgery. You know, like you've
Speaker 1: got anesthesia and infection and possible rejection of tissues or
Speaker 1: implants or whatever. But um, I don't know, do you guys?
Speaker 1: Another question I wanted to ask you all, like, like,
Speaker 1: do you think that as we improve our medical capacity
Speaker 1: to do these things, like, we will see a greater
Speaker 1: acceptance of selective surgeries start happening. Well, you know, the
Speaker 1: interesting thing is, I'm actually working on an essay about, um,
Speaker 1: how we kind of think about elective surgeries, cosmetic surgeries
Speaker 1: and and things like that. But I I think we
Speaker 1: are going to see a greater acceptance of of surgeries
Speaker 1: and and cosmetic surgeries. Um. I think we're going to
Speaker 1: get to a point where we kind of are more
Speaker 1: understanding of the nuance of choice, right, and that there
Speaker 1: can be a lot of benefits even if they aren't
Speaker 1: kind of the stereotypical, UM life saving benefits that we
Speaker 1: usually think of. Um. You know, if you think of
Speaker 1: self esteem and think of ways in which it will
Speaker 1: make a person, um, just happier to exist, I think
Speaker 1: those can be some very valid benefits. Oh yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: argue that those are absolutely life saving benefits. The quality
Speaker 1: of life issues are are pretty important. Yeah, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: feeling hypocritical now. I totally agree with you. But at
Speaker 1: the same time I think about it, I've like, I've
Speaker 1: totally made fun of people's hair plugs before, um, and
Speaker 1: I'm now kind of regretting that. I'm sorry. Well, and
Speaker 1: I think that you know, that is not necessarily something
Speaker 1: to be apologetic about. UM. I think you know it's human, right,
Speaker 1: It's human that we have our own judgments and and
Speaker 1: we have our own kind of meters on what is
Speaker 1: a successful or good or or solid surgery and what
Speaker 1: you know, why would you do that? Why would you
Speaker 1: do that to yourself? Right? Either it looks bad or like,
Speaker 1: oh you're so vain for wanting to change your sickle appearance, right, Right,
Speaker 1: And and of course if you think about things even
Speaker 1: as simple as ash tattoos, right, those are permanent changes,
Speaker 1: and and our ideas on that versus surgery may be
Speaker 1: a bit different, a bit different depending on who you're
Speaker 1: talking to. I think tattoos are are a great example
Speaker 1: of the ways that we have well I think really
Speaker 1: fundamentally in the United States changed how we approach that.
Speaker 1: I mean, like in the past twenty or thirty years,
Speaker 1: a few decades ago. I think tattoo tattoos, like if
Speaker 1: you weren't in prison or in the military or something
Speaker 1: like that, people would really harshly judge you for tattoos. Uh.
Speaker 1: Now that I don't know, it seems like everybody accepts
Speaker 1: tattoos now I never hear really anything about it. Would
Speaker 1: you all agree? Yeah? I think that that other than
Speaker 1: for for like like religious purposes, like like some kind
Speaker 1: of traditional concept like that that is that is more
Speaker 1: handed down, um than than uh widely pop cultural. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone's pretty chill with it. Yeah. So, I mean I
Speaker 1: wonder if if all different kinds of surgeries and body
Speaker 1: modification of all sorts will end up going the way
Speaker 1: of tattoos, where it's just not really a thing people
Speaker 1: bad and eye at anymore. Yeah, and whether I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like whenever you read about that kind of
Speaker 1: thing in science fiction, like in like in Hunger Games,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys have rested any of
Speaker 1: that media. But but but in the Capital, uh, there's
Speaker 1: a group of people who have chosen to very dramatically
Speaker 1: change their bodies. And it's and it's written about in
Speaker 1: this kind of in this very negative way, like as
Speaker 1: though they have like destroyed their own soul through the
Speaker 1: destruction of that flesh kind of kind of thing. But
Speaker 1: I but I don't think that's going to be how
Speaker 1: it's going to be, right, And and just the I
Speaker 1: think the other contexts right of that is is this
Speaker 1: kind of um indictment of capitalism, right in this idea
Speaker 1: that oh, you know, we've gone so far as a
Speaker 1: culture that these things that shouldn't be important to people
Speaker 1: are now important because ways in which purport ourselves are
Speaker 1: completely unnatural and should be you know, avoided at our call. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how dare we all care about our appearance, which is
Speaker 1: only what everyone around us judges a spy? Right, um? Uh?
Speaker 1: And and and getting getting into the parts of our
Speaker 1: bodies that most people don't see all the time. I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk for a minute about about penis and
Speaker 1: vagina transplants, because the difficulties in creating functional genitals are
Speaker 1: are perhaps obviously even greater than the challenges in in
Speaker 1: cosmetic surgeries. But we're starting to see really amazing, hopeful
Speaker 1: work being done. Researchers have had success in implanting vaginas
Speaker 1: and women who were born without them. They created the
Speaker 1: kind of like a like a scaffold in the lab,
Speaker 1: like a protein scaffold, and then college and scaffold, and
Speaker 1: then grew the tissue into it from the patient's own
Speaker 1: samples and then successfully implanted them. Um uh and and
Speaker 1: they're and they're they're functional, they work, they do what
Speaker 1: they're supposed to do. Um. Also, the world's second successful
Speaker 1: penis transplant happened earlier this year. I could talk to
Speaker 1: y'all a whole bunch about that for a while. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had. I had a really interesting two days where
Speaker 1: I was covering the topic for a for the video
Speaker 1: show now that we do. And so my entire Google
Speaker 1: search history was a fire orble offense at many other companies,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, but but but but yeah, currently these these
Speaker 1: options are not being offered to the trans community. I
Speaker 1: think partially because they're still so early in development and
Speaker 1: and honestly because of some really unfortunate transphobia in parts
Speaker 1: of the medical community. But UM, but I really think
Speaker 1: and and further more personally hope that a few more
Speaker 1: years worth of research and and cultural advancement will see
Speaker 1: these options being made available to more people who who
Speaker 1: wants selective elective surgeries. Yeah, and and you know, the
Speaker 1: thing is is that there actually have been UM a
Speaker 1: lot of successes and within the trans community when it
Speaker 1: comes to what is typically considered sexual reassignment surgery or
Speaker 1: gender reassignment surgery or UM whatever name that there are
Speaker 1: so many different names that people use UM for these surgeries. UM,
Speaker 1: but we are really seeing ways in which UM people
Speaker 1: are using UM or the actual kind of original materials
Speaker 1: from what everybody a person is born with to kind
Speaker 1: of make UM functional genitals that are to their liking
Speaker 1: UM so that it can be through different forms of
Speaker 1: skin grass things like that. You know, people can grow
Speaker 1: organs on other parts of their bodies and then use
Speaker 1: them in that process. So it's really kind of interesting
Speaker 1: what is being done in the medical community are specifically
Speaker 1: around trans healthcare. Yeah, totally. But of course, a really
Speaker 1: interesting option in the future if we're thinking about a
Speaker 1: post gender world, is not even uh, not even creating
Speaker 1: the traditional normal working of one traditional sex or another,
Speaker 1: but sort of creating all new different ways for your
Speaker 1: body to look and be shaped. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what
Speaker 1: if you don't want normal what if you don't want
Speaker 1: a normal penis of regina? I mean, I mean, I
Speaker 1: wonder if we're ever going to come around to a
Speaker 1: time where there will be a social allowance, like a
Speaker 1: societal acceptance of people choosing surgeries that are completely different
Speaker 1: from you know, the good old, good old sex binary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. One I've read about is the idea of
Speaker 1: people wanting, for example, androgynous genitalia. Absolutely, yeah, one that
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily one or the other. It's uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's a different thing altogether. Yeah, going along, you know,
Speaker 1: within within the within the gender. And and at that
Speaker 1: point i'd say sexual spectrum. Um, of course, they're they're
Speaker 1: a sexuality exists. It's it's not as visible I think
Speaker 1: is a lot of other sexualities right now, but it
Speaker 1: should you know, if that's how people feel, then that
Speaker 1: is a thing that the rest of us need to respect. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: one other place where biotechnology is going to play a role,
Speaker 1: possibly in in the post gender future if we get there,
Speaker 1: is in neuropharmacology and psychopharmacology. So the basic idea here
Speaker 1: is there's a lot of controversy over whether broad differences
Speaker 1: in human thoughts and behaviors between men and women are
Speaker 1: biologically determined by sex in the body or socially prescribed
Speaker 1: by culture. I think it's pretty clear that it's some
Speaker 1: mix of the two. But to whatever extent, we discover
Speaker 1: that some biological factors do play a role in sexually
Speaker 1: dimorphic behavior tendencies, you know, ways that women usually act,
Speaker 1: men usually act. Psychopharmacology and neuropharmacology drugs that affect the
Speaker 1: nervous system in the in the mind and mood, should
Speaker 1: allow us to influence these tendencies voluntarily if we wish
Speaker 1: to do so. Um. But we should also say that
Speaker 1: the brain is complex. We're far from having a full
Speaker 1: understanding of the chemical basis in the brain for you know,
Speaker 1: very complex effects like human behavior. However, we do know something,
Speaker 1: it's just simple example, hormones. Hormones like oxytocin vasa press
Speaker 1: and testosterone estrogen the ones you've heard of before and
Speaker 1: so forth, have some suggested linkages with behaviors associated most
Speaker 1: often with one gender or the other, such as maternal
Speaker 1: bonding or dominance and aggression and so forth. Um And
Speaker 1: this is one area where I think we may end
Speaker 1: up trailing behind others just because of how complex the
Speaker 1: brain is. But as far as technological control goes, we
Speaker 1: don't know in the end what we're going to find out.
Speaker 1: We may end up discovering that biosex diff princes have
Speaker 1: even less control over human behavior tendencies that we now
Speaker 1: believe maybe a gigantic part of how we act is
Speaker 1: actually just culturally influenced. Um Or, we may discover that
Speaker 1: there are some fairly strong determinative patterns from from the body,
Speaker 1: but we'll be able to counteract them with hormones and
Speaker 1: other pharmacological treatments if we so desire. So these are
Speaker 1: the factors that we're dealing with. But but but will
Speaker 1: this happen? I mean, and if it, if it can happen,
Speaker 1: is it is it a good thing? Is it a
Speaker 1: bad thing? Is it something we can place a value
Speaker 1: judgment on? I mean, if you I think that, just
Speaker 1: based on what we've read for this episode, it seems
Speaker 1: to me that if you continue technological trends in biotech
Speaker 1: on the trajectories they're on today, doesn't seem like there's
Speaker 1: any reason we shouldn't be able to live in a
Speaker 1: post gender society. Yeah, it seems very very possible, with
Speaker 1: especially depending on how you define it, because in some
Speaker 1: ways you could say that some aspects of post genderism
Speaker 1: or not even that dependent on technology is just about
Speaker 1: you know, culture and how we talk about things and
Speaker 1: the aspects that are dependent on technology. The technology doesn't
Speaker 1: seem crazy to me. We're not talking about faster than
Speaker 1: light travel or or time travel or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's basically just things that we say on the show
Speaker 1: that we're like, yeah, no, that's never gonna happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not stuff like that. It's stuff that seems very
Speaker 1: reasonable to assume that we can do based on extrapolating
Speaker 1: trends in in medicine and medical science today, stuff for
Speaker 1: which the groundwork has already been laid. Yeah, And it
Speaker 1: also doesn't seem to me that there's any reason to
Speaker 1: think that that postgenderism would I don't know, destroy humanity
Speaker 1: or something like that, Like, I I don't see any
Speaker 1: reason to think that we necessarily always need gendered biological
Speaker 1: reproductive organs and male female pairing in order to reproduce
Speaker 1: and produce new generations of humans. Yeah, and and furthermore
Speaker 1: that yeah, it's it's, it's it's it's neither going to
Speaker 1: be impossible to continue the human species, uh in a
Speaker 1: post gender society, and neither isn't necessarily going to like
Speaker 1: immediately be the matrix with everyone being grown in vats
Speaker 1: and harvested for their energy potential. Yeah. Um, the argument
Speaker 1: against um it not being possible. Yeah, no, we've already
Speaker 1: got all that tech. Uh. I I I guess, I
Speaker 1: guess there could be arguments that the current norms are
Speaker 1: too culturally ingrained to ever be changed. But but based
Speaker 1: on past changes to the norm and also to the
Speaker 1: current uh interestingly flexi state of society, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty obvious that change is possible and furthermore already happening, right. I.
Speaker 1: I think even if we kind of, um take a
Speaker 1: step back and look at how we think of each
Speaker 1: other in a gender way, right, Like, Yeah, we still
Speaker 1: have these categories of man, woman, um, non binary folks,
Speaker 1: all of these different categories, even that category right is
Speaker 1: an element of this kind of move towards post gender society. Um,
Speaker 1: but these concepts are becoming less of a hindrance for us,
Speaker 1: Like we're building in protections for people based on gender right,
Speaker 1: We're building in um ways in which people can kind
Speaker 1: of live however they want outside of these kind of
Speaker 1: historical limited ideas of what a man can do, what
Speaker 1: a woman can do, really, what a human born a
Speaker 1: certain way can do? Right, Yeah, absolutely, which which brings
Speaker 1: us I mean, it's it's probably pretty obvious from from
Speaker 1: our conversation, even if this is the only episode of
Speaker 1: four Thinking you have ever tuned into and don't know
Speaker 1: that we generally hold these kind of personal beliefs. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's probably pretty obvious that we all in
Speaker 1: this room think that this is a pretty good thing, um.
Speaker 1: And and the arguments for it being a good thing
Speaker 1: I think are pretty persuasive. Uh yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think it breaks down to stuff that that's kind of
Speaker 1: hard for people to give rational reasons for disagreeing with,
Speaker 1: and that it just would give people more choice over
Speaker 1: deeper facts about themselves. Uh, since it's a voluntary movement.
Speaker 1: I mean, we'd be talking about a different thing if
Speaker 1: we were saying we should forcibly eliminate gender gender distinctions.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that would be terrible. Why why would anyone
Speaker 1: do that? That would be the worst. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: the opposite of the point of all of this. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. It seems to me so try
Speaker 1: to imagine again a society in which a lot of
Speaker 1: these norms have been eroded. Uh, that seems to me
Speaker 1: possible that it could lead to less discrimination and less
Speaker 1: unequal power balance and a large array of situations. So like,
Speaker 1: what would a society look like if, for example, men
Speaker 1: were not on average physically stronger than women. Uh. It
Speaker 1: seems hard for me to personally imagine a bad outcome
Speaker 1: from that change, though maybe I don't have a very
Speaker 1: good imagination. I want to be Serena Williams. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of sort of just basic person to person
Speaker 1: evil in the world that takes place essentially only because
Speaker 1: there is a man who's a lot stronger than a
Speaker 1: woman that he's with. And if that were not often,
Speaker 1: if that were not the standard, Um, it just seems
Speaker 1: like that could very easily create a world where there's
Speaker 1: a lot less unequal relationships and less interpersonal violence. Right,
Speaker 1: And and so I guess, you know, kind of on
Speaker 1: the flip side, right, what speaks to me a lot
Speaker 1: of times is the expanded options for men. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: a lot of times we talk about gender and it's
Speaker 1: it's very much what what women need. Right. But you know,
Speaker 1: this is a good thing for men to right. Um,
Speaker 1: men will be able to kind of and send these
Speaker 1: stereotypical ideas of what is okay for them to do. Right.
Speaker 1: We can think about parenting, and we can think about
Speaker 1: this idea that we have long had that you know,
Speaker 1: fathers aren't as emotionally connected to their families and things
Speaker 1: like that. I don't think that's true. I think men
Speaker 1: and fathers have always been capable of this very deep
Speaker 1: connection on an emotional level to their families and men
Speaker 1: to other people. I think that we have just had
Speaker 1: a lot of societal hang ups around what that looks
Speaker 1: like and what, um, I guess what we were told
Speaker 1: to be comfortable with, of course, and it and it
Speaker 1: turns into a physical problem to for for men. Researchers
Speaker 1: found that gender roles. The gender roles that men undertake
Speaker 1: lead to shorter life expectancies and poor health in some
Speaker 1: measures from you know, like like behavior where they they
Speaker 1: see doctors less frequently than women, or engage in riskier behavior,
Speaker 1: or participate in more military combat or work in more
Speaker 1: hazardous occupations. Uh so post genderism could could erase some
Speaker 1: of the pressures that lead to those circumstances, or I
Speaker 1: guess at least spread the danger around more, you know. Uh, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it could if you're if you're talking about
Speaker 1: removing expectations, So it could be maybe you want to
Speaker 1: uh display traditionally male sex traits, but you just don't
Speaker 1: want to be expected to do the dangerous construction jobs
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, that might be how you
Speaker 1: want to do it, Like you want to be a
Speaker 1: podcaster or whatever it is. It's not that I'm saying
Speaker 1: that podcasting is an inherently feminine trait, but it's a communication,
Speaker 1: right exactly. Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing. Uh And
Speaker 1: and so yeah, there are so many really interesting gender
Speaker 1: biases that I catch myself having all the time, Like like,
Speaker 1: how I still if I'm playing video games online? And uh,
Speaker 1: in a voice that comes through my little headphone is
Speaker 1: a lady, lady voice, a feminine voice. I go, oh,
Speaker 1: how nice, how nice? It's a girl and she's playing
Speaker 1: video games. And then I imbediently feel like the worst
Speaker 1: feminist who has ever existed, because of course, of course
Speaker 1: women play video games. That's great, and I am one,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't know. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: think that we've all internalized. I think what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say is that we've all internalized more of this
Speaker 1: than we possibly understand all the time on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis. And and I would personally like to
Speaker 1: see some of that go away, because it makes me
Speaker 1: mad when I recognize it in myself, and it certainly
Speaker 1: makes me mad when I recognize it in other people.
Speaker 1: Stop being so awful, Lauren. I'm going to turn that
Speaker 1: into I'm going to turn that into a sound bite
Speaker 1: and just play it over and over to myself every day.
Speaker 1: You know, I wonder in a post gender world how
Speaker 1: much our basic language is going to change. There's so
Speaker 1: many there's so many invisible aspects of of our lives
Speaker 1: that we don't think about being strongly influenced by sex
Speaker 1: and gender, like y'all were talking about fashion, and duh.
Speaker 1: Obviously fashion is very you know, clothes are very gender,
Speaker 1: but it just didn't even cross my mind when I
Speaker 1: was thinking about that. Uh. And And another one is language.
Speaker 1: So most languages are just full of gendered terminology that's
Speaker 1: already largely obsolete, you know, with expanding consciousness of inclusivity,
Speaker 1: even with the traditional gender landscape. So for example, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not trying to find a policeman, you're trying to
Speaker 1: find a police officer. That police officer might be a
Speaker 1: woman who could help you just as much as the
Speaker 1: male police officer. Uh. Uh And and then of course
Speaker 1: they're gendered pronouns, gendering of nouns and languages like Spanish
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, though that's not fully a product
Speaker 1: of sex and gender distinctions, though there's some relevant crossover.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh and write gendered pronouns in English. This
Speaker 1: is something I think about every now and then. I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: we finally need a good singular gender neutral pronoun or
Speaker 1: people finally going to embrace using they as a singular pronoun.
Speaker 1: I think I think I have almost I'm working on it.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I have. I've had to, Um, I
Speaker 1: think in the LGBTQ community, and um, having so many
Speaker 1: friends who do identify as non binary, like there are
Speaker 1: so many non binary people now, Um, I've had to
Speaker 1: kind of adapt and not put pronouns onto other people.
Speaker 1: And then also, I mean, you know, in the lgbc
Speaker 1: Q community, people change pronouns, so it's it's often very
Speaker 1: difficult to remember who's using what pronoun um today and
Speaker 1: and identity has changed. So you know, I'm all for they.
Speaker 1: I think the argument against the singular they is very
Speaker 1: very much, um, not reflective of the fact that we
Speaker 1: actually do use this gender neutral pronoun pretty often. We do.
Speaker 1: We do and and and and of course it is
Speaker 1: so important to to gender people correctly and to to
Speaker 1: not force your own language onto somebody else's body. That's
Speaker 1: that's pretty ridiculous. And it's so easy to not be
Speaker 1: offensive like that, to just be like, hey, what pronouns
Speaker 1: would you like me to use for you? Uh. It
Speaker 1: might be an awkward conversation, but I promise you'll get
Speaker 1: through it, And even if you have to have it
Speaker 1: once an hour, it's it's always worthwhile. I also wonder though, UM,
Speaker 1: if you know, just thinking about the transgender experience if
Speaker 1: more people in general will kind of have maybe their
Speaker 1: birth name and then choose a name that they like better, like, oh,
Speaker 1: here's another one completely. I didn't even think about this
Speaker 1: going in gender names, right, Yeah, And again that that's
Speaker 1: one of those things where I mean, like pronouns and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, there's there's no police running around telling
Speaker 1: you what you know, the name has to be applied
Speaker 1: to a certain gender. But well, that's true in some
Speaker 1: some countries do have lists of gender approved names. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, even in America, where there's there's nobody who
Speaker 1: is going to make you name your kid a certain
Speaker 1: thing based on their gender, but names are very gender Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a scidal expectation that if a human is named John,
Speaker 1: it's probably a dude if it's spelled in certain ways
Speaker 1: in mostly and I would kind of imagine that there
Speaker 1: may be a lot more options when it comes to
Speaker 1: in to gender neutral names now. Um, I don't even
Speaker 1: know if if parents are as much looking for them,
Speaker 1: but that's just kind of seems like a trend within
Speaker 1: itself in recent years, a lot of names that will
Speaker 1: kind of double have a feminine name or double as
Speaker 1: um a more gender neutral name, like I think about
Speaker 1: names like Adrian, and And and and Hayden and a lot
Speaker 1: of really a lot of names ending an inn. Are
Speaker 1: you know, gender neutral or something like Aubrey? Right? He
Speaker 1: said John, like John? Maybe not John? Maybe I lied
Speaker 1: Jan right like Jan. That's sometimes a boy's name or
Speaker 1: a girl's name. J n oh. I think that that
Speaker 1: is um like culturally because I knew, uh his it
Speaker 1: was John, though I think it was like Yannis his nickname.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I know it, but I think it's like
Speaker 1: Scandinavian or something. Huh. Yeah. People are naming their kids
Speaker 1: all kinds of things these days. I'm thinking about a
Speaker 1: guy we talked about in an episode of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind named yonda dude who cut out his
Speaker 1: own bladder stones anyway, hundreds of years ago. Okay, so
Speaker 1: he's dead either way. Cool. The emotional reaction from both
Speaker 1: me and Raquel there was very strident. Um. I think
Speaker 1: I think that just about wraps up what we have
Speaker 1: been trying to say today. So thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for sticking around for two whole episodes worth of this,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much Raquel for coming and joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me I'm so glad to be here.
Speaker 1: It's been really fun having you on the show. Yes, yes, uh.
Speaker 1: If if you guys would like to say anything to
Speaker 1: Raquel or to us, please get in touch. Our email
Speaker 1: address is fw thinking at how Stuff Works dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also reach us on the facebooks and to
Speaker 1: the twitters yes plural. That's also how language is changing
Speaker 1: and you can't stop it. Our screen name in both
Speaker 1: of those places is also fw thinking and Uh Raquel.
Speaker 1: If people would like to get in touch with you,
Speaker 1: would you like to provide a Twitter handle? Definitely not
Speaker 1: I'm um if you sure, If you are brave enough
Speaker 1: to check out my Twitter, I am Raquel. Are a
Speaker 1: q U E l w I l l I s
Speaker 1: underscore And if you just want to check out my
Speaker 1: writing or what I'm up to Raquel, well, it's dot com.
Speaker 1: Is the place to go cool. Thank you so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we all hope that we will hear from you, and
Speaker 1: either way, you will hear from us again very soon.
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