Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive 3

message: Allow me kindly to dismiss your assumptions. I am none of the things you choose to lable me as, nor I defending the things you think I am, nor am I saying/thinking/believing what you push my way. Heteronormativity is a lable, a poorly thought out straw man for those some one disagreed with. As such it only has value to those who believe in it, which includes no one it is used against, to my knowledge. I reject it out of hand, and insist that nearly no-one holds the views which it encompasses. But whatever. This is all about the article (and the article is not offensive btw, the concept is). I, unlike the above, do not assume bad faith on your part. I didn't get the impression from reading the article that you intended falseness, I simply noticed how large your blind side was when it came to the detractors of the theory. Theories like this are exactly why their are so many hearty laughs at the expense of soft (read pseudo)-science. Anyways the last thing I am looking to do is to place misinformation anywhere, what I am going to do is continue to edit the detractors section until it is acceptable, and then get the heck out of here. If you feel a need to cast dispersions upon my motives, character, or maybe even debate the particulars, please ring me up elsewhere, despite my confortational tone (which I felt necessary and don't appologise for, this theory is provocative) I am meerely looking to do what I do and run away, and have no intention of engaging in flame wars or non-article related debates here in the talk page. Cheers, Sam Spade 01:20, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe you could enlighten us as to why exactly you see the term as offensive? Because while you have certainly written much, other than derising it as "pseudo-science" and "PC psycho-linguistic facism" you never once stated what you think is wrong with it. Also, kindly explain why you constantly remove the "or debates about gender or transgender people" from the sentence: "Heteronormativity as a term is not widely used outside of queer and gender studies academia or debates about gender or transgender people." It is widely used when talking about transgender, and those are, most of the time, very practical and not academic debates. -- AlexR 11:06, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: straw man

message: I want to highly compliment the recent additions of supporting evidence. The material on in-vitro fertilization, and freemartins, for example. Very intruiging stuff. Sam Spade 04:16, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: recent additions

message: ((Uups, sorry, I did forget the most important thing: please voice your concers/reasons here, so that we can discuss them -- till we *) 16:47, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: [P0M:] If "they" don't use the word, how are they known to be detractors? Do they speak of "the 'H' word" or something?
====2==== 
"Nevertheless, there are objections to the concept of heteronormativity. In discussing these objections, one has to distinguish between objectors who don't like the word, objectors who don't like the idea that society could be anything other than hetero-normal, and objectors in the academia who prefer other theories. Here the arguments of the first two groups will be discussed."
 reduced to
"There are substantial objections to the very concept of heteronormativity, coming from all sides."
[P0M:] Reducing point 2 to the mere assertion that there are "substantial objections to the very concept of heteronormativity, coming from all sides" implies that the analysis is refuted on substantial grounds by authoritative figures. That prejudices the issue and so does not maintain a NPOV. The Tille version should remain as it is (except "the" should be deleted in "the academia").
* Actually, I don't think that there is much gained from seperating those three groups, because we have few, if any, arguments from the first "group" (see next point) , and also none of the third. That is the reason I left it out when I removed Mr. Spades latest rants. I therefore propose once again what I wrote:  "The critique of heteronormativity itself, however, has spread much farther. Nevertheless, there are objections to the very concept of heteronormativity." -- AlexR 18:41, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Mayor differences, to be solved here

message: "Nevertheless, there are objections to the concept of heteronormativity. In discussing these objections, one has to distinguish between objectors who don't like the word, objectors who don't like the idea that society could be anything other than hetero-normal, and objectors in the academia who prefer other theories. Here the arguments of the first two groups will be discussed."
 reduced to
"There are substantial objections to the very concept of heteronormativity, coming from all sides."
[P0M:] Reducing point 2 to the mere assertion that there are "substantial objections to the very concept of heteronormativity, coming from all sides" implies that the analysis is refuted on substantial grounds by authoritative figures. That prejudices the issue and so does not maintain a NPOV. The Tille version should remain as it is (except "the" should be deleted in "the academia").
* Actually, I don't think that there is much gained from seperating those three groups, because we have few, if any, arguments from the first "group" (see next point) , and also none of the third. That is the reason I left it out when I removed Mr. Spades latest rants. I therefore propose once again what I wrote:  "The critique of heteronormativity itself, however, has spread much farther. Nevertheless, there are objections to the very concept of heteronormativity." -- AlexR 18:41, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: '''2'''

message: "To some degree this is exactly the reason why heteronormativity is named heteronormativity -- it helps to question the normality of heterosexual behavior."
 reduced to
"and misinformative/factually innacurate."
[P0M:] Point 3, in the Tillwe version, is problematical because it implies that heterosexual behavior is not normal. That was presumably not the intention of the author of that sentence, and the text should be corrected. But, with corrections, point 3 in the Tillwe version is substantially more informative than the truncated text provided by SS.
*Again, I don't think there is much use in that wording. The complete paragraph reads:  "The first kind of opponents of the concept of heteronormativity see it as a "politically correct" attempt to replace the words and concepts 'normal' and/or 'natural' with a concept that can be seen as offensive and unacceptable. To some degree this is exactly the reason why heteronormativity is named heteronormativity -- it helps to question the normality of heterosexual behavior."  I don't think that this is an objection against the word itself, because "normal" and/or "natural" have a far wider use than as a synonym for heteronormativity. People who use that argumente clearly belong not in the group that criticises the word, but into the group that criticise anything that does not fit into the heteronormative concept, which is the second group. Once again, therefore, I want to propose my words:  " Many opponents of the concept of heteronormativity see it as a "politically correct" attempt to replace the words and concepts 'normal' and/or 'natural' with a concept they see as offensive, unacceptable and misinformative or factually innacurate."  I also left the sentence abouve out, because it does not make too much sense. It is not just and not even primarily the "normality" that is critisised, but the "normativity"; the word is heteronormativity, not heteronormality. After all, something that applies to 90%+ of people usually fits the description of "normal" quite well; the question is how those people are dealt with who don't fit in. -- AlexR 18:41, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: '''3'''

message: "Gay diseases" (cf. homophobic hate speech) and other such instances of what they claim to be the wrath of God."
 reduced to
"plagues and other instances of what they see as the wrath of God."
[P0M:] Point 4. Nobody that I know of has posed ebola or SARS as "the wrath of God," and the reason would appear to be that neither of those diseases is associated with sexual transmission. The hateful intent and propagandistic function of calling a sexually transmitted disease "gay plague" is clearly relevant to a discussion of the consequences of the homophobia that is intellectually bolstered by a heteronormative ideology. It not only blames the individual for the disease, it also implies that innocent people are made to suffer for the sins of gays -- giving people one more instigation to hate them. This entire dialectic needs to be understood, not to be covered up. P0M 16:59, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: '''4'''

message: I honestly apreciate all the above attention to detail, but I wasn't really all that happy w my version of the detractors section either, and as many people have noted above, there are substantial problems on both sides. My sugestions is to scrap both mine and tillwe's versions, and focus on writing a new, NPOV, factually accurate section ASAP. Sam Spade 01:06, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: complete rewrite of detractors section

message: I rewrote that part, because whenever it got edited, it became more and more anti-religious. The last statement that was added, "Adherents to some denominations of their Bible in the Abrahamic religions present their belief that heterosexuality, and thus heteronormativity, is intended by God." is so patently false as to be nothing but an embarassement. The main Abrahamitc religions are the Jewish religion, Christian faith and Islam. Of these three, only one has the Bible, the other two use the Thora and the Quran, respectively. And people don't belong denominations of their holy books, but to denominations of their faith. Not to mention that a lot of Jews, Christians and Muslims don't believe that heteronormativity is intended by God. And in almost all other religions you find the same pattern; some believe that, some don't. No need therefore to list religious opponents more than once, and certainly no need to become anti-religous. 
Please remember that the part about the opponents of the term, or those that try to enforce heteronormativity, (which are not necessarily the same persons) has to be just as NPOV as the parts above it! -- AlexR 02:23, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite of "opponents" section 

message: I reverted again, because the sentence below Mr. Spade keeps quoting is not only a rather biased view (this time from the other site), it is also flatout "quoted" from . The rest of his edits are not exactly in the spirit of cooperation, to put it mildly. He sure likes to talk about it, but he sure does not act as if he'd care, either. 
:"Heteronormativity is a controversial term, newly coined. The theories involve punitive rules (social, familial, and legal) that are seen to force us to conform to hegemonic, heterosexual standards for identity. The term is a short version of "normative heterosexuality" and is in no way widely accepted in its usage and definition." 
It's also false - heteronormativity is not just normative heterosexuality, because it tries to set up norms about physical sex and gender roles and gender identiy. And of course that definition would be somewhat NPOV. -- AlexR 03:52, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Look, there is almost no documentation on this term, and I am doing the best that I can with what I have. I only have a chance to co-operate when you communicate Sam Spade 03:56, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction 

message: :: I agree that the article by now has become somewhat confusing. After March 19th first Mr. Johnson and then Mr. Spade voiced various complaints which were never very clear, and much editing, reverting and reediting followed. Compare the last version from March 19th to todays if you can't believe that this once was a short, clear article, which did not, despite some people's claim to the contrary, discriminate against anybody, either. -- AlexR 16:57, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Quote from the out-of-date-version: Heteronormativity describes a binary gender system, in which only two sexes are accepted. Just this introduction sentence is clearly POV because it suggests that there are more than two sexes. And such wording is clearly a point of view since only a very small minority of the minority would answer that there are in fact two sexes when asked about the amount of sexes. More people would just laugh about such a question. ;-) --Benedikt 21:42, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, to say that there are only two genders is also a point of view, and a neutral pov would simply acknowledge that most people may think so.Hyacinth 22:12, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Not to mention that there are several societies that either had or still have more than two genders OR sexes, so whoever states that there are only two (or three, or umpteen) will have to prove their point. Besides, the statement Benedict criticised states the believe behind heteronormativity, but it does not say anything about right or wrong. So where exactly is the POV here? -- AlexR 22:33, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  How confusing has the article become?