VNN | Global News Thread

[Kosheh]

So this thread's gonna exist for all the worldly news you hear about. Why does this exist? So we can talk about actual real-world things here besides our menial lives.
It can be funny news, celebrity gossip, research news, sad news, tech news, whatever - just try to stray away from gaming news (this is GD and we get enough of that elsewhere)

PROTIP: Here's how to share news like a cool dude or dudette:
1) share a link
2) add little snippets under the link so the lazier of us don't have to read the whole dang article (especially if it's long)

So get posting, and let the newsy discussion begin!!

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I'll start off with a fluff article. The last thing I want to happen is for an argument to start over the first post, lol

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people...29743.html


The Princeton Review, trying to be cool and edgy, used pop lyrics in a SAT review guide to review poor grammar.
Princeton misquoted Taylor swift, and in turned wrecked the grammar.

Referencing Swift's song Fifteen, the paper reads: "Somebody tells you they love you, you got to believe them". The correct lyric, however, is: "Somebody tells you they love you, you're gonna believe them".

The song actually makes correct use of the verb "are" though.

I'm actually floored by the fact that The Princeton Review of all people (who, IIRC actually puts out the SAT, too) didn't properly research this and ended up making this huge of a goof.
Like, props to them for trying to use lyrics from music as a good example of grammar review, but whaaaaat

[Kosheh]

It happened. The future is now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/sup...riage.html
Gay Marriage Backers Win Supreme Court Victory

Gay marriage has been legalized in all 50 US states. Uh, wow.
Of course, there's a caveat: religious objection to same-sex marriage is still a thing (like, for example, a religious college only allowing married-student dormitories to opposite-sex marriages) but doesn't permit the government to deny marriage benefits to gay couples that are available to married couples of the opposite sex.

It's always been a finicky issue in the US, but this ruling is truly landmark. It's fucking huge. 
Like, Prohibition huge, but like the opposite way around. It's allowing people rights to do things. And that's really great and really American.

But like, American in a good way. Like freedom. America.


If I can get a little Internet political though: I really hope this doesn't cause social media to say things like "What about transgender marriage?!" because...okay, look: that statement is just goofy.
Boiled down, people of the opposite biological sex have been able to get married for like nearly forever and this new ruling now means that people of the same biological sex can get married too.
Gender/sexual identity is one thing and it's not a discussion for right now. In the end, people can get married to people. And that's cool by me, because now all people can get married.

(American people)

[TomGuycott]

Making light of a very serious, touching moment here, but the way you bolded Gay Rights Backers made me imagine a kickstarter campaign people had to pass before the Supreme Court considered their ruling.

[[robo9]]

The U.S. only recognizes two genders AFAIK, so whichever one of the two someone legally falls under

[Kosheh]

The U.S. only recognizes two genders AFAIK, so whichever one of the two someone legally falls under

Are you confusing sex with gender right now? It's totally understandable, given recent news people think they're interchangable (much like we used to interchangably use "gender" and "sex"...uh, the definition of "gender" is a little more flexible circa 2014)

* Kosheh pulls around the bend in the tumblr trolley. beep beep! it's time for today's gender politics lesson!

crash course: a FtM transgender individual doesn't mean they want to necessarily become a man; the FtM transgender merely wants to be recognized within the societal/cultural roles as a male, which might include taking hormone supplements to achieve the characteristics of the other gender. They're not seeking sexual reassignment surgery - that's...too far, in a sense, and that person would then be considered an FtM transsexual.

sex = male/female. biological differences. thanks to the same-sex marriage law, people of the same sex can now be married and enjoy the same benefits opposite-sex married couples did.
gender = masculine/feminine. the characteristics that society and culture delineates as "masculine" or feminine".

It's easier to explain with something like asexual and agender. Of course, "sex" is used differently here to describe the sexual orientation.
asexual = lack of sexual preference
agender = genderless; prefers not to conform to any gender standard as they don't identify with any particular gender


That said, I think you'll be okay so long as you correctly mark down your biological sex down on the marriage paperwork at this point; gender is a whole other issue that's...probably okay to lay low for now so long as all peoples can go get married. So like, if you have same-gender marriage between a cisgender female and a agender individual (born male) who want to get married, there would have actually been no debate since biologically, it's an opposite-sex marriage.

[psychospacecow]

Man, this stuff confuses me.

[[robo9]]

Nah, I meant gender. I just confused intersex with genderqueer

As far as I know, the U.S. legally doesn't have a distinction between gender and sex, atleast to when it comes/came to marriage. That's why I used gender

@psychospacecow If it helps, I can simplify it (and maybe oversimplify it, actually)

Sex = your physical fiddly bits. Gender = how you personally identify yourself

[psychospacecow]

I still don't get it, but I won't linger on it.

[Lemonray]

Man, this stuff confuses me.

That is because you have been conditioned by the patriarchy.

[psychospacecow]

Man, this stuff confuses me.

That is because you have been conditioned by the patriarchy.

Define Patriarchy, because truth be told, it probably has more to do with my general confusion for stuff like this. I mean, I am autistic.

[Kosheh]

Man, this stuff confuses me.

That is because you have been conditioned by the patriarchy.

Define Patriarchy, because truth be told, it probably has more to do with my general confusion for stuff like this. I mean, I am autistic.

That's just Ray and his tinfoil fedora talking. He's saying "oh, you've been trained to think along the lines of a system of society in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it". He's being sarcastic though, because that's what most tumblr feminists blame for the ignorance of our [largely cisgender] society. illuminati confirmed

To make things a little easier, let me lay out the buzzwords. I'll throw in buzzwords, but then go back and you'll understand.
Let's start easy. You probably know these.

HETEROSEXUAL = You, probably. An individual who is sexually attracted for the other sexual preference.
HOMOSEXUAL = An individual who is sexually attracted to those of the same sexual preference.

You might've heard these, but I'm gonna throw some buzzwords in. I think they started to be a thing a few years ago.

BISEXUAL = An individual who has a sexual preference for both members of the GENDER BINARY (Society's idea of "male and female")
ASEXUAL = An individual who has no sexual preference. Has no sexual attraction to anyone regardless of gender identity.
PANSEXUAL = An individual who is sexually attracted to all sexual preferences and genders. Loves people "for people".
TRANSEXUAL = Someone whose "physical gender" conflicts with their "psychological gender". This person person expresses a desire to live and be accepted as a member of their identified sex, and usually experiences impaired functioning or distress as a result of their gender identification. As a result, most usually vie for physical changes for their body, including sexual reassignment surgery.

"Transsexual" might have been confusing. Good. Here's where I bust out the confusing words.
GENDER IDENTITY = A person's "psychological sex". Their private sense and subjective experience of their own gender (gender alone is...uh, masculinity, femininity, etc.).
TRANSITION = the process of changing one's gender presentation permanently to accord with one's internal sense of one's gender.

However, some individuals do not identify with some (or all) of the aspects of gender that are assigned to their biological sex (your dangly bits), which is where the whole "gender identity" thing you hear about from tumblr comes in.

CISGENDER = You. A person who's comfortable with their biological sex and identifies with the aspects of gender assigned to your sex.
TRANSGENDER = A person who wishes not to identify with the aspects of gender assigned to their biological sex.
GENDERQUEER = Catch-all term for gender identites that are neither masculine or feminine, like....agender, pangender, and third gender.

Uhhh, yeah it's kind of a hard concept to grasp, but imagine SEX is "someone's biological gender" and GENDER is "someone's psychological gender".
Western culture typically assigns qualities that are "masculine" and "feminine" to those genders, and for example, a trans man would be a biological woman who doesn't identify with their culture's assigned gender expectations of "femininity", and psychologically associates themselves with the qualities of "masculinity".


It's different than a girl who's a "tomboy" as a kid; a tomboy is just generally a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors typical of a boy, but that's more like a stage though of youth that girls exhibit when they think typical girl hobbies are shit.

[psychospacecow]

So... its all about what banner you want to fall under? Sounded like a science at first, seems more like an art.

[Kosheh]

So... its all about what banner you want to fall under? Sounded like a science at first, seems more like an art.

That's....the weirdest metaphor ever, but...uh, I guess. It's like if YOU as an individual felt most comfortable under a banner.

If I could put it in a simple way, gender identity is a way of being true to yourself, rather than what others think of you.

[psychospacecow]

If its about me then why would I need to give myself a title other than me? This kind of comes across kinda like race, which I always thought was a rather arbitrary divider.

[Shade]

If its about me then why would I need to give myself a title other than me? This kind of comes across kinda like race, which I always thought was a rather arbitrary divider.

I don't really get how titles regarding gender identification or being part of a certain race is divisive. The people create the division, not the attribute.