 I still feel like we're not getting a clear answer, though, because... Oh, you never will. No, that's your problem. You're trying to get a clear answer on a social construct. You get... Nobody could do that. A vibe? That's absolutely what it means to be an American, yeah. Is that what you're saying for manhood, too, though? Well, yeah, it's a social category. A vibe is about as close of a term you're going to get. But what we want on the whole as an aggregate is to be understood in the context of man or womanhood. Under your view, not all trans men are men. If your boyfriend goes down to the range and he brings a 22, then it looks like you've got a girlfriend missed. Yeah, so back to kind of what I was saying, though, would you say that the definition of man, when you say a man is somebody who identifies as a man, and if you were to ask you what a man is, would you be able to give us any type of thing? Well, I could point to myself, I'm a man. How do you know? Because I identify as one, of course. So you know that people are men and women based off that they tell you that they're a man and woman. How else would you know what's going on in their brain? I have to use the same mode of inference to ask lots of things about a person. So take something like somebody that doesn't... You could tell them a biological male by looking at me. Take somebody that doesn't speak English, for example. If they don't say the words, I am a man, how do you know that they're a man? Because one implication of this definition of this man is somebody who identifies as a man is that manhood is confined to English speakers or no non-English-speaking men. Of course they're a non-English-speaking man. We have... They don't identify as men. Yes, but they have analogous understandings of gender considering that we have man as a gender to just be the collection of social rules and expectations associated with male sex. There's the non-circular definition, a collection of rules and things that we associate with the male sex. Well, sure, that's just what it is we understand a man to be, but you don't have to adhere to those rules to be a man. And in fact, we don't. There are plenty of like, metaresexual or effeminate men who we consider to be part of the social category of men despite, I don't know, doing their fancy pants makeup stuff or whatever it is that we're doing. Right, so that definition fails. How does that definition fail? Because then you commit a special pleading fallacy. If you say that a man is somebody who encompasses these traits that we typically associate with males, then you say, oh, well, that's awesome. I didn't say that. Oh, I thought, excuse me, I thought you said that they encompass these rules or whatnot? No, it's associated with those roles, but they don't have to encompass them. There are femme boys and tomboy's, right? Like there are plenty of people. So what was your reference for when you referred to men? What are you referring to? I think that when man as a gender category as something that we understand or have built for people to identify with or not identify with is just the roles and expectations associated with the male sex. That's not a universal thing. Well, no, but that's just a set of associations. You can choose whether or not you want to be a part of that group. Yeah, so what makes you a man? Identifying as part of that group. Part of what group? The one that I just described. The gender. The social role thing? Right, if man is a collection of roles and expectations associated with the male sex, it's like a filter through which you view a person. It's a lens of analysis. It's a decision to identify as one because it gives you a perspective. Well, that's kind of what I said, right? I said interview a man as somebody who identifies or maybe encompasses the social roles we typically associate with males. Is that not correct? I think you identify with a set of roles and expectations, but that doesn't mean you adhere to them. For example, I can accept it. Okay, yeah, yeah. So under this view, it's still false that trans men are men because there's plenty of trans men who do not identify with the social roles and expectations typically associated with males. No, they do by identifying as men. That's circular. No, so we've already done it. Okay, because you said a man is somebody who are, okay. A man is just the collection of, okay, it's like being an American, all right? So I'm an American in a purely national sense. I was born here, but when we say is this person an American, we mean more than just what is their nationality? Often American, it's like a melting pot spirit kind of thing. Are you really an American? But what does that mean? Well, what does it mean to be an American? It turns out no one human can meet every category for what it means to be an American because there are so many Americas. People in the South, the Northeast, the Southwest, the Center, the Rust Belt, they're all gonna have different ideas of what it means to be an American. So when a person says like, yeah, I'm an American, even though they're say like a two-year immigrant or something, not even a citizen, I'll listen to them. But for me, it's more of a general spirit thing. They're saying I'm an American because they wanna be a part of that category, not because they wanna adhere to every individual expectation within the category because that's not possible. Okay, so that's a little bit, I'll talk really good. You say a man is somebody who identifies as a man. And then I ask you, well, what is a man since you used it in the referent, you say a man is somebody who encompasses or identifies with, I guess identifies with is better if I understood, identifies with these social roles and expectations we typically associate with males, right? Is that a fair characterization? I think that man like American is a social block. It's a big, heavy gravitational force that you can enter the orbit of if you choose to. I think that there are a lot of things that you might do or see or want to be in that orbit that you might may or may not identify with that you may consider to be a part of your experience, but it's something you're in the orbit of and you can choose to break that orbit. With an American, I consider myself an American because there are some categories that I adhere to, some beliefs that I have that I consider fundamentally American, but not all. And as for men, right? They're like, I don't like wearing cowboy hats, but I swear to God, you go to a third of the men in the South of this country and they'll tell you that owning a cowboy hat is a fundamental part of being a man. You ever seen those memes of like the, the like big saddle, no ox or whatever? You'd like those Southern art, is your boyfriend a woman memes? We're like, you know, if your boyfriend goes down to the range and he brings a 22, then it looks like you've got a girlfriend, missed like that kind of shit. Obviously that's not the kind of vibe I'm going for, but you know, it is the same gravitational force. I feel like we're not getting a clear answer though, because... Oh, you never will. No, that's your problem. You're trying to get a clear answer on a social construct. You get, nobody can do that. When you refer to men, what are you referring to? I'm referring to the people who make the decision to orbit around that idea, that concept, to be a part of that block. Okay, so people that make, that choose to orbit around this concept. And if I understand correctly, this concept is what we typically associate with males in terms of roles and expectations. Though people obviously, you know, break with those traditions quite a bit while still being men, you know? And under this view, not all trans men are men because in a lot of trans men don't identify with those expectations. And they don't have to orbit as you would put it. Well, you only have to identify as being a man. Identifying as a man is being an important... And that's what I'm saying, then you're shifting between the two definitions. Because which one, it can be, hold on, it can be either or, but it cannot be like both. Okay, so like, would you say that a man is somebody who identifies as a man or would you say a man is somebody who wants to orbit around these social roles? Those are the same thing. Those are not the same thing because people can identify as men but not want to orbit around these social roles. No, but orbit around, but like I said, I am a man, but I don't adhere to every social role expected of men. It's not even possible for me. Yeah, but you orbit and some people don't even want to orbit. No, but so by orbiting, I mean like you are, when you say I'm a man, you're choosing to enter that orbit. This is the collection of roles and expectations that you want to define your experience around. I disagree plenty of people that identify as men or how even people that identify as women do not want to orbit around these traits associated with their preferred sex. No, no, no, by orbit around, I mean that it's the framework through which you want to engage with and even defy these traits. So to give you an example, okay, being willful, being argumentative or stubborn means different things when you're a man and a woman. I can be argumentative and stubborn with very few social consequences. Women can't end throughout history. It's been worse for them in this regard. Now, there are plenty of argumentative and stubborn women, willful women, hysterical women, whatever, they've made a lot of history, that's great for them. But if you were to take in just this one sliver, this facet of what it means to be a man or a woman, you can be a woman and be willful and then your willfulness, even though it is not a feminine trait in the socially expected sense is now understood differently because you're a woman. A person can be a man, say a femme boy and be very feminine, but femininity is different when you identify as a man than when you identify as a woman. The roles and expectations are differently. A good example would be women's femininity, while often sexualized, is not innately sexual, right? Like a woman can be feminine and present as such and be treated normally, but not as often as they would like to be, but it's possible. Femboys, on the other hand, that's practically a porn term. That's like a category on hentai sites because femininity, when projected from someone who identifies as a man, very different. But that's different from trans women. Trans women, if you were going by a biological essentialist argument, aren't that different from femme boys and obviously the porn sites can flake the two, but that's their problem, not mine. But the expectations between the two are very different because there's something about being feminine while being a man that confers a certain set of expectations. So what I mean to say by all of this is- There are different expectations associated with people who feel that they're female versus people that feel that they're male. I can agree to that. That still makes it false that all trans men are men under this account because plenty of trans men, just by calling themselves men, they do not want to adhere to these traits and expectations we have typically associated with. They don't have to adhere, but they're in the- And they don't identify with them and they don't want to orbit with them. So under your view, not all trans men. They are orbiting with them because they're engaging with the context by which they'll be judged in relation to those expectations. Even if they openly say, I do not want anything to do with this, I do not identify with this, I do not like this, nothing to do with it, then by your logic, unless they're lying and misguided, they would have to be not a man. No, they adopt the orbit and then they reject the characteristics, same as me. I am an American. I accept that term and everything that it implies, but I fervently reject elements of what it means to be an American. I will say I'm an American, but I want nothing to do with, and then I complain about a bunch of stuff like a communist would. Yeah, so when you say adopt the orbit, you mean just by calling themselves a man. They have agreed to be associated with all of these different things. It's like an analytical framework. We can remove ourselves from it entirely, being non-binary, but if you are to be a man or a woman, if you say I am this or that, you are entering yourself and you might not like all of it, but that is what it means to call yourself a woman. If a trans woman calls themselves a woman or a trans man and man, they know what they're signing up for. There will be expectations placed on them that are new and scary and often unfold. But a lot of them don't associate their manhood with those expectations. They may call themselves men for different reasons, but do not orbit around, identify with those types of things. So under this view, it's still false. And I don't like cowboy hats. And yet I'm an American man. So I reject those categories, those expectations. Cowboy hats are both American and male. Okay, so when you're, okay, let's just engage with this. When you say you're an American, what does that mean to you? That's a complicated question. I like the theoretical values associated with this country's identity as a melting pot. They're not true values, but I like the theoretical values. Okay. And I have a strong cultural tie to a lot of the stuff this country has to offer. Okay, so you like these values of like a melting pot? You like these cultural identities that the country has to offer, but can people- Some of them. And I do hate- Some of them, whichever ones you like. But can people be Americans without liking those things? Of course. Perfect. Then when you refer to an American, you are not referring to people who want the melting pot or et cetera, et cetera. You're referring to something else. And that's the same problem we're having in this today. I'm referring to a vibe. A vibe? That's absolutely what it means to be an American, yeah. Is that what you're saying for manhood too though? Well, yeah, it's a social category. A vibe is about as close of a term you're going to get in terms of synonyms. It's a analytical framework. It's a set of expectations. It's a lens you view the world through a color. It's something that tints, it shapes, it shades. And you can choose to look at things differently once you're there. But yeah, I really do think that's what it means. I think that's what you do as well, by the way. I think that you may take your womanhood for granted as I take my manhood for granted because I was born into it. I didn't have to fight for it. But I think that when I think of myself as a guy and you as a woman, I presume, I can't see your brain state. We want some things associated with well, it means to be a man and woman respectively and we don't want other things. But what we want on the whole as an aggregate is to be understood in the context of man or womanhood. And I think that we make that choice too. What does, what is the vibe of manhood that all trans men associate themselves with? Well, all trans men associate themselves with being a man. The vibe is a complicated and well, it's the set of expectations, roles and associations with the male sex. But that's not all trans men. I identify with those set of roles expectations associated with the male sex. But they identify with being men, which means that is the frame. And this is a problem. Those are things are not mutually exclusive. You can identify as a man and you can also not identify with the social roles and expectations associated with men. But we can do that with American. And that's the confusion we're having because you think those things go hand in hand when they don't. Can we not do that with American? There are plenty of ways in which I reject American behavior and American social expectations. And yet in spite of that, I consider myself an American. There's no single definitional point I could like gesture at to prove whether or not I'm an American in a social or cultural sense, right?