Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[d4m10n]

...sex/gender definitions are important in real life to the happiness of many, many trans-gender people.

I find it a bit surprising that we feel the need to reconceptualize sex as a spectrum for the sake of anyone's happiness other than that of intersex individuals; even if we had exactly two sexes and zero DSDs, wouldn't trans folks still exist and want to be seen as the sex that the OB-GYN didn't see?

 

[Belz...]

There are some XYs with penises shorter than some XXs clitori.

And? They're still one or the other, are they not?

You realize this whole conversation is about people who are the exception, right? So dismissing the exceptions makes no sense.

The problem is that the argument confuses transgender and intersex already. It's not as if it makes sense to begin with.

2. I listed several properties of gender that typically used to define gender but that are variables.

Every time I see such a confusion of gender and sex when I'm told the two are definitely absolutely not the same, I find it amusing.

I still don’t see why this is such an issue with so many posters. To me it’s much like debating if viruses are alive or not. It depends on the definitions one chooses to apply and one”s own subjective viewpoints.

Except that the discussion is about biological men's acceptance into women's sports, for instance. I think it's a bit important to those women.

 

[Meadmaker]

You realize this whole conversation is about people who are the exception, right? So dismissing the exceptions makes no sense.

Not sure I follow you. The whole conversation in general, or a specific subset of the conversation?

What I mean is that transgender people are not exceptions. A transwoman is a person of male sex who "identifies", whatever that means, as being of the female gender, whatever that means. However, they are of the male sex.

There are very, very, few people who cannot be appropriately and clearly classified as male or female. (sex) I'm not absolutely certain that there are any that can't be so classified. If you are talking about those very few in the subset of the thread, then that's not the sense that I got from the post I responded to.

 

[Roboramma]

I've been mugged 3 times. Everytime it was a black man. Do I get to be racist now? What about the 4th time? The 5th?

What's the cutoff? When does one demographic do enough bad things to me that I get to dislike the whole demographic? When does one demographic do enough things to another demographic that it becomes the norm to just assume they'll do it.

That doesn't address the issue that there is a low cost and high payoff to sex-segregated spaces.

Do you have similar plan for racial segregation that will lower the rate at which people are violently assaulted or murdered, and think that my agreement with sex segregation implies agreement with a plan for racial segregation? I'd have to see the plan to know if it made sense to me on the same practical grounds. But said plan would have an additional problem beyond sex based segregation, which is that racial differences in crime rate are not biologically based, and I think we should all be working toward a future of economic and social equality where people of all races have similar opportunities in life. That's not currently the case, which is what has led to these different crime rates. Treating the symptom through segregation would likely only make the disease even worse, so there's a good argument, even if you did have such a plan, not to use it because the cost is maintaining the exact structure of racial inequality whose effects we're talking about mitigating. There are also other negative consequences of that structure that add to the costs of such a plan.

The same is not true of sex based segregation in locker rooms, for instance: it's not leading to social and economic disparities between the sexes. If you do have an argument that it is, I'd be willing to consider that and on that basis it might be worth doing away with.

 

[Giordano]

Well what you claimed was that biological sex was not binary, not that gender was not binary. How could it be more confusing to use the terms sex and gender properly as defined in their respective fields, rather than interchangeably in some vague personal way?



Well yeah, post-menopause women do not engage in sexual reproduction (or asexual reproduction for that matter) and neither do infertile men, that much seems obvious. If you want to argue that puts them into the "neither" category from above then sure, you could do so. I suppose you could also argue that, given that humans don't change sex over their lifetime, a woman remains a female organism even after entering menopause. Which, btw, again supports sex being a binary since there are 4 categories (male, female, neither, both) and 4 = 2^2.



Yes, many times already. Sex wasn't a spectrum back then and it still isn't one now.



Sure. But if you agree that these (and other such phenotype varieties) are bad ways to distinguish sexes, then why did you bring them up? Just because you can come up with bad ways to distinguish sexes doesn't mean you can't distinguish sexes. I can come up with bad ways to distinguish English from French text, say by tossing a coin, but that doesn't mean that I am generally incapable of distinguishing between English and French text.

My arguments have been to counter the definitions of binary sex offered by others in this thread. Yes, these definitions are bad ones. My point!

If you agree that these definitions are poor ones then their use by people opposed to trans-sexual rights is wrong, true? Okay come up with a better definition. If you are using gamete production as your bible of sex you are reduced to maintaining that post-menopausal women, or sterile men, have no sex because they do not release gametes. Then gamete release may be a biological definition of sex but is very useless for the points we are discussing here, which then really relate to gender identity. Do we seek to make 60 year old women change their driving license to “Sex: None”? That they should loss the protections against sexual discrimination? This must follow if “true biological sex” is being used to justify the exclusion of trans-sexuals.

I see I am beginning to have to repeat posts, which is very boring for all and why I first checked out of this thread a long time ago.

 

[Roboramma]

I agree, they are women. But they are XYs. They have internal testis. They produce sperm, although infertile ones (as do many cis men). So why do you not shoehorn them into the male category given the definitions you and others have cited here?

I think you need to be more clear about who you are replying to. There are many people posting in this thread, but Rolfe's definition of sex has always been very clear and consistent.

 

[Giordano]

And? They're still one or the other, are they not?



The problem is that the argument confuses transgender and intersex already. It's not as if it makes sense to begin with.



Every time I see such a confusion of gender and sex when I'm told the two are definitely absolutely not the same, I find it amusing.



Except that the discussion is about biological men's acceptance into women's sports, for instance. I think it's a bit important to those women.

No, they are not one or the other for the many reasons I stated. And intersex states are one reason they are not one or the other.

As I stated several times the idea we should only be talking about sex and not gender is meant as a distraction. The issues we are really discussing here are not if and what kind of gametes someone produces; we probably all agree that sterile people being defined as “sexless” by this definition is silly and irrelevant to the real point of this thread. We are discussing the proper place in society of trans individuals: that really relates to gender identification.

Finally I pointed out upthread that trans-people in sports is a more difficult issue that I intended to discuss later. But I was blindsided by the resistance by many here of what are very simple biological facts. Namely gender, and even sex, are not binary. Like it or not. Say it isn’t true over and over again. But the biology is very clear as I explained above.

 

[Giordano]

I think you need to be more clear about who you are replying to. There are many people posting in this thread, but Rolfe's definition of sex has always been very clear and consistent.

I specifically quoted Rolfe‘a post as the basis for my post. How much more clear could I be? Of course other opinions my differ, but clearly I was referring to Rolfe’s.

 

[Giordano]

I find it a bit surprising that we feel the need to reconceptualize sex as a spectrum for the sake of anyone's happiness other than that of intersex individuals; even if we had exactly two sexes and zero DSDs, wouldn't trans folks still exist and want to be seen as the sex that the OB-GYN didn't see?

I am going back to discussing gender, not sex, because sex is a narrow, distracting, and irrelevant aspect to what is really under discussion.

Of course these folks would exist. They always have, although with far fewer opinions than now. And I am arguing the reality of gender being fluid and non binary, and that it is important to recognize this fact to support and help those people who find themselves on the outs with current society because they are experiencing this truth themselves.

 

[caveman1917]

My arguments have been to counter the definitions of binary sex offered by others in this thread. Yes, these definitions are bad ones. My point!

Except that's simply not true. You claimed biological sex is not binary. I claimed that, to the contrary, it is binary, giving you the definition based on gamete type (as well as pointing out that it's called sexual dimorphism rather than sexual infinity-morphism for a reason). You then gave a bunch of bad definitions - which, contrary to your claim here, I did not offer first - and used them to claim that sex isn't binary.

If you agree that these definitions are poor ones then their use by people opposed to trans-sexual rights is wrong, true?

Why should I care about your strawmen? Show me where I offered such definitions or admit you're arguing strawmen. It seems pretty clear to me, as per the third link above, that it was you who introduced definitions about chromosomes, hormone levels, phenotype variation, etc into the discussion.

Okay come up with a better definition.

Already have from the start, see the second link above.

If you are using gamete production as your bible of sex you are reduced to maintaining that post-menopausal women, or sterile men, have no sex because they do not release gametes.

"bible"

Also, no, you're not actually reduced to maintaining that as I already pointed out.

Then gamete release may be a biological definition of sex but is very useless for the points we are discussing here, which then really relate to gender identity.

And that's a non-sequitur as well as a false dilemma, and a common one as well. Even if we assume that you can find flaws in one idea (using biological sex) that does not mean that your preferred idea (using gender identity) automatically becomes the default.

Do we seek to make 60 year old women change their driving license to “Sex: None”? That they should loss the protections against sexual discrimination? This must follow if “true biological sex” is being used to justify the exclusion of trans-sexuals.

None of that follows. And even if it did, none of that entails that sex isn't binary.

 

[Giordano]

Except that's simply not true. You claimed biological sex is not binary. I claimed that, to the contrary, it is binary giving you the definition based on gamete type (as well as pointing out that it's called sexual dimorphism rather than sexual infinity-morphism for a reason). You then gave a bunch of bad definitions - which, contrary to your claim here, I did not offer first - and used them to claim that sex isn't binary.



Why should I care about your strawmen? Show me where I offered such definitions or admit you're arguing strawmen. It seems pretty clear to me, as per the third link above, that it was you who introduced definitions about chromosomes, hormone levels, phenotype variation, etc into the discussion.



Already have from the start, see the second link above.



"bible"

Also, no, you're not actually reduced to maintaining that as I already pointed out.



And that's a non-sequitur as well as a false dilemma, and a common one as well. Even if we assume that you can find flaws in one idea (using biological sex) that does not mean that your preferred idea (using gender identity) automatically becomes the default.



None of that follows. And even if it did, none of that entails that sex isn't binary.

I provided reasons that even biological sex is neither binary nor a useful basis for the discussion at hand. We are really discussing society and gender.

I then asked what then is an appropriate definition and provided the most common ones used by people seeking to define gender and showed they are inaccurate too. I did not claim you yourself used them, I presented them as failures to argue gender is binary and asked you that if you agree, then what definition would you use.

If you want to stick with the narrow gamete argument, fine. But then apply it to sterile and CAI people as well as trans folk. Binary when you are reduced to arguing that binary means women and men vs neither and both? Come on!

Frankly if we are down to defining trans-sexuals as not “real” men or women because the the gametes they they produce, then I feel you’ve already lost the essential argument. Is that the core of this thread? Isn’t it the acceptance and place in society of these folks as we normally define man and women? Which is not by the gametes they produce. Do we exclude the rights of pre-pubescent children to have a gender in society? Sterile adults? Post-menopausal women?

 

[Roboramma]

I specifically quoted Rolfe‘a post as the basis for my post. How much more clear could I be? Of course other opinions my differ, but clearly I was referring to Rolfe’s.

Yes, and you ask this question:

I agree, they are women. But they are XYs. They have internal testis. They produce sperm, although infertile ones (as do many cis men). So why do you not shoehorn them into the male category given the definitions you and others have cited here?

Whose answer is quite clear given the definitions that Rolfe has used for sex. Rolfe has been much more precise than others about how she is defining sex, so perhaps you could state where you think the conflict is between Rolfe's definition of sex and the classification of those women as female?

 

[Roboramma]

I provided reasons that even biological sex is neither binary nor a useful basis for the discussion at hand. We are really discussing society and gender.

I then asked what then is an appropriate definition and provided the most common ones used by people seeking to define gender and showed they are inaccurate too. I did not claim you yourself used them, I presented them as failures to argue gender is binary and asked you that if you agree, then what definition would you use.

If you want to stick with the narrow gamete argument, fine. But then apply it to sterile and CAI people as well as trans folk. Binary when you are reduced to arguing that binary means women and men vs neither and both? Come on!

This is weird. People say sex is binary, and you disagree, and in support of your disagreement supply evidence that gender is non-binary. I would suggest that evidence that gender is non-binary is in no way supportive of your argument that sex is non-binary.

If you think that the issue of gender being non-binary is more important to the discussion than the issue of sex, that's fine. But you have still claimed that sex is non-binary and if you want to support that claim talking about gender doesn't do it. You can always say "yes, sex is binary, but that doesn't have any relevance to the issues, which center around gender". Or, even "while I think sex is non-binary I'm not willing to engage in that discussion because it distracts from the issues that are important". But you haven't done either of those things, you say "that sex is non-binary has been demonstrated but the evidence is being ignored" and when pressed for that evidence keep talking about gender.

 

[caveman1917]

I provided reasons that even biological sex is neither binary nor a useful basis for the discussion at hand.

Except that you didn't provide reasons that biological sex isn't binary. You've made a bunch of statements on the subject, but none of those constituted sound arguments that biological sex isn't binary.

We are really discussing society and gender.

Not sure what discussion you believe we had, but we were discussing your claim that sex is not binary.

I then asked well what then is an appropriate definition and provided the most common ones used by people seeking to define gender and showed they are inaccurate too. I did not claim you yourself used them, I presented them as failures to argue gender is binary and asked you that if you agree, then what definition would you use.

As I indicated earlier, I'm not sure what different definitions of gender have to do with whether sex is binary or not. I'm also not sure I've seen people define gender in terms of chromosomes or hormone levels, but sure I guess.

If you want to stick with the narrow gamete argument, fine. But the apply it to sterile and CAI people as well as trans folk. Binary when you are reduced to arguing that binary means women and men vs neither and both? Come on!

Not sure what point you're making here, at least those last two sentences don't seem to amount to a recognizable argument. But let's use CAI people as an example as per your suggestion. Even if you can find minor differences between, say, Rolfe's definitions (functional SRY + functional androgen receptors) that would classify CAI as female and, say, the gamete definition that would classify CAI as either male (if we allow for any, including infertile, sperm production) or neither (if we only allow for fertile sperm production) that still doesn't support the claim of sex not being binary, since the difference is in what category some specific organisms would fall and not in the number of categories there are (which is, in both cases, 4 and hence meaning there are 2 sexes). Rolfe's definition has the advantage of having a much smaller "neither" class (neither definition has members in the "both" class, at least not for humans) but the disadvantage of not being as generally applicable across different species.

 

[Giordano]

This is weird. People say sex is binary, and you disagree, and in support of your disagreement supply evidence that gender is non-binary. I would suggest that evidence that gender is non-binary is in no way supportive of your argument that sex is non-binary.

If you think that the issue of gender being non-binary is more important to the discussion than the issue of sex, that's fine. But you have still claimed that sex is non-binary and if you want to support that claim talking about gender doesn't do it. You can always say "yes, sex is binary, but that doesn't have any relevance to the issues, which center around gender". Or, even "while I think sex is non-binary I'm not willing to engage in that discussion because it distracts from the issues that are important". But you haven't done either of those things, you say "that sex is non-binary has been demonstrated but the evidence is being ignored" and when pressed for that evidence keep talking about gender.

I began discussing gender, which is clearly the real issue, but was taken to task for it. So I explained why even sex was not binary. Must I endlessly repeat it? If sex is which gametes one produces then pre-pubescent children, sterile adults, and post-menopausal women have no sex; is it binary then? Then CAI people are males. Is that right?

 

[Giordano]

Got to go.

 

[Meadmaker]

I began discussing gender, which is clearly the real issue, but was taken to task for it. So I explained why even sex was not binary. Must I endlessly repeat it? If sex is which gametes one produces then pre-pubescent children, sterile adults, and post-menopausal women have no sex; is it binary then? Then CAI people are males. Is that right?

Clearly?

I'm not sure that there is just one issue, in which case nothing would count as "the real issue", but when it comes to what "the real issue" is in a lot of cases, a lot of people would say sex is "the real issue".

Declaring it clear does not make it clear.

 

[d4m10n]

If sex is which gametes one produces then pre-pubescent children, sterile adults, and post-menopausal women have no sex; is it binary then?

Gamete production is binary in mammals, and to the extent that sex^WP is about reproduction (the act itself usually isn't, happily enough) the process requires at least one gamete from a female and at least one from a male. The development of primary sexual characteristics and (to a lesser extent) secondary sexual characteristics serves to help along the process of bringing two (quite different) haploid cells together in order to start the formation of a new mammal. If the intelligent design folks were right about the world, we could say that this is what sex is for at some cosmic teleological level, but as it is, it simply is what it is.

What I'm getting at here is that we have this ineluctable dichotomy lurking down in the conceptual foundations when we're talking about sexual reproduction: females carry large immobile germ cells, healthy mature males produce tiny motile germ cells. Among the reasons I was "assigned male at birth" is that the doc made a (correct) guess at which sort of germ cells I'd eventually produce.

As to those who cannot produce germ cells, well, we'd have to be guided by other indicators such as whether the mesonephric or paramesonephric ducts went on to become the main sexual plumbing, not to mention the usual external features. I don't think there is a need to force everyone into the male/female dichotomy, of course, unless you're running some sort of Bene Gesserit breeding program or a sports league. In the latter case, Rolfe's defintion based on androgen production and receptors makes more sense than going back to basics re: reproduction.

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[Ziggurat]

My arguments have been to counter the definitions of binary sex offered by others in this thread. Yes, these definitions are bad ones. My point!

What’s wrong with the definition of sex in humans that Rolfe gave: SRY gene plus androgen receptors = male. Anything else is female. That’s completely binary at the cellular level, and only non-binary at the organism level if you are a mixed sex chimera.

 

[Roboramma]

I began discussing gender, which is clearly the real issue, but was taken to task for it. So I explained why even sex was not binary.

You began with a post in which you claimed:

2. Biological set is not binary, as explained multiple times upthread. Size and shape of genitalia, levels of sex hormones, etc, vary widely even within cis males and females.

And were taken to task for that. This is not a statement about gender, but about sex. It seems reasonable that if you want to make this claim, you should be expected to provide evidence for it, and not to move to a separate claim about gender.