Differences in Sex Development (aka "intersex")

I'm beginning to wonder if there's not some sort of cognitive idiosyncrasy at play here. I don't think this degree of Alien Space Robot often manifests, except as a rhetorical gambit or a real confusion about how language conveys meaning.
 
You are mistaken. These are not the definitions used by biologists. We would hardly be able to have a meaningful conversation or write meaningful articles if that were the case.

No true Scotsman ...

I assume you think that those "biologists" who were misusing "gender" to describe fish got their degrees out of a box of crackerjacks.

<snip>

You're heading the same way. How many biology texts do you need to read referring to male and female embryos, male and female foetuses, male and female puppies and kittens, castrated males, infertile males and females - and indeed fertile males and females (because fertility is not implied or assumed from the use of male and female alone) before you will finally get this into your head?
I'm still waiting to see your citations and quotes of authoritative journals, dictionaries, and encyclopedias that explicitly endorse that "past-present-future functionality" schlock that Hilton and company were peddling ...

https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1207663359589527554

For bonus points, I'd like to see you and or her explain how that definition doesn't lead to the conclusion that clownfish - and other sequential hermaphrodites - are, contrary to that premise, male and female right from hatching/birth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_hermaphroditism

An earlier version of that article did acknowledge that dichotomy, but then woke and gender ideologues got their dirty mitts on it; probably those peddling the idea that fish have personalities ...

Dominance is based on size, the female being the largest and the male being the second largest. The rest of the group is made up of progressively smaller non-breeders, which have no functioning gonads. If the female dies, the male gains weight and becomes the female for that group. The largest non-breeding fish then sexually matures and becomes the male of the group.

Can't very well "become" a male if one WAS a male right out of the chute, right from conception. Ditto on female.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sequential_hermaphroditism&oldid=917680304

But I guess in that latter case my pie chart for clownfish would show only two members with a sex (male and female) and the rest as sexless ... :rolleyes:
 
Steersman, how would you define male and female in a way that preserves access to sex segregated spaces for females, such as women's shelters, women's sports, and women's prisons?
How many times do I have to say this?

Using "male" and "female" - however we define those categories - to control access to "sex segregated spaces" is probably or largely the RONG tool for those jobs.

One set of toilets, change rooms, prison cells, and shelters for the vagina-havers - and reasonable facsimiles thereof - and another set for the penis-havers - and reasonable facsimiles thereof.

Women's sports is something of a proverbial edge case where the criteria should probably be - as I've said several times: no XY need apply.

Reproductive status is largely irrelevant, a red herring the size of Moby Dick.
 
Why do you privilege facsimiles?

Why doesn't XY/no XY not work for you in all contexts?

How have you not yet grasped that XY/no XY is the basis for the current definitions of male and female?
 
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How many times do I have to say this?

Using "male" and "female" - however we define those categories - to control access to "sex segregated spaces" is probably or largely the RONG tool for those jobs.

One set of toilets, change rooms, prison cells, and shelters for the vagina-havers - and reasonable facsimiles thereof - and another set for the penis-havers - and reasonable facsimiles thereof.

Women's sports is something of a proverbial edge case where the criteria should probably be - as I've said several times: no XY need apply.

Reproductive status is largely irrelevant, a red herring the size of Moby Dick.


How many times do I have to ask whether a credentialed Fellow of the Institute of Biology telling you that the definitions you can't let go of are not the definitions in use in biology and so not the "biological definitions" is something you might take on board?

There are a lot of competing proposals for who should be allowed in which ostensible sex-segregated spaces. Women do not by and large agree with your proposals, which means that while you get to propose them you do not get to talk as if these proposals are the last word on the subject.

Having or not having a vagina or a penis, or indeed a reasonable facsimile thereof, is one proposal which has been put forward. As regards places like women's lavatories, where entry is unrestricted, by the time I find out that a male person who has come in has or has not had his dick cut off, things have gone way too far in a direction I don't want them to go in at all.

The main thing women want is the ability to police our spaces so that males can be ejected. A law which allows males who have had invisible surgery the right to enter is no bloody use to us. Women use our female-only loos in ways men do not understand and I for one am tired explaining to men that their idea for solving everything is a dud because of factors they're not even aware of.

There are plenty creepy, fetishistic autgynaephilic men who have had "bottom surgery" and we don't want them in our intimate spaces any more than we want the ones who haven't. Particularly since they look exactly like creepy fetishistic autogynaephilic men who have not had "bottom surgery" and we won't find out until too late.

No XY need apply in women's sports? Why not? Who are you to tell women with Swyer's syndrome or CAIS that they can't compete in women's sports? That definition is so outdated it's a wonder to see anyone putting it forward. Maybe you'd let XX men compete? The one they seem to be going for is that nobody who has been through any part of male puberty can compete in women's events. That is a pretty good rule. (And you know what? Who are the people who will never go through male puberty? Funnily enough, the people who do not have a functional SRY gene system (as defined above). The Venn diagram is a perfect circle.)

Reproductive status, as this is normally understood, is indeed irrelevant. Reproductive status is things like have you ever had a child, are you pregnant, are you currently cycling normally, are you amenorrhoeic (due to too much training probably), are you post-menopausal. Women come in a wide variety of reproductive statuses. Men too, though not as wide a variety. Your reproductive status is irrelevant. It's your membership of one or the other sex class which is important.

And having gone through any part of male puberty will do just fine for me. It will also do just fine for entry to toilets and so on, because we let little boys come into the Ladies so long as they're pre-puberty anyway.

People have pointed out that this allows males who were puberty-blocked before starting puberty, and then castrated, to enter women's sports. It's a non-objection, because the adverse effects of the hormones their bodies have been given is unlikely to get them any further than their first fracture. We can also let them slide in the single-sex accommodation too. They are to be pitied, genuinely, and they're not going to create trouble in women's spaces.

So, while it doesn't do a biologist's job in distinguishing between male and female children, the "has undergone any stage of male puberty" works pretty well for most practical purposes.

And if you want to know with 100% certainty who WILL go through male puberty, find out if they have a functional SRY gene and all the associated enzymes and receptors for it to be expressed normally.
 
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Why do you privilege facsimiles?

Why doesn't XY/no XY not work for you in all contexts?
Hardly "privileging". XY really doesn't work in cases where it's the shape of genitalia that seems more important to many people, even many women, than is the actual reproductive plumbing behind them.

In addition to which, genitalia is a "proxy variable" that is much easier to detect and thereby use:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_(statistics)

How have you not yet grasped that XY/no XY is the basis for the current definitions of male and female?

Have you not yet grasped the fact that the standard biological definitions - those endorsed by various reputable dictionaries and encyclopedias - say absolutely diddly-squat about any chromosomes at all? That many species don't use X & Y chromosomes at all? :rolleyes:

https://www.lexico.com/definition/male

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-determination_system
 
Hardly "privileging". XY really doesn't work in cases where it's the shape of genitalia that seems more important to many people, even many women, than is the actual reproductive plumbing behind them.

In addition to which, genitalia is a "proxy variable" that is much easier to detect and thereby use:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_(statistics)



Have you not yet grasped the fact that the standard biological definitions - those endorsed by various reputable dictionaries and encyclopedias - say absolutely diddly-squat about any chromosomes at all? That many species don't use X & Y chromosomes at all? :rolleyes:

https://www.lexico.com/definition/male

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-determination_system


There you go, citing the lexico definition again. It has already been pointed out that lexico disagrees with you. "Male children" is part of the entry. Everybody understands that but you.
 
Regarding Lehtonen and Parker:

It seems highly doubtful to me that the authors intended their one-sentence, glossary definitions of male and female to be thorough and complete. I think they are merely conveying the usage of the terms for the purposes of this particular article. What I am highly certain of is that they consider their definition to be one of several. Why am I certain of that? Because of the same glossary: https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990#71570537

Sex

The definitions of ‘sex’ and ‘sexes’ vary. Here we define ‘sex’ as the union of gametes and genomes from two individuals (or in some hermaphrodites, from the same individual), and ‘sexes’ (male, female) are defined by the type of gamete an individual produces (see above).


Hilite mine.
 
How many times do I have to ask whether a credentialed Fellow of the Institute of Biology telling you that the definitions you can't let go of are not the definitions in use in biology and so not the "biological definitions" is something you might take on board?

How many times do I have to point out that usage is no guarantee of anything? Certainly not of any logical coherence or consistency.

How many times do I have to ask for "your citations and quotes of authoritative journals, dictionaries, and encyclopedias that explicitly endorse that 'past-present-future functionality' schlock that Hilton and company were peddling ..."?

How many times do I have to ask for you and Hilton to deal with the conflicts that follow from those definitions of hers?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13871920&postcount=362

There are a lot of competing proposals for who should be allowed in which ostensible sex-segregated spaces. Women do not by and large agree with your proposals, which means that while you get to propose them you do not get to talk as if these proposals are the last word on the subject. ....

There are plenty creepy, fetishistic autogynephilic men who have had "bottom surgery" and we don't want them in our intimate spaces any more than we want the ones who haven't. Particularly since they look exactly like creepy fetishistic autogynephilic men who have not had "bottom surgery" and we won't find out until too late.

I really do sympathize; I wouldn't have been defenestrated by Twitter and Wikipedia if I didn't. The question is one of ways and means. Shall we insist on airport-type scanners at the entrances to those spaces that check genitalia? Sections on passports and driver's licenses with karyotypes and genitalia type that have to be scanned first as in subways?

No XY need apply in women's sports? Why not? Who are you to tell women with Swyer's syndrome or CAIS that they can't compete in women's sports? That definition is so outdated it's a wonder to see anyone putting it forward. Maybe you'd let XX men compete? ....
Same answer: airport scanners or driver's licenses? For women's sports, XY seems a reasonable "first approximation" to be qualified with other conditions.

The point is still that the biological definitions for the sexes - you know, the ones on the books, not just the ad-hoc ones based on folk biology - are the wrong tools for the job.
 
Have you not yet grasped the fact that your interpretation of these definitions does not accord with actual usage of the words in actual biology?

You keep doing this goalpost moving thing where one minute you're only talking about human beings, and the next minute you want to talk about every species of sexually-reproducing life on the planet. One minute you're complaining that people are bringing in "guinea-pigs" (which I don't think anyone actually did), and the next that our criteria don't work for bird life.

It's only human beings we need to talk about if we're discussing entry to sex-segregated spaces, so talking about X and Y chromosomes and SRY genes is entirely adequate. I really don't think we need to frame our criteria for access to single-sex spaces intended for human use to remain valid in case a peacock or an eagle happened to challenge these.

Have you not yet noticed that the example usage of that first dictionary you link to given for the word "male" is "male child"?

It's not the shape of the genitalia that women are most concerned about, or not until you get to the point when you might be facing actual rape, which we hope is not a point we will reach. It's the fact that we can tell a (post-pubertal) man from a woman to an extremely high degree of accuracy, whether or not he's wearing a dress and makeup and whether or not he's had his dick lopped off. Our concern is retaining/regaining our ability to police our single-sex spaces, that is our right to ask that anyone who is obviously male should be escorted out. We do not want to have to wait until we can see that he still has his dick, thank you very much. And we certainly don't want the present proposals in which all the creep has to say is "I'm trans how dare you, that's a hate crime and I'm calling the police," even if he has a full beard, a bass voice, and is wearing a business suit.

There are very good reasons for all this, incuding the uses to which we put the communal grooming areas in our intimate spaces, and the need to have a defensible area outside the lockable cubicle doors so that men cannot loiter there waiting for an opportunity to push a vulnerable woman into a cubicle, go in after her, and lock the door. So many proposals for mixed-sex facilities fall foul of this requirement.

The more I think about it, in terms of segretation, the more I like the one that says that nobody who has experienced any stage of male puberty has any right to be in a female intimate space. That lets in little boys (as at present), and it's also reasonable as regards boys whose puberty was blocked and then they were castrated and had a penectomy, at least as I understand the issue at present.

It's just another way of identifying people who have fully-functional SRY gene systems anyway.
 
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There you go, citing the lexico definition again. It has already been pointed out that lexico disagrees with you. "Male children" is part of the entry. Everybody understands that but you.

<snip>

Have you not yet noticed that the example usage of that first dictionary you link to given for the word "male" is "male child"?

<snip>

Christ in a sidecar. What's the point of responding if nobody is willing to listen to what I've already dealt with:

Just because someone says, in one form or another, that "2+2=5" is hardly shaking the foundations of mathematics; it only proves them to be innumerate or mathematically illiterate or politically motivated:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13871568&postcount=337

Y'all might actually try reading through the JPG included there.
 
How many times do I have to point out that usage is no guarantee of anything? Certainly not of any logical coherence or consistency.

How many times do I have to ask for "your citations and quotes of authoritative journals, dictionaries, and encyclopedias that explicitly endorse that 'past-present-future functionality' schlock that Hilton and company were peddling ..."?

How many times do I have to ask for you and Hilton to deal with the conflicts that follow from those definitions of hers?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13871920&postcount=362


You know what? Usage is the be-all and end-all of dictionary definitions. Usage is exactly what they are trying to capture.

I really do sympathize; I wouldn't have been defenestrated by Twitter and Wikipedia if I didn't. The question is one of ways and means. Shall we insist on airport-type scanners at the entrances to those spaces that check genitalia? Sections on passports and driver's licenses with karyotypes and genitalia type that have to be scanned first as in subways?


Oh God not that old canard again. The question is one of ways and means. Women need the ability to police their intimate spaces. It is a question of who has the right to be there and who has not. If post-pubertal males are not allowed there, then women can sort them out. We know a post-pubertal man when we see one. We can call the attendant and ask that this person be removed. That's how it always worked in the past. That's how it can work again.

Same answer: airport scanners or driver's licenses? For women's sports, XY seems a reasonable "first approximation" to be qualified with other conditions.


Have you really been paying so little attention? The IOC were using presence or absence of an SRY gene in the 1990s, because they recognised that karyotype wasn't good enough.

Nobody needs an airport scanner. All that's needed is a normal medical examination such as athletes get all the time, including necessary samples to look for an SRY gene, ONCE in an ahtlete's career, in their teens. If an ostensible female is found to have an SRY gene then further testing can be done to establish whether it is fully-functional or not. Nobody changes their genetics. Check the girls once and they're good for life.

The point is still that the biological definitions for the sexes - you know, the ones on the books, not just the ad-hoc ones based on folk biology - are the wrong tools for the job.


Oh, so all my degrees and awards and publications are "folk biology" now? If you can't understand that the short definitions you're relying on were never intended to support the inferences you're intent on drawing, there's really no hope here.
 
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Christ in a sidecar. What's the point of responding if nobody is willing to listen to what I've already dealt with:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13871568&postcount=337

Y'all might actually try reading through the JPG included there.


Seems to me there's a hell of a lot you haven't read of what's been posted for your attention. And not "read this link" either, but paragraphs of actual typing put together in the hope of educating you. No matter what we explain to you, you ignore it and come back to your misunderstanding of short non-comprehensive dictionary definitions that don't actually say what you think they say.

Honestly, anyone who, after tripping over all these hoops, then comes out and suggests that entry to women's single-sex spaces should be by "presence of a vagina or a reasonable facsimile thereof" is so out of touch they should just keep quiet. If that same person then criticises someone else's criterion on the basis that this would require "airport-type scanners at the entrances to those spaces that check genitalia", that's when I start to laugh.

Anyone who, having tripped over all these hoops, then picks "no XY need apply" for entry into women's athletics events, is again so out of touch they should just keep quiet. If that same person then criticises someone else's criterion for that on the basis that this would require "airport scanners or driver's licenses?", that's again when I start to laugh.
 
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You know what? Usage is the be-all and end-all of dictionary definitions. Usage is exactly what they are trying to capture.
Nope. Ipse dixit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion

"Shoddy and inept uses of words lay siege to the intellect in wondrous ways"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Organum

Have you really been paying so little attention? The IOC were using presence or absence of an SRY gene in the 1990s, because they recognised that karyotype wasn't good enough.
Hadn't known that; learn something new every day ... :rolleyes:

Oh, so all my degrees and awards and publications are "folk biology" now? If you can't understand that the short definitions you're relying on were never intended to support the inferences you're intent on drawing, there's really no hope here.
Didn't say that at all. Because I criticize one aspect of your position that means I think you and your credentials are so much chopped liver? :rolleyes:

Seems you have a chip on your shoulder the size of Texas - which apparently precludes, or which provides a ready excuse for evading dealing with what I'm actually saying.
 
Seems to me there's a hell of a lot you haven't read of what's been posted for your attention. And not "read this link" either, but paragraphs of actual typing put together in the hope of educating you. No matter what we explain to you, you ignore it and come back to your misunderstanding of short non-comprehensive dictionary definitions that don't actually say what you think they say.

I'm responding to better than half-a-dozen different people here. You can't reasonably expect me to respond to everything that everyone says - particularly in the face of a lack of response to what I DO say.
 
All you do say is the same thing again and again.

Since I added a bit to my last post after you quoted it, I'll repost it here.

Honestly, anyone who, after tripping over all these hoops, then comes out and suggests that entry to women's single-sex spaces should be by "presence of a vagina or a reasonable facsimile thereof" is so out of touch they should just keep quiet. If that same person then criticises someone else's criterion on the basis that this would require "airport-type scanners at the entrances to those spaces that check genitalia", that's when I start to laugh.

Anyone who, having tripped over all these hoops, then picks "no XY need apply" for entry into women's athletics events, is again so out of touch they should just keep quiet. If that same person then criticises someone else's criterion for that on the basis that this would require "airport scanners or driver's licences", that's again when I start to laugh.
 
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I understand, not everyone can be Voltaire.

Okay, so do you agree or disagree with the lexico definition of male that you keep linking to?
:):thumbsup:

I agree with the definition - particularly since it is more or less exactly what many other sources say - despite Rolfe's unwillingness to consider them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male
https://theparadoxinstitute.com/blog/2022/01/15/defining-sex-vs-determining-sex/

The latter starts out with the definitions from the Parker and Lehtonen article on gametes.

What I disagree with is that one example sentence, largely because, as I've argued, it's contradicted by the definition itself.

I certainly don't understand how dictionaries acquire those examples, but I recently saw one dictionary indicate that the process of doing so is largely automated, and that people shouldn't get their knickers in a twist if some uses "offend" them. Not surprising then that in that case many of them will be inconsistent with the definitions.
 
It seems the crux of the problem is that Steersman certainly understands the physical disparity between men and women, but refuses to acknowledge it without a definition that satisfies the demands of a perfect system of formal logic.
 

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