Rolfe
Adult human female
Need.
Of course things we need can be taken away from us. It happens all the time. It doesn't mean they were mere "wants".
Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)
- Thread starter Emily's Cat
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Need.
Of course things we need can be taken away from us. It happens all the time. It doesn't mean they were mere "wants".
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Yes, it was in fact LJ, in this thread, with the claim that sports leagues have an unmet burden to prove that men perform better than women at sports.
That is the absolute state of trans rights activism on this forum right now.
Well, I guess you would know ...
What? I don't think you're paying attention.
In the same comment you're referring to, I SAID:
Horse crap.
The standard biological definitions - the ones I've quoted from Lexico and many other sources - clearly stipulate the necessary and sufficient conditions to qualify as members of the male and female sex categories: functional gonads of either of two types. From which it logically and inexorably follows that those with neither type are, ipso facto, sexless.
Hardly "off topic". "smartcooky" asked a rather "smart cookie" question that was entirely germane to the topic - how can we decide who is or who is not a woman if we haven't a clue what it takes to qualify as one in the first place? To wit:
A question that many here seem rather "desperate" to avoid answering.
I'm trying - rather desperately - to point out that you're asking the WRONG question. It should be whether penis-havers should be housed in women's prisons if they request it. Squabbling over definitions seems more designed to evade that question than to answer it.
The definition I "have in mind/am arguing for" clarifies that transwomen are males - if they still have their nuts attached - or sexless eunuchs - if they don't. The latter of which may have some claim to such preferential housing, but the former most certainly don't.
A famous quote of Francis Bacon may be of some relevance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Organum
If we have sloppy and self-serving definitions then it shouldn't be surprising if our laws and social policies based on them turn out to be a dog's breakfast if not cases of egregious inequities.
stanfr
Illuminator
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You seriously need to get out more. I own a shop open to the public in N AZ, it's hardly Greenwich Village here, and while I would be pretty comfortable with 95+% of my guesses that last 1-5% or so can get a bit tricky...
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
Then stop doing it.
Well, you may have something of a point there ...
Though, one might reasonably suggest ..., that kind of turns on what you mean by "squabbling" - on which a definition may have some relevance ...
Is it "trivial or petty" to decide whether to allow penis-havers into "public" areas reserved for the use of vagina-havers?
Is it "petty or trivial" to decide what names we give to those two groups? Is it "trivial or petty" to question the logical consistency and coherence of the various definitions that follow from those ones?
Various women's groups - and even some feminist "philosophers" - have justifiably pointed to some solid reasons for naming those categories. Even if they may be somewhat "discomfited" by further applications of the same principles they champion:
https://janeclarejones.com/2019/06/...isnt-just-a-figment-of-the-trans-womans-mind/
Gets a bit tricky in deciding how we define and name categories - a dozen or more cogent essays over at SEP elaborating on that in some detail, those on "natural kinds" and "necessary and sufficient conditions" in particular:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-kinds/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/necessary-sufficient/
But to think much less argue that words should be or can be entirely disconnected from any objective correlates is rank insanity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty#Lewis_Carroll's_Through_the_Looking-Glass
Hardly "trivial or petty" to argue otherwise.
stanfr
Illuminator
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Well, you may have something of a point there ...
Though, one might reasonably suggest ..., that kind of turns on what you mean by "squabbling" - on which a definition may have some relevance ...
Is it "trivial or petty" to decide whether to allow penis-havers into "public" areas reserved for the use of vagina-havers?
Is it "petty or trivial" to decide what names we give to those two groups? Is it "trivial or petty" to question the logical consistency and coherence of the various definitions that follow from those ones?
Various women's groups - and even some feminist "philosophers" - have justifiably pointed to some solid reasons for naming those categories. Even if they may be somewhat "discomfited" by further applications of the same principles they champion:
https://janeclarejones.com/2019/06/...isnt-just-a-figment-of-the-trans-womans-mind/
Gets a bit tricky in deciding how we define and name categories - a dozen or more cogent essays over at SEP elaborating on that in some detail, those on "natural kinds" and "necessary and sufficient conditions" in particular:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-kinds/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/necessary-sufficient/
But to think much less argue that words should be or can be entirely disconnected from any objective correlates is rank insanity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty#Lewis_Carroll's_Through_the_Looking-Glass
Hardly "trivial or petty" to argue otherwise.
You would be on steadier ground if you didn't insist on crazy (and flat out incorrect) interpretations of definitions that lead you to odd conclusions such as post-menopausal women are no longer women
Unless it's a fetish shop, 5% being of indeterminate sex seems like a crazy high estimate.
Rolfe
Adult human female
I sat in Schipol airport (Amsterdam) for a good few hours recently and amused myself by looking to see how many passers-by weren't obviously male or female at more or less first glance. Answer, one.
I couldn't see his face well because of his baseball cap, and at first glance he could have been a woman with a very strong jawline. I was just coming to the conclusion that the flat chest and narrow hips coded as male when he suddenly decided to remove not just the baseball cap but his sweatshirt. In taking off the latter he was careless in a way a woman would never be, and almost removed his t-shirt at the same time, giving me an excellent view of an unambiguously male torso.
I have no idea what n was. How many people walk past in a busy airport in about five hours?
I couldn't see his face well because of his baseball cap, and at first glance he could have been a woman with a very strong jawline. I was just coming to the conclusion that the flat chest and narrow hips coded as male when he suddenly decided to remove not just the baseball cap but his sweatshirt. In taking off the latter he was careless in a way a woman would never be, and almost removed his t-shirt at the same time, giving me an excellent view of an unambiguously male torso.
I have no idea what n was. How many people walk past in a busy airport in about five hours?
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
From your own sources of definitions....
1. The "standard biological definition" of a spider
https://www.lexico.com/definition/spider
"An eight-legged predatory arachnid with an unsegmented body consisting of a fused head and thorax and a rounded abdomen."
By your unique logic, if a spider loses a leg or is missing a leg due to a birth defect, even though can carry on living as normal... since it now only has seven legs, its no longer a spider. If not, what is it?
2. The "standard biological definition" of a human being is
https://www.lexico.com/definition/human_being
"A man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance."
By your unique logic, a person with retarded brain function, from either a birth defect, a disease or an accident, or one who due to old age has severely diminished mental capacity (therefore does not have "superior mental development") is not a human being.
By your unique logic, a person who is a deaf-mute, from either a birth defect, a disease or an accident (therefore has no "power of articulate speech") is not a human being.
By your unique logic, a person with no legs from either a birth defect, a disease or an accident, or one who due to old age is not longer able to stand and is confined to a bed or wheelchair (therefore no "upright stance") is not a human being. If not, what is it?
As I pointed out, like your lexico definitions of male and female, these are intentional definitions. They are not voided merely because on or more definition criteria change or are no met.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
There must be hundreds of similar definitions that could be used as examples. This is just silly now.
Is "woman" defined as "adult human female"?You would be on steadier ground if you didn't insist on crazy (and flat out incorrect) interpretations of definitions that lead you to odd conclusions such as post-menopausal women are no longer women
What is the "necessary and sufficient condition" to qualify as a female?
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/arthur_conan_doyle_134512
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
Elite gymnasts who cannot menstruate
AmenorrhoeaWP is not particularly uncommon among elite gymnasts. Since these young women lack the "necessary and sufficient condition" to qualify as female, Steersman, should they still be eligible to compete with women?
If your answer is yes, what criteria would you use to qualify them and how would it apply to MtF transgender athletes?
AmenorrhoeaWP is not particularly uncommon among elite gymnasts. Since these young women lack the "necessary and sufficient condition" to qualify as female, Steersman, should they still be eligible to compete with women?
If your answer is yes, what criteria would you use to qualify them and how would it apply to MtF transgender athletes?
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Glad you finally got that the definitions I've been quoting for male and female are in fact intentional definitions.
But you may have something of a point. At least at first blush, though looking under the hood reveals some "fatal flaws" - notably that the engine is missing, so to speak.
More particularly, your definition for "human being" depends on the definition for "species":
https://www.lexico.com/definition/species
Basically, bottom line, bipedality or "birth defects" and the like are "accidental properties" - ones that members MAY possess but whose absence doesn't, by themselves, exclude individuals from that category:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/essential-accidental/
Not at all the case with the stipulative definitions of biology.
Christ in a sidecar; don't think you're paying attention.
I've been arguing from square one that "male" and "female" - particularly the biological definitions for such - are the RONG criteria for qualifying people to play in "women's sports".
A better bet is simply karyotype - no XY need apply. And maybe qualify that further with genitalia.
Straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel whole ...
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
It may be of some interest to you that this thread was originally about who qualifies for women's sports.
Okay, but wouldn't that mean that people who aren't "women" (in your view) should qualify to play women's sport (again, in your view)?
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Wasn't at all clear - at least from the first post in this "continuation" - what started the ball rolling.
But nice to know that I'm not likely to get chastised about the ears and exiled to the outer darkness (AAH) for various "trivial and petty" observations ...
Duh ... so what?
How is fixing a problem in itself a problem? How does excluding those with an XY karyotype - and/or a SRY gene - not solve the problem on the table? Regardless of how we name the individuals included or excluded.
Though I guess it might discomfit those with a more emotional attachment to the some of the labels in play ...
Rolfe
Adult human female
He has also barred women with Swyer's syndrome from women's sports.
Even the International Olympic Committee had a better grasp of the issues in the 1990s when it decreed that nobody with an SRY gene should be participating. The main problem with this was that testing everyone cost a lot of money and they didn't at that time find any cases of a male trying to cheat his way into the women's events, which was the reason for the testing.
They did find a few SRY genes, but nobody was disqualified on this account after further investigation. They didn't publish the reasons for allowing these women into the events, but one surmises things like chimera conditions (similar to freemartinism). My CAIS friend is of the opinion that a woman with CAIS is very unlikely to reach Olympic levels in any athletic discipline. (It's possible there were people like Semenya in there too, but they were allowed to go forward because they weren't deliberately cheating. I don't know. They hadn't really formulated a DSD position at the time.)
This testing was discontinued on the basis of cost, and the fact that no cheating had been detected despite all the expense. A big majority of female athletes now want it reintroduced and enforced to keep self-ID males out of women's sports. The other workable criterion is that nobody who has gone through any part of male puberty is eligible to compete. Sure, that would allow people in the category of Jazz Jennings and Jackie Green to compete, but the health problems suffered by boys who have been puberty-blocked, castrated and put on cross-sex hormones are pretty certain to make that an entirely academic observation.
Steersman has had this explained to him already, but he clings to his original incomplete criteria regardless.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
Excluding those with SRY genes (and functional androgen receptors) would do the trick.
Good to hear you are willing to disregard labeling when faced with a practical problem to solve. Perhaps it would be best to take that approach henceforth, instead of trying to get people to adopt awkward neologisms like "pre-male" and "post-female."
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