Merged Strict biological definitions of male/female

[Steersman]

I have also read her on the subject of sequential hermaphrodites, and she is perfectly clear. They change sex. They are male when they produce sperm and they are female when they produce ova.

How can they possibly change sex if they're all male AND female right from hatching, if they merely have the potential - if they have the future functionality - to produce both types of gametes?

I don't think any of what she says is at all controversial. She is simply clarifying long-standing usage, which didn't need clarification in the past because we weren't being assailed by the "sex is a spectrum" morons.

Hence the necessity to draw a line in the sand with the strict biological definitions of Griffiths, Parker, and Company.

 

[d4m10n]

I've seen no reason to believe the people who study sequential hermaphrodites are confused about which ones are male or female, and I imagine they have somewhat specialized terminology around sex.

ETA: OP resolution was about mammals, IIRC. Happy to admit that things are somewhat trickier with sex-changing fish.

 

[Rolfe]

How can they possibly change sex if they're all male AND female right from hatching, if they merely have the potential - if they have the future functionality - to produce both types of gametes?

Hence the necessity to draw a line in the sand with the strict biological definitions of Griffiths, Parker, and Company.

No, they have either the structure to produce small gametes or the structure to produce large gametes. There is no confusion at all.

You really need to realise that Parker's definition is not what you think it is, and whatever Griffiths is playing at (I'm not persuaded even he, your guru, is on board with your definition) it has no relevance to the meanings of the words as they are used in biology.

 

[Rolfe]

Pray tell, where did I ever say that some humans produce both? Don't think you're paying attention. Or are very honest in your responses.

The point is that by Hilton's "thesis", those humans with ovotestis are BOTH male AND female. All that's required by her "definition" is "developed anatomies" that may, or may not, in the fullness of time - gawd willing and the creek don't rise - produce sperm or ova.

That is, by their definitions, they are both male AND female, ergo, hermaphrodites. Which means that the Wikipedia article on the topic will have to be changed, and their authors, and those responsible for the citations, will have to be sent to the gulag, or at least the re-education camps:

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

It doesn't matter how many cases there are - it only takes one to upset the applecart. And sow confusion ...

This is nonsense. There are no true hermaphrodites in human beings, and Emma Hilton does not propose that there are. If someone whose body has developed down the pathway to produce small gametes has some vestigial tissue of the opposite sex, that doesn't change the fact that their body is of the small-gamete type.

Nobody has yet been able to produce a case of an actual human being where it was impossible to determine whether they are male or female. One pathway is invariably dominant.

 

[Steersman]

I'd like to hear an answer to this as well, Steersman, one that doesn't require "reading between the lines."

Done.

I'm happy to admit that the OP definition (or the past/present/future version) might well cause confusion ...

Hallelujah! Progress!

... but can you think of a specific situation in which that confusion would prove problematic? Like, maybe, the queue at a sperm bank?

Think I've already given answers to that - in exhaustive if not exhausting detail, ovotestes and sequential hermaphrodites in particular. Although those may be more technical and not likely to have direct or immediate effects on the majority of the public.

More problematic is the question of two contradictory definitions in play in the school system, one for the kiddies in their biology classes, and another for their social-justice social studies classes. Think Del Giudice's essay speaks rather directly and forcefully to the ubiquity of the problem:

"On a deeper level, the ‘patchwork’ definition of sex used in the social sciences is purely descriptive and lacks a functional rationale. This contrasts sharply with how the sexes are defined in biology. From a biological standpoint, what distinguishes the males and females of a species is the size of their gametes: males produce [present tense indefinite] small gametes (e.g., sperm), females produce [present tense indefinite] large gametes (e.g., eggs; Kodric-Brown & Brown, 1987)"

https://www.researchgate.net/public...ical_Bias_in_the_Psychology_of_Sex_and_Gender

I'm > 99% confident you will never find anyone at OED claiming that they are promulgating stipulative definitions.

So what? If dictionaries' claim to fame and fortune is descriptivism, is to publish records of common usages, and if some scientists have published such definitions then, ipso facto, they're publishing stipulative definitions. Particularly if the former happens after the latter.

But you might take a gander at Hilton's Substack, this passage in particular:

I’ve been working on a legal document and was discussing with a colleague about my efforts to find a citation for the statement: “there are two sexes, male and female”. He laughed at the idea that this would require a citation, told me to check a textbook, then realised that this statement is so simple that it would not even be included in a textbook.

Link and bonus link to my comment thereon ...
https://emmahilton.substack.com/p/sex-denialism
https://emmahilton.substack.com/p/sex-denialism/comment/8511640

Bunch of deleted responses to my comments from "Middle Aged Lady" - who claimed to be a molecular biologist - probably because she was embarrassed by her idiotic claim that "Every cell has a sex."

In any case, Hilton had something of a point about the lack of even a stipulative definition to the effect that there were only two sexes - in anisogamic species, of course - in biological textbooks. But likewise with a lack of such a definition for the sexes themselves - which the HHWH at least tries to rectify, even if it is remarkably and profoundly flawed from any number of perspectives.

So it may well be that your interpretation of "female" is what's causing the conflict.

Not quite sure how much "interpretation" is involved in noting that the "definitions" of the HHWH conflict rather starkly and profoundly with the presumably much more popular and current definitions from Google/OD:





The latter set of which I might emphasize say absolutely diddly-squat about any "past, present, or future functionality".

Kind of a smoking gun on the "confusion" case if you ask me ...

 

[Steersman]

I've seen no reason to believe the people who study sequential hermaphrodites are confused about which ones are male or female, and I imagine they have somewhat specialized terminology around sex.

So what? The issue is the dissemination of that "information". Which sows confusion ...

ETA: OP resolution was about mammals, IIRC. Happy to admit that things are somewhat trickier with sex-changing fish.

Bravo! Progress!

But, pray tell, where does that tweet of Hilton's say ANYTHING about their definition being exclusive to mammals? You maybe see that qualification in between a couple of the lines? Which ones? I'm all ears ...

You're putting your thumbs - to the elbows - on the scales.

 

[Steersman]

No, they have either the structure to produce small gametes or the structure to produce large gametes. There is no confusion at all.

Christ Almighty. Don't think you're paying attention. Try looking closely at what Hilton is actually saying:

"Individuals that have developed anatomies for producing either small or large gametes, regardless of their past, present or future functionality, are referred to as 'males' and 'females', respectively."

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

She and her partners in crime are saying that structures that MIGHT - in the fullness of time - produce small or large gametes is sufficient to qualify those possessing such structures as males or females. Likewise, structures that could maybe - possibly, even if at a stretch - HAVE PRODUCED small or large gametes qualifies those individuals who possess such structures as males or females.

The whole point of her "definition" is that the structures don't actually have to be functional. Apart from the thorny problem of defining those structures - and for all sexually-reproducing (anisogamic) species - the logical conclusion is that sequential hermaphrodites are both males and females right from birth - a contradiction in terms - because they have "structures" that might develop into producing sperm and ova. Solid pretext for confusion.

You really need to realise that Parker's definition is not what you think it is, and whatever Griffiths is playing at (I'm not persuaded even he, your guru, is on board with your definition) it has no relevance to the meanings of the words as they are used in biology.

Think I've already pointed out, in exhaustive if not exhausting detail, that when some authoritative person or body says "we define ...." then that is, ipso facto, a stipulative definition. They are specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for category membership.

Following Damion's suggestion, I had sent Griffiths a letter outlining the issue as I saw it, and to which he had kindly responded the other day. He had also sent me a preprint article on the same topic that he's trying to get published, and had asked for some feedback on it.

But while the new article - which is something of a reprise of his Aeon article - doesn't actually say "sexless", it still more or less reiterates one of the central points of the Aeon one:

"Nothing in the biological definition of sex requires that every organism be a member of one sex or the other. That might seem surprising, but it follows naturally from DEFINING each sex by the ability to do one thing: make eggs or make sperm. Some organisms can do both, while some can't do either [ergo, sexless]." [my editorializing ...]

https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity

Not quite sure how you could possibly stick-handle around the consequential conclusion that some members of many sexually-reproducing (anisogamic) species are in fact sexless, are neither male nor female. Largely why I had suggested in my response to him that he should be more forthright in calling a spade a shovel.

[Chores to do; back in a bit.]

 

[d4m10n]

Not a clownfish (redux)

But, pray tell, where does that tweet of Hilton's say ANYTHING about their definition being exclusive to mammals?

Pray tell, where does the OP say that I'm willing to argue about the application of that definition to fish?

 

[d4m10n]

Ovotesticular fortitude

Think I've already given answers to that - in exhaustive if not exhausting detail, ovotestes and sequential hermaphrodites in particular. Although those may be more technical and not likely to have direct or immediate effects on the majority of the public.

I don't think this one is nearly quite as confusing as you seem to think it is. Anton Krzyzanowski^WP, for example, should be sorted into the bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports leagues associated with males, for obvious (structural) reasons.

 

[Steersman]

Pray tell, where does the OP say that I'm willing to argue about the application of that definition to fish?

Maybe in the fine print about not wanting to be seen engaging in special pleading?

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

You might note that Hilton's tweet starts off with, "Sir, Further to the Lib Dem policy of self-identifying one's gender, sexual reproduction in almost all higher species, including humans, proceeds via fusion of one small and one large gamete (anisogamy)."

Unless that "higher species" is an oblique reference to Tardis, then her use of the term is clearly covering a rather large group species - pretty much all of the anisogamic ones, I expect.

Though, en passant, she is clearly muddying the waters herself by not realizing that many people, with more than a little justification, use "gender" as more or less synonymous with personalities. She seems to think it synonymous with "sex" - talk about "confusion" ....

But you asked specifically about that confusion. Much of which clearly comes from the conflict between the HHWH definitions and the strict biological ones - a phrase that's also front and center in your OP, and from your rather idiosyncratic (mis)interpretation of the former.

Seems rather disingenuous, if not intellectually dishonest to fall back on the OP specifics when it is shown that that misinterpretation is part and parcel of that confusion.

I don't think this one is nearly quite as confusing as you seem to think it is. Anton Krzyzanowski^WP, for example, should be sorted into the bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports leagues associated with males, for obvious reasons.

Not really the point. Which you look to be trying to evade.

The point is that the HHWH - even when applied only to mammals - conflicts rather badly and profoundly with the "strict biological definitions", i.e., those of Griffiths, Parker (FRS), Lehtonen, Wikipedia, and Google/OD. Which causes no end of problems and confusion ...

 

[d4m10n]

The point is that the HHWH - even when applied only to mammals - conflicts rather badly and profoundly with the "strict biological definitions", i.e., those of Griffiths, Parker (FRS), Lehtonen, Wikipedia, and Google/OD.

I'm going to discount that last one, since you haven't yet grappled with the fact that Google & OED usage examples clearly allow for prepubescent and otherwise infertile individuals (both males and female) to have the property of sex, not to mention the fact that lexicographers are generally not prescribing stipulative definitions.

I'm going to discount Parker as well, since he feels free to call an infertile individual mammal "male" in his own published work, as we've seen elsewhere.

As to the rest, you have yet to show where the confusion really lives. Is there a specific case in which we want to sort individual organisms but the structural approach yields one answer and the functional approach yields another answer?

 

[Steersman]

I'm going to discount that last one, since you haven't yet grappled with the fact that Google & OED usage examples clearly allow for prepubescent and otherwise infertile individuals (both males and female) to have the property of sex, not to mention the fact that lexicographers are generally not prescribing stipulative definitions.

"Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up"?

I've pointed out several times now that it's immaterial whether stipulative definitions conflict with lexical ones - they might in some cases, and might not in other ones:

A stipulative definition is a type of definition in which a new or currently existing term is given a new specific meaning for the purposes of argument or discussion in a given context. When the term already exists, this definition may, but does not necessarily, contradict the dictionary (lexical) definition of the term. Because of this, a stipulative definition cannot be "correct" or "incorrect"; it can only differ from other definitions, but it can be useful for its intended purpose.

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

No doubt the HHWH definitions stipulated by Hilton and Company conflict with those sources as well. So theirs and the strict biological definitions (SBD) are, at first blush, on the same starting line. But that should then raise questions as to which are those "intended purposes", and which ones are more likely to achieve them.

I'm going to discount Parker as well, since he feels free to call an infertile individual mammal "male" in his own published work, as we've seen elsewhere.

Let me know when he actually says that "infertile individuals" actually have a sex. Maybe he was using it in an "extended" sense - as Griffiths has done. Or maybe in a nominal sense. But planning on writing him as well so stay tuned for further developments ...

As to the rest, you have yet to show where the confusion really lives. Is there a specific case in which we want to sort individual organisms but the structural approach yields one answer and the functional approach yields another answer?

Think I've explained or described several cases in some detail - notably in school systems which might wind up using both the strict biological definitions of Griffiths et al, and the "patchwork" and quite unscientific ones of Hilton and Company.

But maybe more to your "sorting" point, the strict biological definitions lead to the conclusion that some third of us are sexless, while the HHWH one more or less insists that every last one of us - not to mention all of the other anisogamic species - are all either one sex or the other.

Maybe moot on the practical ramifications of using the strict biological definitions, but, at the very least, I expect it would foreclose on people like Forstater insisting that "sex is immutable". May underline the rather "draconian", if not profoundly odious consequences of "gender-affirmation surgery" - i.e., turning defenseless and autistic children into sexless eunuchs.

 

[d4m10n]

Think I've explained or described several cases in some detail - notably in school systems which might wind up using both the strict biological definitions of Griffiths et al, and the "patchwork" and quite unscientific ones of Hilton and Company.

I'm about to go pick up my third born from an elementary school wherein almost all the students are "sexless" in your preferred nomenclature, that is, very few of them are producing viable gametes. Somehow that school has managed to sort their students into one set of bathrooms for boys and another for girls. Do you suppose they are using structural or functional definitions to do so?

 

[Steersman]

I'm about to go pick up my third born from an elementary school wherein almost all the students are "sexless" in your preferred nomenclature, that is, very few of them are producing viable gametes. Somehow that school has managed to sort their students into one set of bathrooms for boys and another for girls. Do you suppose they are using structural or functional definitions to do so?

Maybe they're using NEITHER? Given your background in probability - so to speak - one would think you'd have some grasp of the concept of proxy variables:

Proxy (statistics), a measured variable used to infer the value of a variable of interest

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

Though the logic may be a bit murky. But kids at birth are (mis)labelled as male or female on the basis of their genitalia. So the (mis)label serves as a pretty solid proxy to "infer the value of a variable of interest", i.e., genitalia.

That's is how the actually sorting for bathrooms is done; it's largely immaterial whether the kids yet have a sex or not. But the mislabeling tends to cause no end of problems - and confusion - when the reproductive abilities associated with the labels become more of an issue.

Try thinking that there's a difference between words as a labels, as handles, and what they actually denote. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map–territory_relation

Often the denotation, the meaning associated with a word, is irrelevant to how it's being used.

 

[theprestige]

That's a lot of words to say they're using the structural definition and it's not causing any confusion at all.

 

[Steersman]

That's a lot of words to say they're using the structural definition and it's not causing any confusion at all.

So? Where have I said that confusion in one area necessarily means confusion in all other ones?

 

[d4m10n]

I hope our elementary schools stick with the structural definition (if you can stand up to pee, we've got urinals in the bathrooms designated for "boys") since any other definition will inevitably engender confusion, not least in the minds of the kids themselves.

 

[Steersman]

I hope our elementary schools stick with the structural definition (if you can stand up to pee, we've got urinals in the bathrooms designated for "boys") since any other definition will inevitably engender confusion, not least in the minds of the kids themselves.

Even though the "structural definition" is flatly contradicted by the strict biological definitions based on function? Which, you've apparently conceded, causes "confusion" when applied to many other anisogamic species?

Don't think the schools are doing the kids any favours by enforcing that. They might just as well teach them to praise Jesus. ...

Though I wonder at the precise nature of exactly what it is they are imparting with that structural definition. That boys have penises and girls have vaginas? If that's the extent of it then I don't see much if any difference between how the two sets of definitions would play out on the ground. In which case there's as much justification, if not more, for going with the more accurate and broadly applicable functional definitions.

Particularly if one has to qualify "male" and "female" with "non-functional" when applying the structural definitions to prepubescent children ...

But such endless qualifications reminds me of the song, "The Old Lady that Swallowed the Fly", and of having to tell ever bigger lies to cover for previous smaller ones. All to avoid saying "sexless".

 

[d4m10n]

Even though the "structural definition" is flatly contradicted by the strict biological definitions based on function?

I asked earlier whether you can come up with a specific example of an individual organism (preferably mammalian) where the structural definition gives one answer and your functional interpretation gives another.

I don't think you're on firm footing if elementary school children are the example you want to use, since if we go by your interpretation of "strict biological definitions based on function" there is no criterion by which we can sort those who can pee standing up (whom I call "boys") from those who invariably pee sitting down (whom I call "girls"). The built environment already takes these differences into account, but your "strict biological definition" doesn't see them, because they are merely structural.

Which, you've apparently conceded, causes "confusion" when applied to many other anisogamic species?

It might be worth noting that the OP definition was provided in response to sex and gender issues arising amongst Homo sapiens rather than, say, sequential hermaphrodites. It might also be worth noting that the specialists who study sequential hermaphrodites seem not to suffer from confusion when observing how gametic structures change over time.

Though I wonder at the precise nature of exactly what it is they are imparting with that structural definition. That boys have penises and girls have vaginas? If that's the extent of it then I don't see much if any difference between how the two sets of definitions would play out on the ground. In which case there's as much justification, if not more, for going with the more accurate and broadly applicable functional definitions.

Once again, your functional definitions have no power to help sort prepubescent children. To you, they are all "sexless," unless you want to infer future function from current structure.

Particularly if one has to qualify "male" and "female" with "non-functional" when applying the structural definitions to prepubescent children

People using the OP definition require no such qualification, since they are free to assign sex based on structural features.

 

[theprestige]

Even though the "structural definition" is flatly contradicted by the strict biological definitions based on function?

The strict biological definitions based on function are only used when the function itself is the critical distinction. Everywhere else, including in "strict biological" contexts, the structural definition is used. And no confusion arises.