Cont: Transwomen are not women - part XI

[TurkeysGhost]

When you dismiss every single instance as being an "anecdote", you have outed yourself as being completely willing to ignore the negative impact on females.

What number of assaults against females in female-only spaces is an acceptable number for you? How many females must be harmed by males in female-only spaces before you'll stop dismissing it as unimportant?

Isn't this supposed to be a skeptic's forum? Honestly a bit of loss for words repeatedly having to try to explain such rudimentary skeptical concepts such as "anecdotes are not evidence" in a place like this.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Also UNHR seems to disagree with your opinion:
https://www.ohchr.org/en/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity/intersex-people
While it might not be common it happens.

Sex characteristics are not the same as sex.
Defining vs Determining Sex
Understanding the Sex Binary

Any notion of sex is a red-herring.

You're arguing to REPLACE sex with gender identity... and you say sex is a red herring? You want us to ignore the material reality of our sexed bodies, and the impacts they have on our lives... and instead to give primacy to an unverifiable and entirely subjective feeling inside someone's head?

 

[Manger Douse]

Isn't this supposed to be a skeptic's forum? Honestly a bit of loss for words repeatedly having to try to explain such rudimentary skeptical concepts such as "anecdotes are not evidence" in a place like this.

The data from the Home Office showing how trans-women were massively over represented in committing sexual assaults wasn't an anecdote yet you've still never acknowledged it

 

[Emily's Cat]

Care to give an objective definition here? Chromosomes?

Sex is defined based on the type of reproductive anatomy that an individual has. Among all mammals, females are those who have a reproductive anatomy that has evolved to produce and support large gametes. Males are those who have a reproductive anatomy evolved to produce small gametes. Note that no individual needs to actually produce either gamete in actuality. They don't even have to have a complete reproductive anatomy.

In all mammals, as well as all birds, and the overwhelming majority of vertebrates, there are only two gamete types, and thus there are only two types of reproductive anatomies in each sexually reproductive species. No third gamete has yet been found.

This response to a Fringe Reset has been brought to you by Emily's Cat, who reads the work of actual reproductive biologists and evolutionary biologists.

Birth assigned sex is not gender

Sex is developed in utero, being fixed around the 7th week of gestation. In developed nations, it is almost always observed by a doctor very early in the pregnancy. It is then observed again at birth.

If sex is "assigned" in any way, it's assigned by which sperm breaches the egg wall first and fertilizes the egg.

 

[Emily's Cat]

What % of population do you draw the line on? I mean I'm really curious on how small of a minority is not entitled to same rights as others? Do you support removal of civil rights of some small minority because there "just isn't that many of them"?

Nobody is being denied any rights. Transgender identified males have EXACTLTY the same rights as all other males in the US. Transgender identified females have EXACTLY the same rights as all other females in the US.

You are not asking for equal rights - you are asking for special privileges that allow some few people to actively violate the rights and safety of others.

If there are safe spaces provided then the state is obligated to offer the same services to all people - not a select group. I'm not going to say how it is provided or done in practice in the US, since that's the problem for people there to organize.

They already do. Safe spaces for males are available to all males, even if those males dress in typically female clothing and wear make-up. Safe spaces for females are available to all females, even if those females have short hair and wear combat boots.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Again, this discussion would be very different if it were about what public policies we need to make sure Caster Semenya feels safe and accepted. But it's not. It's about what public policies we need to make sure Jessica Yaniv, Lia Thomas, and Rachel Levine feel safe and accepted.

It's not even that. It's about what public policies need to be made so that Jessica Yaniv, Lia Thomas, and Rachel Levine can force other people to pretend that they are female, and to prevent females from being allowed to exercise their reasonable right to personal boundaries against voyeurism and exhibitionism.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Caster Semenya is a woman, by all definitions you have provided.

Caster Semenya is a male with 5-ARD. 5-ARD is a male-specific disorder of sexual development. Caster Semenya is not a female under ANY definition that uses actual facts and objective science.

Newsflash - women are fine without your protection.

Um, no. Please refrain from opining on how all females feel. The unfortunate fact is that without the protection of reasonable and compassionate males, females are not safe at all. We absolutely need the protection of males in the form of laws against sexual assault, harassment, and rape, as well as support for female-only spaces.

 

[Ziggurat]

This is entirely false. Every human is either male or female, no third sex exists. If you wish to prove me wrong, go for it. All you need to do is provide a single case of a human being who has a reproductive anatomy that has clearly evolved to produce a third type of gamete. That's all. Go for it.

We should broaden this challenge a bit. If you can find a human that can produce both types of gametes, that should also count.

Blank is equally likely to find such an example as a human producing a third gamete type.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It's not even that. It's about what public policies need to be made so that Jessica Yaniv, Lia Thomas, and Rachel Levine can force other people to pretend that they are female, and to prevent females from being allowed to exercise their reasonable right to personal boundaries against voyeurism and exhibitionism.

Didn't Yaniv's lawsuits fail and backfire?

 

[Emily's Cat]

From the perspective of biology, the sexes (human for sure, mammalian quite possible, IANAB) are defined by the type of gamete the organism's body is set up to produce. AFAIK the large majority of even intersex people still have one of those two gamete types even if their organs, chromosomes, etc., are not so clear-cut. Even for a true hermaphrodite whose body produces both types of gametes (which is very rare), there are still only those two types of gametes, there is not a third type of gamete. Someone who produces no gametes does not produce a third type of gamete (as distinct from having an intermediary gonad). There are no gametes that are somehow intermediary between the two types of gametes. AFAIK.

Two comments.

1) The definition of sex holds true for all sexually reproductive species on the planet. That includes all mammals and birds, and the overwhelming majority of vertebrates. For those vertebrates that are not sexually reproductive, they essentially clone. Even most plants reproduce sexually, with two sexes, although plants often have both reproductive organs in the same plant. Most don't self-pollinate, but many do.

2) No human has been definitively known to produce both types of gametes in the same individual. There is ONE case where an individual who had both an ovary and a testis is believed to have potentially ovulated based on a post-mortem exam, but it is not conclusive.

 

[Paul2]

That's the rub. There's huge begging of the question that these inclusive policies increase this kind of crime. Ever since the bathroom panic got trotted out years ago by reactionaries fighting tooth and nail for keeping trans people excluded have not been able to provide any actual evidence (not anecdotes, but evidence) that these policies increase violence in these spaces.
Fights in bathrooms between same sex peers at school are incredibly common. There's no shortage of anecdotes one google search away about fights and other aggression among exclusively cis gendered girls in sex segregated spaces like bathrooms or locker rooms. Cherry picking the ones with trans people involved is not a substitute for actual evidence.

You're missing the distinction between evidence for some causal claim and whether some phenomenon happens or not. TG is critiquing anecdotes for their ability to show some causal connection, whereas the anti-TRA folk here are using anecdotes - often accompanied by documentation - to establish that some phenomenon happens (to some level, great or small).

But you can't dismiss anecdotes that show that some phenomenon merely happens on the basis that you properly can't use anecdotes to show some causal connection between A and B.

 

[Emily's Cat]

If she still identifies as a woman, then she is not transgender, having been assigned female at birth.

Caster Semenya was inappropriately observed as female at birth, in a country without advanced medical facilities. Males with 5-ARD often have genitals that look like unusual female genitals at birth, with scrotum that seem separated and more like labia, as well as very small penises that appear as clitorises.

This is one of the few cases where it's actually appropriate to say that Semenya was "assigned" female at birth. In reality, Semenya is male, and has all of the internal reproductive organs of a male, including testicular tissue, prostate gland, vas deferens, etc. and lacking a uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes.

Had Semenya been born in a developed country, they would have been diagnosed as a male with a disorder of sexual development at birth.

 

[Paul2]

Two comments.

1) The definition of sex holds true for all sexually reproductive species on the planet. That includes all mammals and birds, and the overwhelming majority of vertebrates. For those vertebrates that are not sexually reproductive, they essentially clone. Even most plants reproduce sexually, with two sexes, although plants often have both reproductive organs in the same plant. Most don't self-pollinate, but many do.

2) No human has been definitively known to produce both types of gametes in the same individual. There is ONE case where an individual who had both an ovary and a testis is believed to have potentially ovulated based on a post-mortem exam, but it is not conclusive.

Thanks for the clarification, but for that individual, were there eggs in their ovaries and was there sperm in their testes?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Because you started to talk about sexes that I responded to being irrelevant.

Stand is simple:
1) Gender identification = individuals gender
2) Individuals gender = possible framework of laws and procedures to be applied so without any objective criteria a person identifying as a woman is legally entitled to the same services and amenties as the framework group

You are proposing that laws and policies be developed based on what a person claims to believe. It cannot be validated, it cannot be verified, it cannot even be observed.

You are proposing that we develop laws to favor and privilege people of a particular religious faith, who repeat a specific religious catechism.

Hell, you even acknowledge that you're ignoring objective criteria, and are basing this solely on what a person says they are. I say I'm the General of the US Marines. Please hand over control of all Marines in the US to me immediately.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

You're missing the distinction between evidence for some causal claim and whether some phenomenon happens or not. TG is critiquing anecdotes for their ability to show some causal connection, whereas the anti-TRA folk here are using anecdotes - often accompanied by documentation - to establish that some phenomenon happens (to some level, great or small).

But you can't dismiss anecdotes that show that some phenomenon merely happens on the basis that you properly can't use anecdotes to show some causal connection between A and B.

No, I'm very much not missing that distinction. The assertion has been made very frequently by transphobes that trans-inclusive policies will lead to a significant increase in the amount of violence or otherwise anti-social behavior in these gender segregated spaces, and they routinely have been unable to show a lick of evidence, instead relying on salacious, cherry picked anecdotes meant to distract from the weaknesses of their claims.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yes you can, in the U.S. You can vote Republican.

I think girls and women should have the right to abortion, and the right not to be confined in prisons with convicts who have fully functional male genitalia. Support both rights and you almost certainly (barring other major problems with your politics) have my vote. Make me choose one or the other and I'll, well, choose one or the other.

This next election is going to be interesting. I know a lot of females, and many males, who are extremely unhappy with both parties because of this issue. One side is making it illegal of us to control our own reproduction, and the other side is making it legal of males to violate our boundaries at whim.

Unless a rational contender comes along, I'm expecting record low female votes

 

[Emily's Cat]

Thanks for the clarification, but for that individual, were there eggs in their ovaries and was there sperm in their testes?

I believe at the time the post mortem was done there were no eggs in their single ovary, but there was some suggestion that they may have ovulated at some point in the past. That individual definitely had sperm, as they fathered offspring as a male.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

This next election is going to be interesting. I know a lot of females, and many males, who are extremely unhappy with both parties because of this issue. One side is making it illegal of us to control our own reproduction, and the other side is making it legal of males to violate our boundaries at whim.

Unless a rational contender comes along, I'm expecting record low female votes

I very much doubt that it will be a deciding issue, and the GOP's focus on their insane crusade against trans people is probably a bit offputting to people who aren't terminally online.

 

[Paul2]

No, I'm very much not missing that distinction. The assertion has been made very frequently by transphobes that trans-inclusive policies will lead to a significant increase in the amount of violence or otherwise anti-social behavior in these gender segregated spaces, and they routinely have been unable to show a lick of evidence, instead relying on salacious, cherry picked anecdotes meant to distract from the weaknesses of their claims.

What about all the other anecdotes that were only offered to demonstrate that some phenomenon happens?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

What about all the other anecdotes that were only offered to demonstrate that some phenomenon happens?

I dunno, take that up with someone who has claimed that these kinds of scenarios are impossible.