Cont: Transwomen are not women part XII (also merged)

[mumblethrax]

Here’s how I look at it:
1. If A gets an apple, and B gets a banana, and C gets an apple and a banana, how many different types of fruit do we have?

If A is a banana, and B is an apple, and C is an apple and a banana, how many different types of fruit do we have?

2. The way sex works in humans - as a system for propagating the species - is not with three sexes, it’s with two. A chimera may be many things, and may not be (solely) male, and may not be (solely) female, but it is not a third sex.

I'm not arguing for the existence of a third sex among humans.

 

[Ziggurat]

Do you take exception to the statement, "Aside from chimerism, sex in humans is binary"?

 

[smartcooky]

An individual with XX/XY chimerism, two ovotestes, and ambiguous external genitalia.

Handwave and irrelevant.

1. I said edge cases will not be accepted
2. Your "example" does not meet the criteria

Every individual in the class mammalia can be classified as male or female.

No, they can't.

Your "example" can be classified as male, and it can also be classified as female. Failed!

I don't think this establishes the existence of a "third biological sex" in mammals. That doesn't follow from the idea that there are genuinely ambiguous cases.

Of course it doesn't. There are no hermaphroditic species among mammals or birds., so as I said, these cases are irrelevant.

Will it, now

So far it has been. Answering with hand-waves, dodges and spurious references to irrelevant edge cases is effectively no answer at all, if that is not outright ignoring, its certainly the next best thing.

You are denying biological reality.

Wrong.

- Biological reality is that gender ≠ sex - gender is a state of mind, sex is a state of physiology.

- Biological reality is that there are only TWO sexes, female (produces gametes in the form of ovules) and male (produces gametes in the form of spermatozoa)

There is no debate to be had here. These are provable, biological and scientific facts.

People in this thread are acting like economists, rather than biologists--preferring the model to the empiricals.

"Empirical describes something that is based on actual experience or something that is based on direct observation. Empirical data is verifiable, and is based on experimentation or direct observation, rather than logic or theory"

For mine, I will always prefer empirical evidence over theory or logic. If the latter are not supported by verifiable observation or experimentation, they are no more than what someone thinks or believes might be correct. Direct observation trumps theory and logic - the latter are both fallible and both in the eye of the beholder.

You might have a nice theory that a transwoman who has undergone gender reassignment surgery, and who dresses up as a woman might superficially pass for a female, but direct observation of their DNA will reveal they are a biological male. No amount of theory, logic, feelings, psychobabble or post-modernist gobbledygook can hand-wave away this cold, hard fact.
.
.

 

[mumblethrax]

It's not ambiguous. We know exactly what they are. And there's still just two categories: male and female. That's a binary. It's just possible in edge cases to belong to both categories. That doesn't actually make a third category.

This is also sophistical. Of course we know what they are--I just told you. That does not preclude sexual ambiguity.

Mixed sex chimerism seems to be rare in humans. And there's what, one known case where it affected reproductive anatomy?

? It routinely affects reproductive anatomy. It's most often diagnosed because it affects reproductive anatomy.

More than one for this to actually matter to the trans debate, which really has nothing to do with mixed sex chimerism or even disorders of sexual development.

Not the question I asked.

And if you want to get pedantic, let's do it correctly: someone who is male AND female is also male OR female. Are they male? Yes. Are they female? Yes. In English, "or" is not automatically exclusive. The only way to not be male OR female is to be not male AND not female, which such an individual isn't.

If we're sorting individuals into bins, you can't put the same individual into two bins. This is an exclusive operation.

This isn't pedantic, it's just wrong.

 

[smartcooky]

If A is a banana, and B is an apple, and C is an apple and a banana, how many different types of fruit do we have?

Humans are not apples, bananas or applenanas

I'm not arguing for the existence of a third sex among humans.

Perhaps not now, but you made a comment that argues for it in your reply to Emily's Cat's post

 

[mumblethrax]

This brings up an important distinction I got from Jerry Coyne’s web site: there’s a difference between defining sex and diagnosing sex. The issue at hand is how we define sex (as in how many sexes are there) as opposed to diagnosing (but not in the pathological sense) what sex a particular individual is, who may have some characteristics of one sex and some of the other.

Yes. People are either conflating definition and diagnosis, or they're smuggling in a separate definition for sex as it pertains to individuals.

 

[mumblethrax]

Most mixed sex human chimeras don't have ovotestes, and those that do almost always have female reproductive anatomy.

Ambiguous external genitalia is actually more likely to occur in non-chimeric disorders of sexual development, and it's usually related to either a damaged SRY activator gene, or a damaged SRY receptor apparatus.

Do you notice how you're using words like "most" and "more likely" rather than "all" and "always"?

 

[d4m10n]

Where I predict the changing-room controversy will end up, years from now, in progressive states, is that anyone who self-identifies as a woman will be permitted to use the woman's changing room, but that most venues will have policies against any display of visible penises or representations thereof (prosthetics, strap-on toys, tattoos, inflatable novelties, etc.) in that room. That rule will apply to everyone using that room.

This sounds like a reasonable compromise to me but I don't believe any progressive activist groups (e.g. Stonewall, HRC, ACLU) would find it acceptable.

 

[Ziggurat]

Yes. People are either conflating definition and diagnosis

Like you did with "confidence"?

 

[theprestige]

If A is a banana, and B is an apple, and C is an apple and a banana, how many different types of fruit do we have?


I'm not arguing for the existence of a third sex among humans.

This is also sophistical. Of course we know what they are--I just told you. That does not preclude sexual ambiguity.


? It routinely affects reproductive anatomy. It's most often diagnosed because it affects reproductive anatomy.


Not the question I asked.


If we're sorting individuals into bins, you can't put the same individual into two bins. This is an exclusive operation.

This isn't pedantic, it's just wrong.

Yes. People are either conflating definition and diagnosis, or they're smuggling in a separate definition for sex as it pertains to individuals.

Do you notice how you're using words like "most" and "more likely" rather than "all" and "always"?

The debate about trans rights in public policy would be very different if it were actually about reasonable accommodations for sexual chimeras.

Lia Thomas's sex isn't biologically ambiguous. Rachel Levine's sex isn't biologically ambiguous. Jessica Yaniv's sex isn't biologically ambiguous.

Human chimeras aren't a third sex. There's no significant overlap reported, between sexual chimerism and trans-identification. This is a distraction from the actual public policy questions we're trying to answer.

Current trans-accommodating policy proposals disadvantage large numbers of women. None of these proposals are put forward as a necessity to better serve chimeras in our society. Stop hiding behind their skirts, and address the real problems inherent in letting people transcend sex segregation just because they say they want to.

 

[smartcooky]

If we're sorting individuals into bins, you can't put the same individual into two bins. This is an exclusive operation.

Wrong. You might not be able to physically put one individual into two actuall wooden bins, but you can certainty put that individual into two sets

Set A is biological males
Set B is biological females

A hermaphroditic chimera is A ∩ B (a member of both sets)

This isn't pedantic, it's just wrong.

Its not pedantic or wrong, it is a fact. The word "or" is not automatically exclusive in general English use, and certainly not in the context used by Emily's Cat

 

[Ziggurat]

Jessica Yaniv's sex isn't biologically ambiguous.

I could be convinced that Yaniv's species is ambiguous.

 

[mumblethrax]

Handwave and irrelevant.

1. I said edge cases will not be accepted
2. Your "example" does not meet the criteria

I don't think you know what handwave means.

If you're going to characterize any case where sex is genuinely ambiguous as an edge case, then obviously I can't give you examples of ambiguous individuals that aren't edge cases.

Your "example" can be classified as male, and it can also be classified as female.

Which bin are you going to put it in?

Of course it doesn't.

So why bring it up? I certainly didn't.

So far it has been. Answering with hand-waves, dodges and spurious references to irrelevant edge cases is effectively no answer at all, if that is not outright ignoring, its certainly the next best thing.

I haven't handwaved or dodged anything, nor have I provided spurious examples.

- Biological reality is that gender ≠ sex - gender is a state of mind, sex is a state of physiology.

Since I haven't asserted that gender = sex, I fail to see why you're bringing this up.

- Biological reality is that there are only TWO sexes, female (produces gametes in the form of ovules) and male (produces gametes in the form of spermatozoa)

If you're talking about sex in the abstract, yes. If you're talking about the sex of individuals, this is plainly wrong.

There is no debate to be had here. These are provable, biological and scientific facts.

Usually we talk about a scientific idea being falsifiable, rather than provable.

And there clearly is a debate to be had here, as we're having it.

You might have a nice theory that a transwoman who has undergone gender reassignment surgery, and who dresses up as a woman might superficially pass for a female, but direct observation of their DNA will reveal they are a biological male. No amount of theory, logic, feelings, psychobabble or post-modernist gobbledygook can hand-wave away this cold, hard fact.

Since I'm not claiming that a transwoman is biologically female, I again have to ask why you're bringing this up.

People are denying basic empirical facts in order to insist that a simplified model perfectly corresponds to reality. It's a bunch of people asserting that the spherical cow is spherical, and that anyone who points out that it isn't is denying reality.

This is dogma, not science.

 

[mumblethrax]

Humans are not apples, bananas or applenanas

Genius level insight.

Perhaps not now, but you made a comment that argues for it in your reply to Emily's Cat's post

Nothing in that post argues for the existence of a third sex. A third sex implies the existence of a third reproductive role. There isn't one, at least not among our species.

 

[mumblethrax]

Do you take exception to the statement, "Aside from chimerism, sex in humans is binary"?

Maybe. Colin Wright seems to.

Like you did with "confidence"?

I took considerable pains to make it clear that I was not conflating the two.

 

[mumblethrax]

The debate about trans rights in public policy would be very different if it were actually about reasonable accommodations for sexual chimeras.

Why are people having so much difficulty with this?

I am responding to specific claims.

 

[mumblethrax]

Misinformation of the genitals of some sort only occurs in about 0.02% of births. Of those, most are identifiable by a well-trained OBGYN as being incompletely formed male genitals, or very very rarely, embryonically masculinized female genitalia. There's only a very tiny number of cases where the genitals are so much in the middle that it needs a deeper look... and in those cases, almost every one of them will not have ambiguous internal reproductive organs, so a simple ultrasound is usually sufficient. In the vanishingly rare few cases where internal organs are also ambiguous, we get into genetic testing.

I don't really know what "misinformation of genitals" is, but you're missing the point. Let me restate it, with some added emphasis:

How do you intend to do that without relying on inferences made from the results or drivers of sexual determination, which, as you have defined things, are "not sex"?

If you're looking at a baby's genitals, you're relying on morphological traits the result from sexual determination. The thing you're saying is "not sex". You cannot observe sex by observing not sex. It's nonsensical.

 

[mumblethrax]

Wrong. You might not be able to physically put one individual into two actuall wooden bins, but you can certainty put that individual into two sets

Given that the task is categorization, the possibility of membership in multiple sets is neither here nor there.

Its not pedantic or wrong, it is a fact. The word "or" is not automatically exclusive in general English use, and certainly not in the context used by Emily's Cat

Of course the word 'or' isn't necessarily exclusive.

The task of classification is.

I can't plot the same individual twice.

The lengths that people will go to to deny the existence of sexually ambiguous individuals is startling.

 

[d4m10n]

The lengths that people will go to to deny the existence of sexually ambiguous individuals is startling.

Startling and almost completely unnecessary for our purposes here. The natal males asking for access to formerly female-only services, spaces, leagues, record books, etc. are almost never sexually ambiguous.

 

[mumblethrax]

Startling and almost completely unnecessary for our purposes here. The natal males asking for access to formerly female-only services, spaces, leagues, record books, etc. are almost never sexually ambiguous.

I agree--I don't see what anyone gets out of this.