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

[Ziggurat]

Maybe.

Why?

Colin Wright seems to.

I don't care. An argument against it is of interest, a person against it is irrelevant.

 

[Matthew Best]

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

Surely you must see what you're getting out of it?

 

[Samson]

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.

It is something I was completely unaware of. It is near impossible for a male face to look female, but easy for a female to look male. Especially as they grow facial hair quickly with testosterone.

 

[Matthew Best]

https://www.city-journal.org/article/anatomy-of-a-scientific-scandal

The paper “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases,” has now been retracted by Springer Nature after a campaign by trans rights activists. The reason given is that "the participants of the survey have not provided written informed consent to participate in scholarly research or to have their responses published in a peer reviewed article."

Unfortunately, a cursory skim of papers published by Springer revealed at least 19 other papers with the same problem, none of which were retracted.

More details at the link.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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

Holy cow. it was a follow up to a much more comprehensive post that you seem to have just skipped. Apparently you'd rather play silly games here rather than actually deal with the biology and the reality.

Here, let me save you from having to look:

Mixed sex chimeras are possible, but in 99.9999999999999999.... % of cases they can still be described as either male or female, not both.

I hold out that incredibly rare 0.000......1% possibility, as it's hypothetically possible for a mammal to be born with compete and even chimerism of the reproductive organs.

Note I say hypothetically possible, as it has never been documented.

The closest we have is one single case of a human that had the chimeric form of ovotestisticular disorder, had a male reproductive system, and had fathered children with their fertile sperm from one testicle, and whose other scrotal organ was comprised of ovarian tissue... and which on post-mortem examination suggested that perhaps at one point in their past, they had released an egg from that ovary.

But given that this individual had a complete male reproductive system AND had the added benefit of being proven fertile, this individual would be classed as a male. The existence of an ovary alongside their single testicle in their scrotum doesn't make them not male. It doesn't make them both.

Some disorders of sexual development are more common in other species, because other species have different methods of sex determination. Chimerism is more generally more common in birds than in mammals, due to birds being WZ with the female carrying the mixed pair. Chimerism is also more common in animals (both mammals and birds) that have multiple embryos during gestation (litters or clutches). It's also more common in animals that are artificially inseminated - including livestock. Freemartin cattle are chimeras. Chimerism occurs in a few different ways. It can happen when the egg begins division prior to being fertilized, and ends up fertilized by more than one sperm - this is more common in birds and has something to do with how eggs develop but I'm shaky on the details here. It can also happen when a single, non-divided egg gets fertilized by more than one sperm, in which case the zygote is comprised of a mix of cells from each sperm's haploid. The other way it can occur is when two different eggs are each separately fertilized, then those two separate zygotes fuse.

IIRC, that last type is where we get conjoined twins, because the zygotes are only partially fused. It's also how we get freemartin cattle, because two different sexed fetuses share a fused umbilicus, and the female twin gets partially masculinized because it receives blood that has been shared with the male, and which contains the male's masculinizing hormones. The freemartin remains female, however.

Anyway, that's a lot of unnecessary words to say that chimerism occurs, including mixed-sex chimerism. It's more common in birds than in mammals. A mixed sex chimera is still almost always going to be one sex or another - because sex isn't determined by what characteristics the individual displays but rather by the reproductive anatomy that it develops during gestation.

Mosaicism is something different, and I don't fully understand it. It's a lot more common overall, but rarely causes any deleterious conditions. Mosaicism is responsible for tortoiseshell and calico cats. That's about where my knowledge runs out .

 

[Emily's Cat]

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

Also... most apples are red is a true statement. It's also a true statement that apples are not bananas.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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

I think Yaniv might be more appropriate classed as Equus asinus.

 

[mumblethrax]

Why?

Because I haven't looked into it in any detail and I'm unwilling to commit to a strong position on a topic I know little about.

I don't care. An argument against it is of interest, a person against it is irrelevant.

He's not just a person--he's a biologist (and one who is not particularly friendly to bad arguments from activists). I tend to think the expertise of biologists is relevant to questions about biology.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Just stop.

There are cases where sexual characteristics are ambiguous.
There are cases where sexual anatomy is ambiguous.
There are cases where sex classification is difficult.

There are no cases where SEX ITSELF is truly ambiguous.

Challenging to figure out, sure. Disordered develepment leading to initial confusion, absolutely.

But sex is not ambiguous, each individual mammal or bird, at the end of the day, is either male, or female, and not both.

Even people with ovotesticular disorder are still ultimately male or female and not both.

And all of this is a red herring.

So how about we switch gears. Why does this matter within the context of transgender policy?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Genius level insight.


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.

There's also no in-between sex. That would imply the existence of an in-between reproucrtive role. There isn't one, at least not among any mammalian or avian species. Not among any sexually reproductive species.

ETA: Not among ANY species. Those that reproduce without sex don't have in-betweens either, because they don't have sexes.

 

[mumblethrax]

Surely you must see what you're getting out of it?

I'm not denying the existence of sexually ambiguous individuals, so I'm confident I get nothing but aggravation out of it.

 

[Ziggurat]

He's not just a person--he's a biologist (and one who is not particularly friendly to bad arguments from activists). I tend to think the expertise of biologists is relevant to questions about biology.

Experts can make bad arguments. And you haven't even presented his argument, so there's nothing for me to evaluate. Hell, I'm not confident that you are even accurately conveying what his position even is.

 

[Paul2]

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.

If there are only two sexes (which I presume you agree with, as you are not arguing there are three sexes), then we can’t have three different kinds of fruit given that the kind of fruit equals the kind of sex in the analogy.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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,

I mistyped and autocorrect did its thing wrong, that should have been "malformation"

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.

Sex is defined by the reproductive pathway developed in the individual. Sex is defined based on whether the individual developed the reproductive anatomy that has evolved to produce large gametes, or the reproductive anatomy that has evolved to produce small gametes.

Sex IS reproductive anatomy.

Each of those anatomies has a lot of parts. In the overwhelming majority of cases, only a cursor look at the external elements of those anatomies - the external genitalia - is needed. External genitalia is one of the elements of reproductive anatomy in humans.

In the event that the external genitals are not unambiguous, you do an ultrasound of the internal reproductive system.

In the vanishingly rare event that the internal reproductive system isn't unambiguous, then you look for specific genetic conditions that cause sex-specific disorders of sexual development.

Again, sex is reproductive anatomy. It might not be easy to classify in every single individual, but being difficult to discern doesn't make it "both" or "neither" or "something else".

It might be really hard to tell whether that lump is cancer or not... but at the end of the day, it's going to be one or the other, it's not going to be both, it's not going to be neither. It either is cancer, or it is not cancer.

There are only two reproductive roles in mammals. There is no in-between role, there is no individual that is "both" roles. And fetuses that develop neither die within the first handful of weeks, as they are not viable.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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

Nobody is denying that some people have characteristics that are ambiguous; we are denying that their sex is "both". They may be difficult to classify, but they are still either one, or the other, not both, not something in-between, not something new.

 

[Emily's Cat]

It is something I was completely unaware of. It is near impossible for a male face to look female, but easy for a female to look male. Especially as they grow facial hair quickly with testosterone.

In humans, testosterone is a one-way street. It prompts physical changes in secondary characteristic that cannot be undone. It instigates the growth of facial hair and chest hair, it lowers the voice, and (I recently learned) it prompts growth of cartilage around the vocal chords leading to an adam's apple.

Once those changes have occurred, they cannot be undone. The bell doesn't unring.

That's part of why it's easier for a female to pass as male by taking testosterone, whereas a male cannot pass as female by only taking estrogen - for a male to pass as female post puberty, they need surgical intervention. There's an entire industry around facial feminization for transgender identified males. It involves reshaping the chin and cheekbones, the brow bones etc., but by far the most commonly used is tracheal shaving.

 

[mumblethrax]

it was a follow up to a much more comprehensive post that you seem to have just skipped. Apparently you'd rather play silly games here rather than actually deal with the biology and the reality.

Pointing out that you're not actually ruling out sexually ambiguous individuals is not a silly game. It's the heart of the matter. And it is you, not me, who is failing to deal with reality.

There are no cases where SEX ITSELF is truly ambiguous.

What would it even mean for sex itself to be ambiguous?

Obviously, if I'm talking about the sex of individuals being ambiguous, I am not talking about sex itself being ambiguous.

But sex is not ambiguous, each individual mammal or bird, at the end of the day, is either male, or female, and not both.

False, and take it up with the people claiming a mammal can be both (not me).

There's also no in-between sex. That would imply the existence of an in-between reproucrtive role. There isn't one, at least not among any mammalian or avian species. Not among any sexually reproductive species.

"In-between sex" is ill-defined, but trioecious species do exist.

So how about we switch gears. Why does this matter within the context of transgender policy?

It doesn't, which is why I'm unclear on why this dogmatic belief circulates so widely among those who claim to be on the side of science and reason in this debate.

I suppose it's a useful way of spotting the dogmatists, though.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Because I haven't looked into it in any detail and I'm unwilling to commit to a strong position on a topic I know little about.


He's not just a person--he's a biologist (and one who is not particularly friendly to bad arguments from activists). I tend to think the expertise of biologists is relevant to questions about biology.

I would also recommend Zach Elliot. There are a few others as well, but at the moment, their names escape me. I reference Colin Wright and Zach Elliot quite a bit.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Experts can make bad arguments. And you haven't even presented his argument, so there's nothing for me to evaluate. Hell, I'm not confident that you are even accurately conveying what his position even is.

Colin Wright doesn't make the argument that mumblethraz has made, so it's not really relevant.

 

[mumblethrax]

Sex IS reproductive anatomy.

Then your central claim that sex is definitionally distinct from sexual determination is false, given that reproductive anatomy is sexually determined.

And if sex is reproductive anatomy, then the existence of people with ambiguous reproductive anatomy implies the existence of ambiguous sex.

QED.