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

[Emily's Cat]

When Mulvaney lies about drugging and raping dozens of people then I'm willing to cede your point here. As it stands, she is *checks notes* "offensive and misogynistic" unlike previous spokespersons for AB's various fratboy-themed lagers.

I stand by my point then. Choosing a celebrity endorser for a product DOES say something about the company.

 

[Ziggurat]

How would testing a women with Swyer syndrome for the SRY gene resolve ambiguity?

Because the SRY gene is defective. That's what leads to Swyer syndrome. If you test to see if they have the normal SRY gene, you will find that they don't. Hence, they are female.

It's not irrelevant to the question of whether every individual can be classified as male or female. Which is the context in which it was raised.

That context isn't getting us anywhere. So let's drop it, because it doesn't actually matter to this thread. The trans debate has nothing to do with DSD's. Practically speaking, all trans people have normal sexual development as either male or female.

 

[d4m10n]

You already have conceded the point. The only difference is that you personally aren't offended by Mulvaney whereas you are offended by Cosby.

I freely admit that I'd say raping people is fairly offensive, and also that I remain puzzled as to what Mulvaney has done which warrants comparison to Cosby.

Choosing a celebrity endorser for a product DOES say something about the company.

Happy to grant this point in the event that the endorser in question has committed serious sex crimes.

First... TikTok feeds you what you view and like. The algorithm is creepy good... but also very confining. So if you like videos with females who are very stereotypically feminine in their videos, that's what you're going to see. It even tracks ones that you don't hit the like on, but where you click into their profile and view several of their other videos.

I have to admit that I don't have TikTok, b/c I'm old. I do have teenagers, though, and from what I've seen the TikTok influencers are, well, over the top in any and every way. Mulvaney doesn't strike me as outside of the norm for someone posting short videos to gain a following.

If you think she has said or done something which warrants a boycott, what exactly was it?

 

[Emily's Cat]

How would testing a women with Swyer syndrome for the SRY gene resolve ambiguity? To my mind, it generates ambiguity.

There's only a need for additional testing if the reproductive anatomy is ambiguous. People with Swyer Syndrome have unambiguously female reproductive anatomy. They're classed as females.

And that's why humans cannot be male and female at the same time.

If they can't be both at the same time... they can't be classed as in-between either.

 

[Emily's Cat]

All your drivel is simply meaningless post-modernist claptrap.

I think you're being a bit unfair to mumblethrax here. They aren't engaging in post-modernist claptrap. None of their posts on the topic of sex definition, determination, and diagnosis has involved any post-modern magicalness.

We disagree about whether or not a handful of people who are difficult to classify due to disorders of sexual development constitute a true "in between" with respect to sex being a binary distribution or a bimodal distribution. But mumblethrax has been consistent in acknowledging that the definition of sex is binary, there are only two gametes in humans and therefore only two sexes. They've also acknowledged that this down in the weeds discussion has nothing to do with gender identity... and they don't seem to hold the view that gender identity introduces "other sexes" or "alternative sexes" in any fashion.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Eminem isn't considered gangsta rap?

Emimen got a fair bit of crap early in their career. That said, Eminem never put on blackface in the way that Mulvaney has put on womanface.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Ultimately, sure. But there's an enormous edifice in between that often seems more important than the kind of gamete an individual will notionally produce.

I mean, I'm not inclined to regard a woman with Swyer syndrome as "not female", and not just because I don't want to be impolite.

People with Swyer Syndrome are classified as female.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I wasn't policing his use of your screen name.

I was answering his question about who had said that.

Fair enough, I retract my snippiness.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Because the SRY gene is defective. That's what leads to Swyer syndrome. If you test to see if they have the normal SRY gene, you will find that they don't. Hence, they are female.

Technically... the SRY gene is inactive. In some people with Swyer Syndrome, the gene is defective. In others, it isn't defective, but surrounding genes that are needed to turn it on are broken. Either way, that SRY gene never sends the signals needed to prompt a fetus to develop a male reproductive tract.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I have to admit that I don't have TikTok, b/c I'm old. I do have teenagers, though, and from what I've seen the TikTok influencers are, well, over the top in any and every way. Mulvaney doesn't strike me as outside of the norm for someone posting short videos to gain a following.

There's a whole lot on TikTok that is not over the top. I don't have it, but my spouse does. There's a LOT of content that falls outside of your description.

Some of my favorites are a UK couple where one spouse is highly ADHD, and they post shorts about that including how the neurotypical spouse manages things; a Quebecois welder who posts them cooking, shopping, and sometimes working... all with a running dinosaur theme (RAWR!); a college student with Tourette's that films themself managing their day-to-day tasks and educates people about the condition; and a couple of female comedians who keep me giggling with a constant supply of cheesy bits and dad jokes.

If you think she has said or done something which warrants a boycott, what exactly was it?

Day 1 of being a girl

 

[mumblethrax]

All your drivel is simply meaningless post-modernist claptrap. You can hand-wave, side-track and move the goalposts all you like - none of it changes the fact that there are only two sexes.

I don't see where I've done any of these things. You're just declaring that I am, with no evidence.

And I'm certainly not doing anything like post-modernism. I think we can add that to the growing list of topics that you don't understand.

Sex ≠ gender! You can invent as many genders as you like - it makes no difference to the sex of the individual concerned. It is an irrefutable, scientific and biological fact that there are only two sexes amongst mammals (which BTW, includes humans) and birds...

Again, I have not claimed that sex is gender. Gender has nothing to do with what's being discussed here.

There are no other sexes!! In humans, a DNA test WILL tell you the sex of the individual the vast majority of the time

I have not claimed that there are more than two sexes (in humans). And you were asserting that a DNA test would clarify ambiguous cases, not that they will tell you the sex of the individual most of the time (of course they will).

On the other hand, you think that platypuses are both mammals and reptiles. You even did a little celebratory in-your-face! after declaring them to be both mammals and reptiles. You might not have the firmest of grips on matters of biology.

There would simply be no validity to such an exercise - sex can not be plotted on a graph... period!

Sure, you could draw a bar graph, with a bar for males at one end, a bar for females at the other, and a bar for hermaphrodites, chimeras etc in the middle. Your bar graph would have massively high bars at the ends, and a tiny bar in the middle. At any meaningful scale, the middle bar would be indistinguishable from the baseline.

You've just contradicted yourself within the span of two sentences.

These individuals fall into both male and female categories.

Nah. True hermaphrodites are both male and female (or perhaps more accurately, have both male and female functional reproductive anatomy). People with DSDs are not both male and female.

The rights of the vast majority should never be infringed on the basis of a minuscule percentage of edge cases.

I don't agree, and in general I find that attitude to be a bit fascistic. Serious interests should be prioritized over relatively trivial ones, numbers be damned.

I also find it a bit unpleasant to refer to human beings as "edge cases" in this context.

 

[smartcooky]

I think you're being a bit unfair to mumblethrax here.

I tend to get unfair with people who call me a liar

They aren't engaging in post-modernist claptrap. None of their posts on the topic of sex definition, determination, and diagnosis has involved any post-modern magicalness.

Nonetheless, he/she is using spurious post-modernist argument like "sex is on a spectrum". When mumblethrax is prepared to agree/accept that

1. Sex ≠ Gender
2. That there are, in the vast majority of cases, two and only two sexes (male and female) among mammals.

Then I will relent and stop criticizing and ridiculing his/her arguments

 

[d4m10n]

Day 1 of being a girl

Okay, so I'm supposed to guess which stereotype of "girl power" warrants a boycott and a comparison to sex crimes?

I'm going to go with spending too much on dresses. This is truly an evil which must be stamped out.

 

[smartcooky]

You've just contradicted yourself within the span of two sentences.

Really? You don't understand the difference between a graph (also called a line graph) which is what YOU are talking about, in which points can be plotted and a position on a spectrum can be determined, and a bar graph which is what I am talking about, and which in this context, is used to classify members of groups?

 

[Paul2]

Ultimately, sure. But there's an enormous edifice in between that often seems more important than the kind of gamete an individual will notionally produce.

Important for what? My goal was to define sex, as distinct from diagnosing someone or some group in terms of sex.

I mean, I'm not inclined to regard a woman with Swyer syndrome as "not female", and not just because I don't want to be impolite.

I'm not up on the implications of Swyer syndrome, and the Wikipedia page didn't help me much.

 

[Ziggurat]

I freely admit that I'd say raping people is fairly offensive, and also that I remain puzzled as to what Mulvaney has done which warrants comparison to Cosby.

A: Would you have sex with me for a million dollars?
B: Yes.
A: Would you have sex with me for ten dollars?
B: No! What do you think I am, a prostitute?
A: We already established that, now we're just haggling over price.

The point is not that Mulvaney did something as bad as Cosby. The point is that you have a line you don't want crossed for endorsements. So do other people. The "price" may be different, but the principle is the same.

If you think she has said or done something which warrants a boycott, what exactly was it?

It's not about me. I don't drink Bud Light, so I couldn't boycott them if I wanted to. But you were asking about other people. And I already told you.

 

[d4m10n]

The point is not that Mulvaney did something as bad as Cosby. The point is that you have a line you don't want crossed for endorsements.

Didn't say I'd personally boycott Bud Light if they hired Bill Cosby to do celebrity endorsements, but rather that I'd at least understand why people would boycott in that event. They would boycott because rape is grievously harmful to victims and because people who do such things shouldn't be seen as worthy of emulation.

What I still don't get is what Mulvaney did which makes this comparison even remotely valid. Whom did she harm?


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[mumblethrax]

There's only a need for additional testing if the reproductive anatomy is ambiguous. People with Swyer Syndrome have unambiguously female reproductive anatomy. They're classed as females.

Well, apart from the fact that they don't have ovaries and don't produce egg calls. Which is what people here generally want to say defines sex. And if we 'diagnose' them as female despite that, we're pretty clearly disregarding that definition, for that purpose. Which implies that there's something else at work here. (And that something else is presumably 'all the other aspects of reproductive anatomy').

Which means we aren't just making a distinction between definition and diagnosis, but are actually using a different definition for the purpose of sorting individuals.

If they can't be both at the same time... they can't be classed as in-between either.

I don't want to class them as in-between. If I'm trying to quantify something like "femaleness", I'm not treating the phenomenon as categorical at all.

 

[mumblethrax]

Really? You don't understand the difference between a graph (also called a line graph)

Erm, all graphs are graphs.

These are all just ways of visualizing data. If you're saying you can create an unordered group of bars for 'male', 'female', and whatever other categories we need to be exhaustive, you are in fact saying we can graph sex.

 

[Ziggurat]

What I still don't get is what Mulvaney did which makes this comparison even remotely valid. Whom did she harm?

Why do you think any specific person needs to be harmed? Are you under the impression that people won't boycott over being offended? Of course they will. And why not? Nobody needs to drink Bud Light. All they had going for them was a brand, and they damaged the brand. There's no mystery here.