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

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Lplus said:
The biological nature of the human animal is pretty darned immutable, however much you may wish it were not.
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Why would you imagine I want that? You're still on the hunt for witches.

I've already made the argument that this is all kind of irrelevant. We're talking about a legal definition that means nothing more than "What are we talking about for the purposes of the law when we say sex."

That, at least, is certainly mutable. Whether it ought to be changed is an entirely different matter that has very little to do with the technical, biological definition.

People are still making the basic error of confusing sex with gender (the legal understanding of sex). They aren't the same thing at all.
 
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TurkeysGhost said:
Is this thread a contest?
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It's an argument.

You may have a point though. Others have wisely decided to avoid this thread, or the forum, altogether to avoid getting any of the bigotry filth on their digital shoes. Perhaps they chose the smarter path than endlessly rehashing the same old arguments.
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And still proving my point: you have nothing to contribute except insults. You aren't getting filth on your shoes, you're the one tracking it in.

TurkeysGhost said:
Dispassion seems to be a luxury for those who don't stand to lose anything or those that lack basic empathy.
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You don't stand to lose anything by what happens in this thread. Nobody does. And cut the pretense to "basic empathy". You have repeatedly displayed no empathy for those harmed by trans activism. "I get to be rude because I'm empathetic" is some galaxy brain bull **** self-justification.
 
Ziggurat said:
It's an argument.



And still proving my point: you have nothing to contribute except insults. You aren't getting filth on your shoes, you're the one tracking it in.
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I don't deny it, i am mostly here to mock the hare-brained ideas that arise in this thread. From time to time there are ideas that seem serious enough to discuss earnestly, but that by far is not the norm.
 
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mumblethrax said:
Why would you imagine I want that? You're still on the hunt for witches.

I've already made the argument that this is all kind of irrelevant. We're talking about a legal definition that means nothing more than "What are we talking about for the purposes of the law when we say sex."

That, at least, is certainly mutable. Whether it ought to be changed is an entirely different matter that has very little to do with the technical, biological definition.

People are still making the basic error of confusing sex with gender (the legal understanding of sex). They aren't the same thing at all.
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I think you'd agree that the legal definition of sex could be "biological sex as defined by gamete type" with exceptional cases specified?
 
mumblethrax said:
Why would you imagine I want that? You're still on the hunt for witches.

I've already made the argument that this is all kind of irrelevant. We're talking about a legal definition that means nothing more than "What are we talking about for the purposes of the law when we say sex."

That, at least, is certainly mutable. Whether it ought to be changed is an entirely different matter that has very little to do with the technical, biological definition.

People are still making the basic error of confusing sex with gender (the legal understanding of sex). They aren't the same thing at all.
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Why on earth would the law want to use a definition other than the scientifically factual one?
 
TurkeysGhost said:
Dispassion seems to be a luxury for those who don't stand to lose anything or those that lack basic empathy.
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No one has nothing to lose here and it is downright silly to pretend only one side lays claim to righteous anger.

Even if we focused entirely on sport, the elevation of gender identity over biological reality would effect anyone who loves and supports at least one female athlete, not to mention the fanbases who make women's sports increasingly viable as a professional career path.
 
Lplus said:
Why on earth would the law want to use a definition other than the scientifically factual one?
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Because scientific definitions are not developed for the purpose of running human societies. They are developed for the purpose of describing the natural world. They tend to be, if nothing else, inaccessible.

I mean, the scientific definition is phenotypic. It's counter-intuitive to basically everyone to say that your behavior is part of your sex.

We're not really talking about the scientific definition here. It's the common law definition. Them what carries da babies, and them what seeds 'em.
 
mumblethrax said:
Because scientific definitions are not developed for the purpose of running human societies. They are developed for the purpose of describing the natural world. They tend to be, if nothing else, inaccessible.

I mean, the scientific definition is phenotypic. It's counter-intuitive to basically everyone to say that your behavior is part of your sex.

We're not really talking about the scientific definition here. It's the common law definition. Them what carries da babies, and them what seeds 'em.
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That IS the biological definition of sex, and the scientific definition simply uses more complex words to say the same thing.
 
Lplus said:
That IS the biological definition of sex, and the scientific definition simply uses more complex words to say the same thing.
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It isn't.

Which is the problem here.

You're taking no care at all about what the legal consequences of changing the common law definition to the scientific one would be.
 
mumblethrax said:
It isn't.

Which is the problem here.

You're taking no care at all about what the legal consequences of changing the common law definition to the scientific one would be.
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What?

Them what carries da babies, and them what seeds 'em
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That's a perfect description of the biological functions of the two sexes. How does the scientific definition of the sexes not describe the same thing?
 
Lplus said:
That's a perfect description of the biological functions of the two sexes. How does the scientific definition of the sexes not describe the same thing?
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Most obviously, the scientific definition says nothing at all about who carries the babies.
 
mumblethrax said:
You're taking no care at all about what the legal consequences of changing the common law definition to the scientific one would be.
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What exactly do you imagine the difference would be? It might make a difference in a few DSD cases, but that's it. And the trans debate has basically nothing to do with DSD.
 
Ziggurat said:
What exactly do you imagine the difference would be?
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I don't know, which is sort of the point. There will be consequences, and we don't know what they are. The drafters of the Civil Rights Act had no idea they were protecting gay people from employment discrimination.
 
mumblethrax said:
Most obviously, the scientific definition says nothing at all about who carries the babies.
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So what? In humans, the one who produces the large gametes is always the one who carries the babies, if by "carry" you mean gestate. We aren't seahorses.
 
mumblethrax said:
I don't know, which is sort of the point. There will be consequences, and we don't know what they are. The drafters of the Civil Rights Act had no idea they were protecting gay people from employment discrimination.
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That had nothing to do with science, did it? So using science hardly creates legal uncertainties, does it?

Moreover, if we look at the past, we can see exactly what would have been different if we had adopted a different definition. And in basically all cases in the past, there would be no difference. Because the common law definition matched the scientific definition in almost all cases. As I already said, the only exceptions would be rare DSD cases, but the trans debate has nothing to do with DSD. Moving forward, yeah, we don't know exactly what the scientific definition might produce in the future, but we don't know exactly what the common law definition might produce either, so that's no argument against using the scientific definition as the legal definition.

Look, it's not that hard. We know what males are. We know what females are. The whole "how many hairs does it take to make a beard" testing of edge cases doesn't matter, because this debate isn't actually about edge cases. Trans people don't have DSD. We're trying to figure out what to do with people who are unambiguously male or female, but who want to be treated as if they were the opposite sex. What sex they actually are isn't actually in doubt in any of this.
 
Ziggurat said:
So what? In humans, the one who produces the large gametes is always the one who carries the babies, if by "carry" you mean gestate. We aren't seahorses.
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We are, however, a technologically advanced society. We've already made synthetic sperm cells from stem cells...it's conceivable that this will be a service in the near future.
 
Ziggurat said:
Moreover, if we look at the past, we can see exactly what would have been different if we had adopted a different definition.
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No, we can't. The Supreme Court spent more time debating what exactly "because of" means than what "sex" does (because it's relatively uncontroversial).

We cannot predict all the knock-on effects here.
 
mumblethrax said:
We are, however, a technologically advanced society. We've already made synthetic sperm cells from stem cells...it's conceivable that this will be a service in the near future.
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And? What's that got to do with the trans debate? Nothing. Nothing at all.

And I somehow doubt that stem cell to sperm cell process really will be of much use. In the 70's, some radical feminists got all excited at the prospect of egg merging to create an embryo without sperm. They actually believed that their male-free utopia could happen. 50 years on, it's still nowhere in sight. Far more is theoretically possible than is practically realized.
 
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