Merged Strict biological definitions of male/female

[Steersman]

You saying it multiple times doesn't make it true. Your "standard" definition is NOT the standard definition. It's your personal interpretation, based on what you are assuming beforehand then wedging the definition into.

And you -- and Emma Hilton & Colin Wright -- saying "eventually produces" or "previously produced" as criteria for sex category membership doesn't make it true either. Only your "misinterpretation". As saying that 2+2=5 doesn't make that true. As saying that freemartins are female doesn't make that true either:

A freemartin or free-martin (sometimes martin heifer) is an infertile cow with masculinized behavior and non-functioning ovaries. Phenotypically, the animal appears female, but various aspects of female reproductive development are altered due to acquisition of anti-Müllerian hormone from the male twin.

Freemartin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"phenotypically female" is not the same thing as "reproductively competent", the sine qua non for sex category membership. At least by the standard biologically definitions which are published, and utilized, in reputable journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries:

For instance, a mammalian embryo with heterozygous sex chromosomes (XY-setup) is not reproductively competent, as it does not produce gametes of any size. Thus, strictly speaking it does not have any biological sex, yet.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/bies.202200173

https://twitter.com/x/status/1039879009407037441

 

[Steersman]

Yes I have.

Pseudohermaphrodites do not fit neatly into either male or female.

Sex is not binary.

That sex is -- by definition -- a binary does not mean that every member of every anisogamous species -- including the human one -- is either male or female. Technically speaking, some third of us, at any one time, are sexless. Including the prepubescent, most of the intersex, and transwomen who cut their nuts off.

You might try reading this article:

"Sex is real: Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other"

The existence of biological sex is no constraint on human diversity | Aeon Essays

Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other

aeon.co

 

[Joe Random]

<...>

I do know a handful of trans people, and their rights should not be restricted.

Funny (but not surprising) how all the clownfish/DSD/what-sodding-ever distraction roads from any source always seem to lead to "... which is why men with functioning wedding tackle need to be allowed to swim competitively against all those other people sporting a vag.".

 

[d4m10n]

I do know a handful of trans people, and their rights should not be restricted.

Whether the OP is true or false, it's not obvious how it should impact trans rights.

Care to unpack how biological definitions of male and female would do that?

 

[smartcooky]

ETA and to show jut how far away from facts that site is, another article on that site claims that trans people change sex, and that sports competitors can choose their own sex.

So source credibility =ZERO. That's just the kind of sites that bobdroege7 usually links to!

 

[bobdroege7]

Funny (but not surprising) how all the clownfish/DSD/what-sodding-ever distraction roads from any source always seem to lead to "... which is why men with functioning wedding tackle need to be allowed to swim competitively against all those other people sporting a vag.".

I have already stated that I am against that, only those with testosterone levels in the female range should be able to compete against those sporting a vag.

Edited to add: especially contact sports such as women's lacrosse and field hockey.

 

[Rolfe]

Once someone has gone through male puberty they have and retain male advantage irrespective of current testosterone concentration. Which is an extremely movable feast in any case. You can't unbake that cake.

 

[bobdroege7]

Delusional

You're right, including not getting between battered woman and/or rape victims, and their counselors!

You think transpeople are coming for you? Paranoid much?

Yes it is a basic human rights issue. The human rights of half the population should NOT be trampled over to satisfy the predilections of a tiny minority.

Oooh, you're playing the "some of my best friends" card. Are any of you best friends women? Or Black?

[OFF TOPIC] but related
Well guess what. I know several LGBTQ+ people too. One of the activities I am involved in (competitive equestrian sports) has a lot of them. NOT ONE OF THEM thinks that sex is on a spectrum. They all believe (correctly) that it is binary (I've asked them).

The three transwomen I know are all pissed off with this Liberal political zeal to legalize fiat self ID. Its ruined everything for them - they used to be able to go about their business and private lives including using women's rest rooms, and no-one would bat an eyelid. Now, they feel like they are being watched and stared at wherever they go and whatever they do. It is biological revisionists like you who are the direct cause of this - you're hurting the very people you claim to be protecting!

Wow, you are a really nice guy.

But you can't read very well.

Did I say I think trans people are coming for me, no I did not, but that does not mean Trump and Mush are not coming for my social security.

And how are the rights of half the population being trampled by allowing trans people their rights.

Note that I didn't any of my friends are trans.

And I note you claim it is a belief they have. Still, some don't fit neatly into the male female binary.

 

[bobdroege7]

Once someone has gone through male puberty they have and retain male advantage irrespective of current testosterone concentration. Which is an extremely movable feast in any case. You can't unbake that cake.

Yes, I agree with that statement.

Competing in sports is not a right, it's a privilege.

I agree with this person's take

Renée Richards - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Having lived for the past 30 years, I know if I'd had surgery at the age of 22, and then at 24 went on the tour, no genetic woman in the world would have been able to come close to me. And so I've reconsidered my opinion.

 

[bobdroege7]

there is no intermediate gamete type, so your analogy fails

It wasn't my analogy.

Is sex determined by what gamete is produced?

 

[bobdroege7]

and that sports competitors can choose their own sex.

That was a court ruling.

"The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that athletes can determine their own sex in international sports like the Olympics until a foolproof way is found to differentiate men from women.[3]"

Take it up with the Swiss.

 

[theprestige]

I have already stated that I am against that, only those with testosterone levels in the female range should be able to compete against those sporting a vag.

Edited to add: especially contact sports such as women's lacrosse and field hockey.

"Testosterone levels in the female range" and "sporting a vag" both seem like binary criteria to me.

 

[Paul2]

Is sex determined by what gamete is produced?

More strictly, it's determined by what gamete the body has been evolutionarily designed to produce.

 

[smartcooky]

Wow, you are a really nice guy.

True

But you can't read very well.

I can read perfectly well

Did I say I think trans people are coming for me

Yes, you did

If I don't stand up for trans people there will be nobody to stand up for me when they come for me

And how are the rights of half the population being trampled by allowing trans people their rights.

Men and women each have the right to their own, sex-segregated safe spaces. Women are half the population.

When biological males are allowed access to women's toilets, bathrooms and changing rooms, that tramples on those rights.
When biological males are allowed access to women's domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centres that tramples on those rights.
When biological males are incarcerated in women's prisons, that tramples on those rights
When biological males are allowed to enter women's sporting competitions, that tramples on those rights

Note that I didn't any of my friends are trans.

You implied it, and in any case, the "some of my best friends" card is functionally indistinguishable from the "some of the people I know" card

And I note you claim it is a belief they have. Still, some don't fit neatly into the male female binary.

And I note, you have yet to provide a single example of this that survived being quickly and comprehensively debunked by Agatha, or b, or Louden Wilde, or Rolfe or a number of others, including myself.

Until you can come up with an example that is NOT male and NOT female, and is instead a third sex, you have nothing. No argument, no evidence, no proof, so in accordance with Hitchens's razor, your claim that sex is on a spectrum is dismissed

 

[smartcooky]

I have already stated that I am against that, only those with testosterone levels in the female range should be able to compete against those sporting a vag.

Edited to add: especially contact sports such as women's lacrosse and field hockey.

Not enough.
Lowering testosterone levels in adult competitions is ineffective. Male puberty imparts additional strength, muscle tone, lung capacity, bone density and other physical attributes that cannot be reversed. Its a bell that cannot be unrung.

 

[smartcooky]

More strictly, it's determined by what gamete the body has been evolutionarily designed is organized to produce.

FTFY.

Its just a nitpick, but evolution is not a design, its a result of random mutations.

"Designed" necessarily implies a purpose and a designer.
"Organized" does not necessarily imply an organizer.

 

[Joe Random]

I have already stated that I am against that, only those with testosterone levels in the female range should be able to compete against those sporting a vag.

Edited to add: especially contact sports such as women's lacrosse and field hockey.

Okay, then can you list a specific right or rights which you feel trans people should be given, which would require defining biological sex as a spectrum rather than a binary? I don't mean something general like 'to be able to live as their authentic selves' or the like. But at least one specific 'should be allowed to ____' right which would not be possible if biological sex were binary, but would if it were a spectrum?

 

[Steersman]

<snip>

By the same token, Coyne gets some pretty basic stuff wrong about gender, such as claiming "it still has two camel’s-hump modes around 'male' and 'female,'" when in point of fact (1) female refers to sex; feminine to gender and (2) there is no ordinal variable which would allow such a plot to even exist.

Coyne has been blathering away on "bimodal" for a coon's age though previously on sex itself:

Sex in humans may not be binary, but it’s surely bimodal​

Sex in humans may not be binary, but it’s surely bimodal

There seems to be repeated confusion, willful or otherwise, about the nature of sex (here I’m talking about biological sex, not gender, which is one’s perceived identity). I’m fin…

whyevolutionistrue.com

Seem to recollect that, at that time, both Colin Wright and Emma Hilton, in a series of tweets, attempted to show him the errors of his ways, though he certainly didn't seem willing to give any thought to their arguments.

As for "feminine gender", and as a point of reference, consider a rather cogent and illuminating analogy from the late great US Justice Anton Scalia which emphasized that dichotomy, and the usefulness of separate words for each:

The word "gender" has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine to male.

J. E. B. v. Alabama ex rel. T. B., 511 U.S. 127 (1994)

J. E. B. v. Alabama ex rel. T. B.

supreme.justia.com

This latest kerfuffle isn't a battle of steel-men, it's Amateur Hour On Sex and Gender.

Amen to that. Pretty much everyone is riding madly off in all directions, largely due to inconsistent and contradictory definitions for both "sex" and "gender".

 

[Elaedith]

Coyne's view was discussed before. He argued that sex is a categorical variable where almost all cases fit in to one of two categories, but a miniscule number might not be obviously allocated to one of these categories due to unusual DSDs. Therefore he said that sex is technically bimodal but for nearly all intents and purposes it is binary (as you could say that a tossed coin could land heads, tails or on its edge, but for practical purposes a coin toss is binary).
I don't know whether he has revised this view. However, this is nothing to do with what Novella and others are arguing, which is more related to trying to represent sex as a continuous variable ranging from male to female, with two peaks representing male and female modes, and no indication of how maleness and femaleness are quantified.

 

[theprestige]

@bobdroege7, what are the practical applications of defining sex as a spectrum?