d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
It certainly was when last you posted it; we don't get to retcon the facts here.
Merged Strict biological definitions of male/female
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Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
I'm going to quibble a bit here, and note that you are talking past each other.
Yes, sex evolved for reproduction. Reproduction is why it evolved, the two go hand in hand. Specifically, sexes evolved in tandem with differentiated gametes that each specialize in an aspect of the reproductive game. Turns out that having two different gametes, with different "strategies" is more likely to result in successfully passing genetic material to another generation at a lower investment cost. It's a near-optimum in terms of likelihood to find a compatible genetic partner, minimizing the body's material investment in passing on those genes, and balancing likelihood of survival of offspring against the parent's likelihood to reproduce again. Lots of variations involved, lots of different strategies, but yeah - two different gametes with different material investments is a really highly effective mechanism.
That said, because sex evolved for reproduction, smartcooky is right - having individuals that are not male or female implies that they must have a third reproductive role from an evolutionary perspective - and thus they'd be a new and different sex.
You guys are saying the same thing - you're in violent agreement here.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
It seems to me that you've smuggled in a questionable premise here.
P) All individuals must have a reproductive role, even those with disorders of reproductive development.
I would affirm ¬P since we don't live in a universe created by a benevolent deity who wants us all to be fruitful, but rather a universe governed by laws which don't care about our reproductive fitness.
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Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
They're not different, they're separate.
For example... people of either sex have the RIGHT to deny consent for other people to look at their naked bodies, or to view the naked bodies of others. I'm taking this from a female perspective, because the overwhelming majority of peeping toms and flashers are males. Females have the right to say "no, you don't get to ogle me while I'm naked in the female shower at the gym, I do not consent". We also have the right to say "no, I don't want to see your tumescent penis and dangling balls in the female changing room, I do not consent"
Females have the right under Title IX to fair and equal opportunity to participate in sports, and in order for that to happen, we need female-only sports.
Both sexes have the right to judicial sentencing that is not cruel or unusual, and protection from sexaul assault and rape is part of that - and that should include having prisons that are separated on the basis of actual real sex, without exceptions.
Allowing people's subjective, internal, unverifiable feelings about how they wish other people would think about them and the way they wish to move through society violates those rights - and it does so in a way that is undeniably disproportionate. It's not males whose safety, dignity, and basic human protections are being tossed aside - it's females who are placed at risk and whose consent is being overridden in preference to the feelings of males.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
No, I haven't. You're trying to shoehorn that into the discussion. Reproductive roles aren't based on individuals, they're based on the reproductive phenotype that has evolved, and which of those two - and only two - evolved phenotypes that applies.
I arguably don't have an individual reproductive role - I have not and cannot reproduce. But I have a phenotype that evolved for the female reproductive role within our species. Therefore I am female, irrespective of whether my uterus works properly or not.
Even people with disorders of their reproductive development have a reproductive phenotype - they still have a sex. They're not sexless, nor are they are third sex. Each and every one of them is either male or female, even if it's difficult for us to figure out which one.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
There are only two phenotypes which can reproduce but the possibility of disordered development means that we don't know whether any given individual can be classified into one of them. Your claim that "individuals that are not male or female implies that they must have a third reproductive role" doesn't stand up because there is no reason to believe that every individual organism develops into a reproductive role.
Do you remember the Quigley scaleWP which I linked earlier? It's an excellent example of how phenotype need not be clearly along one developmental path or another.
I remain highly skeptical of this unsubstantiated claim. People born with female body habitus and non-functional internal testicles don't have an obvious phenotype because they have a mix of sexual characteristics and no gametes to break the tie.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
EXTERNAL GENITALIA ALONE DO NOT CONSTITUTE A REPRODUCTIVE PHENOTYPE
angrysoba
Philosophile
In fact, that Psychology Today article is not the original source. It initially comes from a Twitter handle called DaysGoByGoBy. And to add to the confusion, CAIS appears in the table as "female" while smartcooky assures us they are male.
As Emily's Cat pointed out, PAIS is also controversial.
I mean, it seems to me that there is enough ambiguity and disagreement over these conditions, not to mention the fact that in most or many cases they would appear female, that the term "intersex" makes perfect denotational sense if we ignore any loaded connotations with the word.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
It's easy to remain highly skeptical when you just snip out the bits that challenge your skepticism and pretend like they don't exist.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
Where did you decide CAIS people belong again?
As I said, it's an example.
If you want to maintain the claim that individuals with "disorders of their reproductive development have a reproductive phenotype" then you'll have to deal with all various possibilities and all possible variations.
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d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
It's almost as if some individuals with disorders of their reproductive development don't really have a reproductive phenotype (which presumably exists in the Platonic realm of perfect forms) but rather have just what they have, that is, ambiguity.
That's ok, in my book. Nature isn't bound by any cosmic law to make things easy on those creatures who are blessed with minds and cursed with a desire to classify themselves and all else they find.
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angrysoba
Philosophile
Yes, I think people seem to be confused about what classifications are used for and useful for. From a medical point of view, it is useful to know someone is CAIS or PAIS, I am sure. From a social point of view, almost certainly far less useful.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
I'm trying to think of a good way to prove the oft-repeated claim that every human (or mammal, or anisogamous animal) has a reproductive phenotype.
So far, I've come up with a couple possibilities.
Possibly there are other ways to do this that don't involve just asserting the claim over and over WITH OCCASIONAL ALL CAPS to show how much you really mean it.
So far, I've come up with a couple possibilities.
1) Show that every possible DSD falls cleanly into male or female given clear criteria (good luck!)
2) Show that every individual has some traits which put them into either male or female, regardless of disorders which arise in the process of development leading to some traits which we'd normally associate with either side
2) Show that every individual has some traits which put them into either male or female, regardless of disorders which arise in the process of development leading to some traits which we'd normally associate with either side
Possibly there are other ways to do this that don't involve just asserting the claim over and over WITH OCCASIONAL ALL CAPS to show how much you really mean it.
Indeed. The problem, at least with Emily's kick at the kitty -- hers or someone else's, is that she has a rather selective and variable idea as to what constitutes said "reproductive phenotype".
For example, in many cases she will say that the whole ball of wax constitutes said phenotype:
But she has also said that, as in the case of CAIS people, said female phenotype can exclude "ovarian tissue" and include "atrophic" testicular tissue in place of it:
One might wonder what is the minimum in that set of "phenotypic" traits that would still qualify an individual for membership in the exalted category "female". Particularly since she has emphasized -- in capital letters, no less -- that "External Genitalia Alone Do Not Constitute A Reproductive Phenotype (!!11!!
)"But one might reasonably argue that that minimum has to include a set of functioning ovaries -- bit difficult see how there can be any "reproductive function" absent them.
Kinda think that what she, and too many others, are relying on is the infamous "property cluster" definition for the sexes. Kathleen Stock once argued for that -- in an old Quillette article -- but subsequently, in another one at Duke Law, she more or less backs away from that largely bogus and biologically untenable definition:
Ignoring Differences Between Men and Women Is the Wrong Way to Address Gender Dysphoria
The main problem with sex eliminationism is that, in a nutshell, it leaves us with no adequate language to describe a politically important feature of material reality.
quillette.com
But her Duke Law underlines the limitations of said "theory":
The Importance of Referring to Human Sex in Language | Law and Contemporary Problems
Abstract Publication Citation Kathleen Stock, The Importance of Referring to Human Sex in Language, 85 Law and Contemporary Problems 25-45 (2022)Available at: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/lcp/vol85/iss1/3
lcp.law.duke.edu
Playing fast and loose, gesturing hypnotically, with "homeostatic" since there's generally a function or process associated with homeostasis -- maintaining body temperature for example -- such that all of the properties are essential to it. In the case of the sexes, the function and process is "produces gametes".
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Norman Alexander
Penultimate Amazing
No, they are neither different nor separate.
No, that's just convention and the law. Some people whose name rhymes with frump think they are perfectly entitled to ogle naked young females as a right.
That's a law, not a right. And the latter does not logically follow from the former.
Again, that's laws, not rights. Plenty of countries don't have such rights.
So males cannot feel male? Gays cannot feel gay? Trans cannot feel different?
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Nothing tricky about it
Answered where this is on topic... in the "Transwomen are not women" thread.
There is no "gender" involved here. "Gender" is a social construct. "Sex" is biological science
No, its not.
There are TWO and only TWO sexes in humans... male and female. Every individual is either one or the other, even edge cases such as CAIS, PAIS and other DSD.
How edge cases should be treated is another matter entirely, and is not a discussion for this thread (which is why I took those replies to the appropriate thread.)
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Kind of at least sympathize with much of your argument there. Although Norman may have a point or two about the dichotomy between rights and laws. You might take a gander at what the UN says on the latter:
Basically, one might argue that rights are, as suggested, applicable to everyone equally. But questions of discrimination on the basis of various personal traits -- sex, gender, and race in particular -- is a matter of law. Largely why there are "plans afoot" to define "man" and "woman" in law so as to justify what is basically that discrimination on the basis of sex:
I gather you're in the UK, and since I've read Kathleen Stock's Material Girls -- highly recommended, though a bit dated (2021), but some cogent and useful insights -- you might know of the Equality Act there, which she goes into some detail on, which apparently accepts discrimination on that basis. Even if the politicians and lawyers have made a dog's breakfast out of that by adulterating it with matters of gender.
But apparently it's a different kettle of fish in the US where they generally anathematize any discrimination at all -- apparently the US Supreme Court has said that affirmative action is illegal -- although that hasn't prevented that type of discrimination with DEI. However the recent Supreme Court case about a "Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors" suggests one "loop-hole" of sorts:
In particular:
"gender" is, of course, anything but "immutable", particularly since many of its proponents champion its "fluidity". But defining "woman", in law, as something other than "adult human female" -- and abandoning the scientifically untenable idea that "sex is immutable" -- in favour of something like "adult human ovary-haver" might well be said to make the category and state "immutable". And thereby deserving of additional protections, and permitting discrimination, in law.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
In that case, it would have made things a bit simpler to start with a simple yes or no.
Since they were assessed at birth as female, have always thought of themselves as female, look anatomically female, pass as female and have been treated all their lives as female, perhaps they should be "grandfathered in" to using female spaces.
Perhaps they should, and I'd even say "Yes; of course they should."
That said, does the EO allow such a grandfathering to take place? I'd say "No, of course it does not." This is because the EO engages in science denialism by pretending the difficult edge cases do not exist, repealing the guidance on intersex students and providing no other guidance in its place.
I remain highly skeptical of this unevidenced claim, just as before. We skeptics cannot even agree amongst ourselves where to classify the edge cases, as we've seen above. You even went so far as to disagree with the meme you posted without attribution.
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d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
I'd say this thread is more appropriate:
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
"If you can't exactly and specifically address every single possible variation, known or unknown, then you're not allowed to draw any conclusions or recognize reality, you have to pretend like nothing is known at all!!!111"