Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
<grumble> Read just a little teensy bit further. It's not exactly a long document, so it shouldn't be too difficult. It actually expands on 'normal' and addresses your complaint quite effectively.
Merged Strict biological definitions of male/female
- Thread starter d4m10n
- Start date
Exactly right. Case 1 leading Emily, or her cat if I'm not mistaken, to insist that CAIS people are females and case 2 leading Rolfe, if I'm not mistaken, and many others -- like "la scapigliata" -- to insist that they're males.
Denialism -- canons (sic) -- to the Left of us, denialism -- canons (sic) -- to the Right of us. Maybe we're "on" de Nile? So to speak ... Into the valley rode the 600 ...
But methinks it's less "Republican science denialism" and more "feminist denialism" as that EO was apparently written by a dyed-in-the-wool feminist. And most, if not all, church-goers there take it as an article of faith that everyone has to be either male or female from conception -- if not before -- to death -- if not after. They're the ones denying, at least the science, that many of us are, in fact, neither male nor female, at least for some portions of our lives.
Except that that definition you quoted -- apparently coined by Heather Heying and her merry band of feminist ideologues -- is NOT what is stipulated in the standard biological definitions promulgated in sources more credible than the letter section of the UK Times -- a decent enough newspaper, but hardly what one call a peer-reviewed journal. Though some so-called peers of the realm (*cough Dawkins, Coyne, Pigliucci, et al *cough) are looking rather thread-bare themselves -- speaking of bare-neked emperors -- and may no longer deserve the titles.But apropos of which and of Heying, Herself, y'all might consider:
On Being Defrauded by Heather Heying
A Tale of Hypocrisy in Two Acts
On Being Defrauded by Heather Heying
A Tale of Hypocrisy in Two Acts
humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com
Rolfe
Adult human female
The British Invasion: TERF Island and Trump’s Executive Order on “Biological Truth” - Fairer Disputations
Who could have dreamt of reading, in an order signed by the President, that “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female”? Governing institutions are not in the habit of affirming widely known scientific truths. Perhaps the last time that happened was in 1992...
fairerdisputations.org
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
You're a bit mistaken.
I believe that both Rolfe and I take the view that CAIS individuals are pragmatically female for the purpose of public policy.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
And then puts forth a definition that means CAIS people are male for purposes of Title IX and other federal laws, because they would have had "the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes sperm for fertilization" but for a mutation in the androgen receptor gene. So much for "pragmatically female," eh?
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The British Invasion: TERF Island and Trump’s Executive Order on “Biological Truth” - Fairer Disputations
Who could have dreamt of reading, in an order signed by the President, that “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female”? Governing institutions are not in the habit of affirming widely known scientific truths. Perhaps the last time that happened was in 1992...fairerdisputations.org
"our precious bodily fluids", our "mythic essences". A lot of that goin' round these days -- and among both the usual and the unusual suspects:General Ripper:
-- and many feminists:
"muh humanity!!"-- Alex Byrne:
What a flaming idiot is Byrne. Though I appreciate the link to the Thread-Reader roll up of Hilton's tweets -- they're generally not available unless one has an account there -- on Twitter.The whole point of the standard biological definitions is that EVERYTHING has to be "working" in the production of gametes to qualify an organism for a membership card in the sex categories. He might just as well define a clock "as a device that, if all things are working, tells time" and then insist, on pain of death if not excommunication, that a "clock" that has been pounded down into rubble, melted into an ingot, and then hammered into a can-opener is still a clock ...
And yet, my wife remains female and my young great-nephew remains male, with not a viable gamete between them.
Mea culpa; shoot me at dawn ...
Though considering your championing of "the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes eggs for fertilization", one might reasonably wonder how you get from the internal, but non-functional, testicles of "CAIS individuals" to a "reproductive system that at some point produces eggs" ...
Inquiring minds and all that. That "point" of yours must be well over the horizon behind us or ahead of us, if not into never-never-land ...
But seems you've got two potentially contradictory conditions to qualify for the female category -- most often you're going to have a "reproductive system that produces eggs" joined at the hip with some other system that "transports and utilizes eggs for fertilization". But in a significant number of cases you're going to have "a reproductive system that at some point (in a galaxy far, far away) produces sperm" coupled with that same "transports and utilizes (non-existent) eggs for fertilization". If you're going to say that the transport system is sufficient for "female" then one might just as easily say that a "reproductive system that potentially (?) produces sperm" is sufficient to qualify an individual as a male.
But such a lot "motivated reasoning" -- though some pretty impressive contortions thereby -- just to avoid having to admit that the upshot of the biological definitions for the sexes means that some third of us, at any one time, are, in fact, sexless."
"pragmatically" is rather different from "essentially". But if "pragmatically" is what you're going to put your money on then why not simply say that the "operational" criteria for accessing toilets and change rooms is vaginas or penises -- or reasonable facsimiles thereof? Change the signs above the loos from dresses and pants to ovaries and testicles?
Don't think so. Entirely relevant and germane to the question of what it takes to qualify for membership in the categories "male" and "female" -- as sexes -- strict or not, genders, or types of plumbing and electrical connectors.
The last of which you should at least have some handle on:
Gender of connectors and fasteners - Wikipedia
Rather amused to note Wikipedia's title since less prudish, or ideologically captured, sources say "sex of connectors".
No medical professional, government record-keeping bureau, insurance company, or casual acquaintance has ever categorized my four-legged one-tailed dog as a five-legged dog.
Yet every such person, and everyone else besides you, categorizes my wife as female and my great-nephew as male. Abraham Lincoln would too, if he were still alive instead of rolling over in his grave at all the stupid misuses of his quote.
One can lead many skeptics to a syllogism or an analogy but often rather difficult to actually get them to think ...
Nope, sorry. Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers wouldn't -- at least if they'd stop talking out of both sides of their mouths:
SF Chronicle gets biological sex badly wrong
If ever there were a headline designed to get my dander up, it’s this one from a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed (click screenshot below to read, or see it archived here). The author’s se…
whyevolutionistrue.com
Likewise, a trio of reputable biologists writing in the Wiley Online Library on the general case:
There was no syllogism and I pointed out exactly how the analogy fails.
Nope, sorry. Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers wouldn't -- at least if they'd stop talking out of both sides of their mouths:
SF Chronicle gets biological sex badly wrong
If ever there were a headline designed to get my dander up, it’s this one from a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed (click screenshot below to read, or see it archived here). The author’s se…
Likewise, a trio of reputable biologists writing in the Wiley Online Library on the general case:
A simplified definition like "individuals that produce ova" cannot be a complete technical definition. It can only be an overview of the key ideas of the technical definition.
Any physics textbook will tell you that the technical definition of energy is the ability to do work. But if that were the whole of the technical definition of energy, ambient heat would not be energy, because it cannot do any work. Gasoline in the absence of an ignition source would contain no energy, because it cannot do any work. Uranium 235 would have suddenly acquired energy when nuclear reactors were invented. Conservation of mass-energy could not be a consistent physical law because energy would appear and disappear based on the availability of the exact means by which that specific form of energy could do work. But none of that is true. The issue here is with the word "ability," which in the technical definition cannot technically mean its exact usual dictionary definition. It doesn't mean "ability right at the moment under present conditions."
If I said (on a resume perhaps) I have the ability to translate hieroglyphics, you'd think me dishonest if it turned out my ability to translate hieroglyphics were contingent on my hiring an expert Egyptologist or my first spending several months learning the subject. But that's the sense in which energy is the ability to do work: under ideal hypothetical scenarios. That nuance of "ability" isn't included in the technical definition of energy, but it's implicit in how actual physics conceptualizes and measures energy.
As has been repeatedly pointed out to you by others, the issue with Myers' (and a few others') "technical" definitions is likewise with the word "produces."
In any case, my wife remains female and my young great-nephew remains male, with not a viable gamete between them.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
You need to stop talking actual science... you'll just confuse him.... even more!
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
Oh tnoes! I have a definitional disagreement with federal policy, therefore we should toss the entire thing in the dumpster and set it on fire!!!11111eleventyone!
Once again I'll point out that *in reality* literally nobody is going to know that a person is CAIS except them and their doctor - and hell, maybe not even them unless something prompts a deeper investigation. There's nothing external that suggests or indicates anything other than bog-standard female. So in the real world, regardless of the technical nitpicky down in the weeds one in a million situation where the definition doesn't work absolutely perfectly... it's not actually going to matter for anyone because nobody knows and nobody can reasonable know. In those extraordinarily rare situations where it actually comes up... we can all figure it out then.
But for now, digging in your heels on a definition that works great 99.9995% of the time seems a bit obstructionist. Either that, or you're trying to up your internet points?
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
The law is not a perfect system of formal logic. It has many loopholes and discontinuities. There's already processes for addressing these anomalies as they arise. It's no surprise that this EO doesn't address CAIS individuals in a matter that has never, *ever* addressed CAIS individuals before. The fact that CAIS hasn't come up *at all* so far in practice suggests that their omission from the EO is a minor issue at worst, and easily remedied in the unlikely event it comes up in connection with the EO.
tl;dr - this debate about trans rights in public policy would be a lot different if it were actually about finding the right restroom for CAIS individuals.
tl;dr - this debate about trans rights in public policy would be a lot different if it were actually about finding the right restroom for CAIS individuals.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
Once again I'll point out that they shouldn't have to be in the closet in order to benefit from Title IX.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
That is not, and never has been an issue.
Rolfe
Adult human female
I think they are going to know unless in a third world country. A girl who hasn't had a period by her mid-teens should have that investigated, and nearly always does.
This has always seemed to me to be the answer for girls with serious athletics ambitions. Somewhere around 14-15, old enough to understand what's going on and old enough to have started menstruation, they have that cheek swab taken. In preparation for that, someone, probably a female coach, explains to them that any girl who has started her periods has absolutely nothing to be concerned about. Any girl who hasn't should talk to her mother about it, or if that's a problem in any way, the coach's door is always open for that conversation.
The chances are that a girl doing serious sports who hasn't started her periods by 14-15 is probably just training too hard or something, but she should see a doctor anyway, if only to be told to ease off a bit. Once in a blue moon it's going to be something more serious than this that really does need medical involvement. Handled this way it stops being a question of "is this person eligible for the women's events" and becomes a medical condition that is being properly investigated and treated.