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Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

d4m10n said:
False dilemma.
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It's not a false dilemma at all. Again, it doesn't matter what's logically possible. It's logically possible to argue that sex is trinary. But nobody is doing. The only actual positions that matter in terms of public policy (which is the entire reason this thread exists) are sex is binary and sex is a spectrum. Those are the two positions on offer, meaning those are the positions that actually have politically significant numbers of people adopting them. You can take up some other position if you like, but it won't matter. Any other position is irrelevant.
 
d4m10n said:
I've already conceded that the argument for bimodality fails spectacularly, in fact, I've argued for that position elsewhere.

Novella's primary argument is intended to conclude "humanity cannot be placed entirely into two categories" (M/F) and the bimodality claim needn't be true in order for that specific conclusion to be true. If his main conclusion is shown to be true, no specific public policy conclusions actually follow from it being true, at least not AFAICT.
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All that's needed to support Novella's claim is to show a single human being with a reproductive system that has evolved to support the production of either 1) a mixed gamete, or "sperg" if you will or 2) a unique third type of gamete.
 
d4m10n said:
No, he argues that there are too many different varieties of sex (gametic, genetic, morphological, etc.) to construct an overarching binary atop all of those various meanings which don't always line up.
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Well, then they're arguing a fantasist, humpty-dumpty, made-up version of sex that can be whatever they decide it to be in the moment. There aren't "varieties of sex", there is sex - the evolved role within anisogamous species. There are lots of secondary and tertiary characteristics that are associated with sex, but those are not actually sex - and at this point you should know it and be resistant to being gulled by charlatans selling snake oil.
 
theprestige said:
At no point on the Quigley scale does anyone approach being the opposite sex or a third sex.
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And yet it is clearly a spectrum rather than a binary, which was my point.
Emily's Cat said:
Genital morphology isn't sex.
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Sex is an idea (or a set of ideas) which we use to describe the world; many people do in fact think of it as determined by genitals. Any skeptic publication concerned with promoting scientific understanding of the topic should at some point address this naive sense of what people think "sex" should be taken to mean.
Emily's Cat said:
you should know it and be resistant to being gulled by charlatans selling snake oil.
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This is an incredibly uncharitable characterization of someone who has produced hundreds of hours of scientifically sound content for the skeptical community, based on one issue where he clearly goes awry—along with most practitioners in his field.
Emily's Cat said:
Quigley scale that you reference is only applicable to males.
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For purposes of public policy (which @Ziggurat insists is the real crux of the topic here) are you entirely comfortable with treating CAIS individuals on one end of that scale as males? Putting them in male prisons, for example. This idea strikes me as needlessly cruel, but I'm interested in hearing your take on how genetic maleness should intersect with public policy in such a case.
Ziggurat said:
It doesn't demonstrate that you're smart, that you understand complexity and nuance, it just shows you're more interested in sophistry than the actual relevant questions that people actually care about.
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Trying to demonstrate that complexity and nuance actually exist (e.g. in the policy question of where to put CAIS or PAIS prisoners) is not the same as trying to demonstrate one's own understanding. You have made the common mistake of addressing the arguer rather than the argument.
Emily's Cat said:
All that's needed to support Novella's claim is to show a single human being with a reproductive system that has evolved to support the production of either 1) a mixed gamete, or "sperg" if you will or 2) a unique third type of gamete.
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3) A single human being who was never on a developmental path to produce either gamete and therefore cannot be classified using the gametic binary.
Emily's Cat said:
there is sex - the evolved role within anisogamous species.
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Individuals who are congenitally incapable of producing either gamete do not have any reproductive role in an anisogamous species. If you want to show that Novella is wrong about being able to classify every individual as either male or female, you'll have to show that everyone who has never produced any gametes is nonetheless classifiable using something other than gametes.
 
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d4m10n said:
For purposes of public policy (which @Ziggurat insists is the real crux of the topic here) are you entirely comfortable with treating CAIS individuals on one end of that scale as males?
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Stop conflating DSD's with transgender issues. This thread is about transgender issues, it is NOT about how to handle DSDs. This conflation is deeply dishonest. If you actually want to discuss how to handle DSDs, use a different thread, or start your own.
d4m10n said:
Trying to demonstrate that complexity and nuance actually exist (e.g. in the policy question of where to put CAIS or PAIS prisoners) is not the same as trying to demonstrate one's own understanding. You have made the common mistake of addressing the arguer rather than the argument.
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No. You keep lying about what the argument even is. The argument isn't about what to do for people who have DSDs. Almost no transgender people have DSDs. Whatever exceptions we might make for someone with an actual DSD don't apply to transgender people without DSD's (basically all of them).

And the argument isn't even about whether sex is binary or a spectrum or something else. That's been done to death already, and there's a whole other thread for that if you want to keep going. I'm not playing your fringe reset game. I only ever brought up Novella's article to demonstrate to p0lka how deep the science denialism is. I explained this to you already, but you keep trying to circle back to defending Novella when your defense is completely beside the point.

I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but you keep doubling down on that dishonesty, which tells me it's deliberate, not accidental. I don't need to address your arguments such as what to do about CAIS individuals because it's off topic.
 
Another juicy cherry. How many trans-identifying men have to turn out to be sexual predators before some people will wake up and smell the coffee? We're told it's such a tiny population we'll probably never even see one in the normal course of things, vulnerable minority and all that. And yet, this keeps happening.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1937950470061854729
 
Rolfe said:
Another juicy cherry. How many trans-identifying men have to turn out to be sexual predators before some people will wake up and smell the coffee? We're told it's such a tiny population we'll probably never even see one in the normal course of things, vulnerable minority and all that. And yet, this keeps happening.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1937950470061854729
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Page doesn't exist.... You posted this 3 minutes before my reply and I assume it wasn't deleted that fast... Is it because I'm not logged into Twitter (or even have an account)?
 
It's difficult to tell which is which. Most of the time it works fine. Anyway, I posted a screenshot.
 
Ziggurat said:
It's not a false dilemma at all. Again, it doesn't matter what's logically possible. It's logically possible to argue that sex is trinary. But nobody is doing. The only actual positions that matter in terms of public policy (which is the entire reason this thread exists) are sex is binary and sex is a spectrum. Those are the two positions on offer, meaning those are the positions that actually have politically significant numbers of people adopting them. You can take up some other position if you like, but it won't matter. Any other position is irrelevant.
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What's logically possible always matters. I would like to see someone logically argue that sex is trinary as that would be a thread in itself.

This thread is not about whether sex is binary or a spectrum though it might have become that, check the title.

definitely a false dilemma as you didn't mention gender roles at all.
 
p0lka said:
What's logically possible always matters.
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Uh, no. It very frequently doesn't. When a logical possibility is a practical impossibility, and your interest is in what actually happens, then the logically possible but practically impossible is irrelevant.
p0lka said:
definitely a false dilemma as you didn't mention gender roles at all.
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Because "gender roles" don't ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ matter here. None of this debate is actually about gender roles. Gender role discussions are brought up as a red herring. What this thread is really about, what it has ALWAYS really been about, is whether or not males can enter nominally female-only spaces. Not can people who are male adopt female gender roles. Not can people who want to adopt female gender roles go into spaces segregated on the basis of gender roles. Gender roles have ◊◊◊◊ all to do with any of this. They especially don't have anything to do with whether sex is binary or a spectrum or even some third option.

It isn't at all a false dilemma to say that we either pick the public policy where we exclude males from female spaces like women's bathrooms (associated with the claim that sex is binary), or we pick the public policy where we allow males into female spaces like women's bathrooms (associated with the claim that sex is a spectrum). There is no third option available. You can invent another one (there are logical possibilities), but you have zero chance of getting it adopted anywhere at scale. That's why it's not a false dilemma.
 
Ziggurat said:
Uh, no. It very frequently doesn't. When a logical possibility is a practical impossibility, and your interest is in what actually happens, then the logically possible but practically impossible is irrelevant.

Because "gender roles" don't ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ matter here. None of this debate is actually about gender roles. Gender role discussions are brought up as a red herring. What this thread is really about, what it has ALWAYS really been about, is whether or not males can enter nominally female-only spaces. Not can people who are male adopt female gender roles. Not can people who want to adopt female gender roles go into spaces segregated on the basis of gender roles. Gender roles have ◊◊◊◊ all to do with any of this. They especially don't have anything to do with whether sex is binary or a spectrum or even some third option.

It isn't at all a false dilemma to say that we either pick the public policy where we exclude males from female spaces like women's bathrooms (associated with the claim that sex is binary), or we pick the public policy where we allow males into female spaces like women's bathrooms (associated with the claim that sex is a spectrum). There is no third option available. You can invent another one (there are logical possibilities), but you have zero chance of getting it adopted anywhere at scale. That's why it's not a false dilemma.
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False dilemma.
edit: Reinforced false dilemma ;)
 
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Ziggurat said:
You can repeat this mantra all you like, but you have yet to provide a third option.

Logical possibilities are not always options. There is no third option.
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In my opinion sex is pretty much binary and you cannot change it with present tech.
There definitely is a third option, it would be to get rid of the 'man woman' gender labels? As you have literally done whilst typing. You keep referring to male female spaces but they are not labelled as that? Most public toilets etc are labelled as 'man woman', not what you want them to be.
 
p0lka said:
In my opinion sex is pretty much binary and you cannot change it with present tech.
There definitely is a third option, it would be to get rid of the 'man woman' gender labels?
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No. That is not an option. You can do that. I could do that, but in general I won't. But society as a whole? Nope, society will not. There is no constituency for doing so. Neither side in this debate has any interest in that.

And I've explained at length why it wouldn't even matter if we did. It's an idiotic delusion to think that the trans activists will stop pushing for trans-identifying males to be allowed into bathrooms with women because we label it "female" instead of "women". Of course they won't. Because it was never about the label. It was always about whether males could enter into bathrooms with females.

Early on, I could excuse this as simple ignorance on your part, just not knowing what the TRA's are actually arguing. But you do not have that excuse anymore. Why do you persist in believing something so demonstrably false?
 
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