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Merged Strict biological definitions of male/female

However, a strict definition isn't necessarily one that answers all questions of category membership. Quite the contrary. It's not difficult to design a strict physical definition of "red" that specifies to within the tiniest fraction of a nanometer of wavelength of monochromatic light where "red" becomes "orange" or "infrared" instead. But that definition, due in part to its very strictness, will not distinguish unambiguously between red and orange shades of paint, which are made with mixes of pigments.
I don't think it makes much sense to analogize from a spectrum to a categorical variable, whether we are talking about two categories (sexes which can reproduce) or three.

That said, the guidance is surely strict here, every individual is sorted into one of two categories as of the moment of conception. This sorting is not particularly pragmatic, though, since it requires inferences from genetic analyses which are not nearly universally performed.
 
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Can we get a subforum where its forbidden to bring up Trump?
I didn't bring him up, I was referring to the general republican platform.

I am glad someone thinks it's the stupidest thing I have ever posted.

And you forgot something in your post, here it is, no charge.

 
Woe be unto the CAIS prisoners who get tested.
Indeed. Particularly problematic since they don't and won't ever produce either type of gamete.

Provides some justification for defining "woman" as adult human ovary-haver, and "man" as adult human testicle-haver. Though I doubt those CAIS prisoners would appreciate being thrown to the wolves among the male prison population.

Whence definitions based solely on genitalia -- e.g., "woman" as adult human vagina-haver. Bonus is that menopausees at least get to keep their "woman card" after that point in their lives. Works for me ...
 
I'm fairly sure the law can be codified to accommodate CAIS women.
Do tell. I'm all ears -- as I expect many others here are. Not to mention President Trump ...

Your "CAIS women" are only "women" by your apparent defacto criterion for "woman" which is apparently "vagina-haver". Despite them having XY karyotypes and internal but non-functional testicles. You now going to accept that some women have or had testicles? How dare you deny Ms. Tickle's right to join Giggle? For shame ... 🙄

The point is generally, as I've frequently quoted Paul Griffiths more or less insisting, that the biological definitions for the sexes -- which have a great deal of utility and value within the whole corpus of biology -- are simply the wrong tools for the jobs of adjudicating access to various opportunities and rights that might reasonably be segregated by sex, nominally speaking at least. So far too many people try to bastardize and corrupt those definitions, generally by turning the sexes into identities rather than labels for transitory reproductive abilities:

Paul Griffiths: “Sex Is Real: Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other. .... On the other hand, whatever its shortcomings as an institutional definition [e.g., in law], the concept of biological sex remains essential to understand the diversity of life. It shouldn’t be discarded or distorted because of arguments about its use in law, sport or medicine. That would be a tragic mistake."

 
I'm fairly sure the law can be codified to accommodate CAIS women.
Of course it could be, but the Executive Order as it stands will have them in men's locker rooms and prisons, since all that matters is sex as determined at conception. This sort of nonsense is inevitable when we impose a strict conceptual binary on people living in messy reality.
 
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Of course it could be, but the Executive Order as it stands will have them in men's locker rooms and prisons, since all that matters is sex as determined at conception.
Would it? Aren't most (all) CAIS women identified as girls at birth?
 
How does the existence of congenital deformity negate the sexual binary? Some people are born without legs; ergo, humans are not bipedal?
It doesn't. But that "born without legs" is basically a false analogy. Bipedality is only a typical property of humans, an accidental one. It is NOT the essential property of "human" which is basically having the same number and type of chromosomes as other members of the species. See my post on the topic which starts off from a conversation with "Hippiesq", the mother of a dysphoric teenage daughter:


And that sex is, by definition, a binary most certainly does not mean that everyone is either a male or a female -- technically speaking, some third of us, at any one time, are sexless. See also:

 
Would it? Aren't most (all) CAIS women identified as girls at birth?
Try looking at that Executive Order and the OP:

(d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.

Resolved: Hilton, Wright, & Heying are essentially correct about what makes a mammal either female or male.

That combination makes "CAIS women" into "males" even though their testicles are non-functional. Which puts CAIS prisoners into male prisons. Despite being "phenotypically female", so much so that any red-blooded Amurican boy would jump their bones at the drop of a hat:

 
However, a strict definition isn't necessarily one that answers all questions of category membership.
Seems rather moot at best. See:
An intensional definition gives meaning to a term by specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for when the term should be used. In the case of nouns, this is equivalent to specifying the properties that an object needs to have in order to be counted as a referent of the term.

That is what the "strict" biological definitions DO. If some organism produces large or small gametes then it is female or male, respectively. And if it doesn't produce either then it's sexless. Producing gametes -- right now -- is the necessary and sufficient condition "to be counted as a referent of those terms".

Quite the contrary. It's not difficult to design a strict physical definition of "red" that specifies to within the tiniest fraction of a nanometer of wavelength of monochromatic light where "red" becomes "orange" or "infrared" instead. But that definition, due in part to its very strictness, will not distinguish unambiguously between red and orange shades of paint, which are made with mixes of pigments.
Kinda think you're changing definitions in midstream -- always a hazardous operation. IF the paint was reflecting monochromatic light in a particular wavelength range defined as "red" then it would be, by definition, red. But if it is reflecting some light of wavelengths inside and outside that range then it isn't simply red -- it's a mixture of colours. Can't have your cake and eat it too -- one of the benefits of strict definitions, not least of which is that it keeps everybody honest.
 
Of course it could be, but the Executive Order as it stands will have them in men's locker rooms and prisons, since all that matters is sex as determined at conception. This sort of nonsense is inevitable when we impose a strict conceptual binary on people living in messy reality.

Would it? Aren't most (all) CAIS women identified as girls at birth?

The Executive Order doesn't actually specify what the criteria are for determining sex at conception. It would be open to them to include embryos lacking the gene(s) for functioning androgen receptors as female. That's just one suggestion, there are other ways.
 
It would be open to them to include embryos lacking the gene(s) for functioning androgen receptors as female.
Are you suggesting that the "sex that produces the large reproductive cell" may sensibly include rare cases of individuals who are genetically predetermined never to produce oocytes?
 
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Here's the relevant part of the order.

(d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.

It's very clear that the population is being divided into exactly two groups, not three. No reference at all is made to any individuals who are not male or female.
There are definitely at least two groups there -- the one that produces the large reproductive cell, and the one that produces the small reproductive cell. But there's also an implicit one -- the group that produces neither and is therefore neither male nor female.

The references to "girl" and "boy" specifically include immature individuals who do not ovulate or produce sperm.
Calling girls and boys females and males doesn't magically change them into organisms that are ovulating or producing sperm. You -- and too many others -- don't quite seem to get the idea of necessary and sufficient conditions for category membership. You actually have to be between the ages of 13 and 19 to qualify for membership in the "teenager" category -- a child of 10 or an adult of 25 doesn't acquire a membership card by some sort of a contact high by being similar to some actual teenagers in some other ways.
(I'm still not sure how Steersman classes girls and women though, given that baby girls are born with all the ova they will ever have - they don't produce them because they already produced them in utero. I have a vague recollection that he shifted the goalpost to ovulation.)
Nope, sorry. They're born with oocytes, diploid cells stuck at prophase I which do not qualify as ova:


They don't become fully functional ova -- haploid cells -- until ovulation, one or two a month after the onset of puberty:

Ootidogenesis: The succeeding phase of ootidogenesis occurs when the primary oocyte develops into an ootid. This is achieved by the process of meiosis. In fact, a primary oocyte is, by its biological definition, a cell whose primary function is to divide by the process of meiosis.

However, although this process begins at prenatal age, it stops at prophase I. In late fetal life, all oocytes, still primary oocytes, have halted at this stage of development, called the dictyate. After menarche, these cells then continue to develop, although only a few do so every menstrual cycle. ....

Both polar bodies disintegrate at the end of Meiosis II, leaving only the ootid, which then eventually undergoes maturation into a mature ovum.

 
How does the existence of congential deformity negate the sexual binary? Some people are born without legs; ergo, humans are not bipedal?
No but those people are not bipedal. If you had a classification that said a human was bipedal your classification would exclude those from being classified as humans. Horses for courses.
 
Are you suggesting that the "sex that produces the large reproductive cell" may sensibly include rare cases of individuals who are genetically predetermined never to produce oocytes?
Forgive me, but I cannot make any sense of this.

In what sense is someone genetically predetermined never to produce any large gametes of the "sex that produces the large reproductive cell" given the way terms are defined in the EO?
 
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Forgive me, but I cannot make any sense of this.

In what sense is someone genetically predetermined never to produce any large gametes of the "sex that produces the large reproductive cell" given the way terms are defined in the EO?
Androgen insensitivity.

Because they lack androgen receptors XY ( genetically male) will develop as default female. No penis, no testicles, vagina (small), no uterus and streak (indeterminate ) gonads. They will produce no gametes. They will be infertile. from birth they will be phenotypically female. They will be identified as XY only when they fail to menstruate.

Such individuals will have been identified as , and raised as, and identified as female. expecting periods and pregnancy until they fail to menstruate. Most choose to continue as (trans) females (although I personally regard them as true female gender), some prefer to transition to being (cis?) male.

i have a friend in this position, she looked at a womb transplant so she could have a child with her husband (it would have meant egg donation from her sister and womb donation from her mother, both of whom were willing to give her the chance to have her husband's child).
 
Androgen insensitivity.
I said "CAIS" upthread, specifying this to be the case.
Because they lack androgen receptors XY ( genetically male) will develop as default female. No penis, no testicles, vagina (small), no uterus and streak (indeterminate ) gonads. They will produce no gametes. They will be infertile. from birth they will be phenotypically female. They will be identified as XY only when they fail to menstruate.
All true; all completely irrelevant given the criteria from the EO which specifies sex as of conception with no reference to phenotype.

At conception, the conceptus would be known to "produce no gametes" if we somehow had complete genetic information at the time.

Here are the two sexes from the EO:

(d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.​
(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.​

An individual genetically predetermined at conception to produce neither large gametes nor small gametes cannot fit into either category. It is wholesome and righteous that you want to put CAIS people in the female category, but it does not comport with this legal guidance if interpreted straightforwardly with no attempt to retcon the text to make sense for intersex individuals, who are completely ignored.
 
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As an addendum to my last post, having strict biological definitions for male and female is just fine with me, but that doesn't make it sensible or ethical to pretend individuals who don't fit into either strictly bounded category simply do not exist, especially since the only mention of "intersex" in the entire EO is to repeal that guidance.

Harvard Law produces good lawyers, but they should have run this memorandum past someone with a background in science.
 
I said "CAIS" upthread, specifying this to be the case.

All true; all completely irrelevant given the criteria from the EO which specifies sex as of conception with no reference to phenotype.

At conception, the conceptus would be known to "produce no gametes" if we somehow had complete genetic information at the time.

Here are the two sexes from the EO:

(d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.​
(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.​

An individual genetically predetermined at conception to produce neither large gametes nor small gametes cannot fit into either category. It is wholesome and righteous that you want to put CAIS people in the female category, but it does not comport with this legal guidance if interpreted straightforwardly with no attempt to retcon the text to make sense for intersex individuals, who are completely ignored.
As noted elsewhere on this forum, all humans are female at conception. Sexual differentiation occurs later in the gestation process. So all Americans are now being designated as women.

Which will come as a surprise to many MAGAnuts.
 
They're pretending that ambiguous phenotype at conception trumps distinct genotype and reproductive path at conception.
The standard biological definitions have got diddly-squat to do with "reproductive path". By those definitions, the necessary and sufficient condition for membership in the sex categories is having a working mechanism that is currently producing either large or small "reproductive cells".

That is the single most common property shared by trillions of members of millions of anisogamous species. And which then justifies its use as the defining property for the sex categories. "Philosopher" Alex Byrne more or less reasonably, even if somewhat obscurely, noted that:

Categories are interchangeable with properties: S is a woman iff [if and only if] S has the property being a woman iff S is a member of the category woman.

Nothing can be a member of any category unless it possesses the defining property. You can't be a teenager unless you're 13 to 19. And that's why the EO definitions are rather problematic -- it puts CAIS "women" into limbo, and maybe male prisons, as either sexless or as males.
 
I don't believe this is true for a moment.
Progress! 😉🙂

Though it's not a matter of belief but of definition. A point that came up during the Forstater trial though it was never adequately addressed. One doesn't "believe" that it's illegal to speed in a school zone -- the law says so.

Same thing with the biological definitions -- they SAY that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, more or less what the EO is saying, and that those with neither type are sexless.
 
An individual genetically predetermined at conception to produce neither large gametes nor small gametes cannot fit into either category.
Ergo, sexless. Which biologist Jerry Coyne has endorsed. Maybe that's who the Harvard lawyers who presumably wrote that EO should have spoken to ...
It is wholesome and righteous that you want to put CAIS people in the female category, but it does not comport with this legal guidance if interpreted straightforwardly with no attempt to retcon the text to make sense for intersex individuals, who are completely ignored.
As indicated, "sexless" "makes sense for intersex individuals". What doesn't make sense - what is missing from the rest of the EO about prisons segregated by sex -- is where the sexless are supposed to go. Somewhat apropos of which, and of some amusement:

The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre occurred in 1902, in Hanoi, Vietnam (then known as French Indochina), when, under French colonial rule, the colonial government created a bounty program that paid a reward for each rat killed. To collect the bounty, people would need to provide the severed tail of a rat. Colonial officials, however, began noticing rats in Hanoi with no tails. The Vietnamese rat catchers would capture rats, sever their tails, then release them back into the sewers so that they could produce more rats.

Relatively easy to create laws; bit more difficult to foresee the often problematic consequences of them. A case in point being the UK's Gender Recognition Act. But more particularly and as philosopher of science Paul Griffiths has emphasized, the biological definitions for the sexes are generally the wrong tool for the job of social engineering that many are trying to press them into doing:

Paul Griffiths: “Sex Is Real: Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other. .... On the other hand, whatever its shortcomings as an institutional definition [e.g., in law], the concept of biological sex remains essential to understand the diversity of life. It shouldn’t be discarded or distorted because of arguments about its use in law, sport or medicine. That would be a tragic mistake."

 
Whoopsie, for all the apologists.
All human individuals—whether they have an XX, an XY, or an atypical sex chromosome combination—begin development from the same starting point. During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female. After approximately 6 to 7 weeks of gestation, however, the expression of a gene on the Y chromosome induces changes that result in the development of the testes.
 
🙄 "phenotypically female"

CAIS people are, as Wikipedia emphasizes, also "phenotypically female". That is they have the external phenotype that is typical of females. But they are NOT females. Because neither they nor XX humans from conception to puberty are producing large "reproductive cells" which is the necessary and sufficient condition to qualify as female -- ergo, sexless:


But I'm not terribly impressed by that NCBI bookshelf -- another article there insists that "every cell has a sex" which incoherent and quite unscientific twaddle:


Probably not surprising given that Anne -- Five Sexes -- Fausto-Sterling has her mitts all over that article. And probably many more besides:

 
As an addendum to my last post, having strict biological definitions for male and female is just fine with me, but that doesn't make it sensible or ethical to pretend individuals who don't fit into either strictly bounded category simply do not exist, especially since the only mention off "intersex" in the entire EO is to repeal that guidance.

Harvard Law produces good lawyers, but they should have run this memorandum past someone with a background in science.
As has been explained numerous times before, the term "intersex" is no longer used, because it covers too broad a range of complex issues. @bobdroege7 likes to use it claim sex is not binary, attempting to use it as a cudgel to bash realists over the head.

The preferred term is DSD (Disorders of Sexual Development)... and here's the thing. Even those with DSD are still either male or female. This chart has been posted numerous times, but some people continue to pretend it hasn't been...

DSD-MvF.jpg


Individuals who don't fit into either strictly bounded category effectively do not exist. If you can come up with individuals who have neither X nor Y chromosomes in their karyoype, I will review that position.
 
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As has been explained numerous times before, the term "intersex" is no longer used, because it covers too broad a range of complex issues. @bobdroege7 likes to use it claim sex is not binary, attempting to use it as a cudgel to bash realists over the head.

The preferred term is DSD (Disorders of Sexual Development)... and here's the thing. Even those with DSD are still either male or female. This chart has been posted numerous times, but some people continue to pretend it hasn't been...

DSD-MvF.jpg


Individuals who don't fit into either strictly bounded category effectively do not exist. If you can come up with individuals who have neither X nor Y chromosomes in their karyotype, I will review that position.
Not quite sure where you got that graphic of yours -- box of crackerjacks, perhaps? 🙄 But you can keep posting that until the cows come home -- like saying 2+2=5 until then -- but it still won't make it true that, for an example from that graphic of yours, CAIS people are female. That rather unscientific claim -- being charitable -- rests on an unspecified definition for the sexes that is clearly contradicted by both the EO definitions and the standard biological ones.

People who "don't fit in either strictly bounded category" -- i.e., those who don't produce either large or small reproductive cells -- clearly still "exist". They just don't have a membership card in the male or female sex categories.
 
As has been explained numerous times before, the term "intersex" is no longer used
Does that change my point, though?
Even those with DSD are still either male or female. This chart has been posted numerous times, but some people continue to pretend it hasn't been...

DSD-MvF.jpg
I really don't think skeptics should believe images posted on the internet with no supporting links. That said, did you happen to notice that at least one condition is listed on both sides?
 
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Does that change my point, though?

I really don't think skeptics should believe images posted on the internet with no supporting links. That said, did you happen to notice that at least one condition is listed on both sides?
I have wondered about that chart, each time I have seen it, because there is no attribution to it.

I guess it is helpful to have a chart that is just labelled "MALE" and "FEMALE" and just go, "see! Look! The chart says so..."

So I did some reverse Google image searching and found some attribution to it being "Daysgobygoby" which apparently is a Twitter handle.

It looks like the person who owns the handle is called "Alex - DetransIS".

I was looking at some tweets by Alex - DetransIS and here is one:

Do I need to freaking update my chart so people stop using that awful trainwreck of dehumanizing misinformation? I hesitated putting CAIS and PAIS in the biologically male category FOR that reason.

Okay, but doesn't that sound like the selection was arbitrary? Indeed, in the case of "Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome" the label is "Male" whereas for "Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome" the label is female.

I'm not going to get on board any train here, but the idea that someone slides from male to female depending upon hormonal insensitivity does suggest in this case that there is something "spectrum-y" going on here.

In addition, I see the words "Mosaic" on two of the labels. I don't know much about this, and am willing to know more, but it seems that theoretically this could result in someone being able to produce both large and small gametes (even if they are unlikely to be functional). That again suggests some form of genuine intersex condition, no?

In addition, that one labelled "Turner syndrome". Could someone walk me through why that person is female?

In addition,
 
Oh? So is it phenotypically something else?
🙄 "phenotypically female" is NOT the same thing as "reproductively female", although the "reproductively" is redundant since that is what "female" MEANS.

See:

phenotypically, adverb
biology specialized
in a way that relates to the physical characteristics of something living, especially those characteristics that can be seen:

The "physical characteristics" -- i.e., those that can be seen -- of CAIS people are those of a typical female -- genitalia in particular. What can NOT be seen are the gonads, the actual reproductive machinery -- at least without specialized equipment -- much less that they're operational and cranking out ova on a regular basis.

You might actually try looking at the "signs and symptoms" of the condition:

 
I have wondered about that chart, each time I have seen it, because there is no attribution to it.

I guess it is helpful to have a chart that is just labelled "MALE" and "FEMALE" and just go, "see! Look! The chart says so..."

So I did some reverse Google image searching and found some attribution to it being "Daysgobygoby" which apparently is a Twitter handle.
Nice bit of sleuthing. Guess I wasn't far wrong on my "box of crackerjacks" ... 😉🙂

It looks like the person who owns the handle is called "Alex - DetransIS".

I was looking at some tweets by Alex - DetransIS and here is one:


"Do I need to freaking update my chart so people stop using that awful trainwreck of dehumanizing misinformation? I hesitated putting CAIS and PAIS in the biologically male category FOR that reason."
That "dehumanizing" is a phrase that many of the transactivists use. Even some supposedly on the right side of history -- many people get their knickers in a twist at the thought that the standard biological definitions for the sexes mean that many of us, not just the intersex, are sexless -- "depriving them of their humanity"🙄 :
Twitter_ZachElliott_MorallyProblematicLysenkoism_2A.jpg
Since when does scientific terminology, definitions, and theory turn on whether some people find them "morally problematic"? Galileo, Darwin, and "Darwin's Bulldog" are turning over in their graves.

In addition, that one labelled "Turner syndrome". Could someone walk me through why that person is female?

Something in the article that suggests that some people with the condition are male though it's a bit obscure or contradictory.
 
🙄 "phenotypically female" is NOT the same thing as "reproductively female", although the "reproductively" is redundant since that is what "female" MEANS.

See:



The "physical characteristics" -- i.e., those that can be seen -- of CAIS people are those of a typical female -- genitalia in particular. What can NOT be seen are the gonads, the actual reproductive machinery -- at least without specialized equipment -- much less that they're operational and cranking out ova on a regular basis.

You might actually try looking at the "signs and symptoms" of the condition:

Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah, whatever.

Forget about anything after conception. There's no argument there. Because Trump's legislation refers to "at conception". And at conception, we humans are all female. So if your legally assigned US gender is what you are at conception, you are therefore all women. Congratulations, madam!

They've made a serious boo-boo because they are SO scientifically illiterate. Perhaps they should have consulted a book or something. Sexual differentiation, to whatever gender that happens to be, occurs about 6-7 weeks after conception, i.e. about a month and a half. So a better version of their ridiculous document would not be at conception, but after sexual differentiation.
 
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