I hate, with a burning passion, the term “biological sex”.
We have frankly, no fucking clue how our genetics and sex are intertwined.
We used to think it was “just chromosomes”, but then we discovered “biological men” with double-X, or double-X and a Y, or vice-versa.
Or intersex individuals.
Then, we also got to consider that, say, a “biological woman” can transition to a “transgender man”, which renders no change to their genes, just hormone levels, and they see physical development, voice deepening, hair growth, etc, just like a “biological man”, or vice-versa.
In conclusion, “biological sex” is just another gross simplification created by people who’s minds are so pathetic they can’t comprehend reality and so choose to live by mantra founded in disproven pseudo-sciences, religion, and other excuses to avoid critical thinking, and then put themselves in positions of power.
Doesn’t sound to me like you know the difference between sex and gender. We do have a pretty solid idea of how genetics and sex are intertwined, including intersex conditions. Gender is a whole different thing.
You’re mostly correct, tho the bit about genetics (+++) and sex is a bellcurve meme… There’s tons we don’t know and a lot of it is a giant interconnected mesh of incredibly complex relationship we barely grasp with very little casual data, and just a tiny bit of epidemiological inference that we can almost try to reason from.
Can you explain further? I’m a biochemist / medical lab scientist, and between my studies in genetics, human sexuality, and endocrinology, it seems pretty well figured out. Between “normal” X/Y chromosomes, various chromosomal abnormalities (X, XXX, XXY, XYY, etc), and mutations like androgen insensitivity syndrome it seems there is significant causal data. Not sure if they’ve studied these with knockout mice but it’s well beyond inference at this point.
I’m not sealioning here, it has been like a decade since I was actively learning this stuff and I’m sure there have been more discoveries. In general though it seems like we know the genetics, we know the hormones and receptors involved, the developmental process and various maladies are known, etc.
That is absolutely not what I’m saying. I’m saying the biological processes that lead to intersex or otherwise “complicated” sex conditions are fairly well understood. Sex is much more complicated than just the M/F dichotomy, and the current scientific and medical understanding of sex supports this.
Those who deny that sex is more complicated than binary M/F are rejecting well established science.
That isn’t even a reliable indicator, and if it comes up, it is a discussion between the patient and the doctor and no one else. We have the language to be specific. Besides, doctors don’t even know what to do with trans people regardless of gender or surgeries because all medical research on the topic has been blocked, erased, or burned by knuckledraggers
(MTF) When I go to doctors I have to explain to them that if they run my bloodwork as Male, every single damn metric on it is going to be flashing bright red. When it’s run as Female, I can get actual data out of it. Also guess who you go to if you have titty problems.
I wasn’t saying “organs” was an indicator. Obviously that’s not the question on the medical form. I was using it as a placeholder because apparently I’m not allowed to use the term “biological sex.” If you rule out the basic term used to describe something, don’t be surprised when people use a less reliable descriptor to get the point across.
We have the language to be specific.
Yes, and the language for that is “biological sex.” If you go to the doctor, they will ask you for your biological sex. Are you saying every medical questionnaire is really using transphobic dogwhistles?
Besides, doctors don’t even know what to do with trans people regardless of gender or surgeries because all medical research on the topic has been blocked, erased, or burned by knuckledraggers
Doctors don’t immediately get amnesia when something gets defunded. If a doctor already specialized in gender-affirming care, then they still know as much as they did before this administration shut down new research. If they didn’t specialize in it before, then they were already ignorant about it anyway so it’s not like this makes them more ignorant.
Using the government to hamper medical research is a bad thing, yes. Giving bigoted doctors an excuse to let their religion or politics influence the care they give is a bad thing too. And so is making doctors who do care have to fear for their medical licenses in order to continue providing medically necessary treatments. But claiming that doctors suddenly don’t know what to do is a hyperbole that misses the actual issue.
and if it comes up, it is a discussion between the patient and the doctor and no one else.
I wasn’t saying otherwise. You said “biological sex” is a useless concept and nothing but a dogwhistle, so I gave a counterexample of a situation where it’s has a legitimate use as a concept.
If a trans man goes to the doctor, it’s not transphobic for that doctor to ask if he may be pregnant or when his last period was. That’s standard information that doctors ask every patient who has ovaries. When it comes to routine medical exams, gender simply doesn’t matter as much as biological sex.
Obviously if someone is on hormone therapy then it changes the indicators and target ranges for lab work. It changes the specific things to mainly look out for, like types of cancers and bone density or cholesterol issues. Having organs removed, whether cis or trans, changes risk factors for a variety of diseases and renders some screenings less necessary. That should all be taken into account, of course, but pretending that “biological sex” is useless in medical contexts is an ignorant take.
And besides, if “biological sex” is such a bogus concept, then what do we even contrast “gender” with in the first place? If those are different things, then each one logically must be something, or else there wouldn’t be two different concepts, in which case the two concepts would collapse in on each other and become functionally the same. If you want them to be distinct, then pretending one of them doesn’t really exist is counterproductive.
It’s like race and ethnicity. Race is a social construct, sure, but nobody takes that to mean ethnicity doesn’t exist or is just a useless dogwhistle.
Yes, and the language for that is “biological sex.” If you go to the doctor, they will ask you for your biological sex.
“Biological sex” is poor language because it doesn’t actually provide any useful information. It says nothing about my hormone levels, it says nothing about my fat distribution, it says nothing about my (in)ability to have kids, it says nothing about my dose requirements, it says nothing about my genitals, it says nothing about my medical history, it says nothing about my BMI, it masks certain cancer risks, it has never actually achieved anything useful at the doctor’s office. All it does is placate transphobes and cause bureaucratic headaches.
If a medical form needs to know if I can get pregnant, the correct language is “are you able to get pregnant”. It’s not transphobic to ask that in a medical context, if anything it’s expected. It is transphobic to assume a trans person can’t answer that truthfully. Besides, the question also covers cis women who can’t get pregnant and trans men who can.
Doctors don’t immediately get amnesia when something gets defunded … But claiming that doctors suddenly don’t know what to do is a hyperbole that misses the actual issue.
Yes, they literally do seemingly get amnesia. One of the main complaints we have about doctors is that they dismiss every concern by blaming it on us being trans. I’ve heard it described as “trans broken leg syndrome”. It’s a similar issue to what cis women face, almost like it’s a systematic issue that affects anyone who isn’t a cis man.
That should all be taken into account, of course, but pretending that “biological sex” is useless in medical contexts is an ignorant take.
This is contradictory. Trans people already face discrimination and confusion from doctors on the norm. Eg: I’ve even had issues with my ophthalmologist, as if being trans has any effect whatsoever on my eyes. A single binary “biological sex” marker erases all the nuance involved and strips us of the language needed to properly convey it.
And besides, if “biological sex” is such a bogus concept, then what do we even contrast “gender” with in the first place?
Individual physical characteristics. Call it “Sex” and leave it open ended for all I care. It’s the enforcement of a strict binary, removal of agency, and purposeful ignorance of modern science that I take issue with - all while hiding under the term “biological”. It is for those reasons that it is often used as a dogwhistle.
Finally, your persistent sealioning only contributes to the problem that no one ever fucking listens to trans people. We are a tiny and very vulnerable minority who are constantly being drowned out in a sea of cis voices that think they know the trans experience better than us (eg: when was the last time you saw NYT quote a trans person?) You have easily typed out more than any trans person in the conversation but have seemingly learned absolutely nothing from it.
Besides, a lot of cis women can’t get pregnant either, and it covers the case of trans men who can.
You don’t realize that’s actually more reason to ask about biological sex? If a cis woman can’t get pregnant, but she still has ovaries, and all the form asks is “can you get pregnant,” then that leaves out important information, such as “I have ovaries and should be screened for ovarian cancer.”
A field for “sex” (whether “biological” or “birth” or “assigned” or anything else) very much does provide relevant information, and just because there’s additional information that may be relevant (such as hormones and surgeries) doesn’t negate that.
And I never said it should be binary. That’s an assumption you’re making about what point I’m trying to make. I’ve never denied the existence of intersex people, and in fact I even mentioned how a person being intersex is relevant information for their doctor to know that isn’t covered by gender or “can you get pregnant?”
I’ve heard it described as “trans broken arm syndrome”.
Medical professionals dismissing people’s concerns is a completely separate issue from needing to know basic information about their bodies.
And by the way, even as an ostensibly cis man, I’ve regularly had my concerns dismissed by doctors too. It’s almost like when you never stop to ask someone what kinds of issues they face, you don’t realize that some of the issues you face, they face too.
This assumption that “cis men just automatically get all the medical treatment they need” is based in the fact that nobody ever stopped to ask cis men if they ever feel dismissed by their doctors. (Oh, and by the way, the cultural stigma that cis men are supposed to avoid the doctor because they need to be manly and strong might also have something to do with it, since most men avoid going to the doctor until there’s no doubt that something is absolutely wrong. As someone who finds that to be bullshit, and has gone to the doctor with a variety of concerns that get dismissed, I can tell you that dismissive doctors is endemic to the medical profession, and that cis men aren’t just magically immune to it).
A single binary “biological sex”
…
If you want to argue that this can be packaged into a nice little binary
I never said anything about sex being binary, so your fixation on making this about binaries is a strawman.
Finally, your persistent sealioning only contributes to the problem that no one ever fucking listens to trans people.
I’m not sealioning. I’ve listened to what people are saying, but just because I’ve listened to something doesn’t mean I can’t disagree with it. And since nobody has actually come up with a response to what I’ve said and have chosen instead to rely on thought-stopping accusations of transphobia and strawman arguments such as misrepresenting this as being about binaries or about toilets, then it seems I’m the one not being listened to. Do you realize how difficult it is to maintain a good-faith discussion with someone who wilfully misses the point?
You have easily typed out more than any trans person in the conversation and have learned absolutely nothing from it.
Why should I have to learn from anyone who’s responding to points I didn’t make? People make assumptions about me and mischaracterize what I’m saying. What is there to learn from that?
I’ve asked what terminology you prefer. I’ve asked what a medical form should ask instead of “biological sex.” But nobody responds to that because they want to dismiss it all as transphobia. There’s not much to learn from that.
And just because I’m on the spectrum and don’t know how to be concise while still getting my point across doesn’t mean a thing.
"can you get pregnant,” then that leaves out important information, such as “I have ovaries and should be screened for ovarian cancer.”
They know you have ovaries if you can get pregnant. From an outside perspective it definitely looks like you’re just being argumentative rather than discussing it from a position of knowledge.
Sure it does, it’s the sex you have biologically. The second thing you’re talking about is called gender-affirming care and is distinct from biological sex. Both “sex” and “gender” are societal concepts, but sex is descriptive whereas gender is prescriptive. You can read that to mean sex is scientifically determinable, whereas gender is meaninglessly abstract. Sex says, “assuming all your bits work, here’s how you would contribute to the reproductive process.” Gender says, “regardless of what bits you were born with but dependent on what bits people think you were born with, here’s how society will treat you and expect you to behave.” “Biological gender” doesn’t exist, just like “sociological sex” doesn’t exist. So I guess in that sense, “biological sex” doesn’t make sense, because there’s no other kind.
Biology is a term used to describe how your body functions. Hormones changing your body is biology, whether they’re natural or otherwise. “Biological sex” is a dog whistle. It is not a term used by people who are being honest. It’s just sex, or sex assigned at birth. “Biological sex” is a term for bigots to sound like they have science on their side.
So what do you want to call it then? It’s not like I’m attached to the term itself, but the point is that it’s a useful and necessary concept in some contexts so there needs to be a term that refers to it, and you can’t just assume anyone who uses the most common term to describe it is transphobic.
And I never said it’s a binary, but if a person is intersex then that’s probably important information for their doctors to know because there may be certain medical complications that they’re more at risk for as a result.
Thank you, it would have been much easier to say that the first time I asked “what’s a better term if you don’t like that one?” instead of jumping off the deep end and assuming I’m just trying to be transphobic
Just FYI, I’ve never been asked about my “biological sex” from a doctor, and I’m pretty sure you haven’t either. You’ve been asked about your sex. That’s it. “Biological sex” is a right-wing dog whistle.
Yeah, it just says “Sex” and the “biological” part is implied. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a useful concept in some contexts to convey a relevant set of information.
Calling it “biological sex” might be redundant but that doesn’t make it inherently bigoted. Someone might simply be emphasizing the distinction between sex and gender. And besides, I’m not the one who started calling it that in this thread so don’t act like I’m just inserting it unnecessarily.
It’s funny how many seemingly innocuous words and phrases that I didn’t know were ostensibly dogwhistles end up being called dogwhistles. If there’s some secret right-wing code of words that mean specific things other than their apparent meaning, I assure you I don’t know it because I don’t follow those spaces or their jargon. And I can almost guarantee you that I’m not the only one like that.
So immediately jumping to “dogwhistle” every time you hear someone say something that’s supposedly in this list of secret right-wing code words is kind of a disingenuous argument and you’re just going to alienate people who then won’t take you seriously in the future.
It’s not redundant. I’d say it’s wrong. If biology is how the body is working, biological sex should be the same as hormonal sex, which would be the same as someone’s sex confirmation therapy is making it, not sex assigned at birth.
It is not implied to mean “biological sex” because that’s not a term anyone used until anti-trans people made it up. It is only used rhetorically to imply their view is the one supported by science. It isn’t.
So immediately jumping to “dogwhistle” every time you hear someone say something that’s supposedly in this list of secret right-wing code words is kind of a disingenuous argument and you’re just going to alienate people who then won’t take you seriously in the future.
Dog whistles can become mainstream. It doesn’t change the origin. Just because you hear it on TV sometimes doesn’t mean that’s the correct term. It was made up as a rhetorical argument to imply superiority. That’s it.
It’s entirely possible to say “it’s being used as a dogwhistle in this context” without saying “it’s a totally useless term that can only be used as a dogwhistle.”
The comment I originally replied to was insinuating the latter.
I’ve yet to have any single interaction with a doctor where knowing I was born with a penis has been helpful beyond not having to ask questions like “might you be pregnant?”, but so many flags in medical paperwork that just result from them mislabeling me as a male.
Okay, so are you just going to ignore the inverse situation where a trans man goes to the doctor and the doctor does have to ask if he might be pregnant?
Okay, then it makes sense to have a spot on the intake forms to denote biological sex, or assigned sex at birth, or whatever term you want to use for it.
Otherwise a doctor seeing a new patient won’t know the appropriate questions to ask.
There should also be sections to mark any medications one is on, including hormone therapy, and any prior surgeries, including organ removal.
So instead of saying biological sex is a useless concept that only transphobes use, why not mention what your preferred terminology is so that people who actually care about being affirming can use the correct term?
I don’t like it by association, because most of the time I hear it used by intolerant people (like right wing assholes on the “news”). Sometimes, though, I hear it used without malice, presumably because people don’t know what else to say.
Pardon my ignorance, but what term would you suggest instead? Birth sex? Assigned sex? Something else?
gender is assigned at birth by society, sex is assigned at birth by biology
usually they match, but sometimes they dont (hard-to-detect intersex conditions (which are never noticed), easy-to-detect intersex conditions (that get you mutilated))
Minor unimportant correction: Sex is usually assigned at birth by nurses. It’s occasionally incorrect because it’s usually decided by what the baby’s crotch looks like rather than a blood test.
I totally understand what you’re saying, but if you take gender out of it and just think about humans as any other animal, you could classify animals with penises and animals with vaginas separately especially if you’re breeding them. The AI overlords won’t care when they’re breeding us.
EDIT: two types of genitalia instead of just penis and vagina. And not all but many animals.
Here’s the thing though, pretty much everything you just said is wrong. It’s not that simple if you think of humans as any other animal. Here’s a video link that is pretty long, but dives fairly deep into this topic that is massive from a scientific point of view.
Woah. I don’t have an hour and a half to dissect all the ways an animal with a penis and an animal with a vagina may not fit the standard classifications of male and female. Not discrediting that there are so many different life forms out there that can’t possibly just be two categories, but you also can’t say that “pretty much everything I said is wrong.” If I wanna breed dogs, I’m gonna need two types of genitalia. Elephants? Same. Salmon? Ducks? Lots of animals can be classified in that way. Not all their characteristics, but their reproductive traits for sure.
Yeah but toilets and changing rooms aren’t for reproduction.
If you go entirely by who has a penis or not, at least you allow some post operative trans people to live freely, but I’m not going to be checking any genitals at the toilet door, nor doing any blood tests for that matter.
This guidance deliberately leaves trans people with two bad options: go in one toilet and be harassed or attacked for being trans or go in another and risk being attacked legally.
That “paper” literally starts off deliberately conflating sex and gender in order to muddy the waters to reframe the conversation. He used a lot of words to essentially define male as “has penis that can go in vagina for purpose of procreation” and female as “has vagina to receive penis for purpose of procreation” (which still wouldn’t make sex binary since intersex exist) and had very little to do with biology on the whole.
The paper is peer-reviewed, from a Evolutionary Biology PhD, submitted to a journal specializing in the topic. He starts off talking about sex, mentions gender briefly for context, and then sticks to sex for the rest of the paper. The mention is “In recent years, however, this previously uncontroversial fact has been challenged in popular discourse, […] seemingly driven by cultural and political debates surrounding the concept of “gender identity” and transgender rights.” The paper is entirely about sex, and says “some people misunderstand sex because of gender”. That’s not conflating sex and gender, that’s specifically calling out other people that have confused them.
That’s not a book, that’s a peer-reviewed paper published by a PhD Evolutionary Biologist in a journal specific to the topic. Nobody in the field has published a response disputing it, because he’s right.
If you don’t like being told the truth by him, take your pick of anyone else listed here that signed a statement affirming the same thing:
Reality isn’t transphobic, but that guy definitely is.
Also I’m not discussing sex in humans with you again. I and many people, who’re are way more knowledgeable, have wasted hours of their life doing that. Much less under a post about a stupid bathroom law.
PS: I’m sooo sorry that I said that the piece of written work you linked to was a book.
Tell me you didn’t watch the video without telling me you didn’t watch the video. This cringey war against facts you’re waging is why people talk shit about you when you’re not around.
And no it’s not “cAuSe ThEy ArEn’T bRaVe EnOuGh To SaY iT tO mY fAcE!” It’s because you’re exhausting.
Sure but you can classify the ones with just two types of genitalia as something or another. Doesn’t mean you can’t have other layers of classification.
I’m not entirely sure what point you’re making, when sex reassignment surgery exists.
Not all trans people get it, sure, but many trans men have dicks and many trans women have vaginas. These usually align cosmetically but will have functional differences to their cis counterparts. Where would you crudely sort such people?
There’s also genital nullification surgery (think Barbie doll - nothing at all).
All good. I’m referring to the comment that I replied to stating that they don’t like the term “biological sex.” Not saying that trans people should be bucketed into being men or women based on their goodies. I’m saying that biologically, across many animals, specifically mammals, we can say something has this kind of genitalia or that. Call it male or female. Call it bapu and beepo. It’s a biological difference that can be classified along with other traits.
Gotcha. Their point is kind of right though; sex is less of a strict binary category and more 2 clusters we (people) created that allow us to more easily classify specimens based on strongly correlated traits. Both clusters have some overlap, and no trait on its own completely determines the cluster.
E.g. I knew a case of this woman who grew up her whole life never knowing she has XY chromosomes, because she had seemingly typical female sex characteristics. It was only when she and her husband where struggling to conceive and they went to a fertility clinic, that that fact came to light. “Biological male” might be the cluster you’d want to put her under, but she lacks many of the features of that cluster, so in that case the binary classification is a little weak.
Of course most people/animals are not intersex (or transitioned), but the point is that the biological sex binary is kind of a shorthand / way of making life easier to classify most of the population, but it’s not perfect or tidy.
The easiest way to stay accurate is to just narrow down to the specific relevant trait (“person with facial hair”, “person with androgenetic alopecia”, etc.) depending on what specifically is measured/being talked about. But being that precise can come at the expense of being less clear/accessible to the layman, which is why we use biological sex as a concept.
For sure. There are always outliers and opportunity for more granular classification. Doesn’t mean the classifiers we have now are wrong, just not complete. I think it wouldn’t be as big of a concern if we didn’t relate male and female so closely to man and woman.
Sure, but it’s sounding like guns kill people. People don’t kill people. We use skin color to discriminate against people, but doesn’t mean you can’t use it as a categorization in other ways. Anything can be used to discriminate against somebody. Credit score. Types of clothes they wear. Whatever.
Even in extreme cases, someone can still be determined to be male or female. Even if they can’t produce gametes, they still have structures in their body that are required for producing gametes of one type, and not used for producing gametes of the other type.
“centred around” is a subjective projection rather than statement of a fact in cases where gamete production genuinely does not occur. For this person, her gonads never developed into either testes or ovaries, so by this definition she would be of neither sex. I’m OK with that, but it does undermine your point about the strict binary.
My question to you is why does this matter, in the context of accessing bathrooms and changing rooms? Do you think inspecting reproductive anatomy is a proportionate measure?
More broadly speaking, what is the point of recording the ‘biological sex’ of a person who, through transition, has changed their physiology and endocrine profile to that associated with the opposite, and no longer has their natal reproductive anatomy? Who would this benefit?
That’s not a book, that’s a peer-reviewed paper published by a PhD Evolutionary Biologist in a journal specific to the topic. Nobody in the field has published a response disputing it, because he’s right.
If you don’t like being told the truth by him, take your pick of anyone else listed here that signed a statement affirming the same thing:
Reality isn’t transphobic, but that guy definitely is.
Also I’m not discussing sex in humans with you again. I and many people, who’re are way more knowledgeable, have wasted hours of their life doing that. Much less under a post about a stupid bathroom law.
PS: I’m sooo sorry that I said that the piece of written work you linked to was a book.
The definition of sex is simple. It’s defined entirely as the gametes one’s body is organized around producing. This is not an oversimplification. It is the reality that biologists have found in nature. It is settled science in the field of biology. Chromosomes are how sex is determined. Other species have completely different sex determination systems. Their sex is still defined by gametes.
Intersex is a confusing term. It has confused you. Some people are born with a Disorder of sex development. They are still either male or female.
Humans cannot change sex. Hormones can change some secondary sex characteristics. That does not change sex.
The biologists involved chose to host it on wordpress. That doesn’t change who signed the statement. Fuck’s sake.
If you’re talking about the SRY gene at this point, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Chromosomes are how sex is determined, not how sex is defined. As linked to previously in the comment that you should have educated yourself with:
Most animals don’t have an SRY gene. Wow they must be sexless! Biologists in tatters, completely unable to explain what sex a chicken is!
Since you appear to require remedial help, note that that was sarcasm. Biologists can determine the sex of any anisogamous species, because of gametes. No other definition makes sense. You’re welcome to provide any source claiming that the consensus in the field of biology is something else. You can’t though.
For anybody following along, note the common playbook of spewing bullshit, while also never actually providing any real source. If they just really really want it to be true, then it must be true, right?
Humans that don’t produce gametes still have bodies organized around producing either sperm or ova. Their bodies still contain sexed structures. An example in other species is worker bees, which are sterile females. How do we know they’re female? Because of the sexed structures in their bodies! Even though they don’t produce gametes, they have structures in their bodies that are required for producing gametes of one type, and not used in the production of the other type.
No humans have bodies organized around producing both types of gametes, because we are Gonochoric. Other animals do have body plans organized around producing both types of gametes, such as in Androdioecy. Those species give a good example of what humans are not.
That’s not a book, that’s a peer-reviewed paper published by a PhD Evolutionary Biologist in a journal specific to the topic. Nobody in the field has published a response disputing it, because he’s right.
If you don’t like being told the truth by him, take your pick of anyone else listed here that signed a statement affirming the same thing:
Reality isn’t transphobic, but that guy definitely is.
Also I’m not discussing sex in humans with you again. I and many people, who’re are way more knowledgeable, have wasted hours of their life doing that. Much less under a post about a stupid bathroom law.
PS: I’m sooo sorry that I said that the piece of written work you linked to was a book.
I’m not sorry that I pointed out that that guy is a transphobe, but I am sorry that I engaged with you again.
I’m going to block you now. Originally I wanted to discuss Imane Khelif, when new concrete information was available, but now I am going to block you for my own sake. @davidagain@lemmy.world can discuss with you until both of your keyboards break.
A) No it doesn’t. Where I live, it is entirely legal for a man to enter the women’s bathroom. Nothing to do with transgender folks; it simply is not a crime.
B) The UK has an official “gender recognition certificate” program. If you wanted to draw a line, I would think that individuals with such a certificate would fall on their recognized side of the line; however, under the new standard, a trans women with an official government issued gender recognition certificate is still considered by that same government to be a man for the purposes of using a toilet.
Clearest measure here wouldn’t be the “biological sex” anyway… Because going mens bathroom doesn’t require a penis, last time I checked. But it does require to be perceived as a man which relates more to other characteristics like beard and appearance. Same goes the other way around.
That’s the great thing… you don’t. They are trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. There are already laws in place which forbid harassment. There is absolutely no need to create a law which can’t be enforced anyway and is most likely causing more trouble (for cis people too!) than just keeping things like they were.
The culture was isnt lost, but it’s not going to be won by deciding that we can have a little hateful bigotry, as a treat, because black/Jew/queer/gay/trans is “icky”.
Case in point. I never mentioned any of those groups, and I never discriminated trans people. I disagreed with this fucking idiot that’s the extent of it. Thanks for “Trump: Birthright citizenship is a disgrace” thanks for that you stupid fucking cunts this is your fault.
You directly replied to a post talking about biological essentialism and a misunderstanding of sex as a mechanism for discriminating against trans people, telling them “get a grip” and that caring about that scientific reality is “stupid fucking shit.”
Whether you believe it is or not, that is a form of discrimination, as it essentially posits that we should just ignore these facts to appease closed-minded individuals to “win” the culture war, even if that “win” comes at the expense of… being trans not being considered “real” or “biologically accurate” by those who entirely misunderstand what being trans is.
You need to realize that pushing scientific fact to the margins to appease other people fighting the ‘culture war’ does nothing but harm people so those other people can continue to live in ignorance.
Your mentality is the same as someone arguing that we shouldn’t have talked about there being no biological evidence for black people being dumber than white people because that would “lose us the culture war” against white slave owners that think they should get to own slaves because black people are dumber than them. Maybe you win their votes, but you’ve done nothing but enable the continuation of slavery by not confronting its widely believed yet incorrect ideological backing.
Not talking about things like intersex individuals and the unknowns about the links between sex and gender doesn’t win you anything in the long term if it comes at the cost of every single trans and intersex person’s (millions of people in just the USA, and that’s likely an undercount) rights by backsliding on public understanding of the subject.
Variation within a binary makes it, by definition, not a binary system.
Binary is 1 and 0. If you can have 1.5, or 1.234098723, you don’t have a binary system, you have a spectrum.
For example, take this beautifully complicated diagram from Scientific American:
Typical biological males and females are on either end of the spectrum, yet other options exist in between. Hence, not a binary, but a spectrum.
What do you call someone with XY chromosomes but female reproductive structures? How about someone with XX or XY chromosomes but ambiguous genitals, or someone with XXXYY chromosomes? What about someone with mosaicism that causes some cells in their body to have just the X chromosome, and some to have XY, with varying changes in what % each makes up of their body throughout their life?
All of those are real conditions, and that’s just a fraction of them.
The reason this essentialism is stupid is because it assumes a spectrum can in fact be boiled down to a binary, and also that the spectrum must specifically begin, end, and be defined by what is “typical”, and assuming anyone’s sex must solely be determined by its proximity to one of the two options, rather than simply… being allowed to be its own thing that isn’t binary, because the reality, obviously, isn’t.
It’s not about “typical”. In anisogamous species, there’s sperm and there’s ova. Zero overlap. That’s what sex is. Any other definition is incoherent across species.
Should have figured you’d cite a known anti-trans organization that distorts scientific reality to make a point. (oh boy, I sure do wonder why they have an article titled “8-Step Action Plan to Eliminate Gender Ideology”, surely because they actually understand broadly accepted and heavily researched science and not because they just want to make a political point while sounding scientific!)
They think sex can only be determined by gametes. This ignores the fundamental reality that many humans do not produce either of them while retaining wholly ambiguous or non-ambiguous reproductive organs, that some humans can produce both (albeit rarely), or that some humans lose or gain the ability to produce one throughout their lives. (not producing ova until puberty? Tough luck, guess you’re not a female! Body hasn’t fully developed internal reproductive organs until later in life? Guess you’re sex-less until then! Does your body never produce sperm or ova because of a genetic issue? Guess it’s impossible to assign you a sex!)
It also ignores the fact that we tend to classify sex based on phenotypic characteristics. If someone has a penis, generally masculine face and fat distribution, but XX chromosomes and is still able to sometimes produce ova while not producing sperm, even if they’re missing the rest of the necessary reproductive functions, for all intensive purposes, you would call that person male. If every other part of their body is typically male, there is no reason to continually insist that person is actually a female because somewhere inside their body they can produce ova that don’t do anything.
If sex is determined by gametes, there are exceptions to the rule that can’t be classified solely as one or the other.
If sex is determined by chromosomes, then any exception from XX or XY disproves the rule.
If sex is determined by phenotypic characteristics, then we see a spectrum in how they present.
This also simply ignores the fundamental reality that even if you can oversimplify a complex condition into one of two more common options, it doesn’t mean that is correct or accurate to do so.
To use the analogy I used before, you could say that all numbers for simplicity, should be rounded to either 1 or 0, even if it’s 0.9, 0.2, or 0.2398547293875. That could be useful shorthand, and it could generally describe semi-closely how those numbers would operate within a broadly binary system, but at the end of the day those numbers are not 0 or 1.
Claiming that “0.9 = 1” would be stupid.
Claiming “0.9 is basically 1 so why bother ever giving it a different label” would be stupid.
Claiming “0.9 is close enough to 1 to not make a huge difference in outward perception and day-to-day use, so we can rely on it for shorthand while understanding 0.9 is not 1” would be very reasonable.
You cannot look at a spectrum, say “they’re still within the other 2, therefore there’s only 2”, and call it a day.
It’s true these conditions can present similarly to one of the two typical male or female sets of characteristics, or that they can derive from what are often the typical chromosomes of either group. It’s not true that they are male or female and there is only a binary and nothing else.
Get a fucking grip on fucking reality you stupid fucking idiot. Stop inventing things in your head to disagree with you putrid rotting dog cunt.
I see you’re not exactly into constructive conversation. Maybe chill out instead of getting so angry at comments online that it sends you into a fit of swearing rage?
justify it
Sure. Any time, any day. I doubt you’ll even read past the first sentence given how irrationally angry you seem to be, but maybe you’ll prove me wrong.
The vast majority of people do not even know there are sexes that could be defined outside the binary of male and female. They don’t know that chromosome combinations outside XX and XY exist at all.
When people are told this, many of them refuse to accept it, and simply cast it as “outliers” that in the end, don’t change their belief that “there are only 2 sexes”, sometimes because their religion simply states there’s only 2 against all currently known evidence, or even if they are just more broadly liberal and would still say gender is separate from sex. It is an uncomfortable thing for some to come to terms with to understand that something so deeply ingrained into our culture is much more complicated than it seems at a glance.
This has been a known fact for centuries, and yet society broadly still assumes, by default, that it is “abnormal” and “undesirable”, so surgeries are often performed on intersex individuals as babies to “correct” their sex characteristics to match just the two binary options most people are familiar with, even if that individual later finds out and would otherwise have not wanted the surgery.
To this day, people like you are continuing to call people like me a “putrid rotting dog cunt” for explaining this well-researched, broadly demonstrated topic with widespread occurrences across the globe, when the more reasonable answer to being told such a fact would be to spend even a minute on any search engine to find out you’re going against the whole of medical consensus and seemingly getting incredibly incensed over the fact that nobody agrees with you.
Every part of their statement was either reaffirmed or backed up with additional supporting statements in what I wrote. Either you didn’t read what I typed, or you simply don’t have the greatest reading comprehension and can’t see how my statements back up what they originally posted.
you are just stating random facts I never disagreed with.
Those ‘random facts’ are directly reaffirming the other person’s statements, which you called “the stupidest fucking shit I have seen today.” Is it safe to say that you calling something stupid probably means you disagree with it?
You are disingenuous
Keep telling yourself that, I’m sure you gotta fuel that anger somehow. It’s not you who is wrong, it must be everyone else!
This just goes to show transphobes and bigots refuse to learn about the reality we live in and instead lash out because something doesn’t fit their worldview.
I only see you lashing out. Op is 100% correct and you are refusing to learn anything. Instead you call people a putrid rotting dog. Honestly I bet a putrid rotting dog smells better than you do.
I hate, with a burning passion, the term “biological sex”.
We have frankly, no fucking clue how our genetics and sex are intertwined.
We used to think it was “just chromosomes”, but then we discovered “biological men” with double-X, or double-X and a Y, or vice-versa.
Or intersex individuals.
Then, we also got to consider that, say, a “biological woman” can transition to a “transgender man”, which renders no change to their genes, just hormone levels, and they see physical development, voice deepening, hair growth, etc, just like a “biological man”, or vice-versa.
In conclusion, “biological sex” is just another gross simplification created by people who’s minds are so pathetic they can’t comprehend reality and so choose to live by mantra founded in disproven pseudo-sciences, religion, and other excuses to avoid critical thinking, and then put themselves in positions of power.
Cis ppl showing they’re not ready to hear this yet
Doesn’t sound to me like you know the difference between sex and gender. We do have a pretty solid idea of how genetics and sex are intertwined, including intersex conditions. Gender is a whole different thing.
You’re mostly correct, tho the bit about genetics (+++) and sex is a bellcurve meme… There’s tons we don’t know and a lot of it is a giant interconnected mesh of incredibly complex relationship we barely grasp with very little casual data, and just a tiny bit of epidemiological inference that we can almost try to reason from.
Can you explain further? I’m a biochemist / medical lab scientist, and between my studies in genetics, human sexuality, and endocrinology, it seems pretty well figured out. Between “normal” X/Y chromosomes, various chromosomal abnormalities (X, XXX, XXY, XYY, etc), and mutations like androgen insensitivity syndrome it seems there is significant causal data. Not sure if they’ve studied these with knockout mice but it’s well beyond inference at this point.
I’m not sealioning here, it has been like a decade since I was actively learning this stuff and I’m sure there have been more discoveries. In general though it seems like we know the genetics, we know the hormones and receptors involved, the developmental process and various maladies are known, etc.
Are you sure? I’m not.
For someone taking the trouble to disagree with “sex is more complicated than binary M/F” there sure are a lot of caveats to your argument.
That is absolutely not what I’m saying. I’m saying the biological processes that lead to intersex or otherwise “complicated” sex conditions are fairly well understood. Sex is much more complicated than just the M/F dichotomy, and the current scientific and medical understanding of sex supports this.
Those who deny that sex is more complicated than binary M/F are rejecting well established science.
I’m so sorry, I completely got the wrong end of the stick.
No worries, thanks for allowing me to explain and reading what I said. Online discussions can be difficult these days.
Too true, too true.
You should ignore that poster. They’re not right in the head.
Nah, seems like they just misinterpreted what I was saying.
Biological sex is a dogwhistle made digestible to appease the apathetic moderate
Edit: and this entire thread is proof of that 🍿
What about when you go to the doctor and they need to know what type of organs you were born with instead of what type of clothes you like to wear?
Sex ≠ gender.
It’s wrong to try to force “gender” to mean “sex”, but trying to force “sex” to mean “gender” is also wrong.
That isn’t even a reliable indicator, and if it comes up, it is a discussion between the patient and the doctor and no one else. We have the language to be specific. Besides, doctors don’t even know what to do with trans people regardless of gender or surgeries because all medical research on the topic has been blocked, erased, or burned by knuckledraggers
(MTF) When I go to doctors I have to explain to them that if they run my bloodwork as Male, every single damn metric on it is going to be flashing bright red. When it’s run as Female, I can get actual data out of it. Also guess who you go to if you have titty problems.
I wasn’t saying “organs” was an indicator. Obviously that’s not the question on the medical form. I was using it as a placeholder because apparently I’m not allowed to use the term “biological sex.” If you rule out the basic term used to describe something, don’t be surprised when people use a less reliable descriptor to get the point across.
Yes, and the language for that is “biological sex.” If you go to the doctor, they will ask you for your biological sex. Are you saying every medical questionnaire is really using transphobic dogwhistles?
Doctors don’t immediately get amnesia when something gets defunded. If a doctor already specialized in gender-affirming care, then they still know as much as they did before this administration shut down new research. If they didn’t specialize in it before, then they were already ignorant about it anyway so it’s not like this makes them more ignorant.
Using the government to hamper medical research is a bad thing, yes. Giving bigoted doctors an excuse to let their religion or politics influence the care they give is a bad thing too. And so is making doctors who do care have to fear for their medical licenses in order to continue providing medically necessary treatments. But claiming that doctors suddenly don’t know what to do is a hyperbole that misses the actual issue.
I wasn’t saying otherwise. You said “biological sex” is a useless concept and nothing but a dogwhistle, so I gave a counterexample of a situation where it’s has a legitimate use as a concept.
If a trans man goes to the doctor, it’s not transphobic for that doctor to ask if he may be pregnant or when his last period was. That’s standard information that doctors ask every patient who has ovaries. When it comes to routine medical exams, gender simply doesn’t matter as much as biological sex.
Obviously if someone is on hormone therapy then it changes the indicators and target ranges for lab work. It changes the specific things to mainly look out for, like types of cancers and bone density or cholesterol issues. Having organs removed, whether cis or trans, changes risk factors for a variety of diseases and renders some screenings less necessary. That should all be taken into account, of course, but pretending that “biological sex” is useless in medical contexts is an ignorant take.
And besides, if “biological sex” is such a bogus concept, then what do we even contrast “gender” with in the first place? If those are different things, then each one logically must be something, or else there wouldn’t be two different concepts, in which case the two concepts would collapse in on each other and become functionally the same. If you want them to be distinct, then pretending one of them doesn’t really exist is counterproductive.
It’s like race and ethnicity. Race is a social construct, sure, but nobody takes that to mean ethnicity doesn’t exist or is just a useless dogwhistle.
“Biological sex” is poor language because it doesn’t actually provide any useful information. It says nothing about my hormone levels, it says nothing about my fat distribution, it says nothing about my (in)ability to have kids, it says nothing about my dose requirements, it says nothing about my genitals, it says nothing about my medical history, it says nothing about my BMI, it masks certain cancer risks, it has never actually achieved anything useful at the doctor’s office. All it does is placate transphobes and cause bureaucratic headaches.
If a medical form needs to know if I can get pregnant, the correct language is “are you able to get pregnant”. It’s not transphobic to ask that in a medical context, if anything it’s expected. It is transphobic to assume a trans person can’t answer that truthfully. Besides, the question also covers cis women who can’t get pregnant and trans men who can.
Yes, they literally do seemingly get amnesia. One of the main complaints we have about doctors is that they dismiss every concern by blaming it on us being trans. I’ve heard it described as “trans broken leg syndrome”. It’s a similar issue to what cis women face, almost like it’s a systematic issue that affects anyone who isn’t a cis man.
This is contradictory. Trans people already face discrimination and confusion from doctors on the norm. Eg: I’ve even had issues with my ophthalmologist, as if being trans has any effect whatsoever on my eyes. A single binary “biological sex” marker erases all the nuance involved and strips us of the language needed to properly convey it.
Individual physical characteristics. Call it “Sex” and leave it open ended for all I care. It’s the enforcement of a strict binary, removal of agency, and purposeful ignorance of modern science that I take issue with - all while hiding under the term “biological”. It is for those reasons that it is often used as a dogwhistle.
Finally, your persistent sealioning only contributes to the problem that no one ever fucking listens to trans people. We are a tiny and very vulnerable minority who are constantly being drowned out in a sea of cis voices that think they know the trans experience better than us (eg: when was the last time you saw NYT quote a trans person?) You have easily typed out more than any trans person in the conversation but have seemingly learned absolutely nothing from it.
You don’t realize that’s actually more reason to ask about biological sex? If a cis woman can’t get pregnant, but she still has ovaries, and all the form asks is “can you get pregnant,” then that leaves out important information, such as “I have ovaries and should be screened for ovarian cancer.”
A field for “sex” (whether “biological” or “birth” or “assigned” or anything else) very much does provide relevant information, and just because there’s additional information that may be relevant (such as hormones and surgeries) doesn’t negate that.
And I never said it should be binary. That’s an assumption you’re making about what point I’m trying to make. I’ve never denied the existence of intersex people, and in fact I even mentioned how a person being intersex is relevant information for their doctor to know that isn’t covered by gender or “can you get pregnant?”
Medical professionals dismissing people’s concerns is a completely separate issue from needing to know basic information about their bodies.
And by the way, even as an ostensibly cis man, I’ve regularly had my concerns dismissed by doctors too. It’s almost like when you never stop to ask someone what kinds of issues they face, you don’t realize that some of the issues you face, they face too.
This assumption that “cis men just automatically get all the medical treatment they need” is based in the fact that nobody ever stopped to ask cis men if they ever feel dismissed by their doctors. (Oh, and by the way, the cultural stigma that cis men are supposed to avoid the doctor because they need to be manly and strong might also have something to do with it, since most men avoid going to the doctor until there’s no doubt that something is absolutely wrong. As someone who finds that to be bullshit, and has gone to the doctor with a variety of concerns that get dismissed, I can tell you that dismissive doctors is endemic to the medical profession, and that cis men aren’t just magically immune to it).
I never said anything about sex being binary, so your fixation on making this about binaries is a strawman.
I’m not sealioning. I’ve listened to what people are saying, but just because I’ve listened to something doesn’t mean I can’t disagree with it. And since nobody has actually come up with a response to what I’ve said and have chosen instead to rely on thought-stopping accusations of transphobia and strawman arguments such as misrepresenting this as being about binaries or about toilets, then it seems I’m the one not being listened to. Do you realize how difficult it is to maintain a good-faith discussion with someone who wilfully misses the point?
Why should I have to learn from anyone who’s responding to points I didn’t make? People make assumptions about me and mischaracterize what I’m saying. What is there to learn from that?
I’ve asked what terminology you prefer. I’ve asked what a medical form should ask instead of “biological sex.” But nobody responds to that because they want to dismiss it all as transphobia. There’s not much to learn from that.
And just because I’m on the spectrum and don’t know how to be concise while still getting my point across doesn’t mean a thing.
They know you have ovaries if you can get pregnant. From an outside perspective it definitely looks like you’re just being argumentative rather than discussing it from a position of knowledge.
What if you have ovaries but you can’t get pregnant? Because that’s the type of case to which I was referring.
the term “biological sex” doesnt make much sense tho
what are all of those complex medical treatments trans people can get, if not biology? far more advanced and interesting biology at that
and “biological sex” isnt a binary either, 1 in 40 people are intersex, mostly with almost no effect, but not in the binary either
Sure it does, it’s the sex you have biologically. The second thing you’re talking about is called gender-affirming care and is distinct from biological sex. Both “sex” and “gender” are societal concepts, but sex is descriptive whereas gender is prescriptive. You can read that to mean sex is scientifically determinable, whereas gender is meaninglessly abstract. Sex says, “assuming all your bits work, here’s how you would contribute to the reproductive process.” Gender says, “regardless of what bits you were born with but dependent on what bits people think you were born with, here’s how society will treat you and expect you to behave.” “Biological gender” doesn’t exist, just like “sociological sex” doesn’t exist. So I guess in that sense, “biological sex” doesn’t make sense, because there’s no other kind.
Biology is a term used to describe how your body functions. Hormones changing your body is biology, whether they’re natural or otherwise. “Biological sex” is a dog whistle. It is not a term used by people who are being honest. It’s just sex, or sex assigned at birth. “Biological sex” is a term for bigots to sound like they have science on their side.
Exactly what I said, there’s no other kind
So what do you want to call it then? It’s not like I’m attached to the term itself, but the point is that it’s a useful and necessary concept in some contexts so there needs to be a term that refers to it, and you can’t just assume anyone who uses the most common term to describe it is transphobic.
And I never said it’s a binary, but if a person is intersex then that’s probably important information for their doctors to know because there may be certain medical complications that they’re more at risk for as a result.
“birth-assigned sex” or “assigned sex”
Thank you, it would have been much easier to say that the first time I asked “what’s a better term if you don’t like that one?” instead of jumping off the deep end and assuming I’m just trying to be transphobic
Just FYI, I’ve never been asked about my “biological sex” from a doctor, and I’m pretty sure you haven’t either. You’ve been asked about your sex. That’s it. “Biological sex” is a right-wing dog whistle.
Yeah, it just says “Sex” and the “biological” part is implied. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a useful concept in some contexts to convey a relevant set of information.
Calling it “biological sex” might be redundant but that doesn’t make it inherently bigoted. Someone might simply be emphasizing the distinction between sex and gender. And besides, I’m not the one who started calling it that in this thread so don’t act like I’m just inserting it unnecessarily.
It’s funny how many seemingly innocuous words and phrases that I didn’t know were ostensibly dogwhistles end up being called dogwhistles. If there’s some secret right-wing code of words that mean specific things other than their apparent meaning, I assure you I don’t know it because I don’t follow those spaces or their jargon. And I can almost guarantee you that I’m not the only one like that.
So immediately jumping to “dogwhistle” every time you hear someone say something that’s supposedly in this list of secret right-wing code words is kind of a disingenuous argument and you’re just going to alienate people who then won’t take you seriously in the future.
It’s not redundant. I’d say it’s wrong. If biology is how the body is working, biological sex should be the same as hormonal sex, which would be the same as someone’s sex confirmation therapy is making it, not sex assigned at birth.
It is not implied to mean “biological sex” because that’s not a term anyone used until anti-trans people made it up. It is only used rhetorically to imply their view is the one supported by science. It isn’t.
Dog whistles can become mainstream. It doesn’t change the origin. Just because you hear it on TV sometimes doesn’t mean that’s the correct term. It was made up as a rhetorical argument to imply superiority. That’s it.
You are sealioning. You don’t speak to your doctor in order to use the loos. In this context, “biological sex” is a transphobic dog whistle.
I’m not commenting on the top-level post, I was replying to a comment that said:
That’s not sealioning.
You don’t speak to your doctor in order to use the loos. In this context, “biological sex” is a transphobic dog whistle.
I never said that you do.
It’s entirely possible to say “it’s being used as a dogwhistle in this context” without saying “it’s a totally useless term that can only be used as a dogwhistle.”
The comment I originally replied to was insinuating the latter.
I’ve yet to have any single interaction with a doctor where knowing I was born with a penis has been helpful beyond not having to ask questions like “might you be pregnant?”, but so many flags in medical paperwork that just result from them mislabeling me as a male.
Okay, so are you just going to ignore the inverse situation where a trans man goes to the doctor and the doctor does have to ask if he might be pregnant?
theyre not ignoring it?
No one has addressed the situation even though I’ve mentioned it twice in this thread now. That seems like ignoring it, no?
Is it transphobic for a doctor to ask a trans man if he might be pregnant, or no?
no
if they are, at the time, able to be pregnant, it makes sense
Okay, then it makes sense to have a spot on the intake forms to denote biological sex, or assigned sex at birth, or whatever term you want to use for it.
Otherwise a doctor seeing a new patient won’t know the appropriate questions to ask.
There should also be sections to mark any medications one is on, including hormone therapy, and any prior surgeries, including organ removal.
So instead of saying biological sex is a useless concept that only transphobes use, why not mention what your preferred terminology is so that people who actually care about being affirming can use the correct term?
You’re thinking of gender, sex is scientifically determinable.
I don’t like it by association, because most of the time I hear it used by intolerant people (like right wing assholes on the “news”). Sometimes, though, I hear it used without malice, presumably because people don’t know what else to say.
Pardon my ignorance, but what term would you suggest instead? Birth sex? Assigned sex? Something else?
I’m not the person you asked, but ‘assigned sex’ is fine. The common one is ‘assigned gender at birth’.
*assigned sex
gender is assigned at birth by society, sex is assigned at birth by biology
usually they match, but sometimes they dont (hard-to-detect intersex conditions (which are never noticed), easy-to-detect intersex conditions (that get you mutilated))
Minor unimportant correction: Sex is usually assigned at birth by nurses. It’s occasionally incorrect because it’s usually decided by what the baby’s crotch looks like rather than a blood test.
no, assigned sex is assigned by biology
nurses failing to notice that youre intersex doesnt make you not intersex
nurses attempt to discern the birth-assigned sex; they do not decide it
The word “assigned” is used exactly to describe a decision by a second party (the nurse) based on the limited information they have at the time.
Midwives relatively frequently incorrectly assign intersex people at birth.
Your actual sex isn’t assigned by anybody, and certainly isn’t decided at birth, but rather at conception.
Timeline:
no
i’m using it to mean “gotten without having chosen it”
the sex they have gotten, without having chosen it, from the dna lottery
And you believe this happens at birth?! Nonsense!
I totally understand what you’re saying, but if you take gender out of it and just think about humans as any other animal, you could classify animals with penises and animals with vaginas separately especially if you’re breeding them. The AI overlords won’t care when they’re breeding us.
EDIT: two types of genitalia instead of just penis and vagina. And not all but many animals.
Here’s the thing though, pretty much everything you just said is wrong. It’s not that simple if you think of humans as any other animal. Here’s a video link that is pretty long, but dives fairly deep into this topic that is massive from a scientific point of view.
https://youtu.be/nVQplt7Chos
Woah. I don’t have an hour and a half to dissect all the ways an animal with a penis and an animal with a vagina may not fit the standard classifications of male and female. Not discrediting that there are so many different life forms out there that can’t possibly just be two categories, but you also can’t say that “pretty much everything I said is wrong.” If I wanna breed dogs, I’m gonna need two types of genitalia. Elephants? Same. Salmon? Ducks? Lots of animals can be classified in that way. Not all their characteristics, but their reproductive traits for sure.
Yeah but toilets and changing rooms aren’t for reproduction.
If you go entirely by who has a penis or not, at least you allow some post operative trans people to live freely, but I’m not going to be checking any genitals at the toilet door, nor doing any blood tests for that matter.
This guidance deliberately leaves trans people with two bad options: go in one toilet and be harassed or attacked for being trans or go in another and risk being attacked legally.
Agreed. Just commenting on biological sex. The law sucks.
That’s a shit video. Here’s a deconstruction:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-025-03348-3
That “paper” literally starts off deliberately conflating sex and gender in order to muddy the waters to reframe the conversation. He used a lot of words to essentially define male as “has penis that can go in vagina for purpose of procreation” and female as “has vagina to receive penis for purpose of procreation” (which still wouldn’t make sex binary since intersex exist) and had very little to do with biology on the whole.
The paper is peer-reviewed, from a Evolutionary Biology PhD, submitted to a journal specializing in the topic. He starts off talking about sex, mentions gender briefly for context, and then sticks to sex for the rest of the paper. The mention is “In recent years, however, this previously uncontroversial fact has been challenged in popular discourse, […] seemingly driven by cultural and political debates surrounding the concept of “gender identity” and transgender rights.” The paper is entirely about sex, and says “some people misunderstand sex because of gender”. That’s not conflating sex and gender, that’s specifically calling out other people that have confused them.
🤦
You should fix your ignorance. It’s painful
Colin M. Wright, the author of the book you linked, is an “anti-transgender activist”. Here is a nice collection of his bigotry.
🤦🤦🤦
That’s not a book, that’s a peer-reviewed paper published by a PhD Evolutionary Biologist in a journal specific to the topic. Nobody in the field has published a response disputing it, because he’s right.
If you don’t like being told the truth by him, take your pick of anyone else listed here that signed a statement affirming the same thing:
https://projectnettie.wordpress.com/
Fuck’s sake. Reality isn’t transphobic. Do better.
Reality isn’t transphobic, but that guy definitely is.
Also I’m not discussing sex in humans with you again. I and many people, who’re are way more knowledgeable, have wasted hours of their life doing that. Much less under a post about a stupid bathroom law.
PS: I’m sooo sorry that I said that the piece of written work you linked to was a book.
You’ve wasted hours of your life being wrong. Please do better
Tell me you didn’t watch the video without telling me you didn’t watch the video. This cringey war against facts you’re waging is why people talk shit about you when you’re not around.
And no it’s not “cAuSe ThEy ArEn’T bRaVe EnOuGh To SaY iT tO mY fAcE!” It’s because you’re exhausting.
Insults don’t change the fact that it’s a shit video
…and animals with both, and animals with neither, and…
Sure but you can classify the ones with just two types of genitalia as something or another. Doesn’t mean you can’t have other layers of classification.
That’s tautological.
So you’re saying it’s true
tautologies are necessarily true, but usually not useful. for instance, I am either a bot or I am not. strictly true, but not a helpful statement.
Good bot.
😠
deleted by creator
I’m not entirely sure what point you’re making, when sex reassignment surgery exists.
Not all trans people get it, sure, but many trans men have dicks and many trans women have vaginas. These usually align cosmetically but will have functional differences to their cis counterparts. Where would you crudely sort such people?
There’s also genital nullification surgery (think Barbie doll - nothing at all).
All good. I’m referring to the comment that I replied to stating that they don’t like the term “biological sex.” Not saying that trans people should be bucketed into being men or women based on their goodies. I’m saying that biologically, across many animals, specifically mammals, we can say something has this kind of genitalia or that. Call it male or female. Call it bapu and beepo. It’s a biological difference that can be classified along with other traits.
Gotcha. Their point is kind of right though; sex is less of a strict binary category and more 2 clusters we (people) created that allow us to more easily classify specimens based on strongly correlated traits. Both clusters have some overlap, and no trait on its own completely determines the cluster.
E.g. I knew a case of this woman who grew up her whole life never knowing she has XY chromosomes, because she had seemingly typical female sex characteristics. It was only when she and her husband where struggling to conceive and they went to a fertility clinic, that that fact came to light. “Biological male” might be the cluster you’d want to put her under, but she lacks many of the features of that cluster, so in that case the binary classification is a little weak.
Of course most people/animals are not intersex (or transitioned), but the point is that the biological sex binary is kind of a shorthand / way of making life easier to classify most of the population, but it’s not perfect or tidy.
The easiest way to stay accurate is to just narrow down to the specific relevant trait (“person with facial hair”, “person with androgenetic alopecia”, etc.) depending on what specifically is measured/being talked about. But being that precise can come at the expense of being less clear/accessible to the layman, which is why we use biological sex as a concept.
For sure. There are always outliers and opportunity for more granular classification. Doesn’t mean the classifiers we have now are wrong, just not complete. I think it wouldn’t be as big of a concern if we didn’t relate male and female so closely to man and woman.
It’s a concern when we use it to discriminate against trans people.
Sure, but it’s sounding like guns kill people. People don’t kill people. We use skin color to discriminate against people, but doesn’t mean you can’t use it as a categorization in other ways. Anything can be used to discriminate against somebody. Credit score. Types of clothes they wear. Whatever.
Very true.
I think we agree here.
Sex is binary. Her body is still organized around producing one or the other of exactly two gamete types, which defines whether she’s male or female.
…nope. Her body can’t produce either. And she has a uterus and fallopian tubes.
Even in extreme cases, someone can still be determined to be male or female. Even if they can’t produce gametes, they still have structures in their body that are required for producing gametes of one type, and not used for producing gametes of the other type.
“centred around” is a subjective projection rather than statement of a fact in cases where gamete production genuinely does not occur. For this person, her gonads never developed into either testes or ovaries, so by this definition she would be of neither sex. I’m OK with that, but it does undermine your point about the strict binary.
My question to you is why does this matter, in the context of accessing bathrooms and changing rooms? Do you think inspecting reproductive anatomy is a proportionate measure?
More broadly speaking, what is the point of recording the ‘biological sex’ of a person who, through transition, has changed their physiology and endocrine profile to that associated with the opposite, and no longer has their natal reproductive anatomy? Who would this benefit?
But humans aren’t just animals and this statutory guidance shouldn’t treat them as if they’re just animals.
Agreed. Just commenting on “biological sex”. The law sucks.
For anyone else questioning topics like this, here’s a fairly lengthy but great video on the topic.
https://youtu.be/nVQplt7Chos
That’s a shit video. Here’s a deconstruction:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-025-03348-3
Colin M. Wright, the author of the book you linked, is an “anti-transgender activist”. Here is a nice collection of his bigotry.
🤦🤦🤦
That’s not a book, that’s a peer-reviewed paper published by a PhD Evolutionary Biologist in a journal specific to the topic. Nobody in the field has published a response disputing it, because he’s right.
If you don’t like being told the truth by him, take your pick of anyone else listed here that signed a statement affirming the same thing:
https://projectnettie.wordpress.com/
Fuck’s sake. Reality isn’t transphobic. Do better.
Reality isn’t transphobic, but that guy definitely is.
Also I’m not discussing sex in humans with you again. I and many people, who’re are way more knowledgeable, have wasted hours of their life doing that. Much less under a post about a stupid bathroom law.
PS: I’m sooo sorry that I said that the piece of written work you linked to was a book.
You’ve wasted hours of your life being wrong. Please do better
The definition of sex is simple. It’s defined entirely as the gametes one’s body is organized around producing. This is not an oversimplification. It is the reality that biologists have found in nature. It is settled science in the field of biology. Chromosomes are how sex is determined. Other species have completely different sex determination systems. Their sex is still defined by gametes.
Intersex is a confusing term. It has confused you. Some people are born with a Disorder of sex development. They are still either male or female.
Humans cannot change sex. Hormones can change some secondary sex characteristics. That does not change sex.
That’s a juvenile understanding of sex, yes
As stated, that’s the definition that the entire field of biology uses. If you think it’s juvenile, take it up with them.
Perhaps, if all of the biologists are telling you you’re wrong, you might just be wrong?
i mean, you’re literally wrong?
You’re literally wrong. Here’s a public statement that a bunch of biologists and other scientists have signed:
https://projectnettie.wordpress.com/
Do you have a source other than just “nuh uh :(”
first off, wordpress? ooo, authoritative! second, look up the SRY gene.
🤦🤦🤦
The biologists involved chose to host it on wordpress. That doesn’t change who signed the statement. Fuck’s sake.
If you’re talking about the SRY gene at this point, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Chromosomes are how sex is determined, not how sex is defined. As linked to previously in the comment that you should have educated yourself with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-determination_system
Most animals don’t have an SRY gene. Wow they must be sexless! Biologists in tatters, completely unable to explain what sex a chicken is!
Since you appear to require remedial help, note that that was sarcasm. Biologists can determine the sex of any anisogamous species, because of gametes. No other definition makes sense. You’re welcome to provide any source claiming that the consensus in the field of biology is something else. You can’t though.
For anybody following along, note the common playbook of spewing bullshit, while also never actually providing any real source. If they just really really want it to be true, then it must be true, right?
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Ok, so what about those that produce no gametes? What about those that produce both kinds?
Humans that don’t produce gametes still have bodies organized around producing either sperm or ova. Their bodies still contain sexed structures. An example in other species is worker bees, which are sterile females. How do we know they’re female? Because of the sexed structures in their bodies! Even though they don’t produce gametes, they have structures in their bodies that are required for producing gametes of one type, and not used in the production of the other type.
No humans have bodies organized around producing both types of gametes, because we are Gonochoric. Other animals do have body plans organized around producing both types of gametes, such as in Androdioecy. Those species give a good example of what humans are not.
Biological sex is just that. It’s your reproductive organs. Neat. Simple. Clean cut(or uncut) in most cases. Aberrations exist, but they’re rare.
Gender is a psychology. It’s an identity.
No it’s not. It’s a whole bunch of loosely correlated characteristics, many of which can be changed.
That’s completely untrue.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-025-03348-3
Colin M. Wright, the author of the book you linked, is an “anti-transgender activist”. Here is a nice collection of his bigotry.
🤦🤦🤦
That’s not a book, that’s a peer-reviewed paper published by a PhD Evolutionary Biologist in a journal specific to the topic. Nobody in the field has published a response disputing it, because he’s right.
If you don’t like being told the truth by him, take your pick of anyone else listed here that signed a statement affirming the same thing:
https://projectnettie.wordpress.com/
Fuck’s sake. Reality isn’t transphobic. Do better.
Reality isn’t transphobic, but that guy definitely is.
Also I’m not discussing sex in humans with you again. I and many people, who’re are way more knowledgeable, have wasted hours of their life doing that. Much less under a post about a stupid bathroom law.
PS: I’m sooo sorry that I said that the piece of written work you linked to was a book.
You’ve wasted hours of your life being wrong. Please do better
I’m not sorry that I pointed out that that guy is a transphobe, but I am sorry that I engaged with you again.
I’m going to block you now. Originally I wanted to discuss Imane Khelif, when new concrete information was available, but now I am going to block you for my own sake. @davidagain@lemmy.world can discuss with you until both of your keyboards break.
The thread of this conversation is exactly why a line has to be drawn and written in law using the clearest measure there is.
Oooor just let trans folk use the damn bathroom? There doesn’t need to have a line drawn
There always needs to be a line drawn in law.
Agreed, the line is use the bathroom and don’t shit on the floor
A) No it doesn’t. Where I live, it is entirely legal for a man to enter the women’s bathroom. Nothing to do with transgender folks; it simply is not a crime.
B) The UK has an official “gender recognition certificate” program. If you wanted to draw a line, I would think that individuals with such a certificate would fall on their recognized side of the line; however, under the new standard, a trans women with an official government issued gender recognition certificate is still considered by that same government to be a man for the purposes of using a toilet.
Clearest measure here wouldn’t be the “biological sex” anyway… Because going mens bathroom doesn’t require a penis, last time I checked. But it does require to be perceived as a man which relates more to other characteristics like beard and appearance. Same goes the other way around.
And how do you define something as subjective as that in law? Absolutely absurd.
That’s the great thing… you don’t. They are trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. There are already laws in place which forbid harassment. There is absolutely no need to create a law which can’t be enforced anyway and is most likely causing more trouble (for cis people too!) than just keeping things like they were.
It was working just fine before this law no?
You need to get a grip it’s stupid fucking shit like this that cost us the culture war.
This illogical nontopic was started as a culture bomb to fracture the left imo. Sometime around 2015.
The culture was isnt lost, but it’s not going to be won by deciding that we can have a little hateful bigotry, as a treat, because black/Jew/queer/gay/trans is “icky”.
Case in point. I never mentioned any of those groups, and I never discriminated trans people. I disagreed with this fucking idiot that’s the extent of it. Thanks for “Trump: Birthright citizenship is a disgrace” thanks for that you stupid fucking cunts this is your fault.
You directly replied to a post talking about biological essentialism and a misunderstanding of sex as a mechanism for discriminating against trans people, telling them “get a grip” and that caring about that scientific reality is “stupid fucking shit.”
Whether you believe it is or not, that is a form of discrimination, as it essentially posits that we should just ignore these facts to appease closed-minded individuals to “win” the culture war, even if that “win” comes at the expense of… being trans not being considered “real” or “biologically accurate” by those who entirely misunderstand what being trans is.
You need to realize that pushing scientific fact to the margins to appease other people fighting the ‘culture war’ does nothing but harm people so those other people can continue to live in ignorance.
Your mentality is the same as someone arguing that we shouldn’t have talked about there being no biological evidence for black people being dumber than white people because that would “lose us the culture war” against white slave owners that think they should get to own slaves because black people are dumber than them. Maybe you win their votes, but you’ve done nothing but enable the continuation of slavery by not confronting its widely believed yet incorrect ideological backing.
Not talking about things like intersex individuals and the unknowns about the links between sex and gender doesn’t win you anything in the long term if it comes at the cost of every single trans and intersex person’s (millions of people in just the USA, and that’s likely an undercount) rights by backsliding on public understanding of the subject.
Intersex individuals demonstrate variation within the sex binary. They’re still male or female.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disorders_of_sex_development
Please stop pushing the idea that reality is “biological essentialism”.
Variation within a binary makes it, by definition, not a binary system.
Binary is 1 and 0. If you can have 1.5, or 1.234098723, you don’t have a binary system, you have a spectrum.
For example, take this beautifully complicated diagram from Scientific American:
Typical biological males and females are on either end of the spectrum, yet other options exist in between. Hence, not a binary, but a spectrum.
What do you call someone with XY chromosomes but female reproductive structures? How about someone with XX or XY chromosomes but ambiguous genitals, or someone with XXXYY chromosomes? What about someone with mosaicism that causes some cells in their body to have just the X chromosome, and some to have XY, with varying changes in what % each makes up of their body throughout their life?
All of those are real conditions, and that’s just a fraction of them.
The reason this essentialism is stupid is because it assumes a spectrum can in fact be boiled down to a binary, and also that the spectrum must specifically begin, end, and be defined by what is “typical”, and assuming anyone’s sex must solely be determined by its proximity to one of the two options, rather than simply… being allowed to be its own thing that isn’t binary, because the reality, obviously, isn’t.
2 disjunct spectra form a binary. This is fact.
Those conditions all are male or female DSDs. You can see that here:
https://theparadoxinstitute.org/articles/sex-development-charts
For example, a male DSD:
XY female:
The binary exists. Biologists have observed it.
It’s not about “typical”. In anisogamous species, there’s sperm and there’s ova. Zero overlap. That’s what sex is. Any other definition is incoherent across species.
Should have figured you’d cite a known anti-trans organization that distorts scientific reality to make a point. (oh boy, I sure do wonder why they have an article titled “8-Step Action Plan to Eliminate Gender Ideology”, surely because they actually understand broadly accepted and heavily researched science and not because they just want to make a political point while sounding scientific!)
They think sex can only be determined by gametes. This ignores the fundamental reality that many humans do not produce either of them while retaining wholly ambiguous or non-ambiguous reproductive organs, that some humans can produce both (albeit rarely), or that some humans lose or gain the ability to produce one throughout their lives. (not producing ova until puberty? Tough luck, guess you’re not a female! Body hasn’t fully developed internal reproductive organs until later in life? Guess you’re sex-less until then! Does your body never produce sperm or ova because of a genetic issue? Guess it’s impossible to assign you a sex!)
It also ignores the fact that we tend to classify sex based on phenotypic characteristics. If someone has a penis, generally masculine face and fat distribution, but XX chromosomes and is still able to sometimes produce ova while not producing sperm, even if they’re missing the rest of the necessary reproductive functions, for all intensive purposes, you would call that person male. If every other part of their body is typically male, there is no reason to continually insist that person is actually a female because somewhere inside their body they can produce ova that don’t do anything.
If sex is determined by gametes, there are exceptions to the rule that can’t be classified solely as one or the other.
If sex is determined by chromosomes, then any exception from XX or XY disproves the rule.
If sex is determined by phenotypic characteristics, then we see a spectrum in how they present.
This also simply ignores the fundamental reality that even if you can oversimplify a complex condition into one of two more common options, it doesn’t mean that is correct or accurate to do so.
To use the analogy I used before, you could say that all numbers for simplicity, should be rounded to either 1 or 0, even if it’s 0.9, 0.2, or 0.2398547293875. That could be useful shorthand, and it could generally describe semi-closely how those numbers would operate within a broadly binary system, but at the end of the day those numbers are not 0 or 1.
Claiming that “0.9 = 1” would be stupid.
Claiming “0.9 is basically 1 so why bother ever giving it a different label” would be stupid.
Claiming “0.9 is close enough to 1 to not make a huge difference in outward perception and day-to-day use, so we can rely on it for shorthand while understanding 0.9 is not 1” would be very reasonable.
You cannot look at a spectrum, say “they’re still within the other 2, therefore there’s only 2”, and call it a day.
It’s true these conditions can present similarly to one of the two typical male or female sets of characteristics, or that they can derive from what are often the typical chromosomes of either group. It’s not true that they are male or female and there is only a binary and nothing else.
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I see you’re not exactly into constructive conversation. Maybe chill out instead of getting so angry at comments online that it sends you into a fit of swearing rage?
Sure. Any time, any day. I doubt you’ll even read past the first sentence given how irrationally angry you seem to be, but maybe you’ll prove me wrong.
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Every part of their statement was either reaffirmed or backed up with additional supporting statements in what I wrote. Either you didn’t read what I typed, or you simply don’t have the greatest reading comprehension and can’t see how my statements back up what they originally posted.
Those ‘random facts’ are directly reaffirming the other person’s statements, which you called “the stupidest fucking shit I have seen today.” Is it safe to say that you calling something stupid probably means you disagree with it?
Keep telling yourself that, I’m sure you gotta fuel that anger somehow. It’s not you who is wrong, it must be everyone else!
This just goes to show transphobes and bigots refuse to learn about the reality we live in and instead lash out because something doesn’t fit their worldview.
That’s what OP is doing.
I only see you lashing out. Op is 100% correct and you are refusing to learn anything. Instead you call people a putrid rotting dog. Honestly I bet a putrid rotting dog smells better than you do.