Legal definition of woman is based on biological sex, UK supreme court rules

[Jarhyn]

Uh, plenty of people enjoy a good debate. Even a good argument from time to time. That is, like, and incredibly common thing to enjoy.

To be fair, I would rather argue over what the nature of consciousness is and the basic logic of free will, responsibility, and the derivation of moral rules than about whether or not I should be put to death for being a eunuch quite explicitly "to bring heaven to earth", despite the prophet of those very "believers" saying explicitly to leave me the fuck alone concerning my childlessness.

 

[Politesse]

That would be nice. To most of these fine folks, of course, this is just such an abstract debate. At least, they think it is. How civil rights problems expand from the initial targeted population is something they are anxiously, purposefully ignorant of. So they don't think it will ever cost them anything personally.

 

[Kylie]

Any definition of "womanhood" based on something like chromosomes or body structures is fundamentally flawed. There will always be some exception that the people proposing such definitions will disagree with.

Any definition of "womanhood" based on subjective unverifiable feelings inside someone's head is far more flawed, because it lacks anything remotely resembling a cohesive meaning.

So subjective definitions are worthless then?

Furthermore, sex is a universal definition that applies to all species that reproduce via the merging of two different sized gametes (anisogamy).

We aren't talking aboput biological sex, or chromosomes, or sex cells.

We're talking about gender identity.

Every anisogamous species has developed two distinctly different reproductive systems. One of those systems evolved in tandem with large gametes, the other evolved in tandem with small gametes. Individuals within a species that have the system associated with large gametes are called females; those that have the other system are males.

And if I removed your brain and kept you alive as just a brain in a jar, would you still think of yourself as a woman? Or would you say, "I don't have a uterus anymore, therefore I have no gender identity."

And if I did a brain transplant and put you in a body with a penis, would you start claiming you were a man?

People can disagree with that. But they're wrong, and they're working from an ideological faith-based perspective. They're not working from a scientific perspective.

And you're trying to change the subject. Like I said, we are talking gender identity, not chromosomes, anatomy, sex cells, or anything else.

 

[Jarhyn]

That would be nice. To most of these fine folks, of course, this is just such an abstract debate. At least, they think it is. How civil rights problems expand from the initial targeted population is something they are anxiously, purposefully ignorant of. So they don't think it will ever cost them anything personally.

Except it really isn't, and this debate frankly SHOULDN'T be held by people who do not contemplate other such issues deeply.

Like, if you're not willing to check and validate that what you believe people "ought" do is actually what people "ought" do, and to understand exactly why we have all the tokens we do, and why the meanings assigned to those tokens must be limited to some fixed token structure.

The thing about language is that fromy perspective, it's not purely arbitrary. Sure, there's an arbitrary layer as to what utterances are attached to tokens or how we pre/post/in-fix modifiers, or whether we leave modifications implicit as context would demand or make it explicit because talking smoothly requires "cognitive breaks" anyway, but the underlying structure of meaning and truth which language touches and handles is not flexible at all; some statement cannot both be "true" and "false" in the same way at the same time.

So someone can either conform their language to the structure of reality or they can be wrong.

And stating that human conditions are "objectively" disorders violates that language. Even if every person has the same subjective opinion, that wouldn't make the opinion not-subjective. It would be extremely statistically unlikely because we can't even get everyone to believe things that ARE objectively true, but that's beside the point; the "objectivity" is independent from its acceptance.

Even if everyone on earth and on the whole universe at some point in time declared Spina Bifida a disorder, and most people with it and around those with it consider it subjectively to be one for those who have it, that doesn't make it objectively a disorder, because it is physically possible for someone with it to not think of it as such; no person has a right to decide how many other person "must" be other than "not an asshole to those around them".

Even being unethical does not count as an objective disorder.

Any definition of "womanhood" based on something like chromosomes or body structures is fundamentally flawed. There will always be some exception that the people proposing such definitions will disagree with.

Any definition of "womanhood" based on subjective unverifiable feelings inside someone's head is far more flawed, because it lacks anything remotely resembling a cohesive meaning.

So subjective definitions are worthless then?

Furthermore, sex is a universal definition that applies to all species that reproduce via the merging of two different sized gametes (anisogamy).

We aren't talking aboput biological sex, or chromosomes, or sex cells.

We're talking about gender identity.

Every anisogamous species has developed two distinctly different reproductive systems. One of those systems evolved in tandem with large gametes, the other evolved in tandem with small gametes. Individuals within a species that have the system associated with large gametes are called females; those that have the other system are males.

And if I removed your brain and kept you alive as just a brain in a jar, would you still think of yourself as a woman? Or would you say, "I don't have a uterus anymore, therefore I have no gender identity."

And if I did a brain transplant and put you in a body with a penis, would you start claiming you were a man?

People can disagree with that. But they're wrong, and they're working from an ideological faith-based perspective. They're not working from a scientific perspective.

And you're trying to change the subject. Like I said, we are talking gender identity, not chromosomes, anatomy, sex cells, or anything else.

Yeah, she seems to have an inability to look past highschool biology to see that most times, only SOME of that stuff has to align for reproduction, and it is not even adaptive for it to line up for reproduction in every individual, and that behavior comes from a different system than reproductive capability anyway.

In the past when pressed on this, Emily has claimed it is "social" loading, all up in her head from her upbringing and considerations through life; she thinks being trans is acquired as a "meme" infection, rather than as a developmental condition.

 

[seanie]

And you're trying to change the subject. Like I said, we are talking gender identity, not chromosomes, anatomy, sex cells, or anything else

So what’s the justification for males entering female only spaces because their “gender identity” is female?

Why should females who want female only spaces, in some circumstances, have to accommodate males?

Because those males consider themselves female?

You’re going to need a better reason than that.

 

[seanie]

What’s the justification for separate male and female categories in sport in the first place?

And why should a male with a female “gender identity” be allowed to compete in female sports?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I am looking at that post, and still not seeing what the hell you're on about. No matter what way you explain it, Marxism simply does not naturally follow from policies of non-discrimination.

Marxism doesn't follow from policies of non-discrimination.
Marxism has shaped policies of equity.

"Marxism" has a 100% scam rate.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Poli's argument that high school males would be "outed" by using a separate, unisex restroom rather than the female facilities inherently relies on the assumption that nobody knows they're a male in the first place.

It's more that everyone deduces which are the "trans bathrooms" instantly.

So what?

If everyone already knows that they're trans, then what does it matter? All it does is to provide a middle ground where a male who identifies as a transgirl isn't forced to share intimate space with boys... but where female humans are also not forced to share intimate space with male humans.

The only situation in which your objection to having a third space even remotely makes sense is that in which nobody at all knows that the male with gender feelings is a male.

If your objective is acceptance, this is the way to get it. If your objective is domination, this will get in your way.

So you don't care if it gets them killed?

So you don't care if it gets female women killed to allow males into female intimate spaces?

Maybe you find that to be a compelling argument, but I don't.

Just look at reality.

We still have no good evidence of a female-presenting person harming anyone in a women's room and the repeated presenting of serious flawed evidence makes me think there is no good evidence. You're defending against a non-threat. But we have clear evidence of harm to people using the bathroom that matches their birth but not what they present as. The transman doesn't have a penis to rape you with so you're safe, but he very well might end up dead and you don't seem to care. And you will have no good ability to detect when an actual predator walks in. You're running from a fake risk right to a real one.

 

[seanie]

We do.

You just ignore the evidence.

 

[seanie]

And you ignore the reasonable expectation of females to have female only spaces in some situations.

The issue is not simply one of safety, there’s also privacy, dignity, and fairness.

 

[Politesse]

And you ignore the reasonable expectation of females to have female only spaces in some situations.

The issue is not simply one of safety, there’s also privacy, dignity, and fairness.

Yet you don't offer safety, privacy, dignity, or fairness to your victims, most of whom are innocent children. Why should anyone care about yours?

 

[seanie]

Most of who are children?

What are you on about?

 

[seanie]

Are you saying any male should be allowed to enter any space if they consider themselves to be female?

What’s your justification for that?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How do we tell when they’re both?

Because they produce both male and female gametes.

Two sexes.

A binary.

But what sex is the tree? Not the gametes.

Clearly you can't differentiate all living things into male and female.

 

[seanie]

The tree is either male, female, or both male and female.

Sex is still binary, even if some organisms can be both, simultaneously or sequentially.

 

[seanie]

Because biological sex is defined by gametes.

That’s why we can determine that male Seahorses gestate their offspring.

What else are we observing in Seahorses to determine which are male, and which are female?

And what’s it got to do with Bob in accounts, who’s decided he’s now Brenda, and wants to use the ladies loo at work?

 

[Politesse]

Most of who are children?

What are you on about?

The trans kids primarily targeted for abuse by the laws you advocate for. Adults are allowed to simply transition if they have the means, and gave a fighting chance at living life largely as they please. They can dress themselves, arrange their own appearance, and preferentially choose safe businesses and institutions over those haunted by you and your "friends". Adults aren't as likely to play on sports teams, and they have much more freedom of movement in general. If one gym is bigoted, they can go to another that is more tolerant. If one mental health care facility refuses to help them, they can find another. Not that life is a picnic for any trans person in a Christofascist society, it most certainly is not, but adults do have a lot more leeway for avoiding unpleasant situations, and more freedom to find and form safe communities. So by the numbers it's mostly children, who have none of those advantages, that you're attacking and abusing. Trans youths are much easier to find, easier to hurt, and have a harder task ahead of them if they need to get out of a bad situation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Since trees can male, female or both, the sex is not binary. Clearly you have been kicked in the head multiple times.

Sex is still binary. True hermaphroditic species don't make sex anything other than binary in anisogamous species. Hell, we only know they're hermaphroditic *because* they have both a male reproductive system and a female reproductive system.

Reproductive sex is binary.

Sex has multiple meanings and usages as discussed elsewhere in this thread.

Exactly. As with so many of these things it's about proving one meaning of a word and then pretending that's proof of a different meaning of the word.

Sex as in gamete appears to be binary although not always establishable at birth. That proves nothing about gender as in mental perception.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I want to clarify: Do you see intersex individuals as disabled?

Do you see individuals with dwarfism as disabled?

A side bar: I think a major difference between people in this discussion is that some view the world as a set of dichotomies and some view the world as a continuum, not either or but maybe both or neither or something else altogether. Or another way of describing it is that some people view the world as black or white. Others see an entire rainbow. Just an observation.

I think you nailed it here.

And note that if you see the world as binary you're pretty much left with considering the other cases disabled.

I find the closer you look the more you find a continuum. From a distance things clump into a few points, but up close you find they're not all the same.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And if I removed your brain and kept you alive as just a brain in a jar, would you still think of yourself as a woman? Or would you say, "I don't have a uterus anymore, therefore I have no gender identity."

And if I did a brain transplant and put you in a body with a penis, would you start claiming you were a man?

Why stop there? Upload.

And figure a world where we have upload and can either operate or download into bodies, do you think people wouldn't try out the other sex? And do you think their mental perception would alter as they did so???