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

[Emily Lake]

Did you notice the link to how the Talmud discussed gender? Jesus was a Jew.

Did you read your own link? The Talmud references aren't to gender, they're to sex. They specifically relate to DSDs and to people made eunuchs:

1. Zachar, male.
2. Nekevah, female.
3. Androgynos, having both male and female characteristics.
4. Tumtum, lacking sexual characteristics.
5. Aylonit, identified female at birth without developing secondary female sexual characteristics at puberty.
6. Saris hamah, identified male at birth without developing secondary male sexual
   characteristics at puberty.
7. Saris adam, identified male at birth without developing secondary male sexual characteristics because of castration.

The rabbis did not use the word gender as we do today, as referring to a cultural construct distinct from biological sex. The seven genders they describe are distinguished by physical and biological realities, not culturally conditioned categories.

 

[Emily Lake]

So what?

What has that to do with the question of whether sex is an important characteristic in some circumstances?

It is possible that by studying other cultures, we might learn and grow and improve how we handle things.

Sure, that's possible. But let's also use some sense, and make sure that what we adopt from other cultures makes sense and is beneficial. Just because some other culture has a third gender role within their very strict sex-based hierarchy doesn't mean that it would make sense for our cultures to follow suit.

India has traditionally had very strict divisions on the basis of sex. There is work that only men can do, and work that only women do. Women have been treated as less-than-men for a very long time, and even with the progress they've made today women are treated as lesser and it's a fairly misogynistic culture. Yes, India has a hijra category - specifically for men who aren't man enough to be considered real men. It's largely been a category for gay men to be shoved into. It lets those men still be recognized as "better than women" in terms of social status, but "lesser than men". They've traditionally worn female-style clothing as an indication of their social status as hijra.

Now, that's great in the sense that not-very-manly-men aren't beaten up or abused. I support that. On the other hand... I don't think that's a great thing for the US or other english-speaking cultures to adopt. I don't think that social status should be tied to sex - and I don't think you would like that either.

I think it would be far superior for our cultures to take a different approach altogether. I think we should focus on eradicating gender roles and expectations altogether. I don't think there's anything at all wrong with women wearing steel-toed boots and flannel shirts, there's nothing wrong with a woman being butch or mannish in presentation - it doesn't make her any less of a woman. The butchiest butch lesbian is still just as female as you and I are, and that's fairly well accepted.

Men face more scrutiny. On the whole, men are not as accepting of effeminate men than women are of butch women. We don't care if a woman wears manly clothes... but men in general seem to care quite a bit if a man wears womanly clothes. Men gatekeep masculinity far more strictly than women monitor femininity - and you can thank our feminist forebears for that.

To me, it makes way more sense to spend our efforts convincing men that a man in a frilly skirt is still just as much of a man as a man in dungarees. I'd far rather focus on shifting our culture in order to allow ANYONE to present however they want than on enforcing gendered expectations.

 

[Emily Lake]

So men should be allowed into women only spaces because…

…other cultures.

This is idiocy.

The only idiocy that I see is in the insistence of adhering to a black or white understanding of sex and gender.

I mean, if you want to call yourself an idiot I'm not going to stop you

Not serious, of course. But I do want to be clear - not a single person in this discussion things gender is black or white. Many of us do think (appropriately) that sex is binary. But gender expression and expectations are a cultural convention - and those can be any damned thing you want them to be. I'm much more on the side of gender being some made-up bullshit and everyone should be free to express and present however the hell they want - which makes gender a continuum at the very least. To me, it's nothing more or less than a personality trait and a preference... which has the same net result.

 

[ZiprHead]

Sports was always a massive overreach.

However sympathetic, or accepting, or "live and let live", most people are, biological males in female sports was never gonna fly.

But the Trans lobby had to have it all.

With no debate.

There are trans women that disagree with transwomen competing with females. I heard about one trans woman doing so to just point out the unfair advantage they have.

ETA: I could not find the link to the trans woman I spoke of above but I did find this:

Fact check: Do trans women have unfair athletic advantage? – DW – 03/20/2025

Sports federations are making it harder for transgender women to participate in female competitions. Are these steps justified?

www.dw.com

A 2020 study by Timothy Roberts and colleagues at the University of Missouri-Kansas City examined US military personnel who underwent gender-affirming hormone therapy.

After one year of hormone therapy, trans women performed better in sports than cis women. After two years, their performance was largely equalized. According to the authors of the study, this is an indication that the one year of hormone therapy prescribed by some sports associations as a prerequisite for participation is too short.

In 2021, Alun Williams and other researchers from the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences came to the conclusion that, according to the available scientific evidence, hormone therapy only eliminates a fraction of the male advantage even after two years. Overall, the results are therefore quite different.

 

[Emily Lake]

You quoted us both responding to seanie's non sequitur as though Toni was the one posting fallacies and had said we should allow men into women only spaces.

Either you got confused over who has been arguing what, or you were being disingenuous.

Let's be crystal clear here as it's possible to be - which isn't very.

Toni hasn't said that men should be allowed into women only spaces... but she has said that some males are women and therefore some males should sometimes be allowed into some women's spaces sometimes, even though a penis in those spaces might make some women uncomfortable sometimes... but that's not actually a reason to exclude them, because it's very important that male women have a safe male-free space to use too. It's just that penises are a challenge and there's no easy solution to that. But we shouldn't outright exclude women-with-penises from women's intimate spaces either.

Hope that clears things up for you...

 

[Emily Lake]

We do disagree. I believe that trans women are women and trans men are men and need to be respected as such.

I do struggle a bit where sports are concerned because I am old enough to remember the days before Title IX and see the continuing inequalities between funding and other support for female vs male teams. But so far, most female players do not see a problem and don’t feel they are being crowded out. I defer to their judgement.

Why do you believe trans women are women, given the obvious fact they are male?

In what sense can an adult male be considered a woman?

Why?

The genetics have been explaining Ned multiple times elsewhere in this thread.

It looks like you're referring to the genetic fact that some XY people develop along a Müllerian pathway, and some XX go Wolffian. If that's the multiply-explained genetics you're talking about then you misunderstood the question. Seanie did not ask *"Why do you believe trans women are women, given the obvious fact they are XY? In what sense can an adult XY person be considered a woman?". You appear to have been taken in by the recurring canard from gender ideologues to the effect that everyone who disagrees with gender ideology is a "male/female = XY/XX" simpleton. It's a false-dilemma fallacy. Nobody in this thread is insisting "woman" means "XX". We know about SRY genes and CAIS and so forth.

It's particularly frustrating, since both seanie and I have very clearly stated that sex is not defined by karyotype, but rather by the type of evolved reproductive system involved.

 

[Emily Lake]

Since multiple posters have tried to explain the difference between sex and gender but you are still mixing them up, perhaps you should look to other sources for answers.

I'm going to tackle this... and say that neither seanie nor I is mixing up sex and gender at all.

Sex is a biological classification within anisogamous species, based on the type of evolved reproductive system in place. In mammals, sex is gonochoric.

Gender is a set of sex-correlated social strictures and expectations that is often highly restrictive. They are culturally created, non-static, and frequently erratic.

Personally, I think gender as a concept is bullshit and serves no purpose other than to limit people's freedom and opportunities.
Personally, I think the literal meaning of the words woman and man refer to sex - which is what they've done throughout the history of those words in english-speaking languages, and indeed every language I'm aware of has a separate word for males of the human species than it does for females of the human species.

You know who *is* mixing up sex and gender? The people in this thread who are arguing that male human beings with different personally-defined gender identities should be entitled to use spaces, services, and sports that are separated on the basis of sex. Bathrooms, showers, spas, prisons, shelters, and prisons are not - and have never been - separated on the basis of gender identity. They've always been separated on the basis of sex. Sometimes a person can be mistaken about another's sex, and sometimes a person can successfully mimic the visual traits of the opposite sex... and that means that sometimes a male can get away with using a female space or service and not get caught, or that sometimes a female can get away with using a male space or service and go unnoticed. But those occasional exceptions do not change the fact the the spaces and services themselves are separated by sex. Not gender.

 

[Emily Lake]

I wasn't accusing you of splitting hairs, I was expecting Emily Lake to do it, all the way down to the subatomic level if that's what it took to sort out the blind vaginas from the vaginal pouches and tell us what to call the opening that leads to a not-technically-a-vagina-but-looks-like-one.

I already did that.

Following on to Bomb#20's post... in context you brought up "looks like a vagina" in reference to a male person with a DSD that only males can have, and who has internal male reproductive system, and who developed male secondary sex characteristics at puberty, and who in all likelihood has descended testicles and a small penis since that's by far the most common developmental result for 5-ARD. That's why they're called geuvedoces in the first place - because they get balls and dicks at puberty.

So in fairness... I think you're going to get an incredibly different answer if you ask 100 random people (both male and female) if a person who has a vagina and also has a penis and testicles can possibly be a man.

But in fairness to you... I would bet that if you asked 100 random male humans that question, 95 of them would insist that such a person cannot possibly be a man. Which says a lot more about how strongly men gatekeep masculinity than it does about anything else.

 

[Emily Lake]

Philosophical Malpractice

I read that, it was a fantastically written article.

 

[Emily Lake]

I suggest looking into the psychology of gender first. You seem to have a pretty good grasp of the biology of sex, at least enough to understand there is a difference between being male and being a man, being female and being a woman, being human and having a weak or variable connection to a gender identity.

Well of course there’s a difference between being male and being a man, and being female and being a woman.

The differences are age and species.

So this Disney song is all about age and species?



Wow.

I thought they were singing about expectations and gender roles.

The inability of people to keep hold of the difference between literal and figurative uses of language is going to result in the extinction of our species.

Maybe slight hyperbole... but not by a whole lot. The ability to communicate using metaphorical language is closely tied to our ability to manipulate abstract concepts. And the ability to manipulate abstract concepts is a massively important element of our genus' development over the last couple of million years, and the wild success of our species over the last two hundred thousand. The ability to engage with abstraction is fundamental to our ability to think extrapolative - and that's what underlies innovation, experimentation, and technological advancement.

Don't make the mistake of thinking technology applies only to modern day electronic gadgets - it applies to all tools and practices that alter our environment to better suit us rather than the other way around. It begins with capturing fire proceeds through developing agriculture and animal domestication, and proceeds right up to our ability to argue with idiots on the internet.

Conflating the clearly figurative use of the word "man" in the context of ancient gender roles as represented by disney with the literal use of the word "man" to refer to a male of the human species is tantamount to asserting that someone with a "sunny disposition" actually emits light via fusion.

 

[Emily Lake]

Who the fuck is talking about castrating boys???

How the fuck did you get that out of anyone's post, and why the fuck are you linking it to being progressive?

That's an utterly regressive, authoritarian, slave- and chattel-owning mentality that should have finally died in Western culture when the Nazis were defeated but still persists in certain flavors of Christianity and other religions, none of which are represented or endorsed here.

I agree. Glad to see that you oppose sex-trait modifications for minors. Boys should be allowed to play with dolls and wear pink and still be boys, without social activists pushing them on a path to permanent medicalization, long-term health issues, and sterility.

 

[Emily Lake]

An entire range of care designed to help people struggling with gender and identity issues to acknowledge and validate their gender identity. It includes counseling, social services, and guidance as they make adjustments to their social networks. It might include hormone therapy. In rare cases it might include surgery, but only on people who consent to it after psychologists have confirmed they understand the procedure, know the potential drawbacks and possibility of complications, and that the consent is valid - not on boys who like the color pink or whatever horseshit reason seanie thinks the Progressive Boogeyman thinks is valid.

What do you think gender affirming care consists of? The immediate removal of a boy's sex organs if he likes My Little Pony, or a girl's if she likes climbing trees?

I get that this is how you think it ought to work... but that's not how it actually works. There is no requirement for counseling and psychological treatment. And up until a swath or laws in the last couple of years, there were several Planned Parenthoods that would prescribe cross-sex hormones to minors without parental knowledge or permission, after nothing more than a 30 minute meeting during which the child said "I'm trans and I want to transition". Somewhere around 5000 minor girls had double mastectomies between 2016 and 2020.

What you think you know is what would make sense. Unfortunately, what you think you know isn't actually true.

 

[laughing dog]

I am unaware of any poll or study results. I’m aware of anecdotes which run the gamut from hardcore antitrans bigots to sore losers to females who they believe are men to people concerned with fairness.

Wow. Talk about narrative framing.

Apparently, if female humans object to letting males compete on female teams... it's only because those females are bigots or sore losers.

Couldn't possibly be about fairness and the recognition that males and females have different bodies. Nah, it's all just some made-up bigotry and we've got a hundred years of sports stats that someone invented to support that grand lie.

I can understand why a hardcore anti trans bigot or a disingenuous jackass would so baldly misconstrue a request for study results to combat anecdotes, but what is your explanation?

I ask, because seanie provided a good link to a study.

 

[Emily Lake]

Sports was always a massive overreach.

However sympathetic, or accepting, or "live and let live", most people are, biological males in female sports was never gonna fly.

But the Trans lobby had to have it all.

With no debate.

I'm alway saddened to realize that sports was too much... but somehow prison was just fine.

 

[Toni]

This is actually a great question and shouldn't be asked sarcastically. Especially the "why" part. I don't think the answer is available yet and won't be for a while

I think that the main problems here are two things. Sex and gender are two different things. That's one, and it doesn't fit the trans activists ideology.

The one we're talking about here (this post, not the whole thread) is semantics. For all of human history, until very recently, sex and gender were so tightly entwined there was little point to making a distinction between male and man or female and woman. A person's birth sex determined a ton of stuff about their life, including their gender. That's not the case anymore, at least not here in places with resources and secular values. We've got therapy and advanced treatment options. It's become important to make a distinction between sex and gender, at least under a few circumstances. Our language, however, hasn't kept up. It's gotten a bit obsolete. The difference is utterly unimportant in all but a tiny few circumstances, but sometimes it is important. "Male' and "woman" , sometimes, are opposites.
Tom

This is true for western society but in fact, as has been noted earlier in this thread, many societies recognized more than two genders:

Cultures That Recognize More than Two Genders | Britannica

Curious about genders that defy the binary? Learn more about cultures around the world that recognize nonbinary identities.

www.britannica.com

In the Talmud, seven genders are recognized:

The Seven Genders in the Talmud | My Jewish Learning

Thought nonbinary gender was a modern concept? Think again. The ancient Jewish understanding of gender was far more nuanced than ...

www.myjewishlearning.com

I know that gender and sex are not equivalent. I’m just providing links to a couple of descriptions of how other societies view gender or did in the past.

I always find this approach interesting. Yes, you're right - some cultures do recognize more than two social roles that are associated with sex. What often gets overlooked when appealing to these alternate gender roles is that this occurs in cultures that have pretty strict enforcement of those gender roles. Fa'afafine and hijra and similar such categories occur in part because those cultures have male work and female work, and there are many things that female members of those cultures arforbidden from doing at all.

Sure sure but of course until quite recently y that was also true in Western society. With few exceptions, girls grew up to be wives, mommies and nurses or school teachers. Or worked in a retail store. Unless there was a labor shortage in which case women were perfectly capable of working in munitions factories, etc.

So your attempt to erase the fact that many cultures have long recognized that not every make appearing child acts like a typical male and not e dry female child acts like a female—and that is fine and in fact, they are often revered for this duality of nature is not nearly as effective as you seem to want it to be.

I’m genuinely uncertain of how to handle a couple of scenarios in a way that addresses and respects the needs of all with respect to single sex facilities and sports teams/participation. I share your concerns to some degree. But your extremely hostile attitude towards all trans girls and transwomen does not seem fair or well informed.

I wish I knew the right solutions but in fact, they are not one size ( or two genders) fits all.

 

[Toni]

Did you notice the link to how the Talmud discussed gender? Jesus was a Jew.

Did you read your own link? The Talmud references aren't to gender, they're to sex. They specifically relate to DSDs and to people made eunuchs:

1. Zachar, male.
2. Nekevah, female.
3. Androgynos, having both male and female characteristics.
4. Tumtum, lacking sexual characteristics.
5. Aylonit, identified female at birth without developing secondary female sexual characteristics at puberty.
6. Saris hamah, identified male at birth without developing secondary male sexual
   characteristics at puberty.
7. Saris adam, identified male at birth without developing secondary male sexual characteristics because of castration.

The rabbis did not use the word gender as we do today, as referring to a cultural construct distinct from biological sex. The seven genders they describe are distinguished by physical and biological realities, not culturally conditioned categories.

Yes, I did read the link. Within the context of what was known and understood, the Talmud recognizes that not every individual conforms to a strictly make/female dichotomy.

 

[Toni]

So what?

What has that to do with the question of whether sex is an important characteristic in some circumstances?

It is possible that by studying other cultures, we might learn and grow and improve how we handle things.

Sure, that's possible. But let's also use some sense, and make sure that what we adopt from other cultures makes sense and is beneficial. Just because some other culture has a third gender role within their very strict sex-based hierarchy doesn't mean that it would make sense for our cultures to follow suit.

India has traditionally had very strict divisions on the basis of sex. There is work that only men can do, and work that only women do. Women have been treated as less-than-men for a very long time, and even with the progress they've made today women are treated as lesser and it's a fairly misogynistic culture. Yes, India has a hijra category - specifically for men who aren't man enough to be considered real men. It's largely been a category for gay men to be shoved into. It lets those men still be recognized as "better than women" in terms of social status, but "lesser than men". They've traditionally worn female-style clothing as an indication of their social status as hijra.

Now, that's great in the sense that not-very-manly-men aren't beaten up or abused. I support that. On the other hand... I don't think that's a great thing for the US or other english-speaking cultures to adopt. I don't think that social status should be tied to sex - and I don't think you would like that either.

I think it would be far superior for our cultures to take a different approach altogether. I think we should focus on eradicating gender roles and expectations altogether. I don't think there's anything at all wrong with women wearing steel-toed boots and flannel shirts, there's nothing wrong with a woman being butch or mannish in presentation - it doesn't make her any less of a woman. The butchiest butch lesbian is still just as female as you and I are, and that's fairly well accepted.

Men face more scrutiny. On the whole, men are not as accepting of effeminate men than women are of butch women. We don't care if a woman wears manly clothes... but men in general seem to care quite a bit if a man wears womanly clothes. Men gatekeep masculinity far more strictly than women monitor femininity - and you can thank our feminist forebears for that.

To me, it makes way more sense to spend our efforts convincing men that a man in a frilly skirt is still just as much of a man as a man in dungarees. I'd far rather focus on shifting our culture in order to allow ANYONE to present however they want than on enforcing gendered expectations.

Being trans is NOT a matter of what one wears! FFS, if that were the case, 99.9% of the time, I’d be considered a trans man! I refused to go to school ( which I had very much looked forward to) when I learned I would be required to wear a dress. I horrified my mother by preferring to climb trees, collect rocks and insects, take apart and put back together my bicycle, play basketball and football ( not touch!) instead of …putting curlers in my hair and waiting for some boy to call.

All that aside, there was never a question in my mind that I was female and while I very much protested against some of the benefits I saw makes getting that were denied females, I never actually wanted to be male. I wanted the privilege, or rather I wanted the rights to be universal. I’m not certain I saw any advantage at all to being female, so I can’t say I thought boys should get to wear dresses and play with dolls if they wanted to. I couldn’t see why anyone would want to wear a dress or be told to sit quietly with their knees together and act like a lady. It simply never occurred to me. Later in my high school years, I recognized that one of my classmates was gay and felt very bad for him because of a plethora of family challenges in addition to how well he was accepted at school but if he had shown up wearing a dress, I would not have batted an eyelash. I was as furious that he wasn’t allowed to take home ex classes as I was that I was required to take them and that my female friend was not allowed to take drafting classes. I was furious at how boys talked about my female friend who was a much more talented athlete than they were until they outgrew her by too much at about 16 plus had the advantage of actual coaching and training that she did not.

Were there any trans people in my school? Possibly but certainly none who were out or who I know are out today. But it was terrible how gender role non-conforming classmates were sometimes treated.

We should not be doing that today. We should not have been 50 years ago, either but we can certainly learn from our lack of understanding and acceptance now.

The person wearing a frilly dress is most likely female but may also be a trans woman or simply a straight man ( or gay man) who likes to wear a dress. More power to them! I prefer jeans, myself but hey—how could I rightly criticize some one for wanting to wear clothing that is atypical for their sex and/or gender when that is frankly my preference?

 

[Emily Lake]

Sports was always a massive overreach.

However sympathetic, or accepting, or "live and let live", most people are, biological males in female sports was never gonna fly.

But the Trans lobby had to have it all.

With no debate.

There are trans women that disagree with transwomen competing with females. I heard about one trans woman doing so to just point out the unfair advantage they have.

ETA: I could not find the link to the trans woman I spoke of above but I did find this:

Fact check: Do trans women have unfair athletic advantage? – DW – 03/20/2025

Sports federations are making it harder for transgender women to participate in female competitions. Are these steps justified?

www.dw.com

A 2020 study by Timothy Roberts and colleagues at the University of Missouri-Kansas City examined US military personnel who underwent gender-affirming hormone therapy.

After one year of hormone therapy, trans women performed better in sports than cis women. After two years, their performance was largely equalized. According to the authors of the study, this is an indication that the one year of hormone therapy prescribed by some sports associations as a prerequisite for participation is too short.

In 2021, Alun Williams and other researchers from the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences came to the conclusion that, according to the available scientific evidence, hormone therapy only eliminates a fraction of the male advantage even after two years. Overall, the results are therefore quite different.

Transwoman Elite Athletes: Their Extra Percentage Relative to Female Physiology - PMC

There is increasing debate as to whether transwoman athletes should be included in the elite female competition. Most elite sports are divided into male and female divisions because of the greater athletic performance displayed by males. Without the ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Emily Lake]

I am unaware of any poll or study results. I’m aware of anecdotes which run the gamut from hardcore antitrans bigots to sore losers to females who they believe are men to people concerned with fairness.

Wow. Talk about narrative framing.

Apparently, if female humans object to letting males compete on female teams... it's only because those females are bigots or sore losers.

Couldn't possibly be about fairness and the recognition that males and females have different bodies. Nah, it's all just some made-up bigotry and we've got a hundred years of sports stats that someone invented to support that grand lie.

I can understand why a hardcore anti trans bigot or a disingenuous jackass would so baldly misconstrue a request for study results to combat anecdotes, but what is your explanation?

Bad temper and poor reading.

 

[Emily Lake]

Being trans is NOT a matter of what one wears!

If it's not a matter of how a person presents, then what is it? I'm not being a pain in the ass here, Toni.

So far as I can tell, there are two schools of thought - and they disagree with each other.

The first school of thought, the old school approach, is to assume that it's the result of a neurological mismatch between one's actual sexed body and one's internal mental image of oneself. This would make it very much akin to anorexia or BIID, where the person's brain genuinely has an inaccurate perception of how their body should be. This represents a very small number of people, and up until fairly recently, this would have been referred to as transsexual.

The second school of thought, the newfangled approach, is to assume that it's based on how a person feels about their gender with respect to social sex-based stereotypes and presentation. And this one is very, very much in line with my description. And it's the by-far more common view in modern times. This is based entirely on the individuals how much an individual thinks that their likes, dislikes, preferences, behaviors, etc. fit the stereotypes of either sex. It's based entirely on feelings.

And when you start really digging in on how those people describe their feelings... it almost always ends up being based on regressive stereotypes. It almost always ends up being "I like dresses and lipstick" or "I like climbing trees and playing football". When you listen to parents describe how they knew their toddler was trans, it ends up being "he didn't like playing with cars and he was really drawn to dolls".

And whether you want to hear it or not, for a surprising amount of adult males who profess a transgender identity, there's a strong sexual component to it. Not all certainly, but a significant portion of self-proclaimed transwomen are aroused by presenting in female attire.

For a whole lot of people out there, what they like to wear and what sexist behaviors they exhibit is the totality of their gender identity.

FFS, if that were the case, 99.9% of the time, I’d be considered a trans man! I refused to go to school ( which I had very much looked forward to) when I learned I would be required to wear a dress. I horrified my mother by preferring to climb trees, collect rocks and insects, take apart and put back together my bicycle, play basketball and football ( not touch!) instead of …putting curlers in my hair and waiting for some boy to call.

The person wearing a frilly dress is most likely female but may also be a trans woman or simply a straight man ( or gay man) who likes to wear a dress. More power to them! I prefer jeans, myself but hey—how could I rightly criticize some one for wanting to wear clothing that is atypical for their sex and/or gender when that is frankly my preference?

You shouldn't criticize anyone who wanting to wear clothing atypical for their sex. Nobody should give a fuck what people like to wear, provided it's appropriate for the venue.