Semenya has male sex traits. She also has female sex traits. Her gender is female.
What evidence is there that Semenya's gender is female?
Semenya's statements.
Sex is not the same thing as gender. In the past the terms were used as synonyms but even so, a sex role wasn't ever confused with a gender role during my mid-1950s to early-1970s childhood.
So your argument is what, that gender is the same thing as gender identity because it's a different thing from sex?!?
No.
... no.
No to the Nth degree.
Good. So since you understand that gender isn't the same thing as gender identity, why are you offering Semenya's statements as evidence of gender, when all they're evidence of is gender identity? And why are you telling me sex isn't gender as though that somehow justified your opinion that Semenya's statements are evidence of gender?
That's a false dilemma fallacy. Sex, gender, and gender identity are three different things.
Indeed.
That's why we don't use just one word for sex, gender, and gender identity.
Indeed; and more to the point, that's why we don't use just two words for sex, gender, and gender identity.
That's why it's important to be very clear when we are talking about one of those things to distinguish it from the others. And why it's important to pay attention to qualifiers, conjugations, tenses, gerunds, participles, and other fine details in other people's posts. ...
Quite so. I've been doing that. You've been committing equivocation fallacies up the wazoo.
That's why I proposed we use the term perthos to distinguish gender identity from gender. . But I don't have any hope for this conversation. We are not communicating well and it's really frustrating.
I don't think adding a fourth term will lessen the confusion when you already have such problems with three; and I couldn't make head or tails of your definition of "perthos":
I propose, for the purposes of this discussion, using the term perthos instead of gender. It's a portmanteau of "person" and "ethos" to indicate the beliefs, values, character, and identity of a person as it relates to their perception of self within and in relation to their society and its customs.
That doesn't on its face have anything to do with the man/woman distinction -- by that definition perthos could equally apply to whether a person identifies as a patriot or an evangelical or a nonconformist or what have you. And to whatever extent you apply it to man-vs-woman, it makes it sound like you want two terms for gender identity and no term at all for gender. That doesn't work for me, so no, I won't use it instead of gender. Gender is the topic of our dispute and I'm not going to help you commit yet more equivocation fallacies.
Sex not being the same thing as gender doesn't magically make Semenya's statements authoritative.
Who is more authoritative on Semenya's gender identity, their
perthos, than Semenya?
How do you propose to assess the validity of anyone's gender identity?
See, this is exactly what I'm on about. Where the bejesus do you think you saw me say Semenya isn't "authoritative on Semenya's gender identity"?!? Where the bejesus do you think you saw me call into question "the validity of anyone's gender identity"?!? It's like you completely forgot what we were arguing about two seconds after you quoted it back to me! "Her gender is female.", you wrote. "What evidence is there that Semenya's gender is female?", I wrote. "Gender", not "gender identity"! And then when you challenge me you change "gender" to "gender identity" as though the difference just doesn't matter! As you said, "it's important to be very clear when we are talking about one of those things to distinguish it from the others". You haven't been doing that. You need to start doing that. You think you're frustrated? Try being on the receiving end of your switcheroos!
Are you simply using sex as the determinant, that sex = gender therefore the "correct" gender identity for any individual is the one that matches their sex regardless of their own assessment?
No. Hell no. No to the Nth degree.
I am simply using gender as the determinant, that gender = gender therefore the "correct" gender for any individual is the one that matches their gender regardless of their own assessment. I'm being very clear which I mean. I keep saying "gender" because I mean gender, not sex and not gender identity. You keep coming up with fanciful guesses like that one for what I mean, because you refuse to take me literally, because you keep mixing up those terms' meanings.
Research into gender identification of people with DSDs, and the
neurobiology of gender indicate that gender is linked to sex, culture, and how a child was raised, but not so strongly that we can predict what a child's gender will be.
Your links do not back up the outlandish claim you make about them. Why did you label your second link "neurobiology of gender"? The article title is "Neurobiology of gender identity and sexual orientation". The experts you cite keep saying "gender identity" and yet you keep misrepresenting their conclusions as being about gender.
It was a possibility that Semenya could have developed the gender identity of 'man' despite being raised as a girl. She didn't, though. She developed the gender identity of 'woman'. It is difficult to differentiate that from being 'female' (which she isn't) in the English language, although it would be easy in some other languages spoken here in the United States.
It's not hard to differentiate them in English at all. Semenya is male but thinks he's a woman because he was raised as a girl. It's a simple matter of paying attention to which statements are about matters of fact and which are about someone's belief. English can handle that as easily as it can handle "The Dalai Lama isn't reincarnated, but thinks he is because he was raised to believe it."
Whether you accept someone's word about their gender is your business.
It's the same as accepting someone's word about anything else -- it depends on if one thinks the person has a reason to lie or a reason to be mistaken, and on whether one has any conflicting information throwing the claim into doubt. Getting consistently treated as a girl in childhood gave Semenya every reason to be mistaken, and being a guevedoce, having male testosterone levels, flunking an IAAF sex verification test, and fathering two daughters are all conflicting information.
You are assuming Semenya is mistaken about her gender because the adults around her were mistaken about her sex and raised her wrong.
"Raised her wrong"? I haven't offered an opinion about what's the right way to raise a guevedoce. I certainly don't blame anyone for raising Semenya as a girl given that South Africa isn't the Dominican Republic and the adults had no reason to be aware guevedoces even exist.
Also, you are arguing gender is a social construct, not an aspect of self awareness and self identity,
Well yeah -- just go look up the word. You
know it's a social construct and not an aspect of self awareness and self identity -- I said "Sex, gender, and gender identity are
three different things.", and you said "Indeed. That's why we don't use just one word for sex, gender, and gender identity." So your incessant conflation of the social construct with the aspect of self awareness and self identity just looks like carelessness.
so people don't get to tell society what their gender is, society tells them.
Of course people get to tell society what their gender is, just as society gets to tell them -- it's a free country. But society doesn't have to believe them, any more than they have to believe society -- it's a free country. All people get to judge for themselves.
What I'm arguing is that since gender is a social construct, not an aspect of self awareness and self identity, society and not the individual is the
expert witness. When a person disagrees with society as to the person's gender,
society is probably right. Society knows its own social constructs best, just as a person knows his own self awareness best.
What I find most interesting about that is the current social trend of recognizing and respecting variations in sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identities and presentations (including non-binary) is rendering the old system of gender designation obsolete.
You're conflating gender issues with sexual orientation now. The current social trend of telling lesbians they're bigots and fetishists if they don't do dick and like their female-only spaces does not qualify as recognizing and respecting variations in sexual orientation.
As far as gender goes, by "the current social trend", you appear to be referring to a new social construct that's become prevalent within a narrow ideological subculture. To the extent that you think pronouns following gender identity rather than sex is true in the wider culture because it's true in a left-wing echo chamber, that's wishful thinking. To the extent that you know it isn't true in the wider culture, but intend to make it become true by claiming it already is true, bullying dissidents into submitting, and counting on the dissidents all shutting up until they all die of old age, that's pious fraud.
Some people are having a difficult time adjusting to that.
You mean, a difficult time adjusting to speaking Progressivese instead of English? You nouveau-aristocrats actually need to win your meme war before there can be anything for us commoners to adjust to.
In 300 AD the Roman Empire had been safe place for atheists for hundreds of years; Christianity was a minor sect. In 400 AD Christianity was dominant and the empire was becoming dangerous for atheists. It made sense for Christians to talk about pagans having a difficult time adjusting, in 400 AD. In 300 AD, not so much.