Autistic girls seeking answers ‘are seizing on sex change’

[Jarhyn]

See, there it is. You just create a new distinction even deeper beyond the privacy wall so you can continue to other them and call them "male". Now not only do you forcibly pry into their pants, you pry into their private medical history.

It doesn't matter what you think is "worth it". You still haven't answered any of my questions.

This is baffling to me, Jarhyn. They are actually male, that's not in contention is it?

You know that sex is a real thing, don't you? It's not made up or socially constructed, you get that, right?

You still have yet to justify your contention that they are "actually male". You keep insisting that "sex" is a real thing without ever actually figuring out what it is.

So, you say that someone with their brain in a 100% "female" body is not female. That they are "male". Well then sex is, by that measure, purely a function of brain development, which I keep pointing out, may in fact be "fully female". Which would actually make that person fully and non-discordantly female.

So which is it? Is it the vagina or the brain? I contend that it is the brain, that having a "female brain" or whatever you would like to call it, exposed to estrogen, is about as necessary as it gets for being a woman.

 

[repoman]

Gaslighting turned into an art.

 

[skepticalbip]

See, there it is. You just create a new distinction even deeper beyond the privacy wall so you can continue to other them and call them "male". Now not only do you forcibly pry into their pants, you pry into their private medical history.

It doesn't matter what you think is "worth it". You still haven't answered any of my questions.

This is baffling to me, Jarhyn. They are actually male, that's not in contention is it?

You know that sex is a real thing, don't you? It's not made up or socially constructed, you get that, right?

You still have yet to justify your contention that they are "actually male". You keep insisting that "sex" is a real thing without ever actually figuring out what it is.

So, you say that someone with their brain in a 100% "female" body is not female. That they are "male". Well then sex is, by that measure, purely a function of brain development, which I keep pointing out, may in fact be "fully female". Which would actually make that person fully and non-discordantly female.

So which is it? Is it the vagina or the brain? I contend that it is the brain, that having a "female brain" or whatever you would like to call it, exposed to estrogen, is about as necessary as it gets for being a woman.

False dichotomy. It is neither. It is the Y-chromosome that makes someone a male.

This doesn't mean that those who are X-Y can't feel feminine, want to be a women, pretend to be a woman, or even believe they are a woman.

I can do a hell of a lot of body work on my Isuzu to make it look like a Ferrari, it may even be good enough fool some, I could even come to believe it is a Ferrari but it would still be an Isuzu that looks like a Ferrari.

 

[Politesse]

So what "really makes you a man" or "really makes you a woman" is a genetic trait not always visible to the eye, and which humanity did not know existed at the time when the various cultural portrayals of maleness and femaleness were formed? On what basis are you making this claim?

Is hydrogen "really the Element of Air", since that's what we called it before we discovered chemistry and better understood how it actually functions? Is a viral load "really a miasma"? Is a koala "really a bear"?

Gotta love social regressives; they love science-y talk right up until there's a danger of actually learning something new.

Your Isuzu isn't "really a Isuzu", it was a vein of subterranean metal and some reserves of petroleum mere decades ago, a blink of an eye in the grand scheme. Humans made it "an Isuzu", following an invented ideal in their own head, and there's no reason you couldn't strip it down and turn it into a Ferrari with sufficient time and ingenuity.

 

[J842P]

False dichotomy. It is neither. It is the Y-chromosome that makes someone a male.

It actually isn't, biologically speaking. Humans have a chromosomal sex-determination. But you are conflating the genotype for the phenotype. It is the gametes that are the relevant feature. Sex is a phenomenon for anisogamic, sexually reproducing organisms. Roughly speaking, if you produce small, motile gametes, you are male, if you produce large, non-motile gametes, you are a female. And that is a cross-species definition, which is why we can talk about males and females in species that have completely different sex determinations systems, which may not be determined by genes at all, and organisms that have genitalia that are nothing like ours.

 

[Jarhyn]

Gaslighting turned into an art.

I know you are good at gaslighting, but I wouldn't call it an art. You still haven't answered the question

 

[Jarhyn]

So what "really makes you a man" or "really makes you a woman" is a genetic trait not always visible to the eye, and which humanity did not know existed at the time when the various cultural portrayals of maleness and femaleness were formed? On what basis are you making this claim?

Is hydrogen "really the Element of Air", since that's what we called it before we discovered chemistry and better understood how it actually functions? Is a viral load "really a miasma"? Is a koala "really a bear"?

Gotta love social regressives; they love science-y talk right up until there's a danger of actually learning something new.

Your Isuzu isn't "really a Isuzu", it was a vein of subterranean metal and some reserves of petroleum mere decades ago, a blink of an eye in the grand scheme. Humans made it "an Isuzu", following an invented ideal in their own head, and there's no reason you couldn't strip it down and turn it into a Ferrari with sufficient time and ingenuity.

See this is what the social regressive a generally tend to entirely gloss over: that there is only the text. That we are talking not even talking about two different models of car produced by two different factories with parts that are not interchangable but rather we are talking about two different packages of the same car. One package has a different model of engine, maybe a different computer package, and all the parts come from the same factory and fit on either frame regardless.

In fact, this is a situation where the factory, for whatever reason, shipped the wrong engine package. So the owner goes to the dealer, and they just drop the RIGHT engine, the one they wanted, into the frame.

Or, where they got the version that takes premium unleaded instead of the one they ordered, and by switching fuels, their engine starts running better.

 

[J842P]

So what "really makes you a man" or "really makes you a woman" is a genetic trait not always visible to the eye, and which humanity did not know existed at the time when the various cultural portrayals of maleness and femaleness were formed? On what basis are you making this claim?

Is hydrogen "really the Element of Air", since that's what we called it before we discovered chemistry and better understood how it actually functions? Is a viral load "really a miasma"? Is a koala "really a bear"?

Gotta love social regressives; they love science-y talk right up until there's a danger of actually learning something new.

Your Isuzu isn't "really a Isuzu", it was a vein of subterranean metal and some reserves of petroleum mere decades ago, a blink of an eye in the grand scheme. Humans made it "an Isuzu", following an invented ideal in their own head, and there's no reason you couldn't strip it down and turn it into a Ferrari with sufficient time and ingenuity.

You seem to be arguing with someone not in this thread. skepticalbip is not talking about cultural portrayals of "maleness" and "femaleness" (which, I suppose we can just call gender). He is talking about sex. Which is real. Which is neither your brain nor your vagina. I'm not sure what is "socially regressive" about not engaging in inane equivocation.

Also, stop being so arrogant and pretending like you are some authority on "scienc-ey talk".

 

[skepticalbip]

False dichotomy. It is neither. It is the Y-chromosome that makes someone a male.

It actually isn't, biologically speaking. Humans have a chromosomal sex-determination. But you are conflating the genotype for the phenotype. It is the gametes that are the relevant feature. Sex is a phenomenon for anisogamic, sexually reproducing organisms. Roughly speaking, if you produce small, motile gametes, you are male, if you produce large, non-motile gametes, you are a female. And that is a cross-species definition, which is why we can talk about males and females in species that have completely different sex determinations systems, which may not be determined by genes at all, and organisms that have genitalia that are nothing like ours.

By your definition, a human female that has gone through menopause or a sterile man are neither male nor female but neuter. I think that coroners identifying individuals by examining the DNA of a decomposed corpse would disagree with you. They make determination of the sex from the remains by the chromosomes.

 

[J842P]

False dichotomy. It is neither. It is the Y-chromosome that makes someone a male.

It actually isn't, biologically speaking. Humans have a chromosomal sex-determination. But you are conflating the genotype for the phenotype. It is the gametes that are the relevant feature. Sex is a phenomenon for anisogamic, sexually reproducing organisms. Roughly speaking, if you produce small, motile gametes, you are male, if you produce large, non-motile gametes, you are a female. And that is a cross-species definition, which is why we can talk about males and females in species that have completely different sex determinations systems, which may not be determined by genes at all, and organisms that have genitalia that are nothing like ours.

By your definition, a human female that has gone through menopause or a sterile man are neither male nor female but neuter.

We *could* say that, but that isn't a necessary consequence of "my" definition. In the same way that saying that humans are bipedal apes doesn't render a person who has no legs a non-human animal. Perhaps, a person who could not ever produce gametes might be said to be sexless. But generally, you can always find some exception to some biological definition do to the most fundamental of biological phenomenon - diversity. But, indee, your XY genotype definition[/I is much more complicated and filled with exceptions compared to the phenotype of the gametes you produce.

Also, this isn't my definition. This is the standard definition that you will encounter in any biological textbook. It's not my fault you stopped paying attention after learning about X-Y sex determination.


EDIT: Who gives a shit about what coroners would say about? This is the most asinine argument ever. You can use genetic material to make all sorts of observations about the phenotype of an organism that is no longer alive. That doesn't make the phenomenon of red hair identical or defined as the property of having a particular genetic makeup. The property of having red hair is about the color of your hair not the makeup of your genes.

 

[Politesse]

So what "really makes you a man" or "really makes you a woman" is a genetic trait not always visible to the eye, and which humanity did not know existed at the time when the various cultural portrayals of maleness and femaleness were formed? On what basis are you making this claim?

Is hydrogen "really the Element of Air", since that's what we called it before we discovered chemistry and better understood how it actually functions? Is a viral load "really a miasma"? Is a koala "really a bear"?

Gotta love social regressives; they love science-y talk right up until there's a danger of actually learning something new.

Your Isuzu isn't "really a Isuzu", it was a vein of subterranean metal and some reserves of petroleum mere decades ago, a blink of an eye in the grand scheme. Humans made it "an Isuzu", following an invented ideal in their own head, and there's no reason you couldn't strip it down and turn it into a Ferrari with sufficient time and ingenuity.

You seem to be arguing with someone not in this thread. skepticalbip is not talking about cultural portrayals of "maleness" and "femaleness" (which, I suppose we can just call gender). He is talking about sex. Which is real. Which is neither your brain nor your vagina. I'm not sure what is "socially regressive" about not engaging in inane equivocation.

Also, stop being so arrogant and pretending like you are some authority on "scienc-ey talk".

Scientists generally distinguish between sex and gender; wishy-washy talk about what someone "really is" is a question of values, and as such is a gender question. Sex is a different question, and not inherently connected to social portrayals and identities of "men" and "women" or what they "really are". I do not not know what you mean by pretending to have authority, my earned degree is in the social sciences, but that's also irrelevant, as facts do not care what your qualifications are. If you can defend your viewpoint with some sort of empirical data, your viewpoint is as scientifically valid as mine.

 

[skepticalbip]

So what "really makes you a man" or "really makes you a woman" is a genetic trait not always visible to the eye, and which humanity did not know existed at the time when the various cultural portrayals of maleness and femaleness were formed? On what basis are you making this claim?

Close, but I was talking about male vs. female (a scientific distinction), not "masculine" vs. "feminine" (a social construct). But nice try at constructing a strawman.

The remainder of your post is clipped because it was a full blown strawman not worth responding to.

 

[Politesse]

So what "really makes you a man" or "really makes you a woman" is a genetic trait not always visible to the eye, and which humanity did not know existed at the time when the various cultural portrayals of maleness and femaleness were formed? On what basis are you making this claim?

Close, but I was talking about male vs. female (a scientific distinction), not "masculine" vs. "feminine" (a social construct). But nice try at constructing a strawman.

The remainder of your post is clipped because it was a full blown strawman not worth responding to.

What does the actual science of genetics and endocrinology have to do with determing what someone "really is" socially? If you're talking about fucking Ferraris vs Isuzus, you're making it plain that social identity - what someone is called and how they should be regarded - is your goal. The science of sex is interesting, but it does not and cannot comment on "correct" social valuation. The cocktail of genetic coding and often physiological response that leads to a scientific determination of male, female, or intersex status is not the determinant of whether you are a "real man" or a "real woman", nor does anyone use data on a stranger's medical status to decide how to treat them in social situations, given that such data is almost certainly not available to them. Even if you were correct that there is a "real man" hiding inside science somewhere, this would be irrelevant to resolving any real social or political concerns.

You also seem to be really confused about the subject, as many have been pointing out in this very thread. Sex expression is a bit more compliated than an either/or dichotomy, part of the reason why cultural constructions of gender vary significantly in how they respond to individuals with unclear or mistaken sexual identity.

The remainder of your post is clipped because it was a full blown strawman not worth responding to.

I felt the same way about the stupid analogy I was responding to (sex is like a car model???), but I soldiered on.

 

[J842P]

So what "really makes you a man" or "really makes you a woman" is a genetic trait not always visible to the eye, and which humanity did not know existed at the time when the various cultural portrayals of maleness and femaleness were formed? On what basis are you making this claim?

Is hydrogen "really the Element of Air", since that's what we called it before we discovered chemistry and better understood how it actually functions? Is a viral load "really a miasma"? Is a koala "really a bear"?

Gotta love social regressives; they love science-y talk right up until there's a danger of actually learning something new.

Your Isuzu isn't "really a Isuzu", it was a vein of subterranean metal and some reserves of petroleum mere decades ago, a blink of an eye in the grand scheme. Humans made it "an Isuzu", following an invented ideal in their own head, and there's no reason you couldn't strip it down and turn it into a Ferrari with sufficient time and ingenuity.

You seem to be arguing with someone not in this thread. skepticalbip is not talking about cultural portrayals of "maleness" and "femaleness" (which, I suppose we can just call gender). He is talking about sex. Which is real. Which is neither your brain nor your vagina. I'm not sure what is "socially regressive" about not engaging in inane equivocation.

Also, stop being so arrogant and pretending like you are some authority on "scienc-ey talk".

Scientists generally distinguish between sex and gender; wishy-washy talk about what someone "really is" is a question of values, and as such is a gender question. Sex is a different question, and not inherently connected to social portrayals and identities of "men" and "women" or what they "really are". I do not not know what you mean by pretending to have authority, my earned degree is in the social sciences, but that's also irrelevant, as facts do not care what your qualifications are. If you can defend your viewpoint with some sort of empirical data, your viewpoint is as scientifically valid as mine.

You are simply arguing with someone not in this thread. skepticalbip has been talking about sex. Emily Lake was talking about sex.

 

[Jarhyn]

What does the actual science of genetics and endocrinology have to do with determing what someone "really is" socially? If you're talking about fucking Ferraris vs Isuzus, you're making it plain that social identity - what someone is called and how they should be regarded - is your goal. The science of sex is interesting, but it does not and cannot comment on "correct" social valuation. The cocktail of genetic coding and often physiological response that leads to a scientific determination of male, female, or intersex status is not the determinant of whether you are a "real man" or a "real woman", nor does anyone use data on a stranger's medical status to decide how to treat them in social situations, given that such data is almost certainly not available to them. Even if you were correct that there is a "real man" hiding inside science somewhere, this would be irrelevant to resolving any real social or political concerns.

You also seem to be really confused about the subject, as many have been pointing out in this very thread. Sex expression is a bit more compliated than an either/or dichotomy, part of the reason why cultural constructions of gender vary significantly in how they respond to individuals with unclear or mistaken sexual identity.

The remainder of your post is clipped because it was a full blown strawman not worth responding to.

I felt the same way about the stupid analogy I was responding to (sex is like a car model???), but I soldiered on.

I mean shit, the whole topic of the thread is transgendered people and how to address their needs, particularly in light of a comorbidity of autism.

From this perspective genital, gonad, and gamete sex at birth is not even topical!

The discussion hinges entirely on the question of brain sex, whether someone can be brain/genital discordant in the first place, and what that implies about the treatment of humans in the context of society.

Things waxed scientific when we got into the rats nest that is biogical sexual dimorphism and it's systemic causes, which may go either way regardless of genotype.

At issue here is that Emily seems to think that one of the members of this forum is not a "woman". I want to know, then, what basic requirements for this definition are of "womanhood", and thus shove a scenario in Emily's face wherein a "trans" person born with a penis would qualify, thus invalidating and disproving their contention that nobody born with a penis can be a woman.

 

[Emily Lake]

See, there it is. You just create a new distinction even deeper beyond the privacy wall so you can continue to other them and call them "male". Now not only do you forcibly pry into their pants, you pry into their private medical history.

It doesn't matter what you think is "worth it". You still haven't answered any of my questions.

This is baffling to me, Jarhyn. They are actually male, that's not in contention is it?

You know that sex is a real thing, don't you? It's not made up or socially constructed, you get that, right?

You still have yet to justify your contention that they are "actually male". You keep insisting that "sex" is a real thing without ever actually figuring out what it is.

So, you say that someone with their brain in a 100% "female" body is not female. That they are "male". Well then sex is, by that measure, purely a function of brain development, which I keep pointing out, may in fact be "fully female". Which would actually make that person fully and non-discordantly female.

So which is it? Is it the vagina or the brain? I contend that it is the brain, that having a "female brain" or whatever you would like to call it, exposed to estrogen, is about as necessary as it gets for being a woman.

This is so woo I don't even know where to begin. Sex is about gametes. This is true for every fucking sexed-animal on the planet. You're the one assuming something contrary to every bit of biology we know about reproductive species. So... I don't even know what to say.

 

[Emily Lake]

False dichotomy. It is neither. It is the Y-chromosome that makes someone a male.

If you want to get really technical, it's a combination of having small motile gametes AND a functional SRY receptor. Both of those are normally a result of an XY chromosome set. A person who has an XY chromosome set, but has a completely nonfunctional SRY receptor, then they never receive the first testosterone wash in the womb, and develop as female, complete with uterus and ovaries and everything else. They usually go through a typical female puberty, developing breasts, with hip widening, and a period. My recollection is that they don't produce ova though, they still have small gametes, they just don't express so they're functionally sterile.

 

[Emily Lake]

So what "really makes you a man" or "really makes you a woman" is a genetic trait not always visible to the eye, and which humanity did not know existed at the time when the various cultural portrayals of maleness and femaleness were formed? On what basis are you making this claim?

Is hydrogen "really the Element of Air", since that's what we called it before we discovered chemistry and better understood how it actually functions? Is a viral load "really a miasma"? Is a koala "really a bear"?

Gotta love social regressives; they love science-y talk right up until there's a danger of actually learning something new.

Your Isuzu isn't "really a Isuzu", it was a vein of subterranean metal and some reserves of petroleum mere decades ago, a blink of an eye in the grand scheme. Humans made it "an Isuzu", following an invented ideal in their own head, and there's no reason you couldn't strip it down and turn it into a Ferrari with sufficient time and ingenuity.

I can't tell who you're responding to.

 

[Emily Lake]

False dichotomy. It is neither. It is the Y-chromosome that makes someone a male.

It actually isn't, biologically speaking. Humans have a chromosomal sex-determination. But you are conflating the genotype for the phenotype. It is the gametes that are the relevant feature. Sex is a phenomenon for anisogamic, sexually reproducing organisms. Roughly speaking, if you produce small, motile gametes, you are male, if you produce large, non-motile gametes, you are a female. And that is a cross-species definition, which is why we can talk about males and females in species that have completely different sex determinations systems, which may not be determined by genes at all, and organisms that have genitalia that are nothing like ours.

By your definition, a human female that has gone through menopause or a sterile man are neither male nor female but neuter. I think that coroners identifying individuals by examining the DNA of a decomposed corpse would disagree with you. They make determination of the sex from the remains by the chromosomes.

99% of the time they don't even do a DNA sample to determine sex from a corpse. Skeletal morphology is sufficient.

Within humans, the DNA on the Y chromosome is what drives the production of small motile gametes (sperm) and a functional SRY receptor. Within other species, it's not necessarily a Y chromosome that drives that process - it can be all sorts of other chromosomal prompts. What all male animals have in common is the anatomy normally associated with the production of small motile gametes - thus a gelding is still male, even though he's been neutered. All female animals have in common the anatomy normally associated with the production of large immobile gametes - thus a spayed cat is still female despite having no ovaries. This is also why a pre-pubescent child is still identifiably male or female, even if they aren't expressing gametes yet... and why a post-menopausal woman or a n infertile man is still male or female.

 

[Emily Lake]

Sex expression is a bit more compliated than an either/or dichotomy, part of the reason why cultural constructions of gender vary significantly in how they respond to individuals with unclear or mistaken sexual identity.

Sex expression = physical expression of secondary sex characteristics? Sure, those are complex processes and each particular characteristics exhibits a range of sizes, shapes, etc. Some of those ranges overlap between males and female - for example, the density of leg and arm hair, or the distribution of fat deposits can be very similar. Others not so much. While there's great variety in the size and shape of penises, there's not really an overlap between penises and vulvas.

The cultural construction of gender, though, has very little to do with the physical expression of secondary sex characteristics. That varies by culture more than anything else. Some cultures have much less strict divisions of gender roles and gendered expectations, some have styles of dress and expression that show little difference between the sexes.