Gender Roles

[Emily Lake]

Assuming you're right and I misinterpreted her (I don't have the time to dig right now, might come back): She's still switching her definition half way through because now she's talking about secondary sex traits. By any definition, secondary traits are not part of "whether the person has the small gamete machinery or the large gamete machinery" - it's how we decide that they are "secondary".

Yes, I was talking about secondary sex characteristics as the driver of initial sexual attraction.

Do you understand why secondary characteristics are the driver? Do you understand what makes them secondary sex characteristics as opposed to sex-correlated traits?

 

[Emily Lake]

Assuming you're right and I misinterpreted her (I don't have the time to dig right now, might come back): She's still switching her definition half way through because now she's talking about secondary sex traits. By any definition, secondary traits are not part of "whether the person has the small gamete machinery or the large gamete machinery" - it's how we decide that they are "secondary".

I don't think she is. I think she's making a distinction between the traits people use to define sex and the traits we use pragmatically to assess sex; I think it looks like a switch to you because you aren't picking up on that distinction. But I'd best let her speak for herself on subtleties like this.

Yes, this.

 

[Emily Lake]

Well she did say this, in the post I was replying to: "What are the odds that you - as a heterosexual male - would meet someone, like them, and then be *surprised* to find that they have a perfectly typical male anatomy with perfectly typical male primary and secondary sex characteristics?"

That question is irrelevant to the issue we are currently discussing, unless she switched the definition.

Dude (or dudette, whatever, I don't care)... there is more than one single discussion going on here. Ferinstance...

1) Loren Pechtel's assertion that sexual orientation is based on gender not sex
2) Jarhyn's assertion that sex is a spectrum
3) Jarhyn's assertion that puberty "ought" to be "right" that children get to "choose" whether or not to experience, and in what way
4) An overall discussion of what constitutes female versus male across the board with a subdiscussion of whether or not a person's subjective beliefs about their affinity for a set of socially constructed stereotypes is part of that definition at all
...
Z) Whether or not gender identity should replace or supercede sex in a variety of policies including athletic divisions, spaces in which people get naked, medical services and the right to specify the sex of a person providing intimate care, prison accommodations, and many more.

That last one is the ultimate discussion, the ultimate point of conflict. And it's that last item that has led to all of these other splits and winding roads. Because all of those other discussions are the basis on which we determine what sex is and when it matters.

 

[Bomb#20]

We can start with your assumption that there is a "right" involved at all,

This means that you do not understand what a "right" even is in the first place.

If you wish to claim someone ought do something, that means that they lack the right to do otherwise, and have a right to only do as such.

Why on earth would you believe such a ludicrous premise?

You ought not to advocate a return to the Gold Standard, since you might convince people and that would cause worse recessions and higher unemployment, and poverty kills. But you certainly have every right to advocate it -- First Amendment yada yada.

You ought not to convert to Islam, since its teachings aren't true and Mohammed was a false prophet and gods do not exist and it's a recipe for becoming more misogynistic than you already are. But you certainly have every right to become Muslim -- First Amendment yada yada.

You ought not to have said claiming someone ought do something means they lack the right to do otherwise, since it's utter bosh and you might damage someone's critical thinking by saying it; but you certainly have every right to talk nonsense -- First Amendment yada yada.

 

[Jokodo]

I'm not conflating them. I'm pointing out that whether something counts as one or the other (or the third) can only be determined in context, and specifically in the context of the population as a whole. The only thing about a red deer's antler that makes them a secondary sex trait of males is the fact that female red deer tend not to have them. There is no intrinsic difference between an individual male red deer's antlers and an individual male reindeer's antlers that makes one of them a secondary sex characteristic and the other not

Antlers are secondary sex characteristics in both species.

Seriously, do you not understand what distinguishes a primary sex characteristic from a secondary sex characteristic from a sex-correlated trait?

You may have missed the point that in reindeer, both sexes have antlers of similar size.

 

[Emily Lake]

She claims that sexual orientation sorts by biological sex alone, and insists biological sex is determined fully by primary sex traits. I claim that it is primarily secondary sex traits.

This is not my claim.

Yes, I claim that sex is DEFINED based on the *type of* reproductive system an individual has. That reproductive system is comprised of primary sexual characteristics.

I claim that sexual orientation is dependent on sex, which in this context does mean primary sexual characteristics. Secondary sex characteristics certainly come into play with sexual attraction, as they are what signals sex to others, they're the display features that signal to potential mates which sex we are.

We can be wrong about those signals, and we can be fooled by good mimicry. But that doesn't mean those signals haven't evolved to indicate sex.

And unlike sex, orientation is not binary and some people don't care about a person's sex, some people care a lot, some care only a little.

 

[Jokodo]

Well she did say this, in the post I was replying to: "What are the odds that you - as a heterosexual male - would meet someone, like them, and then be *surprised* to find that they have a perfectly typical male anatomy with perfectly typical male primary and secondary sex characteristics?"

That question is irrelevant to the issue we are currently discussing, unless she switched the definition.

Dude (or dudette, whatever, I don't care)... there is more than one single discussion going on here. Ferinstance...

1) Loren Pechtel's assertion that sexual orientation is based on gender not sex
2) Jarhyn's assertion that sex is a spectrum
3) Jarhyn's assertion that puberty "ought" to be "right" that children get to "choose" whether or not to experience, and in what way
4) An overall discussion of what constitutes female versus male across the board with a subdiscussion of whether or not a person's subjective beliefs about their affinity for a set of socially constructed stereotypes is part of that definition at all
...
Z) Whether or not gender identity should replace or supercede sex in a variety of policies including athletic divisions, spaces in which people get naked, medical services and the right to specify the sex of a person providing intimate care, prison accommodations, and many more.

That last one is the ultimate discussion, the ultimate point of conflict. And it's that last item that has led to all of these other splits and winding roads. Because all of those other discussions are the basis on which we determine what sex is and when it matters.

Can we please stick to one topic at a time, it's confusing enough as is?

At that point in the discussion, we were talking about what are the triggers (not the evolutionary causes but the contemporary triggers, two different questions with two different answers, I refer to Tinbergen's 4 questions again) of sexual attraction in for example a heterosexual male. Your hypothesis is that it is sex, and previously you have made it abundantly clear that that to you means reproductive anatomy. My hypothesis is that it is not gender, but neither sex as you defined it, but very specifically a subset of secondary sex traits, that are correlated with but not identical to what you call "sex". My attraction to a bearded manly man or rather lack thereof doesn't help you make your case, as it is explained at least as easily by my hypothesis. Unless you tacitly changed your explanation by using different definition what you've gone in record using in other subdiscussions. If you do have to use different definitions in different subdiscussions, you should admit to yourself that you don't have a coherent theory.

 

[Emily Lake]

If biological sex is the sum of primary and secondary traits, she can no longer claim that people with androgen insensitivity are "just men" who suffer from a rare disease that makes them appear like women

I also don't claim this. A person with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome develops a phenotypical female reproductive tract, with infertile gonads. Because they have a female reproductive tract, they are female.

 

[Jokodo]

If biological sex is the sum of primary and secondary traits, she can no longer claim that people with androgen insensitivity are "just men" who suffer from a rare disease that makes them appear like women

I also don't claim this. A person with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome develops a phenotypical female reproductive tract, with infertile gonads. Because they have a female reproductive tract, they are female.

It should be pretty obvious from context that I'm not talking about complete cases, but rather about the ones that have (mostly) male internal genitals and maybe ambiguous external ones, but look like an unremarkable woman in clothes.

I would have guessed that you count complete cases a women. I think I understand your definition well, you just haven't convinced me it's the most useful one in as broad a range of situations as you seem to think, nor that it is the most coherent one.

 

[Emily Lake]

A quick google search will disprove this claim for the prostate https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/90/9/713/1007768. The predecessor structure of uterus and fallopian tubes is also present in the male embryo, although its development is discontinued and the structures reabsorbed during typical male development, though not always: https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/90/9/713/1007768. I'm not willing to do the same for everything you throw out, but it's clear your claim as is is on shaky ground.

Yes, the predecessors are there prior to sexual differentiation along a wolffian or a mullerian pathway. But they DO NOT BECOME A PART OF THE OPPOSITE SEX ANATOMY.

Those preliminary fallopian tubes do not develop into any part of the male reproductive system. They are not bipotential structures. They are typically reabsorbed... but when they aren't reabsorbed they are left as residual elements and are associated with persistent mullerian duct syndrome... which is considered a disorder of sexual development. You seem to insist upon something only being a disorder if it causes "distress" although you've failed to explain what you consider to be distress. In the case of persistent mullerian duct syndrome, the deleterious condition is very frequently hernias and/or infertility. There are undoubtedly some people with PMDS out there who don't know that they have it because their testes descended into their scrotal sacs in a normal fashion, and they've had no herniation, and they've never tried to have kids or their condition hasn't expressed with infertility when they were trying to father children.

 

[Emily Lake]

That's a classical is-ought fallacy.

How exactly is it an is-ought fallacy when there is no ought involved whatsoever?

 

[Emily Lake]

Good luck breaking her of it though. I've been pointing out the is/ought gap in her logic for.a while now. Every thread in fact.

It always gets to the point where she attempts to establish an "ought" to endogenous puberty, and she never even fills in the blank as to what informs that ought.

I'm not the one who is relying on an argument from ought - you are. Your entire position is based on your own personal and bespoke beliefs about ought.

 

[Emily Lake]

Yes you have! If there is nothing pathological about people growing up as not "sexually mature" as you define it, then there is nothing to oppose of people making the decisions that lead to that.

I haven't claimed it's pathological - stop putting words in my mouth and stick with what I actually say.

 

[Bomb#20]

Antlers are secondary sex characteristics in both species.

Seriously, do you not understand what distinguishes a primary sex characteristic from a secondary sex characteristic from a sex-correlated trait?

You may have missed the point that in reindeer, both sexes have antlers of similar size.

No they don't -- male reindeer have substantially larger antlers than females. Also, males start growing them earlier in the year than females, and also shed them earlier. "Santa's reindeer" must all be female going by classic depictions -- normally male reindeer would all have shed their antlers before Christmas.

 

[Jokodo]

Antlers are secondary sex characteristics in both species.

Seriously, do you not understand what distinguishes a primary sex characteristic from a secondary sex characteristic from a sex-correlated trait?

You may have missed the point that in reindeer, both sexes have antlers of similar size.

No they don't -- male reindeer have substantially larger antlers than females. Also, males start growing them earlier in the year than females, and also shed them earlier. "Santa's reindeer" must all be female going by classic depictions -- normally male reindeer would all have shed their antlers before Christmas.

I knew males had larger ones (though technically, there's an overlap between "similar" and "substantially larger", and I didn't say "identical" or "near-identical"), I didn't know about the different shedding times. Thanks!

Nevertheless, "having antlers" is, in and of itself, a secondary characteristic of the male sex in most deer, and it isn't in reindeer even if typical male antlers and typical female antlers still differ very recognisably.

 

[Jokodo]

A quick google search will disprove this claim for the prostate https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/90/9/713/1007768. The predecessor structure of uterus and fallopian tubes is also present in the male embryo, although its development is discontinued and the structures reabsorbed during typical male development, though not always: https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/90/9/713/1007768. I'm not willing to do the same for everything you throw out, but it's clear your claim as is is on shaky ground.

Yes, the predecessors are there prior to sexual differentiation along a wolffian or a mullerian pathway. But they DO NOT BECOME A PART OF THE OPPOSITE SEX ANATOMY.

Those preliminary fallopian tubes do not develop into any part of the male reproductive system. They are not bipotential structures. They are typically reabsorbed... but when they aren't reabsorbed they are left as residual elements and are associated with persistent mullerian duct syndrome... which is considered a disorder of sexual development. You seem to insist upon something only being a disorder if it causes "distress" although you've failed to explain what you consider to be distress. In the case of persistent mullerian duct syndrome, the deleterious condition is very frequently hernias and/or infertility. There are undoubtedly some people with PMDS out there who don't know that they have it because their testes descended into their scrotal sacs in a normal fashion, and they've had no herniation, and they've never tried to have kids or their condition hasn't expressed with infertility when they were trying to father children.

Did you just say that there are undoubtedly men out there who have fathered children and possess a (residual) uterus?

 

[Emily Lake]

I'm not conflating them. I'm pointing out that whether something counts as one or the other (or the third) can only be determined in context, and specifically in the context of the population as a whole. The only thing about a red deer's antler that makes them a secondary sex trait of males is the fact that female red deer tend not to have them. There is no intrinsic difference between an individual male red deer's antlers and an individual male reindeer's antlers that makes one of them a secondary sex characteristic and the other not

Antlers are secondary sex characteristics in both species.

Seriously, do you not understand what distinguishes a primary sex characteristic from a secondary sex characteristic from a sex-correlated trait?

You may have missed the point that in reindeer, both sexes have antlers of similar size.

Yes, I misread.

That said... what do you think your point about that is? That reindeer aren't red deer? Or are you somehow under the impression that all species have the exact same secondary characteristics? Or that those secondary characteristics are the same for different species within the same genus?

What is it that you're trying to convey by noting that antlers are a secondary sex trait in red deer, but are not a secondary sex trait in a completely different species?

 

[Emily Lake]

Can we please stick to one topic at a time, it's confusing enough as is?

I'm happy to stick to one topic with you. I'll continue engaging with other people on other aspects of the topic. You're the one who hopped into my response to Loren... so... ? Pick which topic you want to talk about and stick to it.

 

[Jokodo]

I'm not conflating them. I'm pointing out that whether something counts as one or the other (or the third) can only be determined in context, and specifically in the context of the population as a whole. The only thing about a red deer's antler that makes them a secondary sex trait of males is the fact that female red deer tend not to have them. There is no intrinsic difference between an individual male red deer's antlers and an individual male reindeer's antlers that makes one of them a secondary sex characteristic and the other not

Antlers are secondary sex characteristics in both species.

Seriously, do you not understand what distinguishes a primary sex characteristic from a secondary sex characteristic from a sex-correlated trait?

You may have missed the point that in reindeer, both sexes have antlers of similar size.

Yes, I misread.

That said... what do you think your point about that is? That reindeer aren't red deer? Or are you somehow under the impression that all species have the exact same secondary characteristics? Or that those secondary characteristics are the same for different species within the same genus?

What is it that you're trying to convey by noting that antlers are a secondary sex trait in red deer, but are not a secondary sex trait in a completely different species?

My point is that, since we both agree that species evolve and intra-specific and interspecific variation are ultimately to be explained by the same mechanisms, it's nonsensical to call atypical sexual development a "disorder" except on a case by case bases where it causes demonstrable harm, as soon as there is one single example of related species where the same feature is a sex characteristic in one but not the other.

I hope we do agree on that premise?

 

[Emily Lake]

If biological sex is the sum of primary and secondary traits, she can no longer claim that people with androgen insensitivity are "just men" who suffer from a rare disease that makes them appear like women

I also don't claim this. A person with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome develops a phenotypical female reproductive tract, with infertile gonads. Because they have a female reproductive tract, they are female.

It should be pretty obvious from context that I'm not talking about complete cases, but rather about the ones that have (mostly) male internal genitals and maybe ambiguous external ones, but look like an unremarkable woman in clothes.

I would have guessed that you count complete cases a women. I think I understand your definition well, you just haven't convinced me it's the most useful one in as broad a range of situations as you seem to think, nor that it is the most coherent one.

People with PAIS are classified as male. Even if they tend to not develop strong male secondary sex characteristics and can sometimes develop breast tissue, their reproductive systems are still male. And while many people with PAIS are sterile, those that are fertile invariably produce sperm - none of them produce eggs

Here's the thing: Sex is defined based on the reproductive phenotype that the individual has.

Sometimes their reproductive system contains ambiguities. In that case a more comprehensive approach is needed. If the individual produces gametes, then the gamete type dictates their sex.

If they do not produce gametes, then we look at a combination of the organs that they do have as well as their karyotype. Most DSDs are sex-specific, and knowing the karyotype will tell you what DSD they have (which guides treatment) as well as their sex. the extreme minority that are not sex-specific involve mosaicism or chimerism. And you know what? If a person is a sterile mosaic with mixed reproductive organs then they get to choose which sex they want to be - happy to let them roll the dice on their own.

But those last cases don't represent a *different type of reproductive system*. Just because it's difficult to assess their sex doesn't mean that there are more than two sexes, or that an actual in-between sex exists. There is no third type of gamete that is being supported by that system, nor is there a sperg that is being supported by it.