Gender Roles

[Loren Pechtel]

In the old days reproduction was an important part of sex. And feelings very often took second place to necessity. People didn't have the luxury of doing what they wanted.

Now, the vast majority of the time we seek to avoid reproduction and we have much more space for feelings. Thus history has little relevance.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I love how you trim out the references to science that I *do* accept

Except that you DON'T actually accept scientific views. You instead rely on "sciency" views, views presented as if they are science but are not.

Fine - YOU go tell Sigma that the study she posted some time back is not real science. Have fun with that.

Every time you say Humans have only two sexes and deny the research that brains are gender-coded.

I deny that sex and gender are the same thing. You insist upon conflating the two.

And as far as I can tell you've yet to explain what the demarcation of "sex" is.

 

[TomC]

And as far as I can tell you've yet to explain what the demarcation of "sex" is.

Perhaps you could explain why the 99.9% accuracy accomplished by sexing at birth is inadequate for your purposes.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

And as far as I can tell you've yet to explain what the demarcation of "sex" is.

Perhaps you could explain why the 99.9% accuracy accomplished by sexing at birth is inadequate for your purposes.
Tom

Except given the prevalence of trans issues, there may be a bit of failure in the accuracy rate of fully and comprehensively identifying important differentiations.

This is a thread about gender roles, so I am going to interpret your post as a tacit claim that sexual differentiations identifiable by eye at birth are sufficient justification for any of what happens later.

It is not, therefore, I don't know what place this has in a discussion about gender roles.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

And as far as I can tell you've yet to explain what the demarcation of "sex" is.

Perhaps you could explain why the 99.9% accuracy accomplished by sexing at birth is inadequate for your purposes.
Tom

Because we are discussing the 0.1%.

 

[TomC]

And as far as I can tell you've yet to explain what the demarcation of "sex" is.

Perhaps you could explain why the 99.9% accuracy accomplished by sexing at birth is inadequate for your purposes.
Tom

Because we are discussing the 0.1%.

How did "we' get from discussing gender roles to intersex?
Tom
ETA ~Your post was "And as far as I can tell you've yet to explain what the demarcation of "sex" is."

 

[Politesse]

It's not actually 99.9 percent, but even if it were, why would the lives of .1% of the population be unworthy of consideration, or to the status of a scientific theory? Especially to a scientifically literate person?

I live in a country with 341 million citizens; am I supposed to just ignore or handwave away the lives of 341,000 people because their existence contradicts my dumbass ideology of sex and gender? You can't just throw out data because it doesn't support your belief system.

 

[TomC]

It's not actually 99.9 percent, but even if it were, why would the lives of .1% of the population be unworthy of consideration,

To whom are you referring?
It certainly isn't me, I've never said anything like "unworthy of consideration" regarding people who are anomalous.
Tom

 

[Politesse]

It's not actually 99.9 percent, but even if it were, why would the lives of .1% of the population be unworthy of consideration,

To whom are you referring?
It certainly isn't me, I've never said anything like "unworthy of consideration" regarding people who are anomalous.
Tom

If they are part of the data set under review, then the failure rate of your method needs explanation. Assuming your unstated definition of sex is a valid theory, why would sex identification "fail" so frequently?

 

[TomC]

It's not actually 99.9 percent, but even if it were, why would the lives of .1% of the population be unworthy of consideration,

To whom are you referring?
It certainly isn't me, I've never said anything like "unworthy of consideration" regarding people who are anomalous.
Tom

If they are part of the data set under review, then the failure rate of your method needs explanation.

What data set other than human are you going on about?
What failure rate are you going on about?

Humans can be sexed at birth with a 99.9% accuracy rate. It's actually more than that.

Gender not so much, but that is a somewhat different concept.

Perhaps the problem is people who flipflop between sex and gender when discussing the issue.
Tom

 

[Politesse]

What failure rate are you going on about?

Humans can be sexed at birth with a 99.9% accuracy rate. It's actually more than that.

If your model correctly predicts natural outcomes in 99.9% of cases, it has a .1% failure rate in need of explanation.

Perhaps the problem is people who flipflop between sex and gender when discussing the issue.

That is an issue, yes. In real life and, repeatedly, in this thread. But refusing to provide and then consistently use a clear definition for both terms won't help that problem at all.

 

[Emily Lake]

I love how you trim out the references to science that I *do* accept

Except that you DON'T actually accept scientific views. You instead rely on "sciency" views, views presented as if they are science but are not.

Fine - YOU go tell Sigma that the study she posted some time back is not real science. Have fun with that.

Every time you say Humans have only two sexes and deny the research that brains are gender-coded.

I deny that sex and gender are the same thing. You insist upon conflating the two.

And as far as I can tell you've yet to explain what the demarcation of "sex" is.

Sexes are the result of evolution that leverages the merging of two different sized gametes for reproduction. The term for a species that uses two different sized gametes to reproduce is "anisogamous". In anisogomous species, members of those species evolved two distinct reproductive systems, one for each of the two gametes. The reproductive phenotype that has evolved to support the production of small motile gametes appears in members of the species that we call males; the reproductive phenotype that has evolved to support the production of large sessile gametes appears in members of the species that we call females.

The specific elements of the phenotype vary by species, but within every anisogamous species, two reproductive phenotypes exist.

The existence of two (and only two) sexes is HOW BABIES GET MADE in anisogamous species.

 

[Emily Lake]

And as far as I can tell you've yet to explain what the demarcation of "sex" is.

Perhaps you could explain why the 99.9% accuracy accomplished by sexing at birth is inadequate for your purposes.
Tom

99.98%

 

[Emily Lake]

It's not actually 99.9 percent, but even if it were, why would the lives of .1% of the population be unworthy of consideration, or to the status of a scientific theory? Especially to a scientifically literate person?

I live in a country with 341 million citizens; am I supposed to just ignore or handwave away the lives of 341,000 people because their existence contradicts my dumbass ideology of sex and gender? You can't just throw out data because it doesn't support your belief system.

No, you don't ignore their existence. But you should at least acknowledge that 1) of those 300K people, all but 68 of them can be accurately identified as male of female at birth with a relatively simply genetic typing, their ambiguous external genitalia notwithstanding... and of the 68 who have ovotesticular disorder, their sex will resolve later in their lives and 2) DSDs have nothing at all to do with transgender stuff and using the rare medical conditions of people in order to prop up an ideology of gender identity is rank appropriation and you should stop doing it.

 

[Emily Lake]

It's not actually 99.9 percent, but even if it were, why would the lives of .1% of the population be unworthy of consideration,

To whom are you referring?
It certainly isn't me, I've never said anything like "unworthy of consideration" regarding people who are anomalous.
Tom

If they are part of the data set under review, then the failure rate of your method needs explanation. Assuming your unstated definition of sex is a valid theory, why would sex identification "fail" so frequently?

An accuracy rate higher than any statistical algorithm we've ever come up with is "too frequent" for you?

 

[Emily Lake]

What failure rate are you going on about?

Humans can be sexed at birth with a 99.9% accuracy rate. It's actually more than that.

If your model correctly predicts natural outcomes in 99.9% of cases, it has a .1% failure rate in need of explanation.

Oh FFS. It's not a fucking model, it's the result of evolution! And the "failure rate" here is lower than a whole lot of other genetic and developmental anomalies! The explanation isn't a failure of "the model", it's failure of genetics to avoid mutation!

This is nutty. This entire approach is nutty. This isn't a goddamned "model" we're talking about. Would you say that a cat being born with polydactyly is a failure of the "model" of cat? Or would you acknowledge that it's a genetic mutation? Holy shit, where's the tylenol?

Perhaps the problem is people who flipflop between sex and gender when discussing the issue.

That is an issue, yes. In real life and, repeatedly, in this thread. But refusing to provide and then consistently use a clear definition for both terms won't help that problem at all.

You're correct... but Tom hasn't done that so I'm not sure why you feel the need to chastise him.

 

[Politesse]

Oh FFS. It's not a fucking model, it's the result of evolution!

I am struggling to comprehend the level of scientific illiteracy that could have produced such a sentence. Of we can model evolutionary processes, there would be no modern science of biology without that. If you want unquestionable doctrines, go find a bargain basement religion to belong to.

 

[Politesse]

This is nutty. This entire approach is nutty. This isn't a goddamned "model" we're talking about. Would you say that a cat being born with polydactyly is a failure of the "model" of cat?

Yes, if we had no explanation for polydactyly. Or the model didn't account for that explanation. Or if we did have an explanation, but some idiot insisted on saying "Science says cats have 18 toes!" and waved off the frequent counter-examples to that rule as somehow irrelevant just because they are uncommon.

 

[Politesse]

It's not actually 99.9 percent, but even if it were, why would the lives of .1% of the population be unworthy of consideration,

To whom are you referring?
It certainly isn't me, I've never said anything like "unworthy of consideration" regarding people who are anomalous.
Tom

If they are part of the data set under review, then the failure rate of your method needs explanation. Assuming your unstated definition of sex is a valid theory, why would sex identification "fail" so frequently?

An accuracy rate higher than any statistical algorithm we've ever come up with is "too frequent" for you?

I have no idea what this sentence is even supposed to mean? Those words don't match each other.

 

[Jarhyn]

Sexes are

Sexes are imaginary in the way you treat them. They are not real. To quote a reddit post I made recently, with an added evaluation by an unbiased observer:

User
Please evaluate the following statement for lies, untruths, and biases, with respect to current scientific understandings.

Do not evaluate such as is discussed indirectly in the text; rather focus only on those of the speaker, not of those spoken of.

If something is general rather than specific, evaluate it on its face with the general text; simplification to general fact is to be considered acceptable.

ChatGPT
Please provide the statement you'd like evaluated.

User
Find all inaccuracies in the following statement:

Biological sex *in the way she (J.K. Rowlings) is trying to treat it* is not real.

The problem is when people try to use descriptive language of biology in prescriptive ways.

Actual biologists generally don't say "the human species has two mutually exclusive sexes". This is something that "gender critical" folks say so as to sound scientific. This is called "scientism" or "sciencey" rather than *science*.

Rather, *the biologist* says "the human species has two principal biological sexual expressions that tend strongly towards mutual exclusion between which there is great variance."

Note that this is not the same as the above: the former excludes the exceptions in the language of the later, hiding a lie within the truth.

In this way "male" and "female" are not actually fixed binary representations at all, and they have no absolute reality. Some people conform well enough to one that they produce "eggs" compatible with some example sperm, some people conform well enough to the other that they produce "sperm" compatible with some example egg, some people's bodies conform to neither, and some rare individuals produce both, and some individuals I would assume produce some cells that are more or less gamete-like but not functionally compatible with any other more-or-less gamete-like cell produced by anyone else (or is only compatible for that purpose with a similarly weird cell that it will never see pairing with).

To that end, biology is in many senses "analogical": many things differ by degrees such that the analogy is only as applicable as the similarities, and there is no "correct" at all.

So while the family of "sex related differences" are real, *"sex" as thought of by the political anti-trans movement is not*, because *sex is not monolithic* and *norms are imaginary*.

ChatGPT
Evaluating the accuracy of the provided statement requires a nuanced understanding of both biological concepts and the context in which they are discussed. The statement presents several complex ideas regarding biological sex, gender, and the interpretation of scientific findings. Here's an evaluation based on current scientific understandings:

Biological Sex as a Non-binary Concept: The statement that "biological sex, in the way J.K. Rowling is trying to treat it, is not real" challenges a strictly binary understanding of biological sex. Current scientific consensus acknowledges biological sex as primarily bimodal rather than strictly binary, recognizing the existence of intersex conditions and the complexity of sex determination processes. This view aligns with the statement's criticism of a strictly binary interpretation.

Use of Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Language: The claim about the misuse of biological descriptions in prescriptive ways is valid. Science aims to describe phenomena based on observation and evidence, whereas prescriptive statements suggest how things should be. The misuse of scientific language to enforce social norms or policies can lead to misunderstanding and misuse of scientific knowledge.

Statements by Biologists on Sex Diversity: The paraphrase attributed to biologists, "the human species has two principal biological sexual expressions that tend strongly towards mutual exclusion between which there is great variance," accurately reflects the current understanding among many biologists. It acknowledges the predominant existence of two sexual expressions while also recognizing variability and the existence of exceptions, such as intersex conditions.

Concept of "Male" and "Female" as Non-fixed Binaries: The discussion on the non-fixed nature of "male" and "female" categories is supported by evidence of biological and genetic diversity. The existence of individuals with characteristics of both or neither traditional sex categories challenges a rigid binary classification. The mention of individuals producing gametes (or gamete-like cells) that do not fit neatly into the categories of "sperm" or "eggs" is a simplification but points to the complexity and variability in human biology.

Biology as Analogical: Describing biology as "analogical" and noting that "many things differ by degrees" is an acknowledgment of the continuum and diversity found in biological traits, including sex characteristics. This perspective is increasingly accepted in scientific discussions, reflecting the complexity of biological life.

Critique of Political Motivations: The critique of the "political anti-trans movement" and its conceptualization of sex as monolithic is more a commentary on the social and political use of biological concepts than on the concepts themselves. It underscores the tension between scientific understanding and how it is sometimes used in political or ideological arguments.

In summary, the statement broadly aligns with current scientific understandings of biological sex as complex, variable, and not strictly binary. It correctly identifies issues with the misuse of scientific language in social and political contexts, emphasizing the diversity and continuum present in biological traits. However, the critique of specific individuals or movements falls into the realm of political and social commentary rather than scientific evaluation.