Impregnation of Cis Female Woman, by Cis Woman, A Discussion of Swyers Syndrome.

[Jarhyn]

There is NO "salient definition that can be scientifically applied within the context of this discussion".
...
But it would be absurd to try to determine whether Manchester United were a better football team than St Helens, because they each use a different definition for "football". ...

You can adopt that viewpoint if you want, but the categorizational nihilism you are applying here is not a rifle. It's a hand grenade. It doesn't conveniently shoot down your political opponents' arguments and leave your political allies' arguments unscathed. What you are saying to Emily applies with equal force to Don. Subtract out his appeal to objective categories and Don's post amounts to "assuming sex is binary leads to inevitable contradictions because there are documented cases of people getting pregnant."

If the answer isn't "because the left lives and breathes double standards", why does Emily get a lecture and Don get a "Like"?

Don's post is not bilby's post, and you don't know what in it was worthy of liking.

Answer Bilby's post and answer the argument and maybe quit trying to ad-hom on whether Bilby is a hypocrite.

Bilby is absolutely correct about categorization here being relevant to how it is used and that conflation lives in the failure to separate out these uses and keep them to the contexts where their dimensions of difference are actually valid.

Assuming sex is "universal binary", further, is what Don is also coming down on, because as mentioned, attempts do so run into corner cases, cases wherein the dimension looked at does not capture the desired quality. Don's recognition of the corner case is in fact something Bilby's post builds on, rather than conflicts with.

 

[Bomb#20]

Don's post is not bilby's post, and you don't know what in it was worthy of liking.

Which part was worthier? Was it the "I am skeptical of people on TikTok, too. ... and [a person on Tiktok] shows yet again another failure of the conservative sex-is-binary claim" part?

Answer Bilby's post and answer the argument and maybe quit trying to ad-hom on whether Bilby is a hypocrite.

I'm not calling him a hypocrite; I'm calling out his failure to think critically about arguments whose conclusions he agrees with.

Assuming sex is "universal binary", further, is what Don is also coming down on, because as mentioned, attempts do so run into corner cases, cases wherein the dimension looked at does not capture the desired quality. Don's recognition of the corner case is in fact something Bilby's post builds on, rather than conflicts with.

Don't you get it? When the category isn't objective, "corner case" isn't objective. Don's entire basis for supposing a pregnant Swyer patient constitutes a corner case is the presumption that XY chromosomes make someone male. Going by Emily's so-called "conservative sex-is-binary claim", Don's documented cases are simply pregnant women. They are not corner cases.

 

[Emily Lake]

People with Swyer Syndrome are female. They develop the reproductive anatomy that has evovled to support the production of ova. They are also sterile females. But because they have a female reproductive anatomy, they can sometimes gestate and carry an implanted fertilized ova to term... but the ova won't be their ova.

A Swyer woman cannot however, get another female pregnant. Because Swyer women do not produce sperm - ever. Swyer women are females.

 

[Arctish]

Some people with Swyer's are genetically XY, but have female genitalia to include a vagina, small uterus, and fallopian tubes. There are documented cases of IVF etc that initiates a pregnancy of such XY person.

ALL people with Swyer Syndrome have karytype XY, and have phenotypical female genitals.

And because they have a female reproductive tract with non-functional gonads, they can be impregnated with someone else's egg via IVF, and are frequently capable of carrying a fetus to term using externally applied pregnancy hormones.

Sex is not a spectrum; People with Swyer Syndrome are female. They have the reproductive anatomy that has evolved to support the production of ova, even though they cannot actually produce ova. The fact that people with Swyer CAN AND HAVE gestated and delivered children demonstrates that they are female.

On the other hand, not a single person with Swyer Syndrome has ever been observed to have produced sperm, nor to have fathered children, nor to have a reproductive anatomy that has evolved to support the production of sperm. Thus, people with Swyer are NOT MALE.

Nor are they on some imaginary spectrum in between. Sex is not defined by karyotype, nor by secondary sex characteristics. Sex is defined by which type of reproductive anatomy the subject has. Even if that anatomy is incomplete, or unusual, or initially ambiguous. There is no "in between sex". There are only two sexes among all mammals, all birds, and the overwhelming majority of vertebrates. Other species (like algae) have evolved different reproductive strategies that do not have two distinct sexes - that's perfectly fine, but humans are NOT one of those other species, and the evolved reproductive approaches of those species are irrelevant to humans.

Karyotype is the mechanism by which sex is determined - and it's just as subject to interference as any other "blueprint". In humans, it is generally true that males have karyotype XY and females have karyotype XX, but it is not universal. Other karyotype combinations exist in humans. In exactly the same way that humans generally have 46 chromosomes, but some have 47 and are still considered human.

* bolding added

A while ago I posted this link (warning: NSFW pictures of genitals and internal organs) to a report of a 70 year old father of 4 who was found to have a uterus and fallopian tube when he underwent hernia surgery. If we define his sex by what kind of reproductive anatomy he had, then he was both male and female before his female sex organs were removed.

^This is why the definitions of the terms we use matter. Categorization by sex isn't as neat and tidy as the English language makes it out to be. If a woman is an adult human being who has a uterus, then the linked article is about a woman who fathered 4 children. If a man is an adult human being with a penis and testicles, then men can become pregnant if given hormone therapy.

If we accept the term 'intersex' as a valid descriptor of a small subset of human beings that have traits of both males and females, then the problem of categorization can be resolved but we would have to sacrifice the notion that sex in humans is binary.

 

[Emily Lake]

Some people with Swyer's are genetically XY, but have female genitalia to include a vagina, small uterus, and fallopian tubes. There are documented cases of IVF etc that initiates a pregnancy of such XY person.

ALL people with Swyer Syndrome have karytype XY, and have phenotypical female genitals.

And because they have a female reproductive tract with non-functional gonads, they can be impregnated with someone else's egg via IVF, and are frequently capable of carrying a fetus to term using externally applied pregnancy hormones.

Sex is not a spectrum; People with Swyer Syndrome are female. They have the reproductive anatomy that has evolved to support the production of ova, even though they cannot actually produce ova. The fact that people with Swyer CAN AND HAVE gestated and delivered children demonstrates that they are female.

On the other hand, not a single person with Swyer Syndrome has ever been observed to have produced sperm, nor to have fathered children, nor to have a reproductive anatomy that has evolved to support the production of sperm. Thus, people with Swyer are NOT MALE.

Nor are they on some imaginary spectrum in between. Sex is not defined by karyotype, nor by secondary sex characteristics. Sex is defined by which type of reproductive anatomy the subject has. Even if that anatomy is incomplete, or unusual, or initially ambiguous. There is no "in between sex". There are only two sexes among all mammals, all birds, and the overwhelming majority of vertebrates. Other species (like algae) have evolved different reproductive strategies that do not have two distinct sexes - that's perfectly fine, but humans are NOT one of those other species, and the evolved reproductive approaches of those species are irrelevant to humans.

Karyotype is the mechanism by which sex is determined - and it's just as subject to interference as any other "blueprint". In humans, it is generally true that males have karyotype XY and females have karyotype XX, but it is not universal. Other karyotype combinations exist in humans. In exactly the same way that humans generally have 46 chromosomes, but some have 47 and are still considered human.

* bolding added

A while ago I posted this link (warning: NSFW pictures of genitals and internal organs) to a report of a 70 year old father of 4 who was found to have a uterus and fallopian tube when he underwent hernia surgery. If we define his sex by what kind of reproductive anatomy he had, then he was both male and female before his female sex organs were removed.

^This is why the definitions of the terms we use matter. Categorization by sex isn't as neat and tidy as the English language makes it out to be. If a woman is an adult human being who has a uterus, then the linked article is about a woman who fathered 4 children. If a man is an adult human being with a penis and testicles, then men can become pregnant if given hormone therapy.

If we accept the term 'intersex' as a valid descriptor of a small subset of human beings that have traits of both males and females, then the problem of categorization can be resolved but we would have to sacrifice the notion that sex in humans is binary.

Consider your own link, emphasis mine:

PMDS is a rare form of male pseudo-hermaphroditism characterized by the presence of Mullerian duct structures in an otherwise phenotypically, as well as genotypically, normal man.3 It is characterized by the persistence of the uterus, fallopian tubes and upper vagina in otherwise normally virilized boys. Despite the normal male genotype (46 XY) and the subsequent normal development of fetal testes, müllerian structures do not regress either due to absence of Müllerian Inhibiting Substance

That patient is male. They have a completely intact and phenotypically normal male reproductive system. It's also, obviously, a completely functional male reproductive system. They have residual elements of a female reproductive system, but it's not a complete system nor is it functional.

I don't define a woman as an adult human being with a uterus - that would be a ridiculous definition.

Try reading again, without your own ideological bias, and with thought toward the nature of sexual reproduction among mammalian species:

Sex is defined by whether the individual has developed the type of reproductive anatomy that has evolved to support the production of ova, or the type that has evolved to support the production of sperm.

 

[Toni]

Some people with Swyer's are genetically XY, but have female genitalia to include a vagina, small uterus, and fallopian tubes. There are documented cases of IVF etc that initiates a pregnancy of such XY person.

ALL people with Swyer Syndrome have karytype XY, and have phenotypical female genitals.

And because they have a female reproductive tract with non-functional gonads, they can be impregnated with someone else's egg via IVF, and are frequently capable of carrying a fetus to term using externally applied pregnancy hormones.

Sex is not a spectrum; People with Swyer Syndrome are female. They have the reproductive anatomy that has evolved to support the production of ova, even though they cannot actually produce ova. The fact that people with Swyer CAN AND HAVE gestated and delivered children demonstrates that they are female.

On the other hand, not a single person with Swyer Syndrome has ever been observed to have produced sperm, nor to have fathered children, nor to have a reproductive anatomy that has evolved to support the production of sperm. Thus, people with Swyer are NOT MALE.

Nor are they on some imaginary spectrum in between. Sex is not defined by karyotype, nor by secondary sex characteristics. Sex is defined by which type of reproductive anatomy the subject has. Even if that anatomy is incomplete, or unusual, or initially ambiguous. There is no "in between sex". There are only two sexes among all mammals, all birds, and the overwhelming majority of vertebrates. Other species (like algae) have evolved different reproductive strategies that do not have two distinct sexes - that's perfectly fine, but humans are NOT one of those other species, and the evolved reproductive approaches of those species are irrelevant to humans.

Karyotype is the mechanism by which sex is determined - and it's just as subject to interference as any other "blueprint". In humans, it is generally true that males have karyotype XY and females have karyotype XX, but it is not universal. Other karyotype combinations exist in humans. In exactly the same way that humans generally have 46 chromosomes, but some have 47 and are still considered human.

* bolding added

A while ago I posted this link (warning: NSFW pictures of genitals and internal organs) to a report of a 70 year old father of 4 who was found to have a uterus and fallopian tube when he underwent hernia surgery. If we define his sex by what kind of reproductive anatomy he had, then he was both male and female before his female sex organs were removed.

^This is why the definitions of the terms we use matter. Categorization by sex isn't as neat and tidy as the English language makes it out to be. If a woman is an adult human being who has a uterus, then the linked article is about a woman who fathered 4 children. If a man is an adult human being with a penis and testicles, then men can become pregnant if given hormone therapy.

If we accept the term 'intersex' as a valid descriptor of a small subset of human beings that have traits of both males and females, then the problem of categorization can be resolved but we would have to sacrifice the notion that sex in humans is binary.

I don't think that we have to sacrifice the notion that sex in humans is binary to recognize that a small portion of the human population (although we truly do not know how small or large that population would be) is intersex, as the 70 year old father of 4 was discovered to be during an unrelated surgical procedure.

I think that we are fine saying that sex in humans is binary, with some small number of exceptions. Afterall, this is true of all human characteristics: Humans are bipedal but some individuals are born without any feet or with only one. Humans normally have 45 chromosomes but some individuals have more or fewer. Humans have 2 kidneys. I happen to have 3, as do a small portion of the general population. And so on. That does not make them less human or less worthy as human.

I would like to point out that it is interesting to me that all of these discussions seem to center around what is and what is not female. There seems to be no confusion as to what is and what is not a man.

Funny, that.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Assuming sex is "universal binary", further, is what Don is also coming down on, because as mentioned, attempts do so run into corner cases, cases wherein the dimension looked at does not capture the desired quality.

I agree with this and will try to break the statement down into pieces.

Assuming sex is "universal binary", further, is what Don is also coming down on

To expand--I think some people may be making an assumption, others may as bilby have pointed out be using socio-cultural or linguistic labels that we use because that is how language works but the reality of concrete individuals breaks the abstractions. To go with Toni's example for a moment--we can talk about an abstract human being with 2 kidneys and say something like that humans have evolved to have 2 kidneys or maybe invoke religion to say humans have been created with 2 kidneys or whatever--but the concrete reality is that there are individuals with more or less. My niece was born with just 1 kidney. Ergo, it is not technically correct to say humans have 2 kidneys. Taking some kind of generalization of humans, making it into an abstraction and labels, and then making a declaration that all individuals have to fall into limited space doesn't map to the set of humans. Moreover, the abstract notion of "there are 2 biological sexes" is different than how that particular oft-repeated conservative statement is being employed in contexts to slam particular concrete individuals. It's really a statement directed at someone in some context--that that concrete individual has to fit into a pigeonhole and there is a pretense of objectivity and lack of emotion by making a person-less statement such as "there are 2 biological sexes" at the person. It's true meaning is more like "you are wrong as you have to fit into one of these two categories." This does not make the original statement any more consistent with biology since there are a number of individuals out there who are intersexed--to include hermaphrodites.

attempts do so run into corner cases...

Yes, that is right. The foremost and most obvious case of breaking the abstraction and simple definitions are hermaphrodites. There are individuals with both genitalia and sometimes both genetics. When we try to utilize a simple definition such as the one "Emily Lake" offers like "Sex is defined by which type of reproductive anatomy the subject has. Even if that anatomy is incomplete, or unusual, or initially ambiguous," we observe that there are individuals with both anatomies and both can be incomplete and unusual and rather than initially ambiguous, they can be permanently ambiguous. There are individuals with one testis and one ovary. There are hermaphroditic individuals with what are called ovotestes. Here is such a documented case.

This leads to a logical conclusion of rejecting the definition and claims in regard to the definition.

cases wherein the dimension looked at does not capture the desired quality

That's right. Let's consider just two dimensions: genitalia and genetics. The best description of what we observe in these two dimensions is a spectrum:


Data is inconsistent with a claim that sex is binary and instead most compatible with a claim that sex is a spectrum.

 

[thebeave]

Some people with Swyer's are genetically XY, but have female genitalia to include a vagina, small uterus, and fallopian tubes. There are documented cases of IVF etc that initiates a pregnancy of such XY person.

ALL people with Swyer Syndrome have karytype XY, and have phenotypical female genitals.

And because they have a female reproductive tract with non-functional gonads, they can be impregnated with someone else's egg via IVF, and are frequently capable of carrying a fetus to term using externally applied pregnancy hormones.

Sex is not a spectrum; People with Swyer Syndrome are female. They have the reproductive anatomy that has evolved to support the production of ova, even though they cannot actually produce ova. The fact that people with Swyer CAN AND HAVE gestated and delivered children demonstrates that they are female.

On the other hand, not a single person with Swyer Syndrome has ever been observed to have produced sperm, nor to have fathered children, nor to have a reproductive anatomy that has evolved to support the production of sperm. Thus, people with Swyer are NOT MALE.

Nor are they on some imaginary spectrum in between. Sex is not defined by karyotype, nor by secondary sex characteristics. Sex is defined by which type of reproductive anatomy the subject has. Even if that anatomy is incomplete, or unusual, or initially ambiguous. There is no "in between sex". There are only two sexes among all mammals, all birds, and the overwhelming majority of vertebrates. Other species (like algae) have evolved different reproductive strategies that do not have two distinct sexes - that's perfectly fine, but humans are NOT one of those other species, and the evolved reproductive approaches of those species are irrelevant to humans.

Karyotype is the mechanism by which sex is determined - and it's just as subject to interference as any other "blueprint". In humans, it is generally true that males have karyotype XY and females have karyotype XX, but it is not universal. Other karyotype combinations exist in humans. In exactly the same way that humans generally have 46 chromosomes, but some have 47 and are still considered human.

* bolding added

A while ago I posted this link (warning: NSFW pictures of genitals and internal organs) to a report of a 70 year old father of 4 who was found to have a uterus and fallopian tube when he underwent hernia surgery. If we define his sex by what kind of reproductive anatomy he had, then he was both male and female before his female sex organs were removed.

^This is why the definitions of the terms we use matter. Categorization by sex isn't as neat and tidy as the English language makes it out to be. If a woman is an adult human being who has a uterus, then the linked article is about a woman who fathered 4 children. If a man is an adult human being with a penis and testicles, then men can become pregnant if given hormone therapy.

If we accept the term 'intersex' as a valid descriptor of a small subset of human beings that have traits of both males and females, then the problem of categorization can be resolved but we would have to sacrifice the notion that sex in humans is binary.

I don't think that we have to sacrifice the notion that sex in humans is binary to recognize that a small portion of the human population (although we truly do not know how small or large that population would be) is intersex, as the 70 year old father of 4 was discovered to be during an unrelated surgical procedure.

I think that we are fine saying that sex in humans is binary, with some small number of exceptions. Afterall, this is true of all human characteristics: Humans are bipedal but some individuals are born without any feet or with only one. Humans normally have 45 chromosomes but some individuals have more or fewer. Humans have 2 kidneys. I happen to have 3, as do a small portion of the general population. And so on. That does not make them less human or less worthy as human.

I would like to point out that it is interesting to me that all of these discussions seem to center around what is and what is not female. There seems to be no confusion as to what is and what is not a man.

Funny, that.

I think that's due to the fact that, by far, the trans issues have been focused on transwomen (and not transmen), specifically with regard to their place in women's sports and facilities, and the subsequent impact on their privacy, safety and athletic competition. Unlike biological women, biological men don't much care about transmen in their gyms & bathrooms or competing against them in sports (they have basically no chance of being serious competitors at the highest levels).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's right. Let's consider just two dimensions: genitalia and genetics. The best description of what we observe in these two dimensions is a spectrum:
View attachment 43868

Data is inconsistent with a claim that sex is binary and instead most compatible with a claim that sex is a spectrum.

Simple test: None of those divisions have clear dividing lines. Spectrum.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think that's due to the fact that, by far, the trans issues have been focused on transwomen (and not transmen), specifically with regard to their place in women's sports and facilities, and the subsequent impact on their privacy, safety and athletic competition. Unlike biological women, biological men don't much care about transmen in their gyms & bathrooms or competing against them in sports (they have basically no chance of being serious competitors at the highest levels).

Also, nobody's trying to stir up panic about them.

 

[Toni]

I think that's due to the fact that, by far, the trans issues have been focused on transwomen (and not transmen), specifically with regard to their place in women's sports and facilities, and the subsequent impact on their privacy, safety and athletic competition. Unlike biological women, biological men don't much care about transmen in their gyms & bathrooms or competing against them in sports (they have basically no chance of being serious competitors at the highest levels).

Also, nobody's trying to stir up panic about them.

I think that's due to the fact that, by far, the trans issues have been focused on transwomen (and not transmen), specifically with regard to their place in women's sports and facilities, and the subsequent impact on their privacy, safety and athletic competition. Unlike biological women, biological men don't much care about transmen in their gyms & bathrooms or competing against them in sports (they have basically no chance of being serious competitors at the highest levels).

Also, nobody's trying to stir up panic about them.

I.E. They pose no threat to men.

 

[Jarhyn]

Some people with Swyer's are genetically XY, but have female genitalia to include a vagina, small uterus, and fallopian tubes. There are documented cases of IVF etc that initiates a pregnancy of such XY person.

ALL people with Swyer Syndrome have karytype XY, and have phenotypical female genitals.

And because they have a female reproductive tract with non-functional gonads, they can be impregnated with someone else's egg via IVF, and are frequently capable of carrying a fetus to term using externally applied pregnancy hormones.

Sex is not a spectrum; People with Swyer Syndrome are female. They have the reproductive anatomy that has evolved to support the production of ova, even though they cannot actually produce ova. The fact that people with Swyer CAN AND HAVE gestated and delivered children demonstrates that they are female.

On the other hand, not a single person with Swyer Syndrome has ever been observed to have produced sperm, nor to have fathered children, nor to have a reproductive anatomy that has evolved to support the production of sperm. Thus, people with Swyer are NOT MALE.

Nor are they on some imaginary spectrum in between. Sex is not defined by karyotype, nor by secondary sex characteristics. Sex is defined by which type of reproductive anatomy the subject has. Even if that anatomy is incomplete, or unusual, or initially ambiguous. There is no "in between sex". There are only two sexes among all mammals, all birds, and the overwhelming majority of vertebrates. Other species (like algae) have evolved different reproductive strategies that do not have two distinct sexes - that's perfectly fine, but humans are NOT one of those other species, and the evolved reproductive approaches of those species are irrelevant to humans.

Karyotype is the mechanism by which sex is determined - and it's just as subject to interference as any other "blueprint". In humans, it is generally true that males have karyotype XY and females have karyotype XX, but it is not universal. Other karyotype combinations exist in humans. In exactly the same way that humans generally have 46 chromosomes, but some have 47 and are still considered human.

* bolding added

A while ago I posted this link (warning: NSFW pictures of genitals and internal organs) to a report of a 70 year old father of 4 who was found to have a uterus and fallopian tube when he underwent hernia surgery. If we define his sex by what kind of reproductive anatomy he had, then he was both male and female before his female sex organs were removed.

^This is why the definitions of the terms we use matter. Categorization by sex isn't as neat and tidy as the English language makes it out to be. If a woman is an adult human being who has a uterus, then the linked article is about a woman who fathered 4 children. If a man is an adult human being with a penis and testicles, then men can become pregnant if given hormone therapy.

If we accept the term 'intersex' as a valid descriptor of a small subset of human beings that have traits of both males and females, then the problem of categorization can be resolved but we would have to sacrifice the notion that sex in humans is binary.

I don't think that we have to sacrifice the notion that sex in humans is binary to recognize that a small portion of the human population (although we truly do not know how small or large that population would be) is intersex, as the 70 year old father of 4 was discovered to be during an unrelated surgical procedure.

I think that we are fine saying that sex in humans is binary, with some small number of exceptions. Afterall, this is true of all human characteristics: Humans are bipedal but some individuals are born without any feet or with only one. Humans normally have 45 chromosomes but some individuals have more or fewer. Humans have 2 kidneys. I happen to have 3, as do a small portion of the general population. And so on. That does not make them less human or less worthy as human.

I would like to point out that it is interesting to me that all of these discussions seem to center around what is and what is not female. There seems to be no confusion as to what is and what is not a man.

Funny, that.

Yes, we absolutely have to sacrifice that notion, because that's not what "binary" is. "Binary" is used in this conversation to exclude the corner case from consideration as "real".

I will point out here that the confusion over what is and is not a man is only here because of Emily's severe bias against considering anyone who was born with a vagina a "man" [removed]

I think that's due to the fact that, by far, the trans issues have been focused on transwomen (and not transmen), specifically with regard to their place in women's sports and facilities, and the subsequent impact on their privacy, safety and athletic competition. Unlike biological women, biological men don't much care about transmen in their gyms & bathrooms or competing against them in sports (they have basically no chance of being serious competitors at the highest levels).

Also, nobody's trying to stir up panic about them.

I think that's due to the fact that, by far, the trans issues have been focused on transwomen (and not transmen), specifically with regard to their place in women's sports and facilities, and the subsequent impact on their privacy, safety and athletic competition. Unlike biological women, biological men don't much care about transmen in their gyms & bathrooms or competing against them in sports (they have basically no chance of being serious competitors at the highest levels).

Also, nobody's trying to stir up panic about them.

I.E. They pose no threat to men.

Black people pose no special threat to white people, and yet here were are, in a society where it's nearly impossible to grow up in a small town white and not be forced to feel nervous around black people on some level.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think that's due to the fact that, by far, the trans issues have been focused on transwomen (and not transmen), specifically with regard to their place in women's sports and facilities, and the subsequent impact on their privacy, safety and athletic competition. Unlike biological women, biological men don't much care about transmen in their gyms & bathrooms or competing against them in sports (they have basically no chance of being serious competitors at the highest levels).

Also, nobody's trying to stir up panic about them.

I think that's due to the fact that, by far, the trans issues have been focused on transwomen (and not transmen), specifically with regard to their place in women's sports and facilities, and the subsequent impact on their privacy, safety and athletic competition. Unlike biological women, biological men don't much care about transmen in their gyms & bathrooms or competing against them in sports (they have basically no chance of being serious competitors at the highest levels).

Also, nobody's trying to stir up panic about them.

I.E. They pose no threat to men.

No--people are stirring up a panic as a wedge issue to drive Republicans to distrust anything but what the outrage machine tells them to think.

Threat isn't a factor. Republicans don't care about threats to women.

 

[Toni]

I think that's due to the fact that, by far, the trans issues have been focused on transwomen (and not transmen), specifically with regard to their place in women's sports and facilities, and the subsequent impact on their privacy, safety and athletic competition. Unlike biological women, biological men don't much care about transmen in their gyms & bathrooms or competing against them in sports (they have basically no chance of being serious competitors at the highest levels).

Also, nobody's trying to stir up panic about them.

I think that's due to the fact that, by far, the trans issues have been focused on transwomen (and not transmen), specifically with regard to their place in women's sports and facilities, and the subsequent impact on their privacy, safety and athletic competition. Unlike biological women, biological men don't much care about transmen in their gyms & bathrooms or competing against them in sports (they have basically no chance of being serious competitors at the highest levels).

Also, nobody's trying to stir up panic about them.

I.E. They pose no threat to men.

No--people are stirring up a panic as a wedge issue to drive Republicans to distrust anything but what the outrage machine tells them to think.

Threat isn't a factor. Republicans don't care about threats to women.

I don't think any male person cares about threats to women, tbh.

 

[Emily Lake]

Assuming sex is "universal binary", further, is what Don is also coming down on, because as mentioned, attempts do so run into corner cases, cases wherein the dimension looked at does not capture the desired quality.

I agree with this and will try to break the statement down into pieces.

Assuming sex is "universal binary", further, is what Don is also coming down on

To expand--I think some people may be making an assumption, others may as bilby have pointed out be using socio-cultural or linguistic labels that we use because that is how language works but the reality of concrete individuals breaks the abstractions. To go with Toni's example for a moment--we can talk about an abstract human being with 2 kidneys and say something like that humans have evolved to have 2 kidneys or maybe invoke religion to say humans have been created with 2 kidneys or whatever--but the concrete reality is that there are individuals with more or less. My niece was born with just 1 kidney. Ergo, it is not technically correct to say humans have 2 kidneys. Taking some kind of generalization of humans, making it into an abstraction and labels, and then making a declaration that all individuals have to fall into limited space doesn't map to the set of humans. Moreover, the abstract notion of "there are 2 biological sexes" is different than how that particular oft-repeated conservative statement is being employed in contexts to slam particular concrete individuals. It's really a statement directed at someone in some context--that that concrete individual has to fit into a pigeonhole and there is a pretense of objectivity and lack of emotion by making a person-less statement such as "there are 2 biological sexes" at the person. It's true meaning is more like "you are wrong as you have to fit into one of these two categories." This does not make the original statement any more consistent with biology since there are a number of individuals out there who are intersexed--to include hermaphrodites.

attempts do so run into corner cases...

Yes, that is right. The foremost and most obvious case of breaking the abstraction and simple definitions are hermaphrodites. There are individuals with both genitalia and sometimes both genetics. When we try to utilize a simple definition such as the one "Emily Lake" offers like "Sex is defined by which type of reproductive anatomy the subject has. Even if that anatomy is incomplete, or unusual, or initially ambiguous," we observe that there are individuals with both anatomies and both can be incomplete and unusual and rather than initially ambiguous, they can be permanently ambiguous. There are individuals with one testis and one ovary. There are hermaphroditic individuals with what are called ovotestes. Here is such a documented case.

This leads to a logical conclusion of rejecting the definition and claims in regard to the definition.

cases wherein the dimension looked at does not capture the desired quality

That's right. Let's consider just two dimensions: genitalia and genetics. The best description of what we observe in these two dimensions is a spectrum:
View attachment 43868

Data is inconsistent with a claim that sex is binary and instead most compatible with a claim that sex is a spectrum.

It's not consistent with the claim that sex is a spectrum. It's consistent with discerning sex sometimes being complex or indeterminate.

There are only two sexes. We're a sexually reproductive species, and the sexes are evolved to support that reproduction. Reproduction in all mammals requires one gamete of each type. There is no third gamete, there is no in-between sperg.

If you want to make the claim that sex is a spectrum, then you need to be able to provide evidence in humans* of a reproductive system that has clearly evolved to produce either a third type of gamete or has clearly evolved to produce a sperg.

*Hell, I'll be generous - find it in any mammal at all!

This ties back to Toni's point - some humans have three kidneys, some have one. But as a species we have evolved to have two kidneys. It would be transparently inane to make the argument that the number of kidneys in humans is "a spectrum", it would be a fundamental conflation of the evolutionary basis of our anatomy and the periodic missteps that our bodies make in development.

 

[Emily Lake]

I don't think any male person cares about threats to women, tbh.

I know a few that do care. There's even a couple of them on IIDB. There are just a lot more that don't care at all and are very vocal about it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't think any male person cares about threats to women, tbh.

You have an extremely distorted picture of the world.

 

[Toni]

I don't think any male person cares about threats to women, tbh.

You have an extremely distorted picture of the world.

Just a different body of life experiences.

 

[TomC]

I don't think any male person cares about threats to women, tbh.

You have an extremely distorted picture of the world.

Just a different body of life experiences.

Nevertheless,
Thinking that male persons like Loren and me don't care about threats to women is extremely distorted.

Frankly, I think we're in the majority of male persons.
Tom
ETA ~I was trying to avoid this thread. I consider it a batch of woke nonsense. Your comment about male persons included me.~

 

[Toni]

I’ve read a lot of posts on this forum for many years—mostly by male posters.

My comment stands.