Mississippi Passes "More Dead Kids Please" bill. Texas responds w/ "hold my beer"

[Loren Pechtel]

In families with a history of breast or prostate cancer, I'm fairly certain preemptive removals are done on a fairly regular basis.

No, it is not. It's done very, very rarely. Angelina Jolie's voluntary mastectomy was something she could only get because she's famous. It is NOT something that is done regularly, not at all. And seriously, removal of breasts in someone past childbearing age has the LEAST negative side effects. Removal of the prostate has larger consequences than your fantasy-land imagining has envisioned.

You really should try living in the real world once in a while. It's actually kind of nice here.

Huh? I thought it was common for those who have the deadly gene.

I believe that it’s an option now offered many women. We know about Jolie’s surgery because she’s famous and chose to be open about her choices.

It's an option offered to only a very few women. It is generally only offered to women who have specific genes, and even then not to all of them depending on family history.

It is NOT common, nor is it done on anything that a rational person would consider a "fairly regular basis".

Even when a preemptive double mastectomy is done, it reduces the risk but does not eliminate it - between 5% and 10% of women who meet all of the clinical and genetic criteria go on to develop breast cancer anyway.

I meant common amongst those who have the deadly gene, not common overall.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Maybe you should accept that you know less about medical ethics then the medical community, and that when you are told that the medical community is backing moves which sound ethically suspect, to first question whether the things you are being told about the ethics of the medical community are accurate in the first place, and to actually investigate the medical community's actual stance on it.

Also consider the possibility that the unethical thing is being forced on them--we are seeing that with abortion in Gilead states.

 

[Bomb#20]

No, all I am "cleaving to" is common usage

Common usage is not sufficient to establish concrete meaning.

It is sufficient to establish meaning. "Concrete" is what your Humpty Dumpty language smashes on.

Common usage does not and cannot on its own render words scientifically precise.

So if ALL you cleave to is common use you must accept that it is as previously discussed, also fuzzy and imprecise.

And?

Where the bejesus do you imagine you saw me claim "man" and "woman" and "sex" are precise and fuzzless? On what planet does the fuzziness of the boundaries of those concepts provide an iota of support to your accusation that I'm "cleaving to inaccurate and meaningless sex-essentialist models". The meaning established by common usage is a meaning; it is observably not an essentialist model; and as for accuracy, the devil is in the details of what one says when applying the meaning. Analogously, "tall" is a blatantly fuzzy imprecise category, but that fuzzy imprecision doesn't magically make the sentence "Peter Dinklage is not tall." inaccurate, to even the slightest degree. So fuzziness in the abstract gives you no grounds to accuse me of nonspecific inaccuracy; if you want to charge some particular claim of mine with some particular inaccuracy, quote it and show your work.

Common use must be put on hold when discussing actual reality, because common use only has a tentative and weak relationship with reality.

If common usage were put on hold when discussing actual reality, then discussing actual reality would be put on hold when discussing actual reality. Not even your private Humpty Dumpty language can discuss actual reality without relying on definitions that use words that you only understand through their common usage meanings. We already went through all this last year, when you relied on the fuzzy imprecise concept of "level of expression of gene".

 

[Jarhyn]

It is sufficient to establish meaning

No, it is not sufficient enough to establish the meaning you wish to give it. Common usage can only take you as far as common knowledge, and if common knowledge is wrong (as it was with the the hypothesis of humors), then it doesn't actually do the work you wish it would.

Emily Lake posed a strict scientific definition. She actually managed to post something concrete: ova, cells of a size capable of reacting in specific ways to subdivide into a whole and independently operating organism given readily available resources.

The thing is that this doesn't establish the meaning she WANTS.

If common usage were put on hold when discussing actual reality, then discussing actual reality would be put on hold when discussing actual reality

Bullshit. This is literally the reason and scientific and discipline bound terminology exists in the first place.

I cannot rely on man/woman in common usage to tell me ANYTHING specific about a person.

Not one specific thing.

I can at least rely on Emily's "female" to tell . About one thing, but at best that tells me "egg" or does not actually say "no penis". It doesn't even establish "not male".

It is a single bit in a long bitfield, and the bits in that field that actually speak to her concerns are in different positions.

To discuss actual reality, on the most concrete level, you have to abandon ALL of common language and pick up some obscure principles of set and group theory, and even the words "set" and "group" are very precise, not common. Everything gets less precise from there on out.

 

[Emily Lake]

Where we differ is that you appear to think that if it works for 99.9% of individuals for 99.9% of purposes, it's therefore absurd and stupid to even consider the possibility that it might be impossible to categorise some individuals into these two boxes for some purposes.

Let's provisionally accept your premise.

Please find me an example from that 0.01% of anisogamous mammals that produces a gamete that is somewhere in between a sperm and an egg (a sperg if you will) or that produces an entirely different type of gamete that is not included under the definitions of egg and sperm.

Hell, I don't even need you to provide me with an actually produced gamete - I'll settle for you produce a mammal that has a reproductive anatomy that has clearly evolved to produce either an in-between or an entirely new type of gamete.

Go for it. You are making the claim that the definition of sex used by multiple evolutionary biologists (Elliot is only one of many) is wrong. You produce an ACTUAL counter example that demonstrates the flaw.

Otherwise, all you've got is words and wishes, bilby. You are trying to sidestep the thing by saying "oh it's complicated" and then avoiding even attempting to provide a reasonable and useable definition of your own. You're currently supporting the premise that sex in humans is a non-binary spectrum, and you've provided nothing but hand waving in support of this entirely irrational and unsupported claim.

 

[Emily Lake]

Will you please stop trying to tell me what I actually mean?

I'm just repeating it. You said your definition of female is exactly "makes big gametes" (paraphrased).

Poor and misleading paraphrasing. Your paraphrase makes it wrong, thus I reject your paraphrase as an intentional mischaracterization. Unless you'd prefer that I view it as a lack of comprehension on your part? Your choice.

You made that very clear. Big bold text "UNIVERSAL BIOLOGICAL DEFINITION".

If we cant trust you on what you meant, the why say anything at all?

Your definition doesn't do the work you want of it.

It doesn't speak at all to the penis.

Penis is irrelevant. Not all anisogamous species have penises or uteruses. For example, plants don't have penises. But they still have phenotypes that have evolved to produce one of two gamete types.

It can eject people with testicles from a space, since people with testicles can actually specifically interact in a more negative way by various means. After all, someone without a penis could still jizz on their hand and assault someone with it!

It's the immediate biological availability of the semen, the sperms, that creates any special interaction with "big gametes", and frankly, it doesn't present much of an issue to people that make such gametes and lack a uterus.

Seriously, what is with your strange fascination with sperm and pregnancy? Why are you so incredibly focused on sperm as if that's the be-all end-all of any discussion?

That's what Big gametes bring to the discussion and all they bring there: not much.

Hmm. This is a very revealing sentence.

 

[Emily Lake]

In families with a history of breast or prostate cancer, I'm fairly certain preemptive removals are done on a fairly regular basis.

No, it is not. It's done very, very rarely. Angelina Jolie's voluntary mastectomy was something she could only get because she's famous. It is NOT something that is done regularly, not at all. And seriously, removal of breasts in someone past childbearing age has the LEAST negative side effects. Removal of the prostate has larger consequences than your fantasy-land imagining has envisioned.

You really should try living in the real world once in a while. It's actually kind of nice here.

Huh? I thought it was common for those who have the deadly gene.

I believe that it’s an option now offered many women. We know about Jolie’s surgery because she’s famous and chose to be open about her choices.

It's an option offered to only a very few women. It is generally only offered to women who have specific genes, and even then not to all of them depending on family history.

It is NOT common, nor is it done on anything that a rational person would consider a "fairly regular basis".

Even when a preemptive double mastectomy is done, it reduces the risk but does not eliminate it - between 5% and 10% of women who meet all of the clinical and genetic criteria go on to develop breast cancer anyway.

I meant common amongst those who have the deadly gene, not common overall.

What percentage are you imagining as representative of "common"?


ETA: Never mind. I found info and I concede this.
https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/consume...ns that between,10,000 people may be affected.

What is meant by a common or rare adverse reaction?
The chance of having an adverse reaction can be described as:

very common – this means that 1 in every 10 people taking the medicine are likely to have the adverse reaction
common – this means that between 1 in 10 and 1 in 100 people may be affected
uncommon – this means that between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1,000 people may be affected
rare – means that between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 10,000 people may be affected
very rare – means that fewer than 1 in 10,000 people may be affected.

Additionally
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7771240/

The rate of bilateral prophylactic mastectomy in BRCA mutation carriers varies widely in reports from 11 to 50%

This puts it into the very common range when we're specifically limiting the population to those with the specific genes in question.

 

[Emily Lake]

I can at least rely on Emily's "female" to tell . About one thing, but at best that tells me "egg" or does not actually say "no penis". It doesn't even establish "not male".

Absolute bullshit. Paired with intentional mischaracterization and purposeful misinterpretation.

 

[lpetrich]

We have a cascade of genders:

1. Gonads by what gametes they make: large (eggs, female), small (sperm, male)
2. Genitals
3. Secondary somatic features
4. Psychological gender identity
5. Preference in sexual partners (sexual orientation)

These features are assigned genders from how they usually occur with each other. I note "usually", since it is possible to be mixed-gender or  Intersex

In our species, gonads sometimes produce both sexes of gamete -  True hermaphroditism - thus being wiki]Ovotestis[/wiki] - what land snails have.

Another intersex condition is  Pseudohermaphroditism a mismatch between gonads and genitals.

So transgenderism can be interpreted as a kind of intersex condition, a mismatch between psychology and gonad / genital / somatic features.

Even homosexuality may be interpreted as an intersex condition, from being attracted to the sex of people that people of the opposite sex are attracted to. In fact, there is a common stereotype of homosexual people, that they are like the opposite sex of people.

 

[Jarhyn]

Penis is irrelevant.

There we go. There. You said it.

It took you a long time, and is buried ina lot of shit but there it is. Opening stanza of a whole paragraph of response to me also saying "the penis is irrelevant." With respect to sex.

So now we can accept that there are men with uteruses and vaginas, too ya, finally?

And that there are women with penises.

Maybe we can get on to where you accept that chromosomes are irrelevant.

It reveals that what you are asking for is not a safe place, but a special one, for those who are "female" which is, today, for you, "making eggs".

Seriously, what is with your strange fascination with sperm and pregnancy? Why are you so incredibly focused on sperm as if that's the be-all end-all of any discussion

It is the end-all be-all of any request on the basis of "we have eggs".

Unless there is some group out there following people that make them to harvest and eat them, the one group that the egg actually indicates as a threat is those who would attempt to fertilize the and have them implanted in a uterus.

That is why the sperm is the absolute end of the line with any discussion starting with "egg" other than possibly "menstruation", assuming someone with ovaries also has a uterus.

After that it's "what used to be an egg", either way.

It's the only dynamic "female" gets to, because female is exclusively "makes eggs" according to the universal scientific definition.

It doesn't get you "has penis, so shouldn't be allowed in restroom/prison/sport".

It gets you "has sperm, so shouldn't be in restroom/prison"

No sperm, no argument about "females" using the scientific definition.

If you want to bring our friend "hormones" into the discussion we can, and that can get you more on prisons and sports, possibly restrooms.

It still won't get you to keeping "men" and "women" separate.

 

[lpetrich]

Oops, that's  Ovotestis - a gonad that makes both sexes of gametes.

Looking at history,

PLINY THE ELDER, Natural History | Loeb Classical Library - Book XV -- written some 2,000 years ago in the Roman Empire

About strawberries, "Authorities disagree as to whether it is the male plant or the female that is unproductive."

Wild strawberries are dioecious, with some being female and some being male. The female ones are the ones that make the strawberries, and the male ones don't, and Pliny noted a difference in opinion on whether those seemingly infertile individuals were male or female. They are now recognized as male, and it's odd that they were not recognized as male back then. Back then, the female sex could be defined as the sex that gives birth or lays eggs, and that's rather obviously extended to dioecious plants like wild strawberries.

But a common belief back then was that the female sex was an incubator or packager for the male sex's contribution. That is why semen's name is the Latin word for seed, because the body fluid was long thought to be a sort of seed juice. Sperm cells got their name in the same way.


Advancing to early modern times,  Preformationism was the belief that embryos develop by becoming larger without making new features. Preformationists were divided over which kind of gamete contains this miniature embryo: the egg cells (ovists) or the sperm cells (spermists).

A problem with preformationism is that preformation would include gonads, complete with gametes, each one with a preformed embryo in it. One would thus get a Russian doll of organisms. So this nesting would either extend to infinity or else organisms would some day run out.

Competing with it was  Epigenesis (biology) - that features of organisms have their forms seemingly created out of nothing, that the only thing that goes into them is unformed raw materials. That had the problem of where the forms came from, a problem that preformationism solved. It was not until the last century that this problem was at least partially solved. I say "partially" because genes to shapes is still a largely unsolved problem, despite the discovery of patterning mechanisms like the Hox system. But genes to proteins is a solved problem, and at least some of gene regulation is well-understood.

 

[Emily Lake]

We have a cascade of genders:

1. Gonads by what gametes they make: large (eggs, female), small (sperm, male)
2. Genitals
3. Secondary somatic features
4. Psychological gender identity
5. Preference in sexual partners (sexual orientation)

These features are assigned genders from how they usually occur with each other. I note "usually", since it is possible to be mixed-gender or  Intersex

In our species, gonads sometimes produce both sexes of gamete -  True hermaphroditism - thus being wiki]Ovotestis[/wiki] - what land snails have.

No, they don't. Ovotestis do not produce gametes. And humans are not snails.

I'm surprised how often I end up having to point out that humans are not the same as non-mammalian species. To adults. Who are all supposedly well educated. It's very strange.

Another intersex condition is  Pseudohermaphroditism a mismatch between gonads and genitals.

And which expresses as either MALE psuedohermaphroditism or FEMALE psuedohermaphroditism.

Disorders of sexual development are not different sexes.

So transgenderism can be interpreted as a kind of intersex condition, a mismatch between psychology and gonad / genital / somatic features.

Exacly like how anorexia can be interpreted as an inter-body-fat condition, a mismatch between psychology and somatic features. Which means that anorexics are a new type of body composition that exists outside of the thin/fat concept. Right?

Of like how hallucinations can be interpreted as an inter-perception condition, a mismatch between psychology and reality... which makes them totally just as real as any other perception, right?

Even homosexuality may be interpreted as an intersex condition, from being attracted to the sex of people that people of the opposite sex are attracted to. In fact, there is a common stereotype of homosexual people, that they are like the opposite sex of people.

See, now you're just making things up to fit into your narrative.

And you're abusing people with very real, very deleterious medical conditions while you're at it. DSDs have nothing at all to do with gender identity. Stop using people with medical conditions as a pawn in this ideological conflict.

 

[Emily Lake]

Penis is irrelevant.

There we go. There. You said it.

It took you a long time, and is buried ina lot of shit but there it is. Opening stanza of a whole paragraph of response to me also saying "the penis is irrelevant." With respect to sex.

So now we can accept that there are men with uteruses and vaginas, too ya, finally?

And that there are women with penises.

Maybe we can get on to where you accept that chromosomes are irrelevant.

It reveals that what you are asking for is not a safe place, but a special one, for those who are "female" which is, today, for you, "making eggs".

This is dumb. You've just taken a snippet completely out of context, and then blatantly substituted an entirely different meaning into it. That's entirely disingenuous. As well as pretty much every single thing you wrote being wrong.

Seriously, what is with your strange fascination with sperm and pregnancy? Why are you so incredibly focused on sperm as if that's the be-all end-all of any discussion

It is the end-all be-all of any request on the basis of "we have eggs".

Unless there is some group out there following people that make them to harvest and eat them, the one group that the egg actually indicates as a threat is those who would attempt to fertilize the and have them implanted in a uterus.

That is why the sperm is the absolute end of the line with any discussion starting with "egg" other than possibly "menstruation", assuming someone with ovaries also has a uterus.

After that it's "what used to be an egg", either way.

It's the only dynamic "female" gets to, because female is exclusively "makes eggs" according to the universal scientific definition.

It doesn't get you "has penis, so shouldn't be allowed in restroom/prison/sport".

It gets you "has sperm, so shouldn't be in restroom/prison"

No sperm, no argument about "females" using the scientific definition.

If you want to bring our friend "hormones" into the discussion we can, and that can get you more on prisons and sports, possibly restrooms.

It still won't get you to keeping "men" and "women" separate.

I have no words for how incredibly disingenuous your arguments are. From snippets out of context being treated as if they mean something completely different, to blatant mischaracterizations of the actual position taken and the arguments being made.

 

[Jarhyn]

This is dumb. You've just taken a snippet completely out of context

No, I took a response to my saying it was about the penis with the first complete sentence at the head of the paragraph, generally taken to be the subject of a paragraph.

I have made a statement, and it is true. Regardless of whether what I impute upon you is true or not, the rest of it stands.

I have stated a true thing: "female: produces eggs" does not actuate in your, or any such demands demands for social and civil structures concerning "sex" except as regards sperms, exactly. The penis is agnostic to any valid concern you have on "the biology of females".

Note, I do not phrase it "female biology" as the only necessary and sufficient definition for "female" here is "makes an ovum".

 

[Emily Lake]

Oops, that's

Ovotestis - a gonad that makes both sexes of gametes.

Ovotestis are comprised of mixed ovarian and testicular tissue, or of undifferentiated tissue. They do not produce any gametes at all.

 

[Emily Lake]

This is dumb. You've just taken a snippet completely out of context

No, I took a response to my saying it was about the penis with the first complete sentence at the head of the paragraph, generally taken to be the subject of a paragraph.

I have made a statement, and it is true. Regardless of whether what I impute upon you is true or not, the rest of it stands.

I have stated a true thing: "female: produces eggs" does not actuate in your, or any such demands demands for social and civil structures concerning "sex" except as regards sperms, exactly. The penis is agnostic to any valid concern you have on "the biology of females".

Note, I do not phrase it "female biology" as the only necessary and sufficient definition for "female" here is "makes an ovum".

No, you disingenuously took it out of context.

The context was with respect to a universally species-agnostic definition of sex.

Then this happened:

You made that very clear. Big bold text "UNIVERSAL BIOLOGICAL DEFINITION".

If we cant trust you on what you meant, the why say anything at all?

Your definition doesn't do the work you want of it.

It doesn't speak at all to the penis.

Penis is irrelevant. Not all anisogamous species have penises or uteruses. For example, plants don't have penises. But they still have phenotypes that have evolved to produce one of two gamete types.

First, you go out of the tree and dismiss a universal definition of sex (used by many evolutionary biologists, and which was from an evolutionary biologist), because it "doesn't speak to all penises".

The definition has nothing to do with penises specifically, it has to do with how male and female are defined in a way that is accurate and meaningful across ALL anisogamous species - many of which don't have penises at all. Your dismissal is without basis.

Then you proceeded to snip out the explanation for WHY penises are irrelevant in this context... so that you can falsely frame that as if it means that penises are irrelevant to HUMANS specifically.

All because you seem to really really really want males to have access to female-only spaces.

 

[Jarhyn]

First, you go out of the tree and dismiss a universal definition of sex (used by many evolutionary biologists, and which was from an evolutionary biologist), because it "doesn't speak to all penises".

Penises are irrelevant, universally, to any discussion you base on "female" whether it is "female human" or "female monkey" or "female trout".

The only, literally the absolute only thing that can at all be leveraged off your definition is the ejection of those who actively produces and secrete sperm.

That is the only thing that it actually speaks to.

You have absolutely no leverage there in that definition or anything derived from it to exclude those with a penis.

Foolishly enough, your definition doesn't even speak to testosterone.

It doesn't even get your foot in the door arguing to separate sports.

I keep trying to explain this, that your definition does not do the work you wish of it.

You could separately discuss testosterone but you don't, because your modus operandi seems to be to jump from "female" to "woman" and then pulling in the game theory created by testosterone, and then make attempts to mix in sex essentialism, and exclusionism.

The penis IS irrelevant. To all of it. You have zero arguments to the exclusion of the penis.

You have arguments right there to exclude testicles, but they only exclude testicles, and testosterone, and they don't do it in every situation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This puts it into the very common range when we're specifically limiting the population to those with the specific genes in question.

It doesn't make any sense not to limit it to that population. The average woman wouldn't want a double mastectomy to reduce the chance of breast cancer.

 

[Jarhyn]

I just found this out, but apparently it's STILL not illegal to give a child a forced hysterectomy.

It happened several times in the last few years in Georgia.

Literally, red states are outlawing the right of someone to seek a voluntary hysterectomy, yet they are forcing them on children.

The hypocrisy knows no bounds. The GOP cuts on kids, while banning adult people from consensual body modification.

It is the most disingenuous, most disgusting thing I think to deny someone bodily autonomy in either way and the GOP, and the ADF, the lawyers writing these bills, are doing both.

 

[Bomb#20]

It is sufficient to establish meaning

No, it is not sufficient enough to establish the meaning you wish to give it.

I'm not trying to give it a meaning. That's something you and Humpty Dumpty do. I'm getting a meaning, by observing what English speakers commonly use a word to mean.

Common usage can only take you as far as common knowledge, and if common knowledge is wrong (as it was with the the hypothesis of humors), then it doesn't actually do the work you wish it would.

My wish has nothing to do with the case -- you're the one trying to wish work onto meanings by wishing meanings onto words. Linguistics is a descriptive science. When common usage of a word is based on failures of common knowledge, people will use the word to talk bosh, as they did with so-called "bilious" diseases. Such is life. It doesn't magically make the word mean something different that would be more compatible with correct knowledge.

Emily Lake posed a strict scientific definition. She actually managed to post something concrete: ova, cells of a size capable of reacting in specific ways to subdivide into a whole and independently operating organism given readily available resources.

The thing is that this doesn't establish the meaning she WANTS.

What she wants is of no concern to our discussion. Emily is perfectly capable of defending her own take on this topic; she doesn't need my help. The "strict scientific" definition she uses is based on the science of biology, not on the science of linguistics; consequently when she says "man", "woman" and "sex", she's using them as technical jargon. Technical specialties are perfectly entitled to develop and use their own jargons, but these jargons have no power to thereby render the common usage of laymen wrong. Biologists do not own those words, any more than sociologists do. We normal English speakers get to continue using them the way we have for hundreds of years, to express the meanings we've had in mind all along, and be right or wrong based on whether what we mean matches reality -- and the determination of whether what we mean matches reality takes no notice of whatever purposes biologists and/or sociologists may have hijacked our words for.

If common usage were put on hold when discussing actual reality, then discussing actual reality would be put on hold when discussing actual reality

Bull... This is literally the reason and scientific and discipline bound terminology exists in the first place.

Scientific and discipline bound terminology put common usage of a few individual terms on hold in order to discuss actual reality; they do not put common usage on hold in general. All technical definitions explaining how some given discipline's technical jargon works massively piggy-back on top of the common-usage meanings of a vast number of common words. You have no way to explain what you technically mean by the "level" of the expression of some androgen without implicitly relying on the common usage meanings of the words "man" and "woman".

I cannot rely on man/woman in common usage to tell me ANYTHING specific about a person.

Not one specific thing.

Where do you get this stuff? Of course you can. For example, if Joe Blow is a "man" in common usage, that reliably tells you the specific fact about Joe Blow that Joe Blow is a different person from the person whose uterus you popped out of.

I can at least rely on Emily's "female" to ...

Take it up with her.

To discuss actual reality, on the most concreteabstract level, you have to abandon ALL of common language and pick up some obscure principles of set and group theory, and even the words "set" and "group" are very precise, not common. Everything gets less precise from there on out.

FIFY. What you are describing is mathematics, not science. Actual reality -- the implications of empirical observation, not just a priori reasoning -- cannot be understood at more than a chimpanzee level by human brains without common language. Human brains' language centers did not evolve to process technical jargon.