The left eats JK Rowling over transgender comments

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Current medicine can significantly change a person's sex; it just cannot yet fully change it

Please expand on this.

What part is a mystery to you?

In what ways can current medicine significantly change a person's sex?

In all the ways that have already been described or linked to itt and things like this:

Deleting a gene can turn an ovary into a testis in adult mammals

Total Genger Change Within A Decade

Sex change hormonal treatments alter brain chemistry

An emerging interface between life science and nanotechnology: present status and prospects of reproductive healthcare aided by nano-biotechnology

For nanomedicine, cell sex matters

That last article is particularly interesting in that the researchers found:

[C]ell sex considerably influenced cellular uptake of nanoparticles and found that cells from men and women responded differently to reprogramming techniques used to enhance the ability of the cells to differentiate into a greater variety of cell types.
...
In the body, cells are awash in a wide range of biomolecules including paracrine factors, which are small proteins that can interact with the surface of nanoparticles. The team found that paracrine factors varied between male and female cells: of the 63 paracrine factors measured, 14 showed major differences. These differences can affect the biological identity of nanoparticles and thus alter their interaction with the cells. Aside from the variation of paracrine factors between male and female cells, the team also found important differences in organization, distribution and morphology of actin filaments in male and female hAMSCs. These filaments act like tiny tendrils that wrap around particles and engulf them.

"These differences could have a critical impact on the administration of nanoparticles," said Mahmoudi. "If nanoparticles are carrying a drug to deliver, different uptake could mean different therapeutic efficacy and other important differences, such as safety, in clinical data."

While the last two articles regarding nanomedicine capabilities do not specifically refer to changing the chromosomes in our bodies from X to Y or vice versa, the fact that we are at this stage of development regarding nanoparticle delivery mechanisms being able to, for example, differentiate between "male" cell and "female" cell structure is a huge step toward being able to effect change at a cellular level, if that's even necessary in regard to "fully" changing one's sex (as there is still a debate about chromosomes and SRY and how/what it all means).

The POINT is, of course, that stomping your foot on the ground and declaring Men ARE Y and Women ARE X never has been the full story. We are not steadystate. We are dynamic and ever changing and we could find ourselves in either an environment that required us to be able to change sex at any stage of our development due to circumstances or due to surgery or due to drugs or due to nanoparticles, etc.

It's even possible--though not currently within our abilities--to change you into a ten year old boy, at least in regard to your cell structure, health and functioning sex organs, all based on the information provided in the above links. Not thousands or even hundreds of years from now; decades.

 

[Metaphor]

The genitals are the least part of sex.

I don't recall 'ranking' the different parts of sex.

You are trying to derive roles, capabilities, expectations, limitations, social position and decision making on the basis of a part that makes no actual decisions, does no actual thinking.

I'm trying to do no such thing. How on earth do you think that?

You say here that a person having all the internal chemistry of "a man" does not make "her" a "man". Yeah, the part between people's legs grows into something different depending on who you are, and that's part of how human reproduction works.

A woman who apes the internal chemistry of a man by taking androgens does not become a man. It is hormonal drag.

If for whatever reason (mutilation, mutation, infection, whatever), a person has no gonads by the time they hit puberty, and they have an estrogen puberty: are they a boy or a girl? I mean, my mom didn't stop being a woman when they scooped her baby factory due to cancer.

I've covered this many times. They are whatever sex they were at birth.

Current medicine can absolutely CHANGE someone's sex, if "sex" is genitals.

Surgically refashioning genitals is not a sex change, and a pseudovagina is not a vagina. (I've never seen a pseudopenis, but I understand the technology is far less developed than the technology for turning a penis and testes into a pseudovagina).

It won't exactly make you 'perfect', but it'll give you a hole or a pole with the all the features you want short of baby making. NOTHING short of (likely very unethical) brain surgery of the far future can change a person's "sex", if it is as I imagine and more to do with the shape of the brain.

So...you agree you can't change a person's sex, and yet you disagree?

What is certain is that specific parts of sex come to arise as a result of hormone exposure during puberty, and certain parts of sex arise from a hormone (and other chemical) exposure in utero and certain parts of sex come from society and the ways our sexed brains interact with society.

You, on the other hand, have a genital fixation; your fixation is such that only being born with a specific genital will sufficiently qualify some person as "he/him/man/male". That's all that matters to you. Thus, "fixation".

Non. I've said multiple times that a man whose penis is severed is still a man.

 

[Jarhyn]

I don't recall 'ranking' the different parts of sex.



I'm trying to do no such thing. How on earth do you think that?

You say here that a person having all the internal chemistry of "a man" does not make "her" a "man". Yeah, the part between people's legs grows into something different depending on who you are, and that's part of how human reproduction works.

A woman who apes the internal chemistry of a man by taking androgens does not become a man. It is hormonal drag.

If for whatever reason (mutilation, mutation, infection, whatever), a person has no gonads by the time they hit puberty, and they have an estrogen puberty: are they a boy or a girl? I mean, my mom didn't stop being a woman when they scooped her baby factory due to cancer.

I've covered this many times. They are whatever sex they were at birth.

Current medicine can absolutely CHANGE someone's sex, if "sex" is genitals.

Surgically refashioning genitals is not a sex change, and a pseudovagina is not a vagina. (I've never seen a pseudopenis, but I understand the technology is far less developed than the technology for turning a penis and testes into a pseudovagina).

It won't exactly make you 'perfect', but it'll give you a hole or a pole with the all the features you want short of baby making. NOTHING short of (likely very unethical) brain surgery of the far future can change a person's "sex", if it is as I imagine and more to do with the shape of the brain.

So...you agree you can't change a person's sex, and yet you disagree?

What is certain is that specific parts of sex come to arise as a result of hormone exposure during puberty, and certain parts of sex arise from a hormone (and other chemical) exposure in utero and certain parts of sex come from society and the ways our sexed brains interact with society.

You, on the other hand, have a genital fixation; your fixation is such that only being born with a specific genital will sufficiently qualify some person as "he/him/man/male". That's all that matters to you. Thus, "fixation".

Non. I've said multiple times that a man whose penis is severed is still a man.

Ok, so let me get this straight. You think:

A person with no penis, born with brain parts A, B, C as opposed to D, E, F, and all the internal chemistry of a man is not a man because they were born with a vagina, and functionally the same physical thing IS a man and the ONLY difference here is the penis that isn't even relevant anymore?

That's fucking daft.

I stipulate that the parts of the body that are actually important to "sex" are the parts in the skull. This means that nobody changes sex, they merely affirm it, or get as close to their actual sex as is possible.

So if it's the triviality of genitals and gonads that is "sex", then they can absolutely change it, and you should be satisfied with the language there. If it is the brain, it is a mere affirmation, not a change in the first place.

The thing that makes you a man is not your penis, if you even have one. The thing that makes you a man is and has always been your brain.

 

[Metaphor]

Ok, so let me get this straight. You think:

A person with no penis, born with brain parts A, B, C as opposed to D, E, F, and all the internal chemistry of a man is not a man because they were born with a vagina, and functionally the same physical thing IS a man and the ONLY difference here is the penis that isn't even relevant anymore?

I don't know if I think that because I can't make a lick of sense of the...thing...you've composed there.

That's fucking daft.

No: what's fucking daft is composing not even a strawman because it is gobbledygook and then imagining that is what I think.

I stipulate that the parts of the body that are actually important to "sex" are the parts in the skull. This means that nobody changes sex, they merely affirm it, or get as close to their actual sex as is possible.

Well, okay. That's really painfully stupid, but okay. I agree that that's what you think.

So if it's the triviality of genitals and gonads that is "sex", then they can absolutely change it, and you should be satisfied with the language there. If it is the brain, it is a mere affirmation, not a change in the first place.

Satisfied with the absurd notion that sex is a configuration of the brain? No, I'm not satisfied with that because that's eye bleeding nonsense.

Sex is not a particular brain state so sex cannot be changed by a change in a particular brain state.

Some frogs can change sex. Humans can't.

The thing that makes you a man is not your penis, if you even have one. The thing that makes you a man is and has always been your brain.

I'm a man because I'm an adult human male. I'm a homo because I am sexually attracted to other adult human males. I have never had to ask a man what his sex is, much the less had to ask about thoughts in his head to understand his sex. His sex is not found in his brain, noting of course that every cell in his brain is XY.

 

[Emily Lake]

Current medicine cannot change a person's sex.

Already covered. Try to keep up.

By "covered" do you mean "I said so, so there... "?

 

[Emily Lake]

The genitals are the least part of sex.

....

Current medicine can absolutely CHANGE someone's sex, if "sex" is genitals.

This seems contradictory.

In response to what I perceive your point to be... Genitals alone is not sex. Sex is comprised of a variety of components, including genitals, but more importantly, encompassing the anatomy and organs directly related to reproduction... and which side of that reproductive duo you happen to be on. Primary reproductive organs are the parts necessary to deliver and foster genetic material for the next generation. In males, that includes the testes (to make the sperm which carry the genetic code) and the vas deferens (which delivers the sperm out of the penis and hypothetically into a vagina). In a female, that includes the ovaries (to release the eggs that carry the genetic code), the fallopian tubes (which deliver the egg to the uterus for insemination), and the uterus (which grows the baby). One could argue that breasts and pelvis are also part of that mix for women, but it's a fuzzy line between evolutionary accommodations that allow for delivery and feeding of an infant, as opposed to the parts necessary to make the infant.

Current science can make something that looks like the preferred genitals. It still cannot actually make genitals.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

So, you mean a fully functional vagina: Tissue-engineered autologous vaginal organs in patients: a pilot cohort study

Changing ovaries into testes (or vice versa): Deleting a gene can turn an ovary into a testis in adult mammals

Creating natural breasts: All Natural: Why Breasts Are the Key to the Future of Regenerative Medicine

Creating sperm cells out of skin cells: Scientists turn skin cells into sperm cells

Of particular note from that article (emphasis mine):

To sidestep the procedural risk and ethical unknowns of injecting rebuilt sperm precursors into the testes of men, the researchers did something a little different. After harvesting the men’s skin cells and transforming them into all-powerful stem cells, they injected them into the testes of mice. There was evidence this plan might work because mice have previously been bred from other mice using skin cells that have been transformed into both eggs and sperm. Using the human cells, the researchers were able to grow cells that went on to become sperm cell protégés inside the mice. They’re not quite fully developed sperm with tails, but rather, are immature apprentices to sperm with all the molecular hallmarks of potential.

And this from another previously posted article that referenced the above Wired article on natural breasts and some of the other articles I’ve posted:

To illustrate, take a look at this recent Wired article, which describes the current ability to use stem cells mixed with the fat from a patient’s own body to grow additional breast mass in women or to regrow breasts damaged by cancer. But that’s really very unimportant, because the real breakthrough is that this can be done for nearly every kind of tissue. It’s still at a primitive stage, but scientists already learned how to “program” the stem cells to become different types of tissue. They’ve made progress in making heart repairs , functional liver tissue, blood, teeth, bone, muscle, and they have even made progress on discovering how to manipulate stem cells to enable them to divide continuously. This is a small sampling of the various breakthroughs made in just the last few years in hundreds of labs all over the world. If you understand the implications of all those various articles, it is easy to see that we are learning how to program stem cells to do nearly anything that our body programs them to do. Each step of learning how to program stem cells leads to greater knowledge of how to control them more precisely.

Another technique being researched is the creation of “Biological Legos” in which stem cells are embedded in a block of “glue” which holds the cells together while they form natural intercellular bonds. Yet another technique is to use an already existing “scaffold” and fill the spaces with stem cells, growing a precisely shaped piece of tissue.

So not only are we learning to tell stem cells what to become, but we are learning how to dictate the shape of the tissues as well. The implications for plastic surgery should be obvious. Stem cells seem to offer us the promise that we will soon be able to restore the human body to the exact same state it was in prior to injury, enable us to regrow lost limbs, grow replacement organs on demand, and even reconstruct missing or lost tissue for reconstructive surgery. Soon, a mastectomy might routinely remove the cancer, and rebuild a healthy breast identical to the one removed. A heart attack might lead to a regenerated heart healthier after the attack than it was before, and even such routine needs like blood transfusions might be made by pulling your own stem cells to create a personalized supply.
...
Regenerative medicine not only promises to help cure such issues as heart disease and spinal cord injuries, but to grow replacement organs, replace missing and damaged tissue, and even to potentially allow such abilities as replacing missing limbs. It’s a vitally important area of research, and as Wired points out, with such “frivolous” uses as breast enhancement, and the eventual penile enhancement so close to market, it’s going to be the biggest medical money-maker of the next decade. It’s just one small part of the numerous advances that will be made in the next decade, but it’s one that is likely to make an enormous change to our social dynamics. Unlike silicone, there is no “unnaturalness” to a stem cell breast enhancement, and I’m certain that the ability to make any size breasts will likely emerge before mid-decade. Combine that with the ability to make bigger penises, which I also expect to come along mid-decade, and plastic surgery is likely to become as acceptable as getting a new hairstyle. As we continue to make progress, and gain further abilities to use stem cells to heal, regrow, or reshape the body, more people are likely to use them to make themselves look more attractive, enhance their bodies, or even to rejuvenate and repair the effects of aging. The potential uses for stem cells are enormous and, relatively speaking, changing someone’s sex is just one small possibility in thousands.

 

[Emily Lake]

What part is a mystery to you?

In what ways can current medicine significantly change a person's sex?

In all the ways that have already been described or linked to itt and things like this:

Deleting a gene can turn an ovary into a testis in adult mammals

Okay, I'll give you this one. In rats, we can turn adult ovaries into testis by removing a gene. I didn't see any information on long-term effectiveness, side effects of removing a gene, etc. But sure, we can turn a female's ovaries into testis... that still reside at the ends of fallopian tubes connected to a uterus. But it's a step, so yeah. You get a point.

Total Genger Change Within A Decade

This is an article written in 2014, about technologies and advances in stem cell application that the author believed would happen within a decade. It's interesting, and it's got a lot of neat dieas about what might be possible... and sure, he technically still has four more years for his predictions to come to fruition. But most of the things he hypothesizes haven't made a huge amount of progress from where they were when he wrote the article.

Sex change hormonal treatments alter brain chemistry

Duh. Do you think that brain chemistry is sex?

An emerging interface between life science and nanotechnology: present status and prospects of reproductive healthcare aided by nano-biotechnology

For nanomedicine, cell sex matters

That last article is particularly interesting in that the researchers found:

...

While the last two articles regarding nanomedicine capabilities do not specifically refer to changing the chromosomes in our bodies from X to Y or vice versa, the fact that we are at this stage of development regarding nanoparticle delivery mechanisms being able to, for example, differentiate between "male" cell and "female" cell structure is a huge step toward being able to effect change at a cellular level, if that's even necessary in regard to "fully" changing one's sex (as there is still a debate about chromosomes and SRY and how/what it all means).

The POINT is, of course, that stomping your foot on the ground and declaring Men ARE Y and Women ARE X never has been the full story. We are not steadystate. We are dynamic and ever changing and we could find ourselves in either an environment that required us to be able to change sex at any stage of our development due to circumstances or due to surgery or due to drugs or due to nanoparticles, etc.

It's even possible--though not currently within our abilities--to change you into a ten year old boy, at least in regard to your cell structure, health and functioning sex organs, all based on the information provided in the above links. Not thousands or even hundreds of years from now; decades.

Firstly, the nanoparticles aren't differentiating the cells. The cells respond differently to the nanoparticles, depending on the sex of the cell. At first glance, that might seem to you as if it's a meaningless distinction, but it leads to different conclusions. The impact of cells responding differently is that a completely different nanoparticle needs to be developed if the cells are male versus if the cells are female. And that's a very, very, long way from jumping to nanoparticles being able to change cell sex.

My conclusion hasn't really changed. Current medicine cannot meaningfully change a person's sex. It can change the outward appearance of sex by creating artificial genitalia that preserve a decent amount of physical sensation in many cases. And that's awesome - it's great that this is an option for people who wish to surgically transition.

But it isn't actually changing their sex.

I can get some really high-quality vinyl flooring that looks like hardwood. Unless you really get down there and look closely, you can't tell that it's not made of wood. It looks like it's made of wood, and it's got a feel that's very similar to wood.

If I lay down that vinyl flooring in my house... do I now have a hardwood floor? Can I list it for sale as having hardwood throughout?

 

[Emily Lake]

What is certain is that specific parts of sex come to arise as a result of hormone exposure during puberty, and certain parts of sex arise from a hormone (and other chemical) exposure in utero and certain parts of sex come from society and the ways our sexed brains interact with society.

Not quite.

Sex is determined by the combination of genetic material present at conception. If the sperm that fertilizes the egg carries an X chromosome, then the embryo is genetically female. If the sperm carries a Y chromosome, then the embryo is genetically male. Every cell in that embryo's body at that stage carries either an XY marker, or an XX marker. Caveat: Some intersex conditions exit where fertilization gets a bit wonky and the embryo ends up with XXY or some other unusual combination.

Primary biological sex characteristics are determined in utero via hormone exposure, as you mention. All embryos initially have the physical formation of a female. Hormones delivered fairly early during gestation (between 7 and 9 weeks, if I recall), prompt the formation of male reproductive organs in an embryo that is genetically XY. At that point they either retain ovaries, vagina and labia, or they develop a penis and testes. Other internal organs also develop or alter during this period, including uterus and cervix, shape of the pelvic bone, prostate, etc. All of the physical biological elements that differ between males and females of the human species. Caveat: Sometimes the hormones don't trigger as expected, or they get interrupted, or the embryo has a resistance to those hormones. Thus you can end up with true hermaphroditism and with androgen insensitivity and a few other conditions that create ambiguous genitalia. Note that sex chimeras wouldn't fall into this category, they'd fall into the former paragraph, being a mix of some XX and some XY, each of which develops along that sex-based path dependent on the sex of those cells.

Puberty triggers the development of secondary sex characteristics, and makes the human mature for reproduction. It prompts menarche in females, as well as the development of breasts and the widening of hips. It prompts the development of sperm cells in males, as well as lengthening of the penis, and extension of the testes. Caveat: Some conditions classified as intersex conditions are classified as such not because of a lack of genetic clarity around the sex of the cells involved, but because an element of puberty is missing or otherwise doesn't function as expected. There are other conditions that are not considered intersex conditions that can also accelerate or retard puberty.

With respect to "sexed brains" the identified differences are minute and essentially meaningless outside of those specific structures that are sex-differentiated (like the pituitary gland). Sex doesn't come from our interactions with society - gender roles of expectations come from that.

 

[Emily Lake]

A person with no penis, born with brain parts A, B, C as opposed to D, E, F, and all the internal chemistry of a man is not a man because they were born with a vagina, and functionally the same physical thing IS a man and the ONLY difference here is the penis that isn't even relevant anymore?

That would be the difference between the sex of the cells in the body and the biological sex characteristics developed in utero. If you're talking about some types of medicine, the sex of the cells could matter far more than the physical characteristics of the person. But in about 99.99% of cases, the biological attributes of vagina, uterus, ovaries, etc. as well as secondary sex-characteristics will be what determines a person's functional sex.

I stipulate that the parts of the body that are actually important to "sex" are the parts in the skull. This means that nobody changes sex, they merely affirm it, or get as close to their actual sex as is possible.

I stipulate that you are incorrect. Saying that the important parts of sex reside in the brain is like saying that the important parts of foot size reside in the brain. They don't - the reside in the feet. My hair color is not a notion in my mind, it's the color of hair follicles that my genetic code prompts my body to grow. My height is not a concept in my brain, it's the length that my genetic code prompted my long bones to grow to during childhood.

Speaking of which... My mental image of myself is about 4 inches taller than I am in reality. I am constantly surprised when I see pictures of myself and realize how short I actually am. I am constantly surprised that I can't reach a lot of things. I persistently perceive myself to be at eye-level with people who are taller than me, and I perceive myself to be the same height as them. I do NOT perceive myself to be looking up at them. That's a persistent mental map of my body that has been off for as long as I can remember. Even as a child, before reaching full height, I thought of myself as taller than I was.

That mental map, that proprioceptive impression of myself relative to the world, doesn't dictate my real height. My real height is 5'2". No matter how much I feel that it is otherwise, and no matter how much I wish I were just a bit taller... that's my height.

 

[Emily Lake]

So, you mean a fully functional vagina: Tissue-engineered autologous vaginal organs in patients: a pilot cohort study

They are growing a vagina for a female from that female's own cells. They're not growing a vagina for a male from that male's cells. Nor are they growing a vagina for a male from a different female's cells.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

So, you mean a fully functional vagina: Tissue-engineered autologous vaginal organs in patients: a pilot cohort study

They are growing a vagina for a female from that female's own cells. They're not growing a vagina for a male from that male's cells. Nor are they growing a vagina for a male from a different female's cells.

Do you have no capacity to think ahead? Or to correlate the other advances I posted, which all, taken together, point directly toward a full, adult sex change procedure--in a "natural" sense, not merely "plastic"--is a matter of decades away, not centuries? Possibly even just one decade as that one article argued.

None of this is impossible. Quite the opposite in fact. Particularly with stem cell research (the "good" kind; not the aborted fetus kind) and nanomedicine, which is no longer theoretical.

 

[Jarhyn]

The genitals are the least part of sex.

....

Current medicine can absolutely CHANGE someone's sex, if "sex" is genitals.

This seems contradictory.

In response to what I perceive your point to be... Genitals alone is not sex. Sex is comprised of a variety of components, including genitals, but more importantly, encompassing the anatomy and organs directly related to reproduction... and which side of that reproductive duo you happen to be on. Primary reproductive organs are the parts necessary to deliver and foster genetic material for the next generation. In males, that includes the testes (to make the sperm which carry the genetic code) and the vas deferens (which delivers the sperm out of the penis and hypothetically into a vagina). In a female, that includes the ovaries (to release the eggs that carry the genetic code), the fallopian tubes (which deliver the egg to the uterus for insemination), and the uterus (which grows the baby). One could argue that breasts and pelvis are also part of that mix for women, but it's a fuzzy line between evolutionary accommodations that allow for delivery and feeding of an infant, as opposed to the parts necessary to make the infant.

Current science can make something that looks like the preferred genitals. It still cannot actually make genitals.

You are talking past me because my point is that genitals and gonads don't fucking matter to anyone but the person you trust with your private protected health information, and the person whose face you fart in for mutual pleasure.

My point is that first there must be a discussion of whether it isrightto be discussing "sex" here at all.

Metaphor, and/or whoever the hell this other person is, certainly have a right to be afraid of, absolutely disgusted by, or really in love with, penises. Same goes for vagina. I mean, a couple of my biggest frustrations are relating to sexual anatomy.

I think accommodations should absolutely be offered to those who have such deep fears, wherever possible. Floor to Ceiling bathroom stalls.

The whole basis of this is that humans have a right to reproductive privacy.

Metaphor has it easy (granted it goes into something so private as to their relationship with penises, perhaps itself going too far past the boundaries of privacy), insofar as that if they *could* meet a man born with a vagina, and had a relationship with them, perhaps friendly at first and then serious later, the worst that would happen is that they would psychopathically wound their friend in the event that they failed to express "I still love you, you're a great man and a great friend, I just have a sexual need requiring an additional full sized natural human-grown penis."

Of course, this is an unlikely scenario! Metaphor is unlikely to have any such man cross his path in such a way, for reasons I'm sure metaphor is aware of, not the least of which how awfully he cries his broad-brush attacks against "trans advocates", but also because the people who he will never even know or recognize as trans-men will be the sorts of cute 20-something hot thirsty boys that don't even look at his table at the gay bar. And even if one did, he lost his shot with him the moment the moment that man beings up trans rights and Metaphor opens his own mouth.

But the point is that a trans-man is a man in every way that is meaningful in the day to day life of a person in society, and furthermore they continually approve of the existence of expectations of masculinity and concept of manliness, and further that they wish to see it expected of them. They just don't generally have dicks, and need sometimes to have some side effects of prolonged estrogen exposure dealt with.

I have a friend. We're gonna call him 'Jack'. Jack is one of the two manliest men I know. He pushes all my buttons. I don't push his buttons, which I find relieving. But anyway, he has this major frustration. He doesn't have a penis. Of course, most gay dudes just don't get it. There are vagina tourists, they fail. Then it's hard because fucking with a plastic dick isn't really a whole lot of fun for you, and that's like dude 101: everyone gets a happy ending. But then there's another friend, call him "Bob". Bob is a paragon of this gay bear hillbilly who isn't fully literate, but loves friends dearly, and has a both a great dick and knows how to use it. Bob and Jack are uh... let's just say it'll take a few more years and dramas and heartbreaks for THAT to get figured out.

None of these people would object to a declaration that genital fixations are OK. But could Metaphor be friends with either of Jack or Bob? Would he start calling Jack 'her', were he to know? Would he insist on outing Jack's genitals every time Jack seeks to pee?

Before you have a right to "sex", you have to demonstrate explicitly that sex matters in the context.

We have had the bathroom debate (floor to ceiling stalls, duh!). We have had the fake-trans penis weaponizer debate (seriously, fuck them, but also gendered language is stupid here). The baby sex-change debate (puberty blockers, and that genital modifications don't happen till 18+ and h
years of gatekeeping)

It's alright to ridicule some specific person who says "any given professed lesbian woman should be expected to have lesbian relationships with trans women". Those people are crazy, and statements in that context are often welcomed. You start a thread here, where some specific trans woman says that, and we can all get together and laugh at her for being stupid. Post it on Reddit. It'll get updoots in the right context, I'm sure. I'll probably respond with "who the fuck is that psychopath, and how many weeks did it take you to dig that out of the pot?" Most people would respond in kind, except a few who would be like "proof of alphabet soup agenda to force lesbians to suck dicks!!!!11111oneone".

But no, you're in here amplifying the voices of women who are using the mere fear of meaningless people whose very existence could continue to be a mere joke to attack 'trans activists' in general.

You folks are sex essentialists, with a sex fixation: you view the thing someone was born, specifically between their legs, to be essential to social identification. You are fixated on this thing. You repeatedly fail to define it, but you are fixated on it.

The people standing left of you on this have let go of that.

It's social identity politics: the discussion that it was probably a bad idea to build a core social concept on "what someone was born with" wasn't a great idea. So it's hard switching from socially sexing people to being a bit more respectful of people's boundaries. It's tough switching to Metric, too, but I still think it's the right thing to do.

Again, it's about the fact that the new generations are asking "what right do you have to know what's in our pants; we refuse to use language in such a way", and instead use it to socially rather than physically identify people.

There are ways to handle most of the consequences of that, not the least of which expecting sports to do some rebranding, so their leagues are no longer strictly sexed, but separated on the basis of hormones.

Of course I don't expect you or metaphor, or anyone else to actually read the whole of what I wrote here.

 

[Emily Lake]

So, you mean a fully functional vagina: Tissue-engineered autologous vaginal organs in patients: a pilot cohort study

They are growing a vagina for a female from that female's own cells. They're not growing a vagina for a male from that male's cells. Nor are they growing a vagina for a male from a different female's cells.

Do you have no capacity to think ahead? Or to correlate the other advances I posted, which all, taken together, point directly toward a full, adult sex change procedure--in a "natural" sense, not merely "plastic"--is a matter of decades away, not centuries? Possibly even just one decade as that one article argued.

None of this is impossible. Quite the opposite in fact. Particularly with stem cell research (the "good" kind; not the aborted fetus kind) and nanomedicine, which is no longer theoretical.

Sure I can think ahead. So can most sci-fi writers. But there's a difference between saying "we can" and "we think we might be able to soon" and "we hypothesize that we may be able to at some unspecified point in the future, maybe as soon as decades".

I withhold some skepticism because I still don't have my flying car.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

 

[Emily Lake]

The genitals are the least part of sex.

....

Current medicine can absolutely CHANGE someone's sex, if "sex" is genitals.

This seems contradictory.

In response to what I perceive your point to be... Genitals alone is not sex. Sex is comprised of a variety of components, including genitals, but more importantly, encompassing the anatomy and organs directly related to reproduction... and which side of that reproductive duo you happen to be on. Primary reproductive organs are the parts necessary to deliver and foster genetic material for the next generation. In males, that includes the testes (to make the sperm which carry the genetic code) and the vas deferens (which delivers the sperm out of the penis and hypothetically into a vagina). In a female, that includes the ovaries (to release the eggs that carry the genetic code), the fallopian tubes (which deliver the egg to the uterus for insemination), and the uterus (which grows the baby). One could argue that breasts and pelvis are also part of that mix for women, but it's a fuzzy line between evolutionary accommodations that allow for delivery and feeding of an infant, as opposed to the parts necessary to make the infant.

Current science can make something that looks like the preferred genitals. It still cannot actually make genitals.

You are talking past me because my point is that genitals and gonads don't fucking matter to anyone but the person you trust with your private protected health information, and the person whose face you fart in for mutual pleasure.

My point is that first there must be a discussion of whether it isrightto be discussing "sex" here at all.


...

Before you have a right to "sex", you have to demonstrate explicitly that sex matters in the context.

...

You folks are sex essentialists, with a sex fixation: you view the thing someone was born, specifically between their legs, to be essential to social identification. You are fixated on this thing. You repeatedly fail to define it, but you are fixated on it.

...

Of course I don't expect you or metaphor, or anyone else to actually read the whole of what I wrote here.

I read it. I also think I've been unclear to prompt quite this reaction with respect to my posts. First off, the act of sexual congress is completely irrelevant to any of this conversation as far as I'm concerned, and I'm very confused as to why you brought it up. Did I say something that led you to believe that it was material to my thoughts?

And no, it's not specifically what's between a person's legs. That's a part of the constellation of features that signify adult human male or adult human female, but it's also usually the least often seen.

FFS, I don't consider sex to be limited to genitals, and I'm sad that I failed to express that. Sex is a broader set of many attributes. And to the extent that it has come up from me, it's mostly with respect to the distinction between sex and gender, the difference between female and woman.

 

[Jarhyn]

You are talking past me because my point is that genitals and gonads don't fucking matter to anyone but the person you trust with your private protected health information, and the person whose face you fart in for mutual pleasure.

My point is that first there must be a discussion of whether it isrightto be discussing "sex" here at all.


...

Before you have a right to "sex", you have to demonstrate explicitly that sex matters in the context.

...

You folks are sex essentialists, with a sex fixation: you view the thing someone was born, specifically between their legs, to be essential to social identification. You are fixated on this thing. You repeatedly fail to define it, but you are fixated on it.

...

Of course I don't expect you or metaphor, or anyone else to actually read the whole of what I wrote here.

I read it. I also think I've been unclear to prompt quite this reaction with respect to my posts. First off, the act of sexual congress is completely irrelevant to any of this conversation as far as I'm concerned, and I'm very confused as to why you brought it up. Did I say something that led you to believe that it was material to my thoughts?

And no, it's not specifically what's between a person's legs. That's a part of the constellation of features that signify adult human male or adult human female, but it's also usually the least often seen.

FFS, I don't consider sex to be limited to genitals, and I'm sad that I failed to express that. Sex is a broader set of many attributes. And to the extent that it has come up from me, it's mostly with respect to the distinction between sex and gender, the difference between female and woman.

So, my thought is this: there are some number of processes. What is a "process"? A process is some series of things that happen until some event, where something else happens. They are triggered by certain things, sometimes by accident, sometimes accidentally not.

Most of the features seen by others are entirely dictated by which puberty(ies) you have experienced, which is itself a function of hormone exposure and individual hormonal impact.

The parts that you can't see, those are much more interesting. Some also happen from hormone exposure at target moments. Work is still ongoing figuring out what genetics lead to what, and what drives exceptions to happen - like a womb not curing the developing fetus in DHT to make a penis... or accidentally doing that on an XX and oops, cock'n'balls. But let's think for a moment: a lot of processes are driven from that. In fact, it's a larger % than I've seen anyone claim exists of trans persons lived their life as intersex in some way. I fully expect trans persons to be intersexed, but even if they weren't, they have a right to the body they want, and they have a right to privacy over their wanting it and why for all involved but those they seek for fulfilling their request.

So if it isn't about sex, if it isn't about genitals, if it isn't about the 0.2(?)% of trans people in the face of the ~1-2% of visibly intersexed persons being potentially intersexed in the parts of their brains that process body image, attraction, and peer cleavage, then what should it be about? Because everything else is sex and genitals. So we can either let our language say "he" and "she" be free of sex and genitals and be the thing that drives social peer clustering and the puberty a person has experienced, or we can be fixated on genitals like a Freudian tragedy. I dislike Freud.

People have a right to suspect that their experience of their more plastic body needs to be shifted, seek validation, do that, and accept consequences for the agency,

 

[Metaphor]

The whole basis of this is that humans have a right to reproductive privacy.

This is bizarre. You think 'reproductive privacy' is granted by private cubicles within toilets, but you also think it is violated if transwomen are to use sex-segregated toilets corresponding to their sex (the male toilets, the mens).

Metaphor has it easy (granted it goes into something so private as to their relationship with penises, perhaps itself going too far past the boundaries of privacy), insofar as that if they *could* meet a man born with a vagina, and had a relationship with them, perhaps friendly at first and then serious later, the worst that would happen is that they would psychopathically wound their friend in the event that they failed to express "I still love you, you're a great man and a great friend, I just have a sexual need requiring an additional full sized natural human-grown penis."

No boy is born with a vagina; if the person born were XY and had a vagina it would be an intersexed person.

Of course, this is an unlikely scenario! Metaphor is unlikely to have any such man cross his path in such a way, for reasons I'm sure metaphor is aware of, not the least of which how awfully he cries his broad-brush attacks against "trans advocates", but also because the people who he will never even know or recognize as trans-men will be the sorts of cute 20-something hot thirsty boys that don't even look at his table at the gay bar. And even if one did, he lost his shot with him the moment the moment that man beings up trans rights and Metaphor opens his own mouth.

Jarhyn's speculations on my tastes are rather irrelevant to the thread, but he bizarrely seems to think I can't distinguish a transman from an actual man.

But the point is that a trans-man is a man in every way that is meaningful in the day to day life of a person in society, and furthermore they continually approve of the existence of expectations of masculinity and concept of manliness, and further that they wish to see it expected of them. They just don't generally have dicks, and need sometimes to have some side effects of prolonged estrogen exposure dealt with.

Jarhyn, you are obsessed with 'masculinity' and the 'concept of manliness'. You are worse than a masc4masc faggot on Grindr. You believe these things to be important to every gay man because they are important to you.

My brain and body does not respond to a 'masculine' personality. I am not a homosexual because I like 'masculinity'. I'm a homosexual because I like men's faces and bodies, and that includes having a penis and not having a vagina.

Trans advocates have enthralled the world with their nonsense, but you should know, nobody actually believes you when you imagine people are attracted to genders and not sexes.

None of these people would object to a declaration that genital fixations are OK. But could Metaphor be friends with either of Jack or Bob? Would he start calling Jack 'her', were he to know? Would he insist on outing Jack's genitals every time Jack seeks to pee?

What would I be doing to 'out' Jack's genitals? Do you mean expect her to use the bathroom of her sex?

Before you have a right to "sex", you have to demonstrate explicitly that sex matters in the context.

If it didn't matter we wouldn't have segregated people by sex in all sorts of contexts for centuries.

Again, it's about the fact that the new generations are asking "what right do you have to know what's in our pants; we refuse to use language in such a way", and instead use it to socially rather than physically identify people.

Incredible. What right do you have to dictate what pronouns I use for somebody?

And by the way: asking somebody to use the toilet that corresponds to their sex is not demanding to know what's in their pants.

There are ways to handle most of the consequences of that, not the least of which expecting sports to do some rebranding, so their leagues are no longer strictly sexed, but separated on the basis of hormones.

Of course I don't expect you or metaphor, or anyone else to actually read the whole of what I wrote here.

No, that's bullshit. Current level of hormones are not the only thing that confers male advantage in sports. Your continual insistence that sports should be separated by gender and not sex is painfully ludicrous.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So, you mean a fully functional vagina: Tissue-engineered autologous vaginal organs in patients: a pilot cohort study

Good point, although with current tech I don't know how useful a lab-grown vagina would be--the organ is one thing, the nerves are another.

 

[TSwizzle]

JK Rowling and Salman Rushdie strike back, sort of;

Some 150 writers, academics and activists - including authors JK Rowling, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood - have signed an open letter denouncing the "restriction of debate". They say they applaud a recent "needed reckoning" on racial justice, but argue it has fuelled stifling of open debate. The letter denounces "a vogue for public shaming and ostracism" and "a blinding moral certainty". Several signatories have been attacked for comments that caused offence. That includes Harry Potter author JK Rowling who was fiercely criticised this month for comments about transgender people.

BBC

Billy Bragg has his say;

Cancel culture' doesn't stifle debate, but it does challenge the old order (Teh Gruaniad)

Surprisingly, Bragg supports this;

Glasgow-born children’s novelist Gillian Philip has been removed from the team that produces books under the pen-name of Erin Hunter after she tweeted #ISTANDWITHROWLING in support of the Edinburgh-based Harry Potter author.

Scotsman

Disappointed in Bragg on this one. His Twitter account is where he discusses this.