Why "Unchangeable" Definitions of Sex Based on Genitals Are Wrong, According to Science

[blastula]

Of course, a 4-legged duck is not a 2-legged duck. But then again, no one is saying that it is.

The thread is about the DHS wanting to categorize sex very narrowly and in defiance of reality.

As for whether 'abnormal' connotes undesirability, what is undesirability? (i.e., who has to not desire it?).

Look up "connote."

But regardless, a 200 IQ is abnormal. Moreover, if you look at movies, etc., there are people who get all sorts of superpowers. That's abnormal, but while they are not real, the point is that the term 'abnormal' does not have a negative connotation in general, though it might have it in specific contexts.

Dictionaries disagree with you.

Still, I would say that in these cases, something malfunctioned and legs (or, in the case of the horse, the sexual organs) did not develop properly. And in the case of humans, it seems to me also something malfunctioned if someone is neither male nor female. More specifically, if an adult human never produces any gametes or any viable gametes, the reproductive system has not developed properly, or at least something is not functioning properly, malfunctioned at some point, or something along those lines, and as a result, the person is infertile. Do you think otherwise? Now perhaps the person in question does not care at all about fertility and is not interested in reproduction, but that does not mean that nothing has malfunctioned.

That's very teleological thinking about biology, but nature doesn't have goals. People have goals though. If someone doesn't want to be fertile, then yes their body is functioning well for them.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

In the case of sex, the analogous thing is exactly what people are saying.

I haven't seen many people say that someone who produces both large and small motile gametes is either a female or a male. Nor I have seen many people claim that if someone is born with both (some) female and male genitalia, they only have either male or female genitalia. The law seems to be more of a lack of awareness of the existence of people with those characteristics, and aimed chiefly at preventing that claims made by transgender people be used to alter birth certificates, which is an entirely different matter. If the people who proposed the law were presented with the cases in question (e.g., someone whose genitals do not match either male or female), I think there is a pretty good chance they would agree to a modification that would make it more accurate, by adding 'indeterminate' or 'unknown' as an option, but only for those cases in which there are such genital anomalies.

But the OP's article is about proposed legislation stipulating explicitly that individuals have to be legally defined to be either male or female. So that's very much like declaring that whatever that duck's extra appendages may be, legs they are not, because, by definition, ducks have two legs; or that every square meter of the Earth's surface that isn't safe for property development can be used as a year-round shipping lane, and vice versa.

It's more like not taking into account the chance of a duck with four legs, and propose to legally classify ducks between 1-legged ducks (if they lost a leg) or 2-legged ducks.

Not only is this a denial of reality, it's also bound to lead to a lot of predictable and unnecessary shipwrecks and drownings.

The proposed legislation would be in nearly all cases accurate, but sure, it would not always be so. A modification allowing for a third category 'undertermined' for cases in which, like the horse, the genitalia has both some female and some male characteristics would go a long way towards resolving the problem. I seriously doubt that those proposing the legislation would oppose to such a modification. Their goal is entirely different, and had no interest in denying the existence of people like that.


Incidentally, and regarding views among conservatives (not necessarily the people who proposed this particular law), one example from this thread would be Gun Nut's posts:

How many exceptions do you need in order to invalidate a rule? There are about 150,000 Americans who don't fit either of your 'two sexes'.

There are about 325 million people in America. 150,000 of them make up0.04% of the total. I don't know exactly how many exceptions are needed to invalidate a rule, but it's a shit ton more than that for god damned sure.

Also:

There is a norm for mammals... two sexes... you are one, the other, or are handicapped / deformed.

He's not saying 'you're one, the other, or you do not exist'. Nor is he saying 'you're one or the other, no matter what your sexual organs are, or what gametes you produce'. If you tell people supporting the law about intersex people, I would say it's pretty likely they would accept the exception I mentioned (one can test that if you like: one can go to a conservative forum where the law is generally supported, propose the modification and explain the reasons).

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Look up "connote."

I know what it means. I'm talking about the word 'undesirability', which is ambiguous. Who is the person who needs not to desire in order for something to be undesirable? Or is it just another way of saying it's a defect, or something like that? Regardless, the rest of my objections stand.

But regardless, a 200 IQ is abnormal. Moreover, if you look at movies, etc., there are people who get all sorts of superpowers. That's abnormal, but while they are not real, the point is that the term 'abnormal' does not have a negative connotation in general, though it might have it in specific contexts.

Dictionaries disagree with you.

No.

That's very teleological thinking about biology, but nature doesn't have goals. People have goals though. If someone doesn't want to be fertile, then yes their body is functioning well for them.

The body is still not functioning properly. More precisely, the reproductive system isn't. For that matter, if John is short sighted but he does not care about long-distance vision, his eyesight is still not working properly: he has myopia. And if Jane is deaf but she does not mind being deaf and has no interest in hearing, she still has an illness or injury, and her hearing is still not functioning properly - or at all.

Generally, if having a certain condition does not bother a person - or even if they like it -, that does not make their condition to not be an illness or defect.

 

[ruby sparks]

I know what it means. I'm talking about the word 'undesirability', which is ambiguous. Who is the person who needs not to desire in order for something to be undesirable? Or is it just another way of saying it's a defect, or something like that? Regardless, the rest of my objections stand.

Dictionaries disagree with you.

No.

That's very teleological thinking about biology, but nature doesn't have goals. People have goals though. If someone doesn't want to be fertile, then yes their body is functioning well for them.

The body is still not functioning properly. More precisely, the reproductive system isn't. For that matter, if John is short sighted but he does not care about long-distance vision, his eyesight is still not working properly: he has myopia. And if Jane is deaf but she does not mind being deaf and has no interest in hearing, she still has an illness or injury, and her hearing is still not functioning properly - or at all.

Generally, if having a certain condition does not bother a person - or even if they like it -, that does not make their condition to not be an illness or defect.

The problem seems to revolve around pejorativity, doesn't it?

For example, is homosexuality an illness or defect? Most people who might consider themselves enlightened and reasonable nowadays would say no (even though it could be said the person is not functioning 'properly' vis a vis reproduction). I think many would be inclined not to describe it as an abnormality either, because that can imply undesirability (even if strictly speaking it does not have to imply that).

There would seem to be room to say that some unusualities or atypicalities are not illnesses or defects or abnormalities in the pejorative sense. We might even call some of them enhancements. Which raises the question of who decides which is the correct term. The individual? Society? In terms of survival or evolution, no one 'decides' obviously, but then that would merely be a neutrality.

 

[Jokodo]

Not only is this a denial of reality, it's also bound to lead to a lot of predictable and unnecessary shipwrecks and drownings.

The proposed legislation would be in nearly all cases accurate, but sure, it would not always be so. A modification allowing for a third category 'undertermined' for cases in which, like the horse, the genitalia has both some female and some male characteristics would go a long way towards resolving the problem. I seriously doubt that those proposing the legislation would oppose to such a modification. Their goal is entirely different, and had no interest in denying the existence of people like that.

We're talking about an administration that proudly flies the flag of "alternative facts".

 

[Angra Mainyu]

We're talking about an administration that proudly flies the flag of "alternative facts".

First, that is usually a misrepresentation of what the Trump administration does. Someone misspoke once. But it is apparent that they claim to have the truth on their side. Still, they do lie a lot. They're not proudly flying that flag, though.

Second, there is no particular reason to believe the administration would oppose such a move. In fact, their memo says "The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.", which means they are willing to consider infrequent scenarios in which the birth certificate is mistaken. Now, their particular point is in error because, for example, a human with XY chromosomes but ovaries, a vagina, uterus, etc., would not be a male. But again, there is no good reason to believe they would oppose such a modification, since it's not a problem for what they intend to accomplish, and it makes the system more accurate and less vulnerable to objections. More to the point, the modification I mentioned considers cases in which the sexual organs do not give clear evidence. This is surely not the case of transgender people who want to have their birth certificate changed, in nearly all cases at least.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The problem seems to revolve around pejorativity, doesn't it?

I think there are several problems here. But I see from the rest of your reply that you consider terms like 'illness' or 'defect' are pejorative. So I guess a problem is whether some or all of the conditions we are discussing are indeed defects or illnesses. They do seem to be so as far as I can tell. But that's not a pejorative comment about a person, but an assessment about their health.

For example, is homosexuality an illness or defect? Most people who might consider themselves enlightened and reasonable nowadays would say no (even though it could be said the person is not functioning 'properly' vis a vis reproduction). I think many would be inclined not to describe it as an abnormality either, because that can imply undesirability (even if strictly speaking it does not have to imply that).

But why do they think so? Is it because some statements made by a psychological association? But what are those based on?


Some conservative philosophers and the like claim that the purpose of sex and/or the sexual organs is reproduction. I think there is no purpose other than whatever purpose we have, but there are functions, and surely one of the functions - indeed, the main function - of the sexual organs is reproduction. However, the same organs can have more than one function. In our closest relatives - bonobos - sex plays a number of very important social roles. As far as I know, bonobos are bisexual, and I would be inclined to think a bonobo that fails to be bisexual probably has some kind of illness, defect, etc., that makes it considerably less capable of living in bonobo society (though I'm not an expert in bonobos, and my probabilistic assessment is based on the limited info available to me). If it is homosexual, then I would also be inclined to think something is probably not working properly in re: reproduction.

Now, humans are not bonobos, and I wouldn't make that assessment regarding bisexuality. What do I know?
But if we're talking about homosexuality (defined as a lack of opposite-sex attraction), I think there is a good chance something is not working properly. Now I'm not suggesting that properly functioning humans at every time in their lives would be sexually attracted to individuals of the opposite sex. Under certain conditions, no sexual impulse whatsoever is to be expected. But a lack of attraction towards the opposite sex even throughout their lives and even when they're not in danger, or having to care for children, etc., seems to me like something not working properly, and I have not seen good reasons to believe that the assessment is mistaken.

Granted, psychological associations - well, some of them - claim that homosexuality is not an illness or disease. I used to believe them, several years ago. But after carefully considering their claims, I see no good reason to believe them anymore. I'm not certain that they are mistaken, though I think that that's more probable than not. Of course, in the end, my assessment is probably another example of the way we assess illness and health in general, which is intuitive on the basis of the available information on a condition. What triggers my assessment is probably speculation on my part that comes later.

Of course, this creates more problems, such as:

1. It follows from your statement that I'm not a person who might consider himself enlightened and reasonable. I consider myself reasonable, but I don't know what 'enlightened' would mean in this context.
2. There is a high probability that just replying to your reply to my post in an honest manner (i.e., this reply) will get me strongly condemned by several people, and will end up getting me into a long debate in which I'm mostly defending myself (rather than discussing the matters at hand), and trying to find an acceptable way out of the thread.

I don't see a practical solution for this kind of problem.

There would seem to be room to say that some unusualities or atypicalities are not illnesses or defects or abnormalities in the pejorative sense. We might even call some of them enhancements.

Sure. An IQ of 200 is abnormal. And having superpowers would be abnormal (even if it's not possible, that tells you it's not part of the meaning of the term).

Which raises the question of who decides which is the correct term. The individual? Society? In terms of survival or evolution, no one 'decides' obviously, but then that would merely be a neutrality.

My take on this is that the meaning of words is given by usage, but there are words that have synonyms in different languages and have the same meanings across human societies (to the extent that words can have a consistent meaning), whereas others do not. Examples of the former are, in my view, terms like 'morally wrong', 'immoral', 'healthy', 'ill', 'illness', and maybe 'female', 'male' and 'water' (in their colloquial senses). Examples of the latter are 'car', 'phone', 'cat', 'horse', and technical terms.

As I mentioned, 'ill', 'illness', and also 'defect' are examples of the first type of terms. So, the issue is whether those are indeed defects, illnesses, etc. This is assessed of course intuitively, though the intuitive assessment depends on the information available to us. Note that this is how whether a condition is an illness has always been assessed. Humans were capable of identifying many illnesses before DNA was discovered, and in fact even long before viruses, bacteria, gametes, etc., were discovered. Modern science allows humans to treat some illnesses much better than before, to understand their causes, etc., and in some cases, indirectly to make more accurate assessments as to whether some conditions are illnesses, by means of having more information about those conditions. But in the end, it comes down to an intuitive assessment of whether the condition is an illness, using whatever built-in illness-detector humans have and the available information (which indeed grows with science).

Now, if this is not how it works and words like 'illness' or 'defect' change meaning from social group to social group (of English speakers), and different societies did not have words that meant the same as 'illness' or 'defect', then it appears that there are some serious problems.

I. Widespread mistranslation, as different languages do not have the same terms (i.e., words with the same meaning) in this context, but translations occur as if they did.
II. Widespread miscommunication: maybe homosexuality is a defect according to the way some people use the word 'defect' in English, but not according to the way others do. If so, they're talking past each other - rather than disagreeing - when attacking each other and attempting to debate whether homosexuality is an illness.

Now, I think this does not need to lead to an error theory: as long as people in each social group are tracking some property reliably and that mostly respects their paradigmatic cases classified as 'illness', their words probably succeed in referring, even if they're mistaken about the meaning of the words as used by others. But the problems I. and II. above are pretty massive. Still, if they are, well such is life. But I reckon this is very improbable.

What if the meaning does not fall into any of the two categories I described above? Well, I don't know what else might be the case, but I would listen to alternatives if presented.

 

[ruby sparks]

I think there are several problems here. But I see from the rest of your reply that you consider terms like 'illness' or 'defect' are pejorative. So I guess a problem is whether some or all of the conditions we are discussing are indeed defects or illnesses. They do seem to be so as far as I can tell. But that's not a pejorative comment about a person, but an assessment about their health.


But why do they think so? Is it because some statements made by a psychological association? But what are those based on?


Some conservative philosophers and the like claim that the purpose of sex and/or the sexual organs is reproduction. I think there is no purpose other than whatever purpose we have, but there are functions, and surely one of the functions - indeed, the main function - of the sexual organs is reproduction. However, the same organs can have more than one function. In our closest relatives - bonobos - sex plays a number of very important social roles. As far as I know, bonobos are bisexual, and I would be inclined to think a bonobo that fails to be bisexual probably has some kind of illness, defect, etc., that makes it considerably less capable of living in bonobo society (though I'm not an expert in bonobos, and my probabilistic assessment is based on the limited info available to me). If it is homosexual, then I would also be inclined to think something is probably not working properly in re: reproduction.

Now, humans are not bonobos, and I wouldn't make that assessment regarding bisexuality. What do I know?
But if we're talking about homosexuality (defined as a lack of opposite-sex attraction), I think there is a good chance something is not working properly. Now I'm not suggesting that properly functioning humans at every time in their lives would be sexually attracted to individuals of the opposite sex. Under certain conditions, no sexual impulse whatsoever is to be expected. But a lack of attraction towards the opposite sex even throughout their lives and even when they're not in danger, or having to care for children, etc., seems to me like something not working properly, and I have not seen good reasons to believe that the assessment is mistaken.

Granted, psychological associations - well, some of them - claim that homosexuality is not an illness or disease. I used to believe them, several years ago. But after carefully considering their claims, I see no good reason to believe them anymore. I'm not certain that they are mistaken, though I think that that's more probable than not. Of course, in the end, my assessment is probably another example of the way we assess illness and health in general, which is intuitive on the basis of the available information on a condition. What triggers my assessment is probably speculation on my part that comes later.

Of course, this creates more problems, such as:

1. It follows from your statement that I'm not a person who might consider himself enlightened and reasonable. I consider myself reasonable, but I don't know what 'enlightened' would mean in this context.
2. There is a high probability that just replying to your reply to my post in an honest manner (i.e., this reply) will get me strongly condemned by several people, and will end up getting me into a long debate in which I'm mostly defending myself (rather than discussing the matters at hand), and trying to find an acceptable way out of the thread.

I don't see a practical solution for this kind of problem.

There would seem to be room to say that some unusualities or atypicalities are not illnesses or defects or abnormalities in the pejorative sense. We might even call some of them enhancements.

Sure. An IQ of 200 is abnormal. And having superpowers would be abnormal (even if it's not possible, that tells you it's not part of the meaning of the term).

Which raises the question of who decides which is the correct term. The individual? Society? In terms of survival or evolution, no one 'decides' obviously, but then that would merely be a neutrality.

My take on this is that the meaning of words is given by usage, but there are words that have synonyms in different languages and have the same meanings across human societies (to the extent that words can have a consistent meaning), whereas others do not. Examples of the former are, in my view, terms like 'morally wrong', 'immoral', 'healthy', 'ill', 'illness', and maybe 'female', 'male' and 'water' (in their colloquial senses). Examples of the latter are 'car', 'phone', 'cat', 'horse', and technical terms.

As I mentioned, 'ill', 'illness', and also 'defect' are examples of the first type of terms. So, the issue is whether those are indeed defects, illnesses, etc. This is assessed of course intuitively, though the intuitive assessment depends on the information available to us. Note that this is how whether a condition is an illness has always been assessed. Humans were capable of identifying many illnesses before DNA was discovered, and in fact even long before viruses, bacteria, gametes, etc., were discovered. Modern science allows humans to treat some illnesses much better than before, to understand their causes, etc., and in some cases, indirectly to make more accurate assessments as to whether some conditions are illnesses, by means of having more information about those conditions. But in the end, it comes down to an intuitive assessment of whether the condition is an illness, using whatever built-in illness-detector humans have and the available information (which indeed grows with science).

Now, if this is not how it works and words like 'illness' or 'defect' change meaning from social group to social group (of English speakers), and different societies did not have words that meant the same as 'illness' or 'defect', then it appears that there are some serious problems.

I. Widespread mistranslation, as different languages do not have the same terms (i.e., words with the same meaning) in this context, but translations occur as if they did.
II. Widespread miscommunication: maybe homosexuality is a defect according to the way some people use the word 'defect' in English, but not according to the way others do. If so, they're talking past each other - rather than disagreeing - when attacking each other and attempting to debate whether homosexuality is an illness.

Now, I think this does not need to lead to an error theory: as long as people in each social group are tracking some property reliably and that mostly respects their paradigmatic cases classified as 'illness', their words probably succeed in referring, even if they're mistaken about the meaning of the words as used by others. But the problems I. and II. above are pretty massive. Still, if they are, well such is life. But I reckon this is very improbable.

What if the meaning does not fall into any of the two categories I described above? Well, I don't know what else might be the case, but I would listen to alternatives if presented.

I appreciate your extensive reply, and fwiw yes I do consider you reasonable, intelligent and enlightened.

In a nutshell, I think that even if in principle, certain words do not necessarily have to mean certain things (or in this case be pejorative) I think in practice they do. So, in the real world, to describe something like homosexuality as a defect, illness or abnormality has the practical effect of being regressive, back to times when homosexuality for instance was unacceptable and homosexuals faced severe disadvantage and oprobrium. I do not see a way around that.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Thanks.

In a nutshell, I think that even if in principle, certain words do not necessarily have to mean certain things (or in this case be pejorative) I think in practice they do. So, in the real world, to describe something like homosexuality as a defect, illness or abnormality has the practical effect of being regressive, back to times when homosexuality for instance was unacceptable and homosexuals faced severe disadvantage and oprobrium. I do not see a way around that.

In which sense do you think it has the practical effect of being regressive, back to times when homosexuality was unacceptable and faced severe disadvantage and opprobrium?

For example, if I reckon that the lack of opposite-sex attraction is probably a defect in some part of the brain that deals with sexual attraction ( and if so, either homosexuality* is a defect, or it's a combination of a defect + a non-defective same-sex attraction), the most likely outcome is that I will be condemned by most of the people who read that (counting publicly expressed condemnations and those not so expressed), I might get agreement from a few others, others might be undecided, and then that would be it. It is extremely improbable that that would result in gay people facing severe disadvantage, or opprobrium, or anything.

Maybe you meant something else?

If so, I would like to ask what you mean.

Still, let's assume for the sake of the argument that saying that homosexuality is a defect, illness or abnormality (or that lack of opposite-sex attraction is) would have the consequences you reckon it would have. Then, that would provide no good reason to actually believe that it is not a defect, illness or abnormality. It would perhaps good reason not to say that it is, or even to deny that it is - though the latter might significantly increase the chances of dissenters being unjustly condemned at least assuming one's words are having a significant impact.

* I should have said "defined as a lack of opposite sex attraction + same-sex attraction" in my previous post.

 

[ruby sparks]

Thanks.

In a nutshell, I think that even if in principle, certain words do not necessarily have to mean certain things (or in this case be pejorative) I think in practice they do. So, in the real world, to describe something like homosexuality as a defect, illness or abnormality has the practical effect of being regressive, back to times when homosexuality for instance was unacceptable and homosexuals faced severe disadvantage and oprobrium. I do not see a way around that.

In which sense do you think it has the practical effect of being regressive, back to times when homosexuality was unacceptable and faced severe disadvantage and opprobrium?

For example, if I reckon that the lack of opposite-sex attraction is probably a defect in some part of the brain that deals with sexual attraction ( and if so, either homosexuality* is a defect, or it's a combination of a defect + a non-defective same-sex attraction), the most likely outcome is that I will be condemned by most of the people who read that (counting publicly expressed condemnations and those not so expressed), I might get agreement from a few others, others might be undecided, and then that would be it. It is extremely improbable that that would result in gay people facing severe disadvantage, or opprobrium, or anything.

Maybe you meant something else?

If so, I would like to ask what you mean.

Still, let's assume for the sake of the argument that saying that homosexuality is a defect, illness or abnormality (or that lack of opposite-sex attraction is) would have the consequences you reckon it would have. Then, that would provide no good reason to actually believe that it is not a defect, illness or abnormality. It would perhaps good reason not to say that it is, or even to deny that it is - though the latter might significantly increase the chances of dissenters being unjustly condemned at least assuming one's words are having a significant impact.

* I should have said "defined as a lack of opposite sex attraction + same-sex attraction" in my previous post.

I don't know what else to say other than what I have said already.

 

[Politesse]

An interesting article popped up on Sapiens this week with relevance to this thread. Nothing that hasn't been said already, but who knows? Repeat a fact a dozen more times and maybe it will eventually sink in?

Intersex - What Our Skeletons Say About the Sex Binary

In the early 1900s, the U.S.-based anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička helped to found the modern study of human bones. He served as the first curator of physical anthropology at the U.S. National Museum (now the Smithsonian Institution). The skeletons Hrdlička studied were categorized as either male or female, seemingly without exception. He was not the only one who thought sex fell into two distinct categories that did not overlap. Scientists Fred P. Thieme and William J. Schull of the University of Michigan wrote about sexing a skeleton in 1957: “Sex, unlike most phenotypic features in which man varies, is not continuously variable but is expressed in a clear bimodal distribution.” Identifying the sex of a skeleton relies most heavily on the pelvis (for example, females more often have a distinctive bony groove), but it also depends on the general assumption that larger or more marked traits are male, including larger skulls and sizable rough places where muscle attaches to bone. This idea of a distinct binary system for skeletal sex pervaded—and warped—the historical records for decades.

In 1972, Kenneth Weiss, now a professor emeritus of anthropology and genetics at Pennsylvania State University, noticed that there were about 12 percent more male skeletons than females reported at archaeological sites. This seemed odd, since the proportion of men to women should have been about half and half. The reason for the bias, Weiss concluded, was an “irresistible temptation in many cases to call doubtful specimens male.” For example, a particularly tall, narrow-hipped woman might be mistakenly cataloged as a man. After Weiss published about this male bias, research practices began to change. In 1993, 21 years later, the aptly named Karen Bone, then a master’s student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, examined a more recent dataset and found that the bias had declined: The ratio of male to female skeletons had balanced out. In part that might be because of better, more accurate ways of sexing skeletons. But also, when I went back through the papers Bone cited, I noticed there were more individuals categorized as “indeterminate” after 1972 and basically none prior.

Allowing skeletons to remain unsexed, or “indeterminate,” reflects an acceptance of the variability and overlap between the sexes. It does not necessarily mean that the skeletons classified this way are, in fact, neither male nor female, but it does mean that there is no clear or easy way to tell the difference. As science and social change in the 1970s and 1980s revealed that sex is complicated, the category of “indeterminate sex” individuals in skeletal research became more common and improved scientific accuracy.

 

[repoman]

Let's just have Fallon Fox crack a real female's skull in a fight.