This is a bad analogy because there’s 100+ types of atoms. In anisogamous species (like humans), there’s exactly 2 gamete types, sperm and ova. Which of those two gamete types one’s body is organized around producing is how sex is defined.
See here for charts showing the spectrum of sex determination and how that relates to sex definition. Each chart can be labeled as male or female based on this definition of sex, which is the one that is used across the field of biology.
The information on the flow charts is directly from peer-reviewed developmental biology papers and textbooks on human sex differentiation.
But humans are a gonochoric species: individuals are either male or female throughout their entire life cycle. People with DSDs are not new sexes (this would require a third gamete type), and they are not both sexes (this would require the full development of both male and female gonads and genitalia in a single individual. A hermaphrodite has never existed in humans).
There’s no third sex, and there’s nobody born with a body that isn’t trying to produce gametes (and potentially failing).
This post probably isn’t about sex but about gender. Those are two very different albeit related concepts. Sure, biology is mostly binary (although not quite as black and white, if you’re looking at any other features than gamete types. Femininity and masculinity do not define themselves by gamete type), but psychology very much isn’t binary.
You’re right that sex phenotypes (features other than gametes) and gender form a spectrum and not a strict binary. This is often a point of confusion and I’ve had people try to argue about sex, after I’ve explicitly differentiated between sex and gender.
I think the cartoon is likely about sex, but if everyone agrees that sex != gender and biologists define sex as binary in humans, then it doesn’t really matter and we all agree about the important things.
The issue with your argument is that you’re ascribing a simple explanation of how biology works to the actual reality of things. When doctors or evolutionary biologist say that something was “supposed to be done”, in the context of biology, they usually mean “this is what the being (as in, its system) does for the possible outcome of reproduction or survival, but there are other possibilities”, because it is implied that what they say is to be interpreted as something that comes with the intention of being empirical. They don’t actually mean that this is what is supposed to be done. It’s a way for people to understand it more simply.
You should read the Wikipedia article on Teleology in biology. But this paragraph is the most central part of the argument against your point. Teleology means a certain “goal-oriented”-ness.
Statements which imply that nature has goals, for example where a species is said to do something “in order to” achieve survival, appear teleological, and therefore invalid to evolutionary biologists. It is however usually possible to rewrite such sentences to avoid the apparent teleology. Some biology courses have incorporated exercises requiring students to rephrase such sentences so that they do not read teleologically. Nevertheless, biologists still frequently write in a way which can be read as implying teleology, even though that is not their intention.
As an example, take a meteorologist providing forecast for tomorrow’s weather. With whatever means they collected data, they assert: “it will rain tomorrow”. Tomorrow comes, and it is sunnier than ever. Scientifically speaking, the meteorologist cannot say “the atmosphere failed to make it rain, even though it tried to”. If this seems absurd, it’s because it is. In that case, the meteorologist is supposed to adapt their model into something that more accurately reflects the data given.
The problem is even more visible once you take the example of an intersex person, born with XY chromosomes, but with a uterus (Swyer’s Syndrome). One person could base themselves on the XY chromosomes to say that the person was “supposed to produce small gametes”, as you put it. Another person could base themselves on the fact that (with medical intervention) the person can produce large gametes, therefore, that the person was “supposed to produce large gametes”. Either answer is wrong, since the body isn’t actually “supposed” to do something. It just does what it does, regardless of what you think it is supposed to do. The correct thing to do would be to say: “They aren’t supposed to do something. If our model is to be empirical, it should be supposed to reflect what is actually going on with their body, not ascribe a will to it. We should rethink how we see the definition of sex”
It’s good to be careful about language like “should”, but that doesn’t really refute anything that I’ve said. Taking a step back, this is what the consensus is in the field of biology, which certainly has dealt with teleological arguments before. It’s nothing new, and yet the consensus is still that sex is entirely defined by the gamete type one’s body is organized around producing.
Why exactly do you think your comment is a counterpoint? I understand the limitations of phrasing like “should” or “supposed to”, but concretely, how do you think that applies?
People with Swyer syndrome are female, not because of "supposed to"s, but because the end result is that their bodies are organized around the production of large gametes. It’s an empirical description, just as you call for. From the link:
That’s the difference between how sex is defined and how sex is determined.
Binette is giving you the lecture that happens in every first year college bio class to students.
Basically evolution has in the past (to other animals) and could in the future (as soon as tomorrow) add a third sex to anything (including humans) if there was evolutionary pressure to (which there may be). Physics is only deterministic in the short term.
The other issue is that when people (especially those in any scientific community, such as biologists) use the word gender, they specifically mean the list of attributes different societies place on biological sex characteristics they can observe.
Gametes are not something an unaided eye can identify in society so its not how gender has ever been assigned. Might as well use the SRY gene or even “the presence of sufficiently activated SRY receptors”. This is why in society we largely determine gender by what biologists call “secondary sex characteristics” aka ones not actually required for reproduction.
If assigning a gender was evolutionarily important, we’d be assigning it based on primary characteristics like you’re suggesting. But that didn’t happen. Assigning gender 1:1 with biological sex may actually be evolutionary disfavored. If this misalignment seems more common in humans than that would be compelling evidence humans have evolutionary pressure against such an agreement.
So when you say (paraphrased) “sex and gender correlate strongly so we should redefine gender to make them correlate EXACTLY” what you’re actually proposing is a social engineering scheme which means you need to make the argument it benefits society in some way.
You’re confusing prescriptive vs descriptive. I agree that a third sex might be selected for in the future, but that’s not the current reality. Until that happens it’s correct to note that, based on how sex is defined in biology, it’s binary in humans.
I’ve explicitly differentiated between sex and gender. Your paraphrasing is misreading what I’ve written. Sex is binary in humans, and gender isn’t.
I addressed your points. But the other lecture they give to first year biology students needs to be given as well.
Species, has I believe 7 definitions in biology all with varying use cases.
Sex currently has 2 plus several proposed additional definitions.
So no, humans are not “defined” binary they “fit into the binary model.” The one that includes hermaphrodite as a third option and used for all animals. Biologists don’t say things like “human sex is defined binary” for a reason and thats because they fit animals into models not the other way around. For instance until relatively recently hyenas were thought to hermaphroditic because both sexes of hyena have similar external genetalia. The categorization changed with observations.
Biology isn’t axiomatic like math, its mostly observational and certainly started as an observational science. Models change as necessary.
Yeah I kinda forgot the whole “model” aspect of it. Models are still useful, but they’re just that: models. If it’s not helping the current context, then it’s just useless.
But this guy says it, and he’s defined himself to be the sole authority, so that matters more than any number of biologists.
Every argument they come up with has been refuted in past threads, and they just dismiss anything they disagree with as irrelevant, but treating tenuous sources like a supposed screenshot of Imane Khalif’s SRY test originating from an obscure site that’s never been republished by a mainstream one, even if they’d been calling for her to be barred from future tournaments based on no evidence so would love to vindicate their stance with test results.
It’s not worth your time to engage with them in good faith.
In mammals, there are two types of gamete and two classes of reproductive anatomy. The male sex class produces many small motile gametes – sperm – for transfer. The female sex class produces few large immobile gametes – ova – and gestates/delivers live young. […] Biological sex does not meet the defining criteria for a spectrum. […] Not one of these individuals represents an additional sex class.
(Because it sadly needs to be said, I’m not “citing wordpress”, I’m citing a project created by a PhD Developmental Biology with many signatories with relevant credentials, which she chose to host on wordpress)
Bringing up hyenas is ironic, because it’s a great illustration of why sex is defined that way. Female hyenas have a pseudopenis. But how can we tell that they’re female? Because they produce the larger of two gamete types! Without the gametic definition of sex, there’s no way of talking about “female” across species.
Sex is defined by gamete production because it’s the only coherent way to describe the reality that biologists have found across all anisogamous species.
Sex currently has 2 plus several proposed additional definitions.
Biology has one definition of sex, that has remain unchanged for well over a century, and has no serious attempts to change it.
Look if you don’t understand what models are I would encourage you to take a single college level science class.
Biology and science in general isn’t axiomatic. Mathematical models are which governs how to apply them. You’re making the mistake people who have never waded into science frequently make. You can define sex a certain way but the models can easily change.
I just quoted people with PhDs in the subject at hand, telling you that you’re wrong. Do you think that they’ve maybe taken a single college level science class?
No it is still not empirical. The definition of sex is difficult to set in stone, and yours fails to argue for itself on the basis of a result that is just a stretch of the empirical truth. In fact, you saying that it is a consensus in the field of biology when a notable amount of biologists argue against this is very far-fetched.
Again, take someone with Swyer syndrome that don’t have the ability to produce any large gametes. By saying it is “organized around the production of large gametes”, you are extending that empirical fact related to that person, and ascribing them an alternate reality where there can produce large gametes. You’re defining someone around something that they cannot do.
Concretely, this means that sex is way more complicated than just “revolving around the production of gametes”. I am not an expert in biology, and will not be able to tell you exactly what it is without not considering all of the edge-cases of it’s definition. But there are too many contradictions with saying that it’s binary because XYZ.
I am of the opinion that our society’s obsession with figuring out someone’s sex, if it is assigned by birth by a doctor, determined by an onlooker, etc. is in it of itself harmful. Not that there’s anything wrong with knowing about your body, but the way it’s been morphed into these essential classes is harmful for those that defy said class, intentionally or not.
That said, I hope you look at more examples of teleology in biology. In fact, what I explained should be understandable if you have a look at the wikipedia article. If you do not mean “organized around” in a teleological sense, then what do you mean? Also, you failed to address my previous analogies in your response. If it’s because you feel like it’s fallacious, or that it’s simply wrong, then why not respond accordingly? I’m starting to suspect the use of AI…
Edit: I think this is the last piece of effort I’ll put into this, because it gets obvious up to a point. Your argument falls into this category of teleological arguments:
[…] they are appropriate “in reference to structures anatomically and physiologically designed to perform a certain function.”
Taken from the wikipedia page. This is a teleological sentence, but it is used to explain a concept, not actually what is going on. No one actually designed said functions. If you want to know more, read the section on Irreducible teleology in the wikipedia article, which addresses the limitations of getting rid of teleology completely and how to go about it, whilst navigating things empirically.
Something to understand is that power struggle pretends to be the last word on things. Powerstruggle is not a scientist and doesn’t even seem to have relevant degree credentials.
This user is weirdly obsessed with me to the point of eroticism. You’ll want to be careful around them.
I’ll explain again though that “pretending to be the last word” is the opposite of what I’ve done. I’ve cited many reliable sources to demonstrate that I’m merely conveying the consensus in biology. This user has done nothing serious.
Which biologists are arguing against it? I think that’s a more concrete claim.
Your argument is basically “This person was born without something at the end of their leg, but we can’t say they’re missing a foot. Maybe it was a fin! Or a baboon! Or an aircraft carrier! There’s just no way to tell”
A human body tries to build a foot at the end of the leg. Sometimes it fails, but until we observe a stable, inherited body plan that doesn’t grow a foot at the end of a leg it is not teleological to use “tries” in that sense. It’s descriptive
By the way, when I look towards more sources for your claims, I often find christian institutions and TERF adgacent sources. Some even argue for teleology. This, again, contredicts the theory of evolution, which we are still abiding by, correct?
Also, your section on determination vs. definition (in your last message) is cyclical. People determine based on definition. To say the opposite would beg the question: “determined based on what?”, and the answer will be a definition, right or wrong.
I’m not the one saying “it could be a baboon, who knows”. You are lol. I’m saying that there is no such thing as a “could be” in concrete empirical analysis of nature, just a “be”. We can make educated guesses based on the empirical data, but they’re just that: guesses. We can say “they are missing a foot”, but it is a shorthand for “this person has no foot. Usually, people have a foot there. It might allow them to walk more stabily, so let’s try sollutions that mimic the structure of a foot”.
Because how can they be lierally “missing a foot” if they never had one in the first place? The supposition that something is “supposed to be there” is a cognitive shortcut, but nothing is supposed.
It is teleological, because there are two options in interpreting this sentence:
A human body tries to build a foot at the end of the leg.
The empirical one, which, as you should know, is a concrete observation of what is going on. You’d rephrase the sentence as:
This person has no foot at the end of their leg. Typically, humans have feet at the end of their leg.
Using this interpretation, it would be ridiculous to define a human empiricaly around the fact that they are “supposed” to have feet at the end of their leg, since “supposed” is not empirical (neither is organized, which implies a plan and therefore a bias). You can find a trend, but not a “supposed”. You can try to define it empiricaly, by saying “typicaly”, but that implies other possibilities, as it should do. Finaly, you can try by simply ignoring it by saying “humans have feet at the end of their legs”, but you’d just be plain wrong, since there are examples contradicting you. Remember, right now we are using terms in order to explain something more concrete.
The human body actually tries to make a foot at the end of the leg -> same teleological argument as I explained in my previous reply.
The “stable, iherited body plan” is still a teleological sentence lmfao. You’re basically disaproving my argument on the basis of it not being teleological.
Since you’re arguing for teleology, I suppose that you have a fickle understanding of evolutionary biology. Tne human body doesn’t “try to do something”. It either doesn’t or it does. Ascribing a certain attempt or will to the body is a shorthand, like i’ve said several times, but it is not accurately depecting the experience.
As a thought exercise, can you describe your definition of sex without using teleological language? But then again, your reply shows a lack of understanding on what teleology is, so if you reply with anothe misunderstanding of the concept, I’ll just move on from this.
You also stated that you’re autistic in your bio. As someone that is also autistic, you might want to reflect if you’re actually arguing for science, or rather for a more rigid worldview that you want to stay the same. This argument of yours seems repetitive and circular, so I’d suggest reflecting on
Did you read this before you linked it? “Here, we argue that dispensing with sexes would be a grave scientific error, depriving biology of one of its most powerful tools for explaining biological diversity. […] Hence, it is essentialism and typological thinking that we should dispense with, not biological sexes.” It agrees with everything I’ve been saying!
The authors of the MEA paper actually recognize that sex is binary when making arguments against it. For example, they mention the damn penis in the female hyena without realizing how they know she’s a female, and somehow think that variation within a sex effaces the sex binary.
Mostly uncited and wrong. The one definition it cites for biological sex comes from a committee of non-biologists tasked with improving data collection. Irrelevant (and also wrong).
You’re confused about what determination means. It’s not cyclical, please read and understand
Within the scientific community, Sun notes, Parker’s gametic definition of biological sex was generally accepted
It’s also frequently incorrect (unsurprising since the article was written by a PR person), “binary definitions of biological sex fail to account for roughly 1.7 percent of the population according to one estimate” is false and relies on work from a deeply unserious person, Anne Fausto-Sterling, who got called out on her bullshit and said she was being “tongue-in-cheek” and “ironic”.
But this is the real claim from that link:
Variations in genes, chromosomes, and internal and external sex organs are often called disorders in sex development in the medical community. I think that’s wrong in many cases. It’s just natural variation
It’s not actually disputing the sex binary. It’s basically a dispute about the term “Disorders of sex development” vs “Differences of sex development”. So it doesn’t disagree with me, though the question of “disorder” vs" difference" loops back to your confusion.
You’re confusing the various meanings of the word “should” (or supposed to, or take your pick of terms). It can be used descriptively or prescriptively. You’re saying that incorrect prescriptive use invalidates descriptive use, and that’s wrong.
Using this interpretation, it would be ridiculous to define a human empiricaly around the fact that they are “supposed” to have feet at the end of their leg,
Humans aren’t defined that way. Someone missing a foot is still human. You have the definition the wrong way around and complaining that it doesn’t make sense, when in fact it doesn’t make sense because you’re thinking wrong.
A completely non-teleological definition is that sex is defined by what structures one has in their body that are required for production of one gamete type that are not required for production of the other gamete type.
I read the text debunking second link. The author writing this is more concerned with the usefullness of the gamete size definition for us than the actual definition of it.
As I’ve mentioned before, the recognition of the gamete size binary—the so-called “flattening”, has in fact been enormously productive in biology, for it’s given us not only an explanatory basis for sexual selection (which itself explains a ton of biological phenomena), but also enables us to make predictions about how parental investment affects behavior (e.g., why female seahorsea rather than males are members of the sex with colorful adornments).
Flattening it has never been useful to this. Knowing people’s sexual characteristics as a whole instead of just figuring out which gametes should be produced is more helpful
Another case of semantics vs actually understanding what the authors are saying. They argue that since they acknowledge that they called the hyena “female” that they recognise the sex binary. They were actually calling the hyena female because the wider scientific community calls them that, not because they believe it is. It’s a
bad faith argument.
The author keeps also talking about ideology and, in tfe end, mentions how the paper got through because of DEI. Like seriously??? That’s not how DEI works 😭
Your claim about ASRM is quite disengenuons i feel. Saying that medical doctors are “non-biologists” disregards their education in biology and anthropology.
Either way, my point is that there are biologist that have contested it.
Then if you were talking beforhand about the sex determination mechanism, then you’d be off topic. My argument has nothing to do with how the body determines it’s sexual function, but simply the end result, as you say it. The sex determination process is a process that, again, doesn’t have a strict set of rules, other than, at best, the patterns that we observed and used as norms. Sex determination doesn’t “fail” because, on it’s own, it doesn’t have any goals. We only say it has a goal to explain things easily, but concretely, it just does stuff
For the havard link, I want to empasise: you say that it wants to dispute the terms “disorder” and “difference”. But this is exactly what we’re arguing about. Just put in another context.
The paragraph on Fausto-Sterling is also not helpful. You didn’t even reply with what she said, so why can’t I asume she was just being ironic about it? Like what are you even talking about?
You’re confusing the natural extention of the thesis of the author for their thesis: sex is not binary. I want you to not only undrestand their argument as to why it isn’t, but also recognise that a significant amount of biologists are against your claims. Here is the paragraph directly against what you’re saying:
Sun finds Geoff Parker’s gametic explanation of biological sex, published in 1972, to be the most useful—yet it too is incomplete. Parker suggested that sex is defined by the size of the reproductive cells present in each individual. That is, males produce smaller gametes (sperm) while females produce larger gametes (eggs). However, Sun emphasizes that this definition does not account for individuals that produce no gametes at all or those that produce gametes that are not fully viable—that is, intersex individuals.
My point isn’t that humans are defined this way by the general population. But if they were the fact that people without feet at the end of their legs would be proof that humans cannot be defined with that, the same way that sex can’t.
Your non-teleological definition is slightly beter at explaining what you’re getting at, but contains quite the contradiction.
If by “stucture”, you mean everything that is directly invoved in the creation of the gametes, then I can just show someone that doesn’t have ovaries or testes. No organs in their body are creating them, so that person has no sex?
Edit: I forgot that chromosomes aren’t sexual characteristics, stictly speaking. Here’s another example.
If by “stucture”, you mean that including the rest of the sexual characteristics, then someone that has traits of two different structures is both sexes? One could just argue someone with ovotesticular syndrome was organised around producing small gametes, while another could argue that they are organised around the production of large gametes.
edit: i said teleological when i meant the opposite
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34096131/: Not biologists, and not really relevant. The main thrust is saying “Don’t binarize phenotypes”, which sure makes sense. If you see a more specific claim in there it can be evaluated, but I don’t think it’s really worth getting into.
The author writing this is more concerned with the usefullness of the gamete size definition
Yes, that’s a biologist talking about why biologists define sex that way. That definition of sex is useful in biology. If it were redefined to something else, biologists would just invent a new term that meant the same thing, because they need it.
Regarding hyenas, what makes a hyena female? How can we talk about “female”, particularly across species? What makes the class of seahorses become pregnant “male”?
My claim isn’t about ASRM. It derives from this committee, which was tasked with a data collection task and did not have any biologists on the committee. You can see the people on the committee at the bottom. It wasn’t meant to be a committee to define sex, so it’s weird that they’re being cited as such.
Your specific claim was “notable amount of biologists argue against this”, but that has not been substantiated. The authors are not notable and there aren’t a notable number of them. The paper has not resulted in any change to the consensus, and has been ridiculed by the rest of the field.
concretely, it just does stuff
Right, and biologists have defined sex around the end results.
Sun finds Geoff Parker’s gametic explanation of biological sex
The PR person that wrote this doesn’t really understand what the person is actually saying. The cited paper from Geoff Parker is “The origin and evolution of gamete dimorphism and the male-female phenomenon” and considers how the sex binary came to be. Lixing Sun is saying that, even if you don’t produce gametes, you can play a role an evolutionary role.
No organs in their body are creating them, so that person has no sex?
There would still be structures in the body that only appear in one sex and not the other, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramesonephric_duct. That’s what “organized around” captures. It also includes other structures like uterus, that allow an individual to participate in one of the reproductive strategies for the species.
Ovotesticular syndrome isn’t what you probably think it is. It’s not “perfectly healthy gonads capable of producing both sperm and ova”. It’s “maybe one working gonad, with a bit of non-functional tissue of the other type”. An (imperfect) analogy is that transplanting an ovary into a male just makes him a male with a transplanted ovary, not a hermaphrodite or female. He can still only participate in the male reproductive strategy and lacks the rest of the structures necessary for participating in the female reproductive strategy.
It might help to think about what humans aren’t. There are trioecious species, with males, females, and hermaphrodites coexisting. That just doesn’t exist in humans.
What is your obsession with this meme? The two times 1, 2 this was posted before, you spent over two days each writting dozens of comments. Under each post, people patiently explained to you that sex is not an easy binary and that the categorization of sex in humans includes many factors and is not always binary.
A nice graphic from the last thread:
But you know what? Let me ask you a question. After taking a quick look at your moderation history, I’m interested in your answer.
I don’t really understand other people’s obsession with spreading misinformation. In each of those threads I posted once, and then had to respond many more times pointing out how they’re incorrect. “Patiently explaining” is a weird way of saying “doubling down on being wrong”.
Like here as well. As in the previous thread, that graphic shows sex determination, which is not how sex is defined. Each one of those situations ends up being male or female. I’m having to write another comment to correct your misinformation, even though you could’ve seen the exact same response in the previous threads. Why are people obsessed with defending their ignorance? I’d have a fraction of my overall comment count and everyone could’ve done something more productive with their time.
Your statement that “sex is not an easy binary and that the categorization of sex in humans includes many factors and is not always binary” is wrong. Again, I’ve linked to many helpful resources, but in particular I want to redirect you to the original comment I made in this very thread which goes over several different types of DSDs and shows how they still fall into the sex binary.
Before we start going off on a tangent from this thread, can you acknowledge biological truth? It’s pointless to talk about Khelif if you misunderstand the basics.
Yeah, it seems it is pointless to talk to you about sex determination in humans. That’s why I linked to previous threads where many knowledgeable people have already discussed the topic.
“You had to respond?” Most of the time, you just said the same things in slightly different ways over and over again without apparently reading the comments to which you replied. But you also spammed “Why do you care so much?” a dozen times.
I would still be interested in your answer to the question:
I responded “Why do you care so much?” to a user that started out engaging in bad faith by asking that question to start. I was simply mirroring their bad faith argument back to them. Elsewhere in the thread where they had an actual comment, I responded in good faith. I’m not going to waste my time on nonsense.
It’s easy to say “it’s pointless to talk to you”. Other people have said that too, or “I’m just so tired” or “You’re boring”. I’ll gladly talk about Khelif, but first:
Do you understand what sex determination is and how it differs from how sex is defined?
They did respond with longer comments later, but you only spammed this (This was @oftenawake@lemmy.dbzer0.com)
You also spammed comments back and forth with Log in | Sign up @davidagain@lemmy.world.
Nobody forced you to make those comments.
I’m also not of the opinion that you commented elsewhere in “good faith.”
Now what is your answer to the question:
What is Imane Khelif’s gender and sex?
And before you ask again: I have read that you categorize sex determination in humans entirely based on gametes, and that you also binarily categorize the many edge cases/exceptions (you know what one interperation of this meme is about) as “organized around producing a type of gamete”. Now please answer the question. I would be interested to read your answer.
If you can acknowledge that it’s not me categorizing anything, but that I’m merely relaying how the field of biology defines sex, then sure. I make no claim other than referring to many sources saying exactly that.
The entire thread that started with “Why do you care so much?” was eminently silly and I didn’t bother responding with effort, but that user engaged in other subthreads, where I did respond.
The other user is unhinged, to be honest. Like, something is wrong with them. I engaged in good faith a few times, but in the end they refused to acknowledge a basic fact and it wasn’t worth engaging with effort.
“Why do you care so much?” is a reasonable question, given that you are obsessed with this topic and on a mission to correct others with what you believe to be “facts”.
It is a reasonable question given that your choice of “facts” aligns well with denying that trans people exist. The existence of trans people is an empirical fact you don’t seem to be interested in acknowledging.
You “merely relaying how the field of biology defines sex” is disingenuous because your position on the whole matter is not inquisitive (in search of understanding) but authoritarian (telling others how to be).
That’s why you will be called out on it repeatedly, because you are not telling the truth about your motives and try to pass yourself off as neutral and scientific.
So I ask you again: Why do you care so much?
The answer is pretty clear - you don’t acknowledge that you yourself are trans, because you haven’t developed the self-reflection skills to be honest with yourself about it yet. Instead you cling to biology text books, while telling trans people that they don’t exist.
But we know your type very well - dishonest, mean-spirited denialists with no personal integrity.
Khelif identifies as a woman, and was determined to be male by sex testing. Khelif likely has the same condition as Caster Semenya (5αR2D), which often results in being incorrectly assigned female at birth due to ambiguous genitalia.
Khelif is male due to producing sperm, which is why I wanted to clarify how biologists define sex. It isn’t based on chromosomes, testosterone, or anything other than gametes (slightly longer put, the gamete type one’s body is organized around producing).
If you want to discuss the accuracy of the sex testing done that’s fine too, but for the sake of answering your question I didn’t go into that.
Most of my post history is correcting misinformation of the sort you spew out. I’ll post once and then spend many more comments responding to people doubling down on being wrong, like you.
You’re posting is literally on one comic and one issue. You don’t have any relevant credentials which we’ve already established. On numerous occasions mods and admins have come to slap your s*** down, also calling you transphobic.
There is a possibility as remote as it seems that, yes somehow you as an individual are the arbiter of knowledge on this one topic. Or, You’re just some poorly educated loser insisting on pontificating on this one issue.
As stated elsewhere, I’m not the arbiter of knowledge on this topic, and I’ve helpfully included links that you can use to educate yourself when you’re ready.
You keep on obsessing about me. I should be flattered I guess, but it seems unhealthy for you.
Except this isn’t “biology being real”. It’s non empirical. If you abide by the theory of evolution (which I assume you do), then you should be against teleology in biology, since there is no such thing, concretely, as a “body that’s supposed to do things”. It’s just layman speech to inform those that aren’t that far in biology (or to shorten things, since you assume your college knows anyway) “this is one of the possible things that a being (or its system) does in order to survive/reproduce”, not that it is necessary. To imply that it’s necessary would be to imply that nature has a will, or that there is some sort of supernatural will Teleology in biology
Literally every sentence you typed is entirely inaccurate. It’s bad science promoted by bigots to create a convinient lie that permits them to discriminate and oppress people.
Edit to add: It’s even a bad interpretation of the metaphor. It’s like saying “akshually, there’s only two atomic particles, the proton and the electron, and these are the only two particles that determine charge, so there’s really only two types of atoms, positive and negative charged atoms, and that’s why black people don’t deserve civil rights.”
That’s you. That’s what you sound like.
Human genders are not defined by gamete types.
Human sex is not defined by gamete types. There are women born with testes, and men born with ovaries. Secondary sexual characteristics are influenced by hormones as much as genetics, and the presence of a gamete does not determine the hormones in a person’s body.
Sexual development charts are generalizations across average humans, and do not necessarily represent any one individual’s sexual development. Everyone does not fit into a box.
You can’t hide your bigotry behind peer-reviewed biology papers and textbooks. The actual science doesn’t support it.
Gonochorism is not relevant to the psychosexual development of humans. It’s a term used to differentiate animals that change sexes due to environmental factors, like alligators and snails. Nobody is claiming that transgender individuals are simultaneously hermaphroditic. It’s a biological strawman argument that belies the insincerity of your argument.
I feel like I was fairly clear about that. It’s the one where you use bad science to justify bigotry and crimes against humanity. For example, your comment earlier in this thread about how certain people shouldn’t exist because ova and sperm are the only gametes.
See what you’re doing now is called sea-lioning, where you pretend you have been misunderstood, and you’re just trying to have a civil conversation. You shared a nazi arguement, and if you feel you’ve been misunderstood, you’re free to clarify what you meant to say. I’ve said my peace, so if you want to keep pretending you’re not a bigot, then you’ll need to do more than insist others prove it.
This is a bad analogy because there’s 100+ types of atoms. In anisogamous species (like humans), there’s exactly 2 gamete types, sperm and ova. Which of those two gamete types one’s body is organized around producing is how sex is defined.
See here for charts showing the spectrum of sex determination and how that relates to sex definition. Each chart can be labeled as male or female based on this definition of sex, which is the one that is used across the field of biology.
https://theparadoxinstitute.org/articles/sex-development-charts
There’s no third sex, and there’s nobody born with a body that isn’t trying to produce gametes (and potentially failing).
Literally knew this dork would show up to argue why trans people don’t exist. XD
It’s really all this poster has in life.
Sorry, I can’t take you seriously until you finish your fanfic of being topped by me
This post probably isn’t about sex but about gender. Those are two very different albeit related concepts. Sure, biology is mostly binary (although not quite as black and white, if you’re looking at any other features than gamete types. Femininity and masculinity do not define themselves by gamete type), but psychology very much isn’t binary.
There are only two genders: binary, and non-binary
There are 10 types of people in this world…those who understand binary, and those who don’t.
You’re right that sex phenotypes (features other than gametes) and gender form a spectrum and not a strict binary. This is often a point of confusion and I’ve had people try to argue about sex, after I’ve explicitly differentiated between sex and gender.
I think the cartoon is likely about sex, but if everyone agrees that sex != gender and biologists define sex as binary in humans, then it doesn’t really matter and we all agree about the important things.
Isn’t this the same shit you said the last time this was posted?
Get outta here.
This is far from the second time. They show up a lot.
I don’t really show up a lot, but man do people get pissy when they find out nothing I’m saying is wrong.
Yes, it’s still true
Okay bud. I do not care.
The issue with your argument is that you’re ascribing a simple explanation of how biology works to the actual reality of things. When doctors or evolutionary biologist say that something was “supposed to be done”, in the context of biology, they usually mean “this is what the being (as in, its system) does for the possible outcome of reproduction or survival, but there are other possibilities”, because it is implied that what they say is to be interpreted as something that comes with the intention of being empirical. They don’t actually mean that this is what is supposed to be done. It’s a way for people to understand it more simply.
You should read the Wikipedia article on Teleology in biology. But this paragraph is the most central part of the argument against your point. Teleology means a certain “goal-oriented”-ness.
As an example, take a meteorologist providing forecast for tomorrow’s weather. With whatever means they collected data, they assert: “it will rain tomorrow”. Tomorrow comes, and it is sunnier than ever. Scientifically speaking, the meteorologist cannot say “the atmosphere failed to make it rain, even though it tried to”. If this seems absurd, it’s because it is. In that case, the meteorologist is supposed to adapt their model into something that more accurately reflects the data given.
The problem is even more visible once you take the example of an intersex person, born with XY chromosomes, but with a uterus (Swyer’s Syndrome). One person could base themselves on the XY chromosomes to say that the person was “supposed to produce small gametes”, as you put it. Another person could base themselves on the fact that (with medical intervention) the person can produce large gametes, therefore, that the person was “supposed to produce large gametes”. Either answer is wrong, since the body isn’t actually “supposed” to do something. It just does what it does, regardless of what you think it is supposed to do. The correct thing to do would be to say: “They aren’t supposed to do something. If our model is to be empirical, it should be supposed to reflect what is actually going on with their body, not ascribe a will to it. We should rethink how we see the definition of sex”
Edit: Clarifications
It’s good to be careful about language like “should”, but that doesn’t really refute anything that I’ve said. Taking a step back, this is what the consensus is in the field of biology, which certainly has dealt with teleological arguments before. It’s nothing new, and yet the consensus is still that sex is entirely defined by the gamete type one’s body is organized around producing.
Why exactly do you think your comment is a counterpoint? I understand the limitations of phrasing like “should” or “supposed to”, but concretely, how do you think that applies?
People with Swyer syndrome are female, not because of "supposed to"s, but because the end result is that their bodies are organized around the production of large gametes. It’s an empirical description, just as you call for. From the link:
That’s the difference between how sex is defined and how sex is determined.
Binette is giving you the lecture that happens in every first year college bio class to students.
Basically evolution has in the past (to other animals) and could in the future (as soon as tomorrow) add a third sex to anything (including humans) if there was evolutionary pressure to (which there may be). Physics is only deterministic in the short term.
The other issue is that when people (especially those in any scientific community, such as biologists) use the word gender, they specifically mean the list of attributes different societies place on biological sex characteristics they can observe.
Gametes are not something an unaided eye can identify in society so its not how gender has ever been assigned. Might as well use the SRY gene or even “the presence of sufficiently activated SRY receptors”. This is why in society we largely determine gender by what biologists call “secondary sex characteristics” aka ones not actually required for reproduction.
If assigning a gender was evolutionarily important, we’d be assigning it based on primary characteristics like you’re suggesting. But that didn’t happen. Assigning gender 1:1 with biological sex may actually be evolutionary disfavored. If this misalignment seems more common in humans than that would be compelling evidence humans have evolutionary pressure against such an agreement.
So when you say (paraphrased) “sex and gender correlate strongly so we should redefine gender to make them correlate EXACTLY” what you’re actually proposing is a social engineering scheme which means you need to make the argument it benefits society in some way.
You’re confusing prescriptive vs descriptive. I agree that a third sex might be selected for in the future, but that’s not the current reality. Until that happens it’s correct to note that, based on how sex is defined in biology, it’s binary in humans.
I’ve explicitly differentiated between sex and gender. Your paraphrasing is misreading what I’ve written. Sex is binary in humans, and gender isn’t.
I addressed your points. But the other lecture they give to first year biology students needs to be given as well.
Species, has I believe 7 definitions in biology all with varying use cases.
Sex currently has 2 plus several proposed additional definitions.
So no, humans are not “defined” binary they “fit into the binary model.” The one that includes hermaphrodite as a third option and used for all animals. Biologists don’t say things like “human sex is defined binary” for a reason and thats because they fit animals into models not the other way around. For instance until relatively recently hyenas were thought to hermaphroditic because both sexes of hyena have similar external genetalia. The categorization changed with observations.
Biology isn’t axiomatic like math, its mostly observational and certainly started as an observational science. Models change as necessary.
Yeah I kinda forgot the whole “model” aspect of it. Models are still useful, but they’re just that: models. If it’s not helping the current context, then it’s just useless.
But this guy says it, and he’s defined himself to be the sole authority, so that matters more than any number of biologists.
Every argument they come up with has been refuted in past threads, and they just dismiss anything they disagree with as irrelevant, but treating tenuous sources like a supposed screenshot of Imane Khalif’s SRY test originating from an obscure site that’s never been republished by a mainstream one, even if they’d been calling for her to be barred from future tournaments based on no evidence so would love to vindicate their stance with test results.
It’s not worth your time to engage with them in good faith.
I’m sure everyone would like to see said refutations. You’re not lying, are you?
I mean, you’re just flat-out wrong. You should listen to those lectures, they would do you some good.
https://projectnettie.wordpress.com/
(Because it sadly needs to be said, I’m not “citing wordpress”, I’m citing a project created by a PhD Developmental Biology with many signatories with relevant credentials, which she chose to host on wordpress)
Bringing up hyenas is ironic, because it’s a great illustration of why sex is defined that way. Female hyenas have a pseudopenis. But how can we tell that they’re female? Because they produce the larger of two gamete types! Without the gametic definition of sex, there’s no way of talking about “female” across species.
Sex is defined by gamete production because it’s the only coherent way to describe the reality that biologists have found across all anisogamous species.
Biology has one definition of sex, that has remain unchanged for well over a century, and has no serious attempts to change it.
Look if you don’t understand what models are I would encourage you to take a single college level science class.
Biology and science in general isn’t axiomatic. Mathematical models are which governs how to apply them. You’re making the mistake people who have never waded into science frequently make. You can define sex a certain way but the models can easily change.
I just quoted people with PhDs in the subject at hand, telling you that you’re wrong. Do you think that they’ve maybe taken a single college level science class?
No it is still not empirical. The definition of sex is difficult to set in stone, and yours fails to argue for itself on the basis of a result that is just a stretch of the empirical truth. In fact, you saying that it is a consensus in the field of biology when a notable amount of biologists argue against this is very far-fetched.
Again, take someone with Swyer syndrome that don’t have the ability to produce any large gametes. By saying it is “organized around the production of large gametes”, you are extending that empirical fact related to that person, and ascribing them an alternate reality where there can produce large gametes. You’re defining someone around something that they cannot do.
Concretely, this means that sex is way more complicated than just “revolving around the production of gametes”. I am not an expert in biology, and will not be able to tell you exactly what it is without not considering all of the edge-cases of it’s definition. But there are too many contradictions with saying that it’s binary because XYZ.
I am of the opinion that our society’s obsession with figuring out someone’s sex, if it is assigned by birth by a doctor, determined by an onlooker, etc. is in it of itself harmful. Not that there’s anything wrong with knowing about your body, but the way it’s been morphed into these essential classes is harmful for those that defy said class, intentionally or not.
That said, I hope you look at more examples of teleology in biology. In fact, what I explained should be understandable if you have a look at the wikipedia article. If you do not mean “organized around” in a teleological sense, then what do you mean? Also, you failed to address my previous analogies in your response. If it’s because you feel like it’s fallacious, or that it’s simply wrong, then why not respond accordingly? I’m starting to suspect the use of AI…
Edit: I think this is the last piece of effort I’ll put into this, because it gets obvious up to a point. Your argument falls into this category of teleological arguments:
Taken from the wikipedia page. This is a teleological sentence, but it is used to explain a concept, not actually what is going on. No one actually designed said functions. If you want to know more, read the section on Irreducible teleology in the wikipedia article, which addresses the limitations of getting rid of teleology completely and how to go about it, whilst navigating things empirically.
Something to understand is that power struggle pretends to be the last word on things. Powerstruggle is not a scientist and doesn’t even seem to have relevant degree credentials.
Push them on it. It gets pretty funny.
This user is weirdly obsessed with me to the point of eroticism. You’ll want to be careful around them.
I’ll explain again though that “pretending to be the last word” is the opposite of what I’ve done. I’ve cited many reliable sources to demonstrate that I’m merely conveying the consensus in biology. This user has done nothing serious.
Weirdly obsessed is funny. Especially given that the moment is comic shows up you have to be there to express your opinion.
Which biologists are arguing against it? I think that’s a more concrete claim.
Your argument is basically “This person was born without something at the end of their leg, but we can’t say they’re missing a foot. Maybe it was a fin! Or a baboon! Or an aircraft carrier! There’s just no way to tell”
A human body tries to build a foot at the end of the leg. Sometimes it fails, but until we observe a stable, inherited body plan that doesn’t grow a foot at the end of a leg it is not teleological to use “tries” in that sense. It’s descriptive
Few examples of biologists arguing against it:
https://www.asrm.org/advocacy-and-policy/fact-sheets-and-one-pagers/just-the-facts-biological-sex/
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.26.525769v1
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40199245/
https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news-and-ideas/ideology-versus-biology
By the way, when I look towards more sources for your claims, I often find christian institutions and TERF adgacent sources. Some even argue for teleology. This, again, contredicts the theory of evolution, which we are still abiding by, correct?
Also, your section on determination vs. definition (in your last message) is cyclical. People determine based on definition. To say the opposite would beg the question: “determined based on what?”, and the answer will be a definition, right or wrong.
I’m not the one saying “it could be a baboon, who knows”. You are lol. I’m saying that there is no such thing as a “could be” in concrete empirical analysis of nature, just a “be”. We can make educated guesses based on the empirical data, but they’re just that: guesses. We can say “they are missing a foot”, but it is a shorthand for “this person has no foot. Usually, people have a foot there. It might allow them to walk more stabily, so let’s try sollutions that mimic the structure of a foot”.
Because how can they be lierally “missing a foot” if they never had one in the first place? The supposition that something is “supposed to be there” is a cognitive shortcut, but nothing is supposed.
It is teleological, because there are two options in interpreting this sentence:
Using this interpretation, it would be ridiculous to define a human empiricaly around the fact that they are “supposed” to have feet at the end of their leg, since “supposed” is not empirical (neither is organized, which implies a plan and therefore a bias). You can find a trend, but not a “supposed”. You can try to define it empiricaly, by saying “typicaly”, but that implies other possibilities, as it should do. Finaly, you can try by simply ignoring it by saying “humans have feet at the end of their legs”, but you’d just be plain wrong, since there are examples contradicting you. Remember, right now we are using terms in order to explain something more concrete.
The “stable, iherited body plan” is still a teleological sentence lmfao. You’re basically disaproving my argument on the basis of it not being teleological.
Since you’re arguing for teleology, I suppose that you have a fickle understanding of evolutionary biology. Tne human body doesn’t “try to do something”. It either doesn’t or it does. Ascribing a certain attempt or will to the body is a shorthand, like i’ve said several times, but it is not accurately depecting the experience.
As a thought exercise, can you describe your definition of sex without using teleological language? But then again, your reply shows a lack of understanding on what teleology is, so if you reply with anothe misunderstanding of the concept, I’ll just move on from this.
You also stated that you’re autistic in your bio. As someone that is also autistic, you might want to reflect if you’re actually arguing for science, or rather for a more rigid worldview that you want to stay the same. This argument of yours seems repetitive and circular, so I’d suggest reflecting on
One of those papers gets to the heart of your confusion and is interesting to consider, but first:
You’re confused about what determination means. It’s not cyclical, please read and understand
Your other link isn’t saying what you think it’s saying (https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news-and-ideas/ideology-versus-biology). I’ll start off by noting that it agrees with me:
It’s also frequently incorrect (unsurprising since the article was written by a PR person), “binary definitions of biological sex fail to account for roughly 1.7 percent of the population according to one estimate” is false and relies on work from a deeply unserious person, Anne Fausto-Sterling, who got called out on her bullshit and said she was being “tongue-in-cheek” and “ironic”.
But this is the real claim from that link:
It’s not actually disputing the sex binary. It’s basically a dispute about the term “Disorders of sex development” vs “Differences of sex development”. So it doesn’t disagree with me, though the question of “disorder” vs" difference" loops back to your confusion.
You’re confusing the various meanings of the word “should” (or supposed to, or take your pick of terms). It can be used descriptively or prescriptively. You’re saying that incorrect prescriptive use invalidates descriptive use, and that’s wrong.
Humans aren’t defined that way. Someone missing a foot is still human. You have the definition the wrong way around and complaining that it doesn’t make sense, when in fact it doesn’t make sense because you’re thinking wrong.
A completely non-teleological definition is that sex is defined by what structures one has in their body that are required for production of one gamete type that are not required for production of the other gamete type.
For the first link i am sorry, i confused my pubmed links in my copy tray: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34096131/
I read the text debunking second link. The author writing this is more concerned with the usefullness of the gamete size definition for us than the actual definition of it.
Flattening it has never been useful to this. Knowing people’s sexual characteristics as a whole instead of just figuring out which gametes should be produced is more helpful
Another case of semantics vs actually understanding what the authors are saying. They argue that since they acknowledge that they called the hyena “female” that they recognise the sex binary. They were actually calling the hyena female because the wider scientific community calls them that, not because they believe it is. It’s a bad faith argument.
The author keeps also talking about ideology and, in tfe end, mentions how the paper got through because of DEI. Like seriously??? That’s not how DEI works 😭
Your claim about ASRM is quite disengenuons i feel. Saying that medical doctors are “non-biologists” disregards their education in biology and anthropology.
Either way, my point is that there are biologist that have contested it.
Then if you were talking beforhand about the sex determination mechanism, then you’d be off topic. My argument has nothing to do with how the body determines it’s sexual function, but simply the end result, as you say it. The sex determination process is a process that, again, doesn’t have a strict set of rules, other than, at best, the patterns that we observed and used as norms. Sex determination doesn’t “fail” because, on it’s own, it doesn’t have any goals. We only say it has a goal to explain things easily, but concretely, it just does stuff
For the havard link, I want to empasise: you say that it wants to dispute the terms “disorder” and “difference”. But this is exactly what we’re arguing about. Just put in another context.
The paragraph on Fausto-Sterling is also not helpful. You didn’t even reply with what she said, so why can’t I asume she was just being ironic about it? Like what are you even talking about?
You’re confusing the natural extention of the thesis of the author for their thesis: sex is not binary. I want you to not only undrestand their argument as to why it isn’t, but also recognise that a significant amount of biologists are against your claims. Here is the paragraph directly against what you’re saying:
My point isn’t that humans are defined this way by the general population. But if they were the fact that people without feet at the end of their legs would be proof that humans cannot be defined with that, the same way that sex can’t.
Your non-teleological definition is slightly beter at explaining what you’re getting at, but contains quite the contradiction.
If by “stucture”, you mean everything that is directly invoved in the creation of the gametes, then I can just show someone that doesn’t have ovaries or testes. No organs in their body are creating them, so that person has no sex?
Edit: I forgot that chromosomes aren’t sexual characteristics, stictly speaking. Here’s another example.
If by “stucture”, you mean that including the rest of the sexual characteristics, then someone that has traits of two different structures is both sexes? One could just argue someone with ovotesticular syndrome was organised around producing small gametes, while another could argue that they are organised around the production of large gametes.
edit: i said teleological when i meant the opposite
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34096131/: Not biologists, and not really relevant. The main thrust is saying “Don’t binarize phenotypes”, which sure makes sense. If you see a more specific claim in there it can be evaluated, but I don’t think it’s really worth getting into.
Yes, that’s a biologist talking about why biologists define sex that way. That definition of sex is useful in biology. If it were redefined to something else, biologists would just invent a new term that meant the same thing, because they need it.
Regarding hyenas, what makes a hyena female? How can we talk about “female”, particularly across species? What makes the class of seahorses become pregnant “male”?
My claim isn’t about ASRM. It derives from this committee, which was tasked with a data collection task and did not have any biologists on the committee. You can see the people on the committee at the bottom. It wasn’t meant to be a committee to define sex, so it’s weird that they’re being cited as such.
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/26424/Highlights_Measuring_SGISO.pdf
Your specific claim was “notable amount of biologists argue against this”, but that has not been substantiated. The authors are not notable and there aren’t a notable number of them. The paper has not resulted in any change to the consensus, and has been ridiculed by the rest of the field.
Right, and biologists have defined sex around the end results.
My comment about Anne Fausto-Sterling was terse, but here’s more context, Intersex Is Not as Common as Red Hair and Responding to a ‘Fabulous Takedown’ of My Work. She is a deeply unserious person that wrote nonsense about 5 “sexes” and later responded like this when called out:
The PR person that wrote this doesn’t really understand what the person is actually saying. The cited paper from Geoff Parker is “The origin and evolution of gamete dimorphism and the male-female phenomenon” and considers how the sex binary came to be. Lixing Sun is saying that, even if you don’t produce gametes, you can play a role an evolutionary role.
There would still be structures in the body that only appear in one sex and not the other, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramesonephric_duct. That’s what “organized around” captures. It also includes other structures like uterus, that allow an individual to participate in one of the reproductive strategies for the species.
Ovotesticular syndrome isn’t what you probably think it is. It’s not “perfectly healthy gonads capable of producing both sperm and ova”. It’s “maybe one working gonad, with a bit of non-functional tissue of the other type”. An (imperfect) analogy is that transplanting an ovary into a male just makes him a male with a transplanted ovary, not a hermaphrodite or female. He can still only participate in the male reproductive strategy and lacks the rest of the structures necessary for participating in the female reproductive strategy.
It might help to think about what humans aren’t. There are trioecious species, with males, females, and hermaphrodites coexisting. That just doesn’t exist in humans.
What is your obsession with this meme? The two times 1, 2 this was posted before, you spent over two days each writting dozens of comments. Under each post, people patiently explained to you that sex is not an easy binary and that the categorization of sex in humans includes many factors and is not always binary.
A nice graphic from the last thread:
But you know what? Let me ask you a question. After taking a quick look at your moderation history, I’m interested in your answer.
What is Imane Khelif’s gender and sex?
I don’t really understand other people’s obsession with spreading misinformation. In each of those threads I posted once, and then had to respond many more times pointing out how they’re incorrect. “Patiently explaining” is a weird way of saying “doubling down on being wrong”.
Like here as well. As in the previous thread, that graphic shows sex determination, which is not how sex is defined. Each one of those situations ends up being male or female. I’m having to write another comment to correct your misinformation, even though you could’ve seen the exact same response in the previous threads. Why are people obsessed with defending their ignorance? I’d have a fraction of my overall comment count and everyone could’ve done something more productive with their time.
Your statement that “sex is not an easy binary and that the categorization of sex in humans includes many factors and is not always binary” is wrong. Again, I’ve linked to many helpful resources, but in particular I want to redirect you to the original comment I made in this very thread which goes over several different types of DSDs and shows how they still fall into the sex binary.
Before we start going off on a tangent from this thread, can you acknowledge biological truth? It’s pointless to talk about Khelif if you misunderstand the basics.
Yeah, it seems it is pointless to talk to you about sex determination in humans. That’s why I linked to previous threads where many knowledgeable people have already discussed the topic.
“You had to respond?” Most of the time, you just said the same things in slightly different ways over and over again without apparently reading the comments to which you replied. But you also spammed “Why do you care so much?” a dozen times.
I would still be interested in your answer to the question:
What is Imane Khelif’s gender and sex?
I responded “Why do you care so much?” to a user that started out engaging in bad faith by asking that question to start. I was simply mirroring their bad faith argument back to them. Elsewhere in the thread where they had an actual comment, I responded in good faith. I’m not going to waste my time on nonsense.
It’s easy to say “it’s pointless to talk to you”. Other people have said that too, or “I’m just so tired” or “You’re boring”. I’ll gladly talk about Khelif, but first:
Do you understand what sex determination is and how it differs from how sex is defined?
Let’s get facts straight first.
They did respond with longer comments later, but you only spammed this (This was @oftenawake@lemmy.dbzer0.com)
You also spammed comments back and forth with Log in | Sign up @davidagain@lemmy.world. Nobody forced you to make those comments.
I’m also not of the opinion that you commented elsewhere in “good faith.”
Now what is your answer to the question:
What is Imane Khelif’s gender and sex?
And before you ask again: I have read that you categorize sex determination in humans entirely based on gametes, and that you also binarily categorize the many edge cases/exceptions (you know what one interperation of this meme is about) as “organized around producing a type of gamete”. Now please answer the question. I would be interested to read your answer.
If you can acknowledge that it’s not me categorizing anything, but that I’m merely relaying how the field of biology defines sex, then sure. I make no claim other than referring to many sources saying exactly that.
The entire thread that started with “Why do you care so much?” was eminently silly and I didn’t bother responding with effort, but that user engaged in other subthreads, where I did respond.
The other user is unhinged, to be honest. Like, something is wrong with them. I engaged in good faith a few times, but in the end they refused to acknowledge a basic fact and it wasn’t worth engaging with effort.
“Why do you care so much?” is a reasonable question, given that you are obsessed with this topic and on a mission to correct others with what you believe to be “facts”.
It is a reasonable question given that your choice of “facts” aligns well with denying that trans people exist. The existence of trans people is an empirical fact you don’t seem to be interested in acknowledging.
You “merely relaying how the field of biology defines sex” is disingenuous because your position on the whole matter is not inquisitive (in search of understanding) but authoritarian (telling others how to be).
That’s why you will be called out on it repeatedly, because you are not telling the truth about your motives and try to pass yourself off as neutral and scientific.
So I ask you again: Why do you care so much?
The answer is pretty clear - you don’t acknowledge that you yourself are trans, because you haven’t developed the self-reflection skills to be honest with yourself about it yet. Instead you cling to biology text books, while telling trans people that they don’t exist.
But we know your type very well - dishonest, mean-spirited denialists with no personal integrity.
Your power struggle is with yourself.
Wisdom.
Now, where’s your answer to the questions I asked in my very first comment?
What is Imane Khelif’s gender and sex?
We are now really deep in the comment chain, but you still haven’t answered.
Khelif identifies as a woman, and was determined to be male by sex testing. Khelif likely has the same condition as Caster Semenya (5αR2D), which often results in being incorrectly assigned female at birth due to ambiguous genitalia.
Khelif is male due to producing sperm, which is why I wanted to clarify how biologists define sex. It isn’t based on chromosomes, testosterone, or anything other than gametes (slightly longer put, the gamete type one’s body is organized around producing).
If you want to discuss the accuracy of the sex testing done that’s fine too, but for the sake of answering your question I didn’t go into that.
So gender is female and sex is male.
Sex is biological.
Gender is social.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
But even sex isn’t binary and doesn’t contain everything often attributed to it.
Sex is binary in humans. Correlates like phenotype/genotype (often confused with sex) are a spectrum though.
What do you define “Sex” as ?
The thing I had with your dad last night.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex
that’s cool. Do you think trans people should have bodily autonomy?
Yes.
Ok. What you are posting will assist in denying that.
Look at the history. That’s all this person does.
Most of my post history is correcting misinformation of the sort you spew out. I’ll post once and then spend many more comments responding to people doubling down on being wrong, like you.
You’re posting is literally on one comic and one issue. You don’t have any relevant credentials which we’ve already established. On numerous occasions mods and admins have come to slap your s*** down, also calling you transphobic.
There is a possibility as remote as it seems that, yes somehow you as an individual are the arbiter of knowledge on this one topic. Or, You’re just some poorly educated loser insisting on pontificating on this one issue.
Who knows? 🤷♂️
As stated elsewhere, I’m not the arbiter of knowledge on this topic, and I’ve helpfully included links that you can use to educate yourself when you’re ready.
You keep on obsessing about me. I should be flattered I guess, but it seems unhealthy for you.
Hey man I came to laugh at a funny comic. You happened to be here once again with the same dribble.
Be whatever you want to be because unfortunately one of those things is a transphobe.
I think that biology being real is not an affront on transgender individuals.
denying real biology just because it can lead to a few bad feelings is a very dangerous road. both can exist, and do. harmoniously.
Except this isn’t “biology being real”. It’s non empirical. If you abide by the theory of evolution (which I assume you do), then you should be against teleology in biology, since there is no such thing, concretely, as a “body that’s supposed to do things”. It’s just layman speech to inform those that aren’t that far in biology (or to shorten things, since you assume your college knows anyway) “this is one of the possible things that a being (or its system) does in order to survive/reproduce”, not that it is necessary. To imply that it’s necessary would be to imply that nature has a will, or that there is some sort of supernatural will Teleology in biology
Edit: clearing things up and syntax
How does posting scientific fact assist in denying trans people bodily autonomy?
it adds further fuel to the opinion of “there are only two genders, trans people are ____” (insert insult here)
Literally every sentence you typed is entirely inaccurate. It’s bad science promoted by bigots to create a convinient lie that permits them to discriminate and oppress people.
Edit to add: It’s even a bad interpretation of the metaphor. It’s like saying “akshually, there’s only two atomic particles, the proton and the electron, and these are the only two particles that determine charge, so there’s really only two types of atoms, positive and negative charged atoms, and that’s why black people don’t deserve civil rights.”
That’s you. That’s what you sound like.
In short, fuck off with your nazi bullshit.
You’re mostly arguing with what you want me to have said and not what I’ve said so there’s not much point in responding to much of your post.
Your claims that “Human sex is not defined by gamete types” and “The actual science doesn’t support it” are incorrect though
Nah, you cant hide your bigotry behind peer reviewed… wait what 😂😂😂
Which is it, you don’t want to defend the nazi argument, or you do want to defend the nazi argument?
What exactly are you qualifying as “the nazi argument”?
I feel like I was fairly clear about that. It’s the one where you use bad science to justify bigotry and crimes against humanity. For example, your comment earlier in this thread about how certain people shouldn’t exist because ova and sperm are the only gametes.
Where do I say certain people shouldn’t exist?
See what you’re doing now is called sea-lioning, where you pretend you have been misunderstood, and you’re just trying to have a civil conversation. You shared a nazi arguement, and if you feel you’ve been misunderstood, you’re free to clarify what you meant to say. I’ve said my peace, so if you want to keep pretending you’re not a bigot, then you’ll need to do more than insist others prove it.
I’m honestly confused as to what you mean by “nazi argument”
deleted by creator
Thanks for trying but you’re pissing into the wind in this place.