The concept of "biological sex" is not even a binary, and it's treated differently in different parts of the world. So we haven't settled on definitions of biological sex outside as a species yet.
There is absolutely a consensus (well, there was until about 5 years ago). People point at exceptions to prove the rule is entirely false. How many arms do humans have? Two. “Well my uncle was born without arms! So clearly humans have an unknown amount of arms”. Men and women are real, there are a couple of exceptions, but not as many as people imagine.
I expect this to be promptly removed from the front page. I’m happy to see taboo subjects being spoken of again.
Third gender people and intersex people have existed as long as humans have.
Western cultures in the past couple decades have started acknowledging this, but the concept is not foreign to all countries.
And the changes proposed are to include as many people as possible. You might say, people are typically born with two arms, sometimes fewer. It doesn't remove the fact that most people express as 2 armed, while including the people who don't.
The example you've provided actually does not support you argument, just the opposite.
People 'typically' have two arms?
Well they 'typically' also have two legs, a sense of smell, sight, hearing, a heart, two lungs, the ability to speak.
What exactly can we expect all 'humans' to have? And how can we refer to them without making any assumptions whatsoever about their state of being so as to be 'inclusive' as you say?
It's a Monty Python sketch of absurdity and will end up with people slapping others in the face with fish.
Aside from probably using 'they' or 'them' in some cases in which we didn't tend to before, language as we use it is perfectly fine in almost all cases. It never will perfectly encompass everyone and that's fine, it doesn't have to.
>What exactly can we expect all 'humans' to have? And how can we refer to them without making any assumptions whatsoever about their state of being so as to be 'inclusive' as you say?
This question answers itself, no? You can refer to them as 'humans'.
Actually in practical use, we'd be obliged to use whatever language the individual identified as, which is the new 'subjective' way of being 'objective'.
I'm happy to use he, she or they, because it's reasonable and rational but beyond that it's all shenanigans, I have no time for it.
Atoms are binary in your model, every atom is hydrogen or helium, or an exception?
I believe that we can be inclusive of those exceptions and treat them as unique things that are within the definition, rather than placing them outside the definition. I would rather spend the energy to evolve definitions to include people rather than tell people they are marginalia.
I don’t understand what atoms have to do with gender.
It is not inclusive to call a woman a “birthing person” it’s actually excluding the women who can’t give birth. Are women who can’t become pregnant men? Of course not.
We have let politeness run away with us. It’s time to kindly, but firmly tell people there are two genders. It’s not a kindness to lie to a person, even if they ask for the lie.
> it’s actually excluding the women who can’t give birth
Not out of the group of "women", so "Are women who can’t become pregnant men?" doesn't make sense.
EDIT: and indeed the creepy arguments centering womanhood around periods or pregnancy, which do actually exclude women who can't give birth from womanhood, tend to come from a subset(!) of the people that also are strongly against such language, not the people for it.
You will never get an answer. Biological sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression and even gender roles are thrown into a pile to play 5D chess.
Fact remains, there is no third sex. Intersex is not a third sex and sexual anomalies also do not introduce a third sex.
Depends on your culture. The Diné people have four genders (feminine man, masculine man, feminine woman, masculine woman), hijra and fa'afafine are feminine male genders, in Inuit culture a sipiniq is someone who fulfills a man's role with female genitalia.
In mesopotamia, mesoamerica, and the Indus valley there were people of unclear sex who fulfilled genders beyond men and women.
A neologism from pan indigenous culture is Two Spirit.
These concepts have existed for a loooong time, however they were quite rare in western countries. As westerners, we're being exposed to them now, but they are hardly novel on the world stage.
It's interesting though that all those cultures came up with distinct terms for trans identities. I suspect there'd be a lot less pushback if this was tried with English instead of overloading the meaning of pre-existing terms.
These are nice terms but they're heavily rooted in social constructs and don't really answer the OPS question which was tying biological sex to well... biology and in this particular case gametes/chromosomes.
That argument is a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of biological sex, which is connected to the distinct type of gametes (sex cells) that an organism produces. As a broad concept, males are the sex that produce small gametes (sperm) and females produce large gametes (ova). There are no intermediate gametes, which is why there is no spectrum of sex. Biological sex in humans is a binary system.
Regardless, it misses the distinction between biological sex v. a mind's gender identity, and solely by the sheer quantity of neurons and possible interconnects, it's impossible to say that every person's brain strictly aligns with one of two modes of operation. (if anyone who specializes in gender studies knows more on this topic and believes I'm summarizing this—or even stating the problem—incorrectly, please step in; this isn't my specialty)
In fact, it's only appropriate to say that every brain is unique in how it processes the self and the world, and that while for the majority of people it's easy or even innate to identify with certain characteristics, there are minorities for whom this isn't the case.
We need to express inclusive empathy where we can, even if the only reason for doing so is to make sure that when we fall outside societally defined structures, we ourselves can also continue to be respected. Ideally we'd do so because we're trying to be good people, but my point is, even a selfish person should reach the same conclusion.
We should also acknowledge that language more often than not works in approximations and generalizations, and usually everyone still understands what is meant. There needs to be some flexibility on both sides.
This is an important point and it's lost in these debates.
The new cool thing is to pretend context/intent doesn't exist, that words and expressions should always be looked at in isolation. Even though it's a fundamental part of language and how the brain perception systems work to contextualize and loosely categorize everything based on the current set of information in a particular scenario.
Words/language is messy, highly flexible, and rarely strictly defined. For good reason.
Mostly so people can win internet arguments and feel superior/victimized.
If you have no distinguishing organs that produce sexual cell lines via meiosis, and have never ever had such organs, then you are functionally sexless. This seems like a reasonable position to take. Given our understanding of embryology and development we may try to piece together what would have happened had something not gone awry and base our judgement on that. But if we don't know, then it's hardly unreasonable to simply say 'I don't know'. However, we are not being asked to acknowledge that we cannot know for some individuals, we are being asked to accept those with obvious organs and gametes of one sex as individuals of the other.
Hormones help regulate the brain and there are sex differences in the hormones. I have a hard time believing that someone can be in the wrong body, as the brain is a part of the body.
> Hormones help regulate the brain and there are sex differences in the hormones.
Does every cell in every body react to hormones etc. the same way? There are differences between each and every person on the planet in terms of how each cell in their body reacts to things like hormones, neurotransmitters, and other signaling molecules that manifest either subtly or extremely. Anything from a person's height to their temperament to their hunger (literally, or figuratively e.g drive) can vary based on the production of and reception of these transmitters, and every single person's body varies in every facet of the above based on environmental and genetic considerations.
> I have a hard time believing that someone can be in the wrong body, as the brain is a part of the body.
That doesn't mean that those other considerations are stronger than the hormonal differences due to sex. The sex differences for testosterone are large.
> That's an empathy thing.
You're welcome to empathize with my inability to believe that someone can be in the wrong body.
My understanding is that "differences in sex development" or "disorders of sex development" is now the preferred terminology. See for instance:
"Disorders of sex development, or DSD (previously called intersex), includes a range of conditions that lead to abnormal development of the sex organs and atypical genitalia ..."
Stop using intersex people (who have extremely rare physiological diseases) as a political tool to justify transsexual ideology, when >99% of transsexuals do not have any such disease.
While you're right that there's no connection between being trans and being intersex (except that intersex people are probably more likely to be misgendered at birth), it's not the case that intersex people are 'extremely rare'. Depending on definition, we are talking about ~1% of people. For comparison, that is e.g. around the percentage of men who are 6'4 or taller (in the US).
This is not an endorsement of any particular take in the thread, but this seemed like an appropriate place to correct a mistake regarding the frequency of intersex births and link out to some articles for the curious.
That 1% number comes from the Fausto-Sterling survey which incorrectly lumps in Klinefelter syndrome, Turner syndrome, and late-onset adrenal hyperplasia. Eliminating those diseases yields a rate no higher than 0.018%, 2 orders of magnitude lower as the upper bound[1]. Only a small portion have cells for producing both types of gametes, only about 5% of all intersex people[2][3].
The controversy about what counts as 'intersex' is mostly pointless, as far as I can tell, as the term neither has (nor requires) a precise definition. I think in this context it makes sense to include any condition that blurs the edges of the gender binary as traditionally understood in society. If you look at the details of e.g. Klinefelter syndrome from this perspective, it's not difficult to see why it might be seen as part of the intersex spectrum:
>broad hips, poor muscle tone and slower than usual muscle growth, reduced facial and body hair that starts growing later than usual, a small penis and testicles, and enlarged breasts (gynaecomastia)
It's by no means a settled matter what does or doesn't count as 'intersex'. I suspect that few reputable researchers would waste time engaging in such a pointless debate over terminology. Some relevant points in this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5808814/
All that said, one can, if one wishes, cherry pick the smallest available estimate of the number of 'intersex' people and thereby dismiss the issues raised by these people on the grounds that they're small in number. I'm not sure how much scrutiny the logic of that rhetorical move would withstand.
I’m not trying to make any claims about the broader issue or cherry-pick here, but a lot of experts do not include Klinefelter syndrome so I think that’s worth at least noting. Moreover I think pointing out that 95% of the people in question clearly have cells to produce a single type of gamete and are often fertile is instructive.
My only point in responding is to add useful scientific/medical context. People can make what they want of that information.
Fundamentally I agree with what you seem to be getting at, taxonomy is hard.
> Moreover I think pointing out that 95% of the people in question clearly have cells to produce a single type of gamete AND ARE OFTEN FERTILE is instructive.
It’s only informative if it’s true. With regard to the second conjunct, people with Klinefelter syndrome and Turner syndrome are typically functionally infertile.
I’m not convinced that ‘a lot of experts’ are even working on defining what counts as ‘interesex’. It would make more sense to listen to intersex people, who as far as I can see, tend to think that a fairly broad definition is useful.
Note that .13% was not what I rounded up. That .13% is a subset of people who are gender minorities (eg trans or non-binary) and there are several academic estimates that put the number higher than 1%.
My intuition, reading through the studies and talking a conservative estimate, is that something like 0.6 to 0.8% is a defensible estimate. I rounded that to 1%. Other scholars pick higher or lower numbers, but it's not 10%, and I firmly believe that it's not 0.1% based on studies, which makes 1% the correct order of magnitude, imo.
> I'd rather make sure that the language I use includes them where possible.
Man/Woman does. As do Male/Female. Disorders of Sexual Development are disorders, not new sexes. A woman without breasts or with an extra X chromosome is a much a woman as a man without arms or with an extra toe is still a man.
> are you willing to write off the [people] that doesn't cover
Those are weird made-up scare words. Nobody is writing them off. What does what even mean? We just don't recognize their identity or their identity terminology as being meaningful, in the same way an atheist feels about their religion.
They're just as welcome, or not, as they were without it.
Clarifying question: are you saying that 1% of humans don't produce either "small mobile gametes or large, immobile ones"? In that case what do they produce?
I've noticed that in the debate around 'binary' (on Twitter, I confess), some people claim that no human has ever been observed who didn't produce either sperm or ova (and never both). I'd like to know whether that's true. If it's true, then the GP's claim covers 100% of cases, not 99%.
Yes — discussing a bimodal distribution as a bimodal distribution is useful, even in the presence of outliers and data points bridging the two peaks.
“Man” and “woman” are names for those nodes in the bimodal distribution of traits, as correlated with sex. Same as “cow” and “bull”, or “hen” and “cock”, or “doe” and “stag”, or “female” and “male”.
I’d rather my language be able to discuss the experience of the 99%+ than become incapable of discussing basic facts (like apes being sexually dimorphic) because reality might offend outliers.
And the field where that prominence matters, astrophysics, refers to anything that isn't hydrogen or helium as a "metal". Definitions are fluid. Insisting that everyone tediously say "people who may possibly become pregnant" rather than the simple "women" (with the more precise existentially quantified, more and less inclusive intent being clear from context) is itself extremely intolerant.
> I think 80 million people is a lot of people ...
and thus, unasked by intersex people and without a clear theory of how this would help, you would destroy the concept of sex-based-rights which keep four billion people and the world's children safe?
Most people only ever learn high school level biology, where that "fact" is taught. That's not bad, it's just an incomplete picture.
Few people take the time to study further because there's no need for them to do so. Just like I haven't studied veterinary medicine - it's just something I never needed to understand beyond a common sense level.
The problem arises when people who have been working with simplified models make assertions using those models.
> The concept of "biological sex" is not even a binary
That's just not true. Biological sex is defined by the gametes produced, and I'm not aware of conditions where one person produces both male and female gametes.
We call people "black" and "white", when there is statistically almost an even spectrum between skin colors, genes, etc. Your examples in between are really statistical outliers, numbers-wise.
They are people. Even in small numbers, they are important.
Hell, nearly every atom in the universe is hydrogen and helium, does that make carbon, oxygen, iron, etc statistical outliers we shouldn't account for? Of course not. Our science and language accounts for even marginal percentages, why would it be any different when talking about people?
But do they hold more weight to rename how the 99.9% of the population is referred to?
it’s the latter that frustrates people IMO. I think if people focused on simple acceptance of themselves instead of trying to rewrite the social fabric, it would help.
Also, even though Hydrogen and Helium are by far the most common elements, oxygen is still a different element.
