I know you’re a Marxist, and disagree with the typical definitions of leftist politics, i was just trying to refer to those at the tail end of liberalism.
Its because sexual differentiation is many process that starts with an SRY gene and ends with hormone receptors all over the body. Evolution also acts on all of it at each step of the process. A good example is like chest hair patterns on men which are all over the place.
You can have a penis if the correct receptors are triggered while still not having testes or an SRY gene.
Evolution also has examples of creatures that evolved so that both sexes (hyenas) or none (many birds) have a penis in different creatures and where sexuality is environmentally determined (turtles). These evolutionary pressures that created all these animals may be acting on humans also.
Which all comes down to the idea that the way we treat people is socially constructed. Like we don’t want murder so we lock up murderers.
People who want to legislate biological binaries are saying there’s an inherent danger to society in allowing the edge cases to exist. I and many others would argue this is a kind of short-sighted eugenics program that disallows human diversity for purely aesthetic reasons.
The results are like intersex babies getting gruesome gender assignment surgeries to fit better into the binary so when scientists later poll people they get results created by the binary. We’re sort of basking in our own farts when we talk about biological sex.
Edit: it appears the person we’re replying to is uninterested in factual discussion and is just here to reinforce his own hateful worldview.
Is an intersex person biologically male and female then?
Is a person with xy chromosomes and a vagina but no penis female?
That’s the issue. Male and female sex assignments are a binary based in language, social relations, and the opinion of the Dr making the assignment based on the information they have. And a binary doesn’t allow for all of the variations we’re aware of, let alone the ones we’re not.
You are claiming that biological male and female has no use because of the edge cases where its not so clear, but its still useful most the time.
Besides, assigned at birth is pretty clear too. Doesnt say assigned at birth and can never change or assigned at birth and we are super sure.
You can’t just say people can’t use a bunch of words because transphobes have used it as an insult. The words are still meaningful, and hateful people will say literally anything. Why give them any power in the first place?
If someone says some awful transphobic shit, then fuck their opinion and fuck them and move on with your day. They aren’t suddenly some messiah giving you gospel. Dont let them live rent free in your head.
I feel like I didn’t explain the position very well earlier and I think that the initial poster whi called out the word wasn’t as gentle about it as they could have been, which set the tone for the conversation.
It is used in common speech a lot, and because of that I think people should get a lot of grace around it. I mean shit it’s on the planned Parenthood website.
However it’s really not a very precise word. And due to that lack of precision, it is being weaponized by fascism to enact discriminatory legislation.
I pulled this quote off of Reddit and they do a much better job of breaking it down than I did.
Everyone has the biological and genetic capability for both androgenic and estrogenic secondary sex characteristics.
If I’m “biologically male” why am I able to grow tits just like any other woman? I may have once been some sense of biologically male, but my genotype is capable of producing female phenotypes just like anyone else with the necessary exposure to corresponding sex steroids.
DNA has no sex. We all have the genes to be either. The only real difference is whether a single little gene called SRY is on or off. And even then, that can be fuzzy too.
It’s just a bad descriptor of a very complex thing. Sex isn’t immutable, gender is whatever, and the only reason to bring someone’s “biology” into it is if you either misunderstand it or are being intentionally harmful.
It’s not about it being an insult. It’s about being skeptical of the existence of trans people and using language to affect our very real material conditions, like access to healthcare or using bathrooms we feel safe in.
Assigned sex at birth is both more accurate, and more inclusive.
Hey look the firing squad is starting to bend in towards itself.
We gotta make sure we use the right words before we can even begin to have a productive conversation, if those words change every 6 months that’s just too bad, use the current one or you’re a bigot.
You didn’t even debate my point. I was only referring to amab and afabs. I don’t care about the edge cases because they’re not part of the point I’m making. It’s been well known that individuals with XY chromosomes and a penis are biologically male a.k.a amab, so what’s the difference?
I’m asking my own questions to critique your position. I didn’t ignore it. This is a debate technique that goes back at least to Socrates.
Is an xy person born with a vagina biologically male? Biologically female? Biologically neither? Or biologically both?
Edit: Oh I see, the mistake I made was thinking that your initial question was in good faith and now that I see that it’s not I will just put you on block.
What about people with testis but no penis? What about people with XY chromosomes but a vagina? What about people with a penis and vagina?
“Basic biology” is the problem. You think a high school course was enough for you to have a complete understanding of biology. Biology is complex and messy, which your class didn’t discuss. It taught rigid definitions, which don’t exist in nature. Hormones define biological development. Every individual has different levels of different hormones, and also things just happen strangely sometimes too.
There’s also an issue with intersex people where some are born with both male and female genitals and the doctor (without consulting anyone else) may remove components the baby was born with to make them fit the rigid definition of male or female that they decided.
Nature is complex. Not understanding the complexity is fine, as long as you don’t pretend to. If you insist that your understanding is complete though then you’re arrogant and ignorant. It’s best not to be that way because it prevents learning and improving yourself.
I haven’t even had bottom surgery yet, but thanks to HRT my metabolism is much more in line with that of a typical woman than that of a man. Meaning that it is much more accurate to refer to me as a biological woman than as a biological man. So saying I’m the later isn’t just insulting, it is even scientifically incorrect. A trans woman who has received bottom surgery is in fact for pretty much all intents and purposes the same as a cis woman who has received a radical hysterectomy. Unless you call that kind of cis woman a biological man, doing the same to the trans woman is just as nonsensical.
And yes, this really affects pretty much everything: The treatment of things like brain tumors depends on biological sex and if you treat a trans woman like a man you are going to see the same bad outcomes that treating a cis woman like a man would have. Because again: Trans woman are (from a certain point in their transition onwards) biological women. Yes, it changes, get over it.
The reason to talk about amab/afab is specifically because they are the only terms that are reasonably consistent in all edge cases, except clerical errors.
Amab and afab are equivalent to biological male or female, just less explicit I suppose.
Would you still argue that you are more biologically female than male if you considered that your DNA in every bit of your body still has the male set of chromosome?
I’m not arguing against you, more so arguing that the distinction doesnt much matter and could be argued either way. I’d rather just take someone’s word for it when they say who they are. Thats the whole point isnt it, acceptance?
Amab and afab are equivalent to biological male or female, just less explicit I suppose.
That’s the point: They are not! Any sensible interpretation of a biological sex has to look at the whole system and we have comprehensively proven that biological sex can be changed. It’s a spectrum to begin with. Refusing that is like refusing that irrational numbers exist and claiming that every number can be written as a fraction: Understandable if you subject-matter education ends in 7th grade, but not if you actually looked into somewhat deeper at all.
Would you still argue that you are more biologically female than male if you considered that your DNA in every bit of your body still has the male set of chromosome?
But even if we put that aside, the thing is: Chromosomes really don’t matter all that much. The relevant differences primarily lie with organs and hormone-levels. Now, there are things you can do with gene-therapy (there was for example that trans girl who used CRISPR on herself to get her testicles to produce E instead of T). So it’s not that they don’t play any role at all anymore when you are an adult, but what matters much more is the overall metabolism and HRT is absolutely capable of switching that around.
Like: Name the difference between a post-op transwoman and a cis woman who received a radical hysterectomy. Their metabolisms are functionally identical and both will have to substitute the same amount of Estradiol, because both lack ovaries. Chromosomes really don’t affect anything here, so insisting that they create a biological distinction, when they clearly don’t have any effect anymore is completely arbitrary.
I’m not arguing against you, more so arguing that the distinction doesnt much matter and could be argued either way. I’d rather just take someone’s word for it when they say who they are. Thats the whole point isnt it, acceptance?
The thing is: That is about accepting someone’s gender, which is usually indeed the more important thing.
But biological sex of course also exists and the important thing for many of us is that it can in fact be changed and the claim that it can’t is deeply problematic and harmful.
Right, and ‘biological sex’ is used as an exclusionary weapon that affects material policies.
Would you still argue that you are more biologically female than male if you considered that your DNA in every bit of your body still has the male set of chromosome?
There’s people assigned female at birth with those chromosomes. Are they ‘biologically male or female’? That’s a rhetorical question. The point is sex assigned at birth is a more accurate term for what is put on people’s birth certificates. Because sex assignment, and by proxy gender assignment, is based in sociology, not biology. And transphobes love using the argument from nature to justify real world policies and discrimination based on this sociological phenomenon.
If you’re an ally, please listen to the folks living this and think critically about your own positions regarding these two terms. There’s a lot of excellent literature on the topic and right now more than ever we need solidarity, not more skepticism.
There’s a lot of trans-medicalism in your post comrade.
A trans woman is a woman, full stop.
HRT and bottom surgery doesn’t define a person’s gender. Only affirm it.
That said, I do like pointing out to transphobes that I have less testosterone and more estrogen than my afab girlfriend thanks to gender affirming care.
Transmedicalism is an issue in the trans community. You can read her response, she didn’t call me daft. She just gently explained her position.
And I responded with the hangups transmedicalism has personally caused me in my own transition. So that she would have a better understanding of where the comment you replied to was coming from.
There’s a lot of trans-medicalism in your post comrade.
Not really, no. I’m talking about biological sex, not gender.
A trans woman is a woman, full stop.
For non-medical and non-biological cases: Yes, and no one say disputes that.
The thing is that there are some people who don’t believe that for the other cases. I’m pointing out that while it is indeed a bit more complicated and takes some work to fully get there, trans women can even medically/biologically be women.
HRT and bottom surgery doesn’t define a person’s gender. Only affirm it.
Indeed. They change the biological sex, which helps affirming gender.
That said, I do like pointing out to transphobes that I have less testosterone and more estrogen than my afab girlfriend thanks to gender affirming care.
Which makes you biologically a woman. I really think we should hammer that point home and not let people get away with it by limiting our criticism to the choice of words, when we are scientifically in the right.
Yeah. Biologically, my sex is distinctly transfeminine as someone post transition, before transition, I like many trans people was some variety of intersex, but assigned male at birth puts me into the big bin that means what they were trying to say.
Though also blaming trans women’s assigned sex at birth for willingness to vote Republican is weird considering how much more likely cis women are than trans women to vote that way.
You are correct, horse_battery_staple. (Sorry). But yeah, a white trans woman who’s a republican is notable, but a white cis woman who’s a republican is a significant portion of my coworkers. Hell, I’d be shocked if we weren’t more pro choice than cis women statistically, not out of superiority or anything but because we’re more likely to have been driven away from politics and religion that tend to promote anti choice beliefs and because we won’t have the miscarriage trauma that I’ve seen drives some women towards anti choice beliefs.
This has absolutely been my experience. There’s a serious problem especially in “Christian” households of women to vote how their husband tell them to.
On a completely different topic, if you find that folk need it, this has been useful in the past.
Removed by mod
Small matter of clarification. Liberal and far left are as far apart as liberal and far right.
I know you’re a Marxist, and disagree with the typical definitions of leftist politics, i was just trying to refer to those at the tail end of liberalism.
deleted by creator
Its because sexual differentiation is many process that starts with an SRY gene and ends with hormone receptors all over the body. Evolution also acts on all of it at each step of the process. A good example is like chest hair patterns on men which are all over the place.
You can have a penis if the correct receptors are triggered while still not having testes or an SRY gene.
Evolution also has examples of creatures that evolved so that both sexes (hyenas) or none (many birds) have a penis in different creatures and where sexuality is environmentally determined (turtles). These evolutionary pressures that created all these animals may be acting on humans also.
Which all comes down to the idea that the way we treat people is socially constructed. Like we don’t want murder so we lock up murderers.
People who want to legislate biological binaries are saying there’s an inherent danger to society in allowing the edge cases to exist. I and many others would argue this is a kind of short-sighted eugenics program that disallows human diversity for purely aesthetic reasons.
The results are like intersex babies getting gruesome gender assignment surgeries to fit better into the binary so when scientists later poll people they get results created by the binary. We’re sort of basking in our own farts when we talk about biological sex.
Edit: it appears the person we’re replying to is uninterested in factual discussion and is just here to reinforce his own hateful worldview.
Is an intersex person biologically male and female then?
Is a person with xy chromosomes and a vagina but no penis female?
That’s the issue. Male and female sex assignments are a binary based in language, social relations, and the opinion of the Dr making the assignment based on the information they have. And a binary doesn’t allow for all of the variations we’re aware of, let alone the ones we’re not.
Hence, assigned sex. Not biological sex.
You are claiming that biological male and female has no use because of the edge cases where its not so clear, but its still useful most the time.
Besides, assigned at birth is pretty clear too. Doesnt say assigned at birth and can never change or assigned at birth and we are super sure.
You can’t just say people can’t use a bunch of words because transphobes have used it as an insult. The words are still meaningful, and hateful people will say literally anything. Why give them any power in the first place?
If someone says some awful transphobic shit, then fuck their opinion and fuck them and move on with your day. They aren’t suddenly some messiah giving you gospel. Dont let them live rent free in your head.
I feel like I didn’t explain the position very well earlier and I think that the initial poster whi called out the word wasn’t as gentle about it as they could have been, which set the tone for the conversation.
It is used in common speech a lot, and because of that I think people should get a lot of grace around it. I mean shit it’s on the planned Parenthood website.
However it’s really not a very precise word. And due to that lack of precision, it is being weaponized by fascism to enact discriminatory legislation.
I pulled this quote off of Reddit and they do a much better job of breaking it down than I did.
Yeah the use of the word is in relation to the edge cases, where it is not useful.
These discussions are around the edge cases. Use the accepted terms that experts use to refer to these people.
It’s not about it being an insult. It’s about being skeptical of the existence of trans people and using language to affect our very real material conditions, like access to healthcare or using bathrooms we feel safe in.
Assigned sex at birth is both more accurate, and more inclusive.
Hey look the firing squad is starting to bend in towards itself.
We gotta make sure we use the right words before we can even begin to have a productive conversation, if those words change every 6 months that’s just too bad, use the current one or you’re a bigot.
I didn’t call anyone a bigot. In fact I took that comment as a good faith question and answered in good faith.
Who’s turning the firing squad around? The trans people trying to educate? Or the ‘allies’ who would prefer not to listen?
“Leftists” as usual, clearly.
Well happy cake day anyway.
You didn’t even debate my point. I was only referring to amab and afabs. I don’t care about the edge cases because they’re not part of the point I’m making. It’s been well known that individuals with XY chromosomes and a penis are biologically male a.k.a amab, so what’s the difference?
I’m asking my own questions to critique your position. I didn’t ignore it. This is a debate technique that goes back at least to Socrates.
Is an xy person born with a vagina biologically male? Biologically female? Biologically neither? Or biologically both?
Edit: Oh I see, the mistake I made was thinking that your initial question was in good faith and now that I see that it’s not I will just put you on block.
What about people with testis but no penis? What about people with XY chromosomes but a vagina? What about people with a penis and vagina?
“Basic biology” is the problem. You think a high school course was enough for you to have a complete understanding of biology. Biology is complex and messy, which your class didn’t discuss. It taught rigid definitions, which don’t exist in nature. Hormones define biological development. Every individual has different levels of different hormones, and also things just happen strangely sometimes too.
There’s also an issue with intersex people where some are born with both male and female genitals and the doctor (without consulting anyone else) may remove components the baby was born with to make them fit the rigid definition of male or female that they decided.
Nature is complex. Not understanding the complexity is fine, as long as you don’t pretend to. If you insist that your understanding is complete though then you’re arrogant and ignorant. It’s best not to be that way because it prevents learning and improving yourself.
I haven’t even had bottom surgery yet, but thanks to HRT my metabolism is much more in line with that of a typical woman than that of a man. Meaning that it is much more accurate to refer to me as a biological woman than as a biological man. So saying I’m the later isn’t just insulting, it is even scientifically incorrect. A trans woman who has received bottom surgery is in fact for pretty much all intents and purposes the same as a cis woman who has received a radical hysterectomy. Unless you call that kind of cis woman a biological man, doing the same to the trans woman is just as nonsensical.
And yes, this really affects pretty much everything: The treatment of things like brain tumors depends on biological sex and if you treat a trans woman like a man you are going to see the same bad outcomes that treating a cis woman like a man would have. Because again: Trans woman are (from a certain point in their transition onwards) biological women. Yes, it changes, get over it.
The reason to talk about amab/afab is specifically because they are the only terms that are reasonably consistent in all edge cases, except clerical errors.
Amab and afab are equivalent to biological male or female, just less explicit I suppose.
Would you still argue that you are more biologically female than male if you considered that your DNA in every bit of your body still has the male set of chromosome?
I’m not arguing against you, more so arguing that the distinction doesnt much matter and could be argued either way. I’d rather just take someone’s word for it when they say who they are. Thats the whole point isnt it, acceptance?
That’s the point: They are not! Any sensible interpretation of a biological sex has to look at the whole system and we have comprehensively proven that biological sex can be changed. It’s a spectrum to begin with. Refusing that is like refusing that irrational numbers exist and claiming that every number can be written as a fraction: Understandable if you subject-matter education ends in 7th grade, but not if you actually looked into somewhat deeper at all.
For starters, define male set of chromosomes. If you say XY, then you will be interested to learn about De-la-Chapelle-Syndrom and Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome.
But even if we put that aside, the thing is: Chromosomes really don’t matter all that much. The relevant differences primarily lie with organs and hormone-levels. Now, there are things you can do with gene-therapy (there was for example that trans girl who used CRISPR on herself to get her testicles to produce E instead of T). So it’s not that they don’t play any role at all anymore when you are an adult, but what matters much more is the overall metabolism and HRT is absolutely capable of switching that around.
Like: Name the difference between a post-op transwoman and a cis woman who received a radical hysterectomy. Their metabolisms are functionally identical and both will have to substitute the same amount of Estradiol, because both lack ovaries. Chromosomes really don’t affect anything here, so insisting that they create a biological distinction, when they clearly don’t have any effect anymore is completely arbitrary.
The thing is: That is about accepting someone’s gender, which is usually indeed the more important thing.
But biological sex of course also exists and the important thing for many of us is that it can in fact be changed and the claim that it can’t is deeply problematic and harmful.
Right, and ‘biological sex’ is used as an exclusionary weapon that affects material policies.
There’s people assigned female at birth with those chromosomes. Are they ‘biologically male or female’? That’s a rhetorical question. The point is sex assigned at birth is a more accurate term for what is put on people’s birth certificates. Because sex assignment, and by proxy gender assignment, is based in sociology, not biology. And transphobes love using the argument from nature to justify real world policies and discrimination based on this sociological phenomenon.
If you’re an ally, please listen to the folks living this and think critically about your own positions regarding these two terms. There’s a lot of excellent literature on the topic and right now more than ever we need solidarity, not more skepticism.
There’s a lot of trans-medicalism in your post comrade.
A trans woman is a woman, full stop.
HRT and bottom surgery doesn’t define a person’s gender. Only affirm it.
That said, I do like pointing out to transphobes that I have less testosterone and more estrogen than my afab girlfriend thanks to gender affirming care.
… They are talking about their lived experience, boiling it down to an -ism is daft.
Her and I already worked it out.
Transmedicalism is an issue in the trans community. You can read her response, she didn’t call me daft. She just gently explained her position.
And I responded with the hangups transmedicalism has personally caused me in my own transition. So that she would have a better understanding of where the comment you replied to was coming from.
NP I did not see that, I didn’t need to comment.
No worries.
Not really, no. I’m talking about biological sex, not gender.
For non-medical and non-biological cases: Yes, and no one say disputes that.
The thing is that there are some people who don’t believe that for the other cases. I’m pointing out that while it is indeed a bit more complicated and takes some work to fully get there, trans women can even medically/biologically be women.
Indeed. They change the biological sex, which helps affirming gender.
Which makes you biologically a woman. I really think we should hammer that point home and not let people get away with it by limiting our criticism to the choice of words, when we are scientifically in the right.
That’s fair.
I just know in my own journey I have asked myself am I woman enough if I keep the dick.
Am I trans enough if I keep the dick. And the conclusion I came to is that if I have a cock or not I’m still a woman.
But yes there are biological differences between myself who is on HRT and myself before hand.
Biological sex is not as cut and dry as you might think.
Assigned male at birth is overall a better more descriptive term, as through medical transition trans people acquire different sexual characteristics.
I’m not an expert in the field but this is how I’ve seen people more educated than me in biology describe it.
Yeah. Biologically, my sex is distinctly transfeminine as someone post transition, before transition, I like many trans people was some variety of intersex, but assigned male at birth puts me into the big bin that means what they were trying to say.
Though also blaming trans women’s assigned sex at birth for willingness to vote Republican is weird considering how much more likely cis women are than trans women to vote that way.
Not just More likely, but historically more likely.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-11-07/white-women-vote-donald-trump-kamala-harris
You are correct, horse_battery_staple. (Sorry). But yeah, a white trans woman who’s a republican is notable, but a white cis woman who’s a republican is a significant portion of my coworkers. Hell, I’d be shocked if we weren’t more pro choice than cis women statistically, not out of superiority or anything but because we’re more likely to have been driven away from politics and religion that tend to promote anti choice beliefs and because we won’t have the miscarriage trauma that I’ve seen drives some women towards anti choice beliefs.
This has absolutely been my experience. There’s a serious problem especially in “Christian” households of women to vote how their husband tell them to.
On a completely different topic, if you find that folk need it, this has been useful in the past.
https://www.mutualaidhub.org/
I’m pretty sure you’re often confused.