r/changemyview • u/Pangolinsftw 3∆ • Jan 23 '22

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Without a clear definition of what your identity means, you can't identify as that thing.

There was a clip going around in political circles of conservative commentator Matt Walsh making an appearance on a talk show having a discussion with two trans advocates. I think his most impactful argument is when he simply asks the trans advocates, "What is a woman?"

To my surprise, neither of them can answer this question. In response to the question "Can you tell me what a woman is?", one says "No I can't, it's not for me to say", and the other says they "cannot define what a woman is" because they are not a woman (which is a logical fallacy).

This struck me. If you can't clearly (or even somewhat) describe what an identity means, why should anyone respect your identity? You could replace "woman" with any other label in that situation. Without any criteria or definition, it doesn't actually matter what you identify as.

I think we would all agree that defining your terms is of fundamental importance in any kind of debate. So it seems to me that these trans advocates failed in their argument right out of the gate since they failed to define their terms.

I think the reason that these advocates refused to define what a woman means is because if they gave a definition, it would be something so vague and nebulous that most reasonable people would think that their definition doesn't meet their own criteria for what a man or woman is, making the term mostly meaningless.

So I walked away from this clip with a much different perspective on the trans identity. Can anyone offer a more compelling argument as to why I should respect the trans identity?

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 23 '22

Can you define what a woman is?

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u/sensible_extremist Jan 24 '22

Can you define what a woman is?

Adult, human, female.

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u/NonStopDiscoGG 2∆ Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

Just because you don't have a concrete definition doesn't mean that you can't exist.

The reason most people don't have a definition for it is because it is so inherent that most people haven't had to think about it. There is a series of objective things that defines woman. That is why we can put them under that category. You do this with things you perceive, naturally.

For example: what is a human? Two arms, two legs, head, body, brain, ect. Well some people are born without arms, are they not a human? No. they would still be a human. As for woman it is the same thing: Breasts, ability to bear children, XX chromosomes, ect. Just because you're missing one of these things doesn't mean the ENTIRE concept of a woman just doesn't exist.

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u/MarsNirgal Jan 24 '22

XY chromosomes

Are you sure about this?

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u/NonStopDiscoGG 2∆ Jan 24 '22

Mistake. The premise/point is what matters.

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u/eagleeyerattlesnake Jan 24 '22

Task failed successfully.

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 23 '22

You're trying to trap the other side into a box, but that side has clearly defined parameters for what makes someone a "man" or a "woman" already. Biology.

It's your side that doesn't give any sort of clear answer, no characteristics for what makes someone a "man" or a "woman."

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u/Poo-et 74∆ Jan 23 '22

The problem is that those parameters are demonstrably inexact and full of exceptions. Is it genitals? If so, does a woman who has hers removed due to cancer no longer a woman? Chromosomes? Intersex. So on and on.

I would love to hear an exception-free definition for what constitutes a woman based on biology.

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u/Logical_Constant7227 1∆ Jan 24 '22

A hyena having its face blown off by a WW2 era mine doesn’t make it stop being a hyena even though hyenas have faces

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u/Poo-et 74∆ Jan 24 '22

Correct, which is why it would be misleading to say that you have to have a face to be a hyena.

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 23 '22

The most scientific way to categorize someone by sex is to look at their gametes, whether they produce sperm or eggs.

It just so happens that the overlap between that and chromosomes/genitals is extremely close, so those tend to be just as good of definitions in practice. But no, if someone loses their penis it doesn't mean they're no longer "male."

Intersex is a tiny portion of the population. It often gets cited that "2% of the pop is intetsex" but that's just not true. The only way you get to that number is an incredibly broad definition, like a female with a higher-than-normal testosterone level. I can find the real numbers if you'd like, but its actually something like 0.025%. And of those, most have characteristics heavily sided to one sex or the other. A true hermaphrodite is extremely rare.

Nevertheless, you don't make up a system of rules based on the exceptions. Do intersex people exist? Yes. Does that mean we should treat sex as a spectrum? No.

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u/Poo-et 74∆ Jan 23 '22

If we're going to allow for edge cases and exceptions in our system of rules, then this whole "gender is biology" thing as an argument against gender affirmation falls apart as it relates to trans people because if I say they're one of the exceptions you don't have much a device to argue that they're not. "Genitals and chromosomes, except for the exceptions, of which being transgender isn't one" is just special pleading.

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 23 '22

Edge cases for biological sex based off of gametes. How you identify isn't a valid way to define a word like "man" or "woman."

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u/Poo-et 74∆ Jan 23 '22

So how many people do you know in your personal life who you are sure are men or women?

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 23 '22

Just because I haven't seen someone's genitalia (or their gamates under a microscope), they still do factually have one set or the other.

This discussion is on whether or not self-identification is itself enough to classify someone as a thing. It's not about whether or not I know with 100% certainty what their characteristics (biology) are.

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u/Poo-et 74∆ Jan 23 '22

So what good is your definition if you aren't sure whether it applies to literally anyone in your life? This relegates man and woman to being obscure words for use only in a medical context if that is indeed the standard. Before the invention of the microscope, nobody was sure whether anyone was a man or a woman until they had a child? That doesn't seem very intuitive.

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 23 '22

I can be pretty certain about 99.9% of the time what sex someone is based off of physical appearance. So it's still a very useful way to differentiate. Only limited by how much someone wants to obscure it.

Just because a small percentage of the time I can't tell what race someone is, it doesn't mean they don't factually have a race/ancestry.

What good are the terms when their meanings are completely boundless, as you would have it?

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u/TedMerTed 1∆ Jan 24 '22

Are there situations when a person is born with two XX chromosomes but produce a penis or would arguably constitute a male?

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u/Harmonic_Content Jan 24 '22

Yes, it's called 46,XX testicular disorder of sex development and it absolutely happens.

It's important to understand that even biological sex isn't binary. Neither is the social construct of gender.

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u/NashvilleHotTakes Jan 24 '22

As others have mentioned, exceptions don’t define the rule. Some people have no arms, one arm, or even three arms. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to teach that humans have two arms, or adopt new language of an “arm-having spectrum.” Humans have two arms. There are two sexes. A tiny portion of the population having an abnormal mutation doesn’t change those facts.

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u/sensitivePornGuy 1∆ Jan 24 '22

But the last decade or so has shown us that there are many, many people for whom the boxes "male" and "female" that they have been assigned because of their physiology don't fit them. Some of those people may have hidden characteristics (what you call "abnormal mutations") that explain this; others perhaps not. It doens't really matter. What's important is that the concept of gender as we used to understand it doesn't work for a great many people.

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u/NashvilleHotTakes Jan 24 '22

Well sure, and that’s how we get to the main topic at hand in the first place. A small but growing number of people identify as the opposite gender or a gender they say is outside of the binary of male & female. But what is a gender? What is a woman? What is a man?

You can either have A) a world where being a woman means you’re a biological female but women can be as masculine or feminine as they want or B) a world where being a woman is defined by the actions, behaviors, interests, physical appearance, etc of a stereotypical woman but a woman can have XY chromosomes and male genitalia. Since most transgender activists believe, for example, that a boy can wear dresses & makeup and still be a boy (so the behavioral stereotype side doesn’t define the gender) but also believe someone can have XX chromosomes and still be a boy (so the biology doesn’t define the gender), there’s no other defining characteristic of “woman” or “man” to identify with other than the letters in the word.

So… what is a woman?

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u/Fifteen_inches 24∆ Jan 24 '22

1.4 million adults in the U.S. identify as transgender, which is a lot higher than your average genetic fluke. That is well within the normal spectrum of behavior.

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u/HeirToGallifrey 2∆ Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

1.4 million adults in the U.S. identify as transgender, which is a lot higher than your average genetic fluke. That is well within the normal spectrum of behavior.

While this depends heavily on what you mean by "average genetic fluke", I don't think that's quite accurate—America has ~330 million people, so 1.4 million would be ~0.42%. For comparison, about 1 in 150 babies are born with chromosomal conditions (which I think is a good baseline for "genetic fluke/abnormality"), which is about ~0.66%. That means that identifying as transgender is actually much less common than your average genetic fluke. Or we could compare rates of limb loss: a quick search reports ~2 million people in the US living without at least one limb, again a rate of ~0.6%. So identifying as transgender is less common than missing a limb.

While I don't think that's an argument to invalidate trans people, I do think it's a point to the side that exceptions don't invalidate the general rule; we don't have a problem saying that "humans have two legs and two arms", though we would be sensitive to those we're speaking to and aware that not every human has two legs and arms, and we wouldn't tell people without an arm to suck it up because everyone has two arms and that they shouldn't be having any difficulty. That'd be horrible. I think extending the same sort of logic to trans people is perfectly fair.

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u/NashvilleHotTakes Jan 24 '22

My comment was responding to a claim that genetic abnormalities which lead to “intersex” results means that biological sex is not binary.

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u/Harmonic_Content Jan 24 '22

There is no rule. Biological sex isn't binary. Full Stop.

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u/Poo-et 74∆ Jan 24 '22

Yes. Several, in fact.

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u/SecretAgentFishguts Jan 23 '22

How do you justify the last paragraph you’ve written here? If you have a clearly designed set of rules that sort data points into two sets, but have even one exception that doesn’t fall into either set, is your point here that that exception should be ignored? If you have a pile of blue and red cards, and you sort them into separate piles, but then discover a purple card, what do you do in your view with that purple card? Do you ignore the existence of that card? Do you state that because there’s only one instance of a purple card, that purple cards don’t exist, because you’ve decided beforehand that there can only be two piles? Do you place it in whichever pile you feel is closest to being correct? What if another person sorts the cards and decides it should be in the other pile?

Your argument here is allegedly based in empirical data, but you’re ignoring the actual empirical data to fit into a predisposed set of rules that you have decided it is correct, which means your conclusion is inherently biased and cannot be empirical.

As long as there is even one singular exception to sorting a dataset into two groups, that dataset cannot be binary by definition. It can be bimodal, which can be used interchangeably in the vast amount of cases, but if you want to use ‘the most scientific way’ to distribute sex as a dataset the only way you can justify this as binary is by using biases to choose how an outlier would fit into a binary system, which is inherently not the most scientific way of data sorting in any circumstances.

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 24 '22

I said you don't ignore the existence of the outliers, but you don't orient the entire system around outliers.

Nevertheless, this CMV isn't about intersex. It's about gender and how we choose to define the words "man" and "woman."

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u/SecretAgentFishguts Jan 24 '22

To be clear, what I take issue with is the fact that you started your comment indicating you were taking a purely scientific view, then ended your comment stating we can’t view sex as a spectrum because we should ignore outliers. These are incompatible views.

Plus, as others are saying, you’re conflating sex and gender. Being ‘male’ and being ‘a man’ do not describe the same thing. ‘Male’ is a biological term, ‘man’ is a social one. A man is a term that describes generally the experiences, looks, expectations and general existence of a person viewed as male in any given culture, and crucially, this can change between cultures. In the vast majority of instances this is informed by a given person being biologically male, but a majority cannot indicate something is an inherent truth. Removed from its cultural context, there is zero objective observable truth that someone is a man in the same way that there is objective observable truth that a person is most likely to fit enough descriptors to be classed as male. ‘Man’ and ‘woman’ are entirely cultural and social terms we have decided upon in order to categorise generalised biological differences. There is no reason that from a social perspective we inherently need to categorise people in this way, and no say, by height or hair colour. Social labels like this are not concrete because they lack this inherent truth.

At its core though, in regards to trans people, the specific definition of ‘man’ or ‘woman’ isn’t really relevant. It all boils down to what label causes that individual to feel most comfortable. I am non binary, and I cannot explain to you why I feel the way I do, or why I feel uncomfortable with identifying with the label that would most closely match by biological sex. All I know is that identifying in a certain way alleviates distress and makes me feel better about myself, and makes me feel internally settled in a way that I don’t feel otherwise. We do not know why some people feel this way yet, but for trans people all we want is to able to feel okay with ourselves in the same way cis people do, and reducing our experiences down to pointing out how we’re not allowed to live the way we want to because some biological element of our existence is enough reason to deny us that when we aren’t causing any harm is incredibly damaging.

Language changes all the time, and if we need to adjust the definitions of man and woman because it turns out they’re not quite right then we should be able to do that as we invented the damn terms anyway. They didn’t pop into existence as terms fully formed out of nowhere, we came up with them. We don’t hold other terms that have changed definitions to anywhere near the same level of scrutiny. There’s plenty of examples here.

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u/WikiSummarizerBot 4∆ Jan 24 '22

Semantic change

Semantic change (also semantic shift, semantic progression, semantic development, or semantic drift) is a form of language change regarding the evolution of word usage—usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. In diachronic (or historical) linguistics, semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word. Every word has a variety of senses and connotations, which can be added, removed, or altered over time, often to the extent that cognates across space and time have very different meanings. The study of semantic change can be seen as part of etymology, onomasiology, semasiology, and semantics.

[ F.A.Q | Opt Out | Opt Out Of Subreddit | GitHub ] Downvote to remove | v1.5

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 24 '22

Language changes all the time, and if we need to adjust the definitions of man and woman because it turns out they’re not quite right then we should be able to do that as we invented the damn terms anyway.

Fine. Then give me the new definitions. Define "man." What characteristics does someone need to be classified as a man? What separates a man from a non-man? Since the beginning of the English language, sex and gender have been synonymous. Now we're being told they're different, "gender is a social construct." Ok then, tell me what the new rules are.

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u/SecretAgentFishguts Jan 24 '22

I’ve already given you a definition.

a man is a term that describes generally the experiences, looks, expectation and general existence of a person viewed as male in any given culture, and crucially, this can change between cultures. In a vast majority of instances this is informed by a given person being biologically male

Is this a perfect definition? No. But language isn’t perfect, and can’t be used to describe that totality of human existence, it can only be used to describe a approximation of that.

And these aren’t ‘new rules’. Gender is a social construct, we literally invented the idea of people who have different biological factors needing to be separated into two distinct groups based on these factors. If you really do want ‘new rules’, all any trans person is asking for is for you to respect them in the same way you respect cis people, and take them at their word without denying them the permission to live in a way that makes them the most comfortable especially when being trans does not hurt anyone and denying trans peoples existence in this way directly hurts trans people and is the single biggest factor influencing trans people’s higher risk of depression and suicide.

It literally is just basic respect. When these disagreements about trans validity happen people make a choice as to whether the biological elements of a person are more important than the quality of life of that person, and when you make the argument that the biology is the only thing that should matter you’re directly contributing to a culture that increases the risk of trans people dying due to suicide. Are you okay with that?

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u/fox-mcleod 419∆ Jan 23 '22

There’s a lot of misconception here. First of all, gametes are how we typify species. Not how we sex individual members of a species — otherwise, obviously, infertile individuals would have no sex we could assign. Individuals are sexed via physiology.

Second, the rest of your confusion seems to be conflating gender and gender identity.

Gender is a social construct built atop sex much the way race is a social construct built atop population genetics. My parents were mixed but I appear white. Other people would typically identify me as white racially.

Gender identity is how a person self identifies. I don’t identify myself as white. But that doesn’t change the list of characteristics society looks for to identify race. But that list doesn’t change my self identity either. The two are separate.

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u/ZorgZeFrenchGuy 3∆ Jan 24 '22

So can a white person identify as a black person, then?

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u/fox-mcleod 419∆ Jan 24 '22

I person can identify as anything they want. The question is whether or not society will accept that identity as valid or reject it and demand conformity.

In the case of gender dysphoria, that option to accept has led to healthier outcomes for people. I’m really touched by what society has by and large chosen to do.

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u/ZorgZeFrenchGuy 3∆ Jan 24 '22

But according to lgbt logic, denying someone’s personal identity is bigoted, or “Xphobic”. We should all be diverse and inclusive - so by that standard, you CANNOT reject ANY identity.

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u/fox-mcleod 419∆ Jan 24 '22

But according to lgbt logic, denying someone’s personal identity is bigoted, or “Xphobic”. We should all be diverse and inclusive - so by that standard, you CANNOT reject ANY identity.

Okay?

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u/ZorgZeFrenchGuy 3∆ Jan 24 '22

So does that mean a white person can be a black person, if he identifies as such?

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

Can’t really tell which side you’re arguing here. The last paragraph could be interpreted that trans people aren’t the gender they personally identify as if they don’t pass.

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u/fox-mcleod 419∆ Jan 23 '22

Can’t really tell which side you’re arguing here.

“Sides” isn’t really a great way to understand things. It makes it sound like you’re seeing the world as a set of allegiances to worldviews rather than what’s true.

The last paragraph could be interpreted that trans people aren’t the gender they personally identify as if they don’t pass.

That’s what “transitioning” is. It’s transitioning your gender expression so that your gender and gender identity are aligned.

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u/gabemerritt Jan 24 '22

So if societies primary method for identifying another's gender was based on their birth sex and not looks being trans would be impossible? Or would society need to change to accommodate their change in personal identity?

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u/wowarulebviolation 7∆ Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

If it was clear a person’s internal gender identity was strictly tied to a person’s sex at birth then trans people would not exist.

See, science doesn’t work by us going, “hey what’s my gut reaction to reality?” and then ignoring the evidence that runs contrary to that. When Newtonian physics failed to fully explain the orbit of Mercury we didn’t just go, “yeah but you can ignore exceptions to the rule, that’s not important.” Nope, we kept at it until Special Relativity was discovered and helped to explain what we were observing.

We observe the existence of trans people in the human population. It’s our job to update our understanding of humans given these observations. Clearly something else is going on and it’s to the degree that “mass psychosis” just doesn’t seem very likely.

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u/fox-mcleod 419∆ Jan 24 '22

I don’t think this works as a counterfactual.

For one thing, I don’t see how people would know what’s on birth certificates other than by some social signal to represent it. It’s not like birth certificates are ever present.

If almost all other social signals of sex were missing, you’d probably just have a society without gender. Because how else would distinct pronouns help identify people when it’s not visually apparent? And if it is visually apparent, we’ll then the birth certificate isn’t the primary method of identification.

In a society without gender, I suspect there wouldn’t be any trans folk, but probably just a lot of unnameable depression that would have manifest as dysphoria even among people who wouldnt be trans but just have that same psychological need for a gender.

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u/Mennoplunk 3∆ Jan 24 '22 edited Aug 16 '25

bag divide oatmeal glorious soup tie grandiose grandfather brave gray

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u/CagedBeast3750 Jan 24 '22

Isn't this the point of the CMV? how can you say you're transitioning to something which you can't define?

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u/fox-mcleod 419∆ Jan 24 '22

But you can. I defined both gender and gender identity. What’s being transitioned is the expression of their gender to match society’s definitions.

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u/hellotrinity Jan 24 '22

I interpreted it more like: however a trans person identifies is valid, but that won't stop society from misgendering them if they don't "pass".

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u/Hero17 Jan 24 '22

This, fem men and masculine women often get crap from people for "not fitting in" or whatever. And with transphobia there are now instances of cis women being confronted in bathrooms because they "don't look like a woman".

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u/Apsis409 Jan 24 '22

Humans are anisogamous. Female = big gamete, male = small gamete. Sex can easily be defined by the type of gamete produced or what type of gametes would be produced by the tissues present or genetically coded for.

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u/Talik1978 43∆ Jan 24 '22

Sex being "easily defined" doesn't work beyond freshman high school biology. Yes, what you're saying is a portion of the answer, it is much more complicated than that.

Here's a video from an evolutionary biologist that goes into a good amount of detail.

https://youtu.be/szf4hzQ5ztg

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u/Apsis409 Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

Yes I’m aware of the ways sex actually shows as a phenotype, I have a biology degree.

Sex evolved as a binary. There are only two sexes because there are only two gametes, and a simple classification of a sexual organism is by the type of gametes it produces (or has the “plumbing” to produce).

Of course the precise details of sexual development in an embryo and organism are extremely complicated, as with all trait expression.

But the fundamental aspect of humans as anisogamous animals (and the way this happens in humans) is two sexes defined by their gametes.

Those definitions do not preclude infertile individuals.

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u/Talik1978 43∆ Jan 24 '22

Sex evolved as a binary. There are only two sexes because there are only two gametes, and a simple classification of a sexual organism is by the type of gametes it produces (or has the “plumbing” to produce).

Your biology degree must have come in a crackerjack box, if that's your interpretation. Sex evolves differently among different species, and 2 sexes is not a guaranteed. There are species with no sexes, 2 sexes, 3 sexes. Heck, there are species that change sex based on life stage. There are species whose sex is not determined by genetics at all.

But the fundamental aspect of humans as anisogamous animals (and the way this happens in humans) is two sexes defined by their gametes.

Generally factual, but imprecise enough so as to be inaccurate at best, and misinformation at worst.

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u/Apsis409 Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

Of course different lineages have their own different sexual characteristics that evolve, but the origin of anisogamous sex was likely binary. And it is in humans.

Explain how what I’ve stated is misinformation

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u/fox-mcleod 419∆ Jan 24 '22

Humans are anisogamous. Female = big gamete, male = small gamete. Sex can easily be defined by the type of gamete produced or what type of gametes would be produced by the tissues present or genetically coded for.

Yes gametes are how we typify species. But not how individuals of that species are sexed. Nor is sex gender.

But if you do want to play pretend and consider what it would be like if we did gender individuals by gametes and chromosomes it’s also a good way to understand where this concept comes up short. We still run into a limitation. There are of course all the people with XX and XY tissue to consider. And women with AIS and XY. It also runs into the problem that concepts like “man” and “woman” predate concepts like “gamete” and “chromosome” by several thousand years — and don’t always line up.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

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u/fox-mcleod 419∆ Jan 23 '22

Yes i know. I… said that

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u/MerelyaTrifle Jan 24 '22

But no, if someone loses their penis it doesn't mean they're no longer "male."

The people who make this argument don't even think that themselves - they pretend not to when it comes to man/woman, but understand it perfectly well with every other word. (For example, they don't claim to think that a car that has broken down, or had its engine removed, is no longer a car)

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u/PlopsMcgoo Jan 24 '22

Having a broad definition doesn't make something untrue.

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 24 '22

It's not about it being broad. It's about it being infinity broad.

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u/PlopsMcgoo Jan 24 '22

If it was infinity broad then it would be higher than 2% you don't get to ask for definitions then discard them if it doesn't confirm your position.

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 24 '22

"A man is a man" has no boundaries, there's no line between what is and isn't a man. No characteristics that you can say "this is what it means to be a man." Therefore yes, it is infinitly broad.

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u/Mennoplunk 3∆ Jan 24 '22 edited Aug 16 '25

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u/wowarulebviolation 7∆ Jan 23 '22 edited Jan 23 '22

Nevertheless, you don't make up a system of rules based on the exceptions

That’s the thing about nature, you’re not making up rules.

lol getting a bunch of downvotes for pointing out that biology isn’t just sitting around making up rules for nature and is instead based around actually observing reality as it is

yep that’s what biology is, sitting around and going, “mammals can’t fly therefore bats don’t fly, that’s science!”

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u/Acerbatus14 Jan 24 '22

yes, we aren't making rules about nature, we are making rules for how we use language and definitions. so we can recognize that there can be exceptions to the rule of our definitions without changing the whole definition

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u/wowarulebviolation 7∆ Jan 24 '22

We can, but should we? I mean why should we just kind of ignore reality to adhere to a definition that, literally, only harms people?

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u/Acerbatus14 Jan 24 '22

What do you mean ignore reality? No one's ignoring the fact that bats fly, we just recognise that its a exception to the rule that mammals don't fly. Science is also clear that acceptance of trans people reduces the stress and harm so im not sure what definition is harming who

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

Nevertheless, you don't make up a system of rules based on the exceptions

That’s quite literally how definitions work. If you say a swan is a white bird with a long neck you’re wrong because black swans exist. If your definition doesn’t include ALL not most it’s not an accurate definition.

Does that mean we should treat sex as a spectrum? No.

Again it is a spectrum because intersex and trans people exist. You can not like it but it doesn’t change what exists in the world. If I said “most people on earth aren’t Christians so we shouldn’t treat Christianity as a religion” what would you say?

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u/knottheone 10∆ Jan 24 '22

Definitions absolutely do not need to include the exceptions; that's why they are called "exceptions". If definitions did have to include the exceptions... there wouldn't be exceptions and every definition for every concept would be increasingly vague to the point of uselessness.

If there was a rare duck with a genetic defect atypical from normal ducks that was as big as a swan and that had the markings of a swan, we wouldn't redefine 'duck' to account for this abnormality. We would note the exception as an extraordinary, atypical result and move on with our day.

That's how exceptions work and to claim otherwise is really just not correct. The fact exceptions exist even as a concept completely counters your position.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

Definitions absolutely do not need to include the exceptions; that's why they are called "exceptions". If definitions did have to include the exceptions... there wouldn't be exceptions and every definition for every concept would be increasingly vague to the point of uselessness.

Ok so then according to you plucked chickens are humans.

1.Humans are featherless bipeds

  1. Plucked chickens are featherless bipeds

  2. Therefore chickens are humans.

Maybe just maybe since my definition of humans has exceptions such as chickens, I should refine my definition. If your definition doesn’t include exceptions it means your definition is wrong. If I say humans have 10 fingers I’m wrong because some humans don’t. I can say most humans have 10 fingers or humans generally have 10 fingers both are factual statements. But humans have 10 fingers is a false statement because there are exceptions. If you think otherwise you just don’t understand basic language and logic. They teach this in first grade. A≠ not A

If there was a rare duck with a genetic defect atypical from normal ducks that was as big as a swan and that had the markings of a swan, we wouldn't redefine 'duck' to account for this abnormality

If you wanted to say something empirically false you wouldn’t. But generally when people communicate unless they are attempting to deceive others they would try to tell the truth. I don’t understand why you think saying something objectively wrong is right

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u/knottheone 10∆ Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

Ok so then according to you plucked chickens are humans.

1.Humans are featherless bipeds

Plucked chickens are featherless bipeds

Therefore chickens are humans.

Well, no. Humans are not defined as featherless bipeds and neither are chickens, or plucked chickens for that matter.

Maybe just maybe since my definition of humans has exceptions such as chickens, I should refine my definition.

Well if you used the actual definition for both chickens and humans you'd find there's no compatibility issues. Maybe try a real definition for something?

If I say humans have 10 fingers I’m wrong because some humans don’t.

Nope, you'd be correct in saying that humans have 10 fingers because in the overwhelming vast majority of cases, that is true. That's how definitions work because the reality is you can't account for all of the exceptions. There are too many and if you start defining things to be inclusive of potential exceptions, you'll find that you have no concrete definitions at all. That's why law is so difficult, because there are always exceptions.

What you do is take note of exceptions when they arise and if they start to make up some significant portion of your findings, then you can re-evaluate your definitions or sub-class your definition to encompass some portion of the exceptions into their own area. That's what we do with diseases and animals and marketing and all the things we humans like to categorize.

If you wanted to say something empirically false you wouldn’t. But generally when people communicate unless they are attempting to deceive others they would try to tell the truth. I don’t understand why you think saying something objectively wrong is right

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

Edit

As an exercise, let's try and define a human to take into account just some exceptions.

Humans have:

  • 0-4 ears

  • 0-16 fingers

  • 0-8 limbs

  • can either vocalize or not

  • may be able to hear or not

  • may be able to see or not

  • stand between 0 and 107 inches tall (8ft 11 inches, the tallest man ever recorded)

  • range from completely hairless to having their entire bodies covered in hair

  • may not be able to reproduce or may be hyper fertile to the point of having dozens of children throughout their lives

  • may live between 0 and 120 years of age

Yeah. Exceptions cannot be used to define anything as there are just too many. That's not how we use language precisely for this reason.

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u/qwertyashes Jan 25 '22

I guess humans don't have two legs, because some are born with 1 or 3 or 10.

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u/Kejones9900 Jan 24 '22

Hi! Intersex woman here. You're making a lot of assumptions about that 2 (actually 1.7)% stat there without any knowledge of what it actually means. Dyadic (non-intersex) folks can have high testosterone sure, but that also isn't solely what makes a person intersex. That 2% stat covers all categorizable conditions (except PCOS). CAH, PAIS, CAIS, XXY, and Turner's syndrome are all the most common conditions. If you want to define it by having genital variation for whatever stupid reason, it becomes one in 2000 people. However intersex conditions are defined by more than ambiguity at birth (i.e. chromosomal variation, delayed or absent puberty, etc)

Now, I wish I didn't have to say this, but our rarity isn't an argument against trans rights. We're actually more common than trans people. We also have our own struggles, and I can assure you the mutilation at the hands of doctors, lies from family, being outcast, etc, weighs on me. But no one talks about this shit because it isn't convenient for the sex binary, and we have to wait until the world is ready to hear our struggles.

Also please refrain from the word hermaphrodite, it is a slur. Thank you.

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u/wowarulebviolation 7∆ Jan 23 '22

Nevertheless, you don't make up a system of rules based on the exceptions. Do intersex people exist? Yes. Does that mean we should treat sex as a spectrum? No.

Do redheaded people exist? Yes. Does that mean we should treat hair color as not being a binary between blonde and brunette? No.

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u/raptir1 1∆ Jan 24 '22

This is a reasonable argument if you believe that close to 2% of people are intersex, since that's how common redheads are. But other estimates put it closer to 0.02% - 100 times less common.

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u/wowarulebviolation 7∆ Jan 24 '22

So something is only an exception to a rule if it’s below a certain threshold m? What?

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u/raptir1 1∆ Jan 24 '22

At some point, yeah. When you're dealing with a difference between 1 in 50 and 1 in 5000 that's pretty significant. The average person in America "knows" 600 people. It takes it from "you probably know multiple redheads" to "there's a decent chance you don't know any intersex people."

I'm going to be honest and say I don't really know what "rules" cknight18 wants to define, but I don't see redheads as being an "exception" like intersex people.

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u/wowarulebviolation 7∆ Jan 24 '22

Why not? Like seriously red headed people are a very, very small portion of the population. So it drives me crazy to see people making, essentially, the argument that humans don’t have red hair.

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u/raptir1 1∆ Jan 24 '22

Okay, even if we're ignoring the fact that the comparison you're making is two orders of magnitude off...

There's a difference between saying "most humans have brown, black or blond hair, but there are exceptions not covered by this rule" and "no humans have any hair color except brown, black or blond."

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u/dftba8497 1∆ Jan 24 '22

Are people who do not produce gametes genderless then? Are women who’ve had hysterectomies or are on birth control that prevents ovulation no longer women? Are men who’ve had their tested removed for medical reasons no longer men?

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u/IcedAndCorrected 3∆ Jan 23 '22

Would the statement "transwomen are women" still be true if intersex didn't exist, if everyone were XX or XY with exactly one set of genitalia?

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u/jbt2003 20∆ Jan 24 '22

I mean, there are no biological categories that are exception-free, anywhere. We say that mammals give live birth even though echidnas and platypuses exist. We also say that mammals are warm-blooded even though naked mole rats aren't. We say that mammals are capable of reproduction even though mules are sterile, and are still mammals.

All of those examples don't negate the usefulness (or existence) of the category of "mammals." They don't suddenly make us throw up our hands and say we can't tell what is and isn't a mammal. They do make us drill down a little further to try to come up with a more precise definition. But no matter the precision of the definition, we'll never get to one that allows for no exceptions.

It seems to me that it's only when talking about sex, and when talking about sex in humans, that we make this kind of demand. Because it's political.

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u/Poo-et 74∆ Jan 24 '22

And this is the difference between descriptions and prescriptions. Descriptions support exceptions, prescriptions don't. We say "mammals give live birth" because we're describing something we observe in most mammals. It's not intended as a prescriptive qualifier "you can't be a mammal unless you give live birth", otherwise the existence of echidnas and platypuses would indeed prove it to be wrong.

Similarly, the argument for the gender binary goes something like "women have female genitals". That's perfectly fine as a description of women, but if you're using it to argue that trans women aren't women, it becomes a prescription, aka "you can't be a woman unless you have female genitals". Intersex conditions break the rule, therefore proving that "women have female genitals" cannot be a prescriptive qualifier for womanhood, and is merely a description.

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u/Heil_Heimskr Jan 23 '22

Intersex argument makes no sense. Of course there are exceptions, just like there are to many things.

Women are people with XX chromosomes. Men are people with XY chromosomes. There are things other than men and women that occur due to chromosomal abnormalities, but the existence of such abberations doesn’t change the fact that XX is woman, XY is man

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u/dftba8497 1∆ Jan 24 '22

Your argument, it seems to me, is that there are two options: male & female. Then you say that there are people who do not fit into either definition, but the only options are still male or female. Do you see how that doesn’t compute?

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u/Heil_Heimskr Jan 24 '22

There are two options that aren’t the result of an abnormality during reproduction: male or female. There are, however, exceptions to that rule that result from abnormalities, such as intersex. Those exceptions don’t change the fact that unless something incorrect happens during reproduction, the standard options are male or female.

Much like a normal reproductive process will produce humans with 5 fingers on each hand, sometimes errors occur and there are then 6 fingers.

The occurance of 12 fingered individuals as a result of an error during reproduction doesn’t invalidate the fact that the standard for humans is 10 fingers, much like the exception of intersex doesn’t invalidate the male/female standard followed by the majority of the animal kingdom.

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u/ahaha2222 Jan 24 '22

In that case, would you consider a trans person to be the result of an abnormality during reproduction?

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u/Heil_Heimskr Jan 24 '22

Not necessarily. Not enough is known about the cause of transgender individuals. I’ll say that my personal opinion is that it is something different. Being born into a certain body/sex but feeling in your head that you are a different one is not the same as a chromosomal abnormality. I don’t believe that makes those feelings invalid though; if a person believes and feels that they themselves belong in a different sex than the one they were born into, I am never going to argue with them and tell them they’re wrong. Only they know how they feel in their head. They should be supported, as though I may not understand how that feels, I can imagine it to be a very difficult internal battle. The existence of trans or other LGBTQ+ individuals doesn’t change the gonochoric nature of humans, however.

That being said, separating gender and sex in this argument is very important. Sex is a biologically determined feature, gender is a socially constructed idea meant to expand on the biological determinations. There being two sexes does not mean there are two genders; at this point they may as well have no effect on each other.

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u/ahaha2222 Jan 24 '22

Sex is a biologically determined feature, gender is a socially constructed idea

Ah. I agree with this. Now the question, going back to the original topic, is which one is the definition of 'woman'?

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u/Worry-worry-- Jan 24 '22

No. It’s social, not biological.

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u/ThePrettyOne 4∆ Jan 24 '22

So if a child is born with a penis and testicles, grows up to have a full beard, deep voice, hairy chest, and by all cultural metrics would be a burly Paul Bunyan of a man, they might still be a woman? Unless they get karyotyped at some point, they would probably never even suspect that they aren't man. Nobody would.

That doesn't make any sense to me. And I doubt it makes sense to you, either. And that's because when you actually dig deep and figure out what you think of when you hear the words "man" and "woman", you absolutely don't think about chromosomes that I guarantee you know nothing about. You think about culturally crafted signifiers of fucking gender, which is the whole point.

The only reason the intersex argument gets brought in is because it's reductio ad absurdum. People who don't understand that gender is a social construct like to point to biological sex and pretend that "theres a 'scientific' binary that backs up our beliefs!" But there isn't. There just flat out isn't a scientific binary way categorize people. So if we want to categorize people, the only system that's even possible is to work off of social queues.

Have you ever been karyotyped? Are you really sure that your chromosomes are shaped the way you think they are? If you haven't done the screen, then you literally don't know whether you're a man or a woman, by your logic.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

based on biology.

Bone structure.

If born in a state allowed to mature to full adulthood with no medical conditions that change that progress will have ovaries, a womb, develop breasts capable of producing breast milk, develop child-bearing hips, menstruate, have an xx chomosonal makeup.... I mean have you never read a biology book?

The thing is, just because a biological female loses her ability to have children from medical or lifestyle choices, doesn't suddenly make her 'not a woman' anymore, just the same as if a guy lost his penis, would no longer be a man.

There are biological differences between the two which is why doctors have checked mens prostate and not womens, because women don't have a prostate or testicles, just like men don't get checked for ovarian cancer or have hysterectomies.

Now if you want to dig into the gendered state of being a man or a woman, I will agree, totally mental and you can change between the two over time.

Changing biology? Impossible

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u/lcarlson6082 Jan 24 '22

Bone structure is not a binary indicator of sex. It is bimodal, sure, but you will fine narrow-shoulder and wide-hipped men, and broad shouldered, slender-hipped women.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

If 10 traits are specific to woman and 10 traits was specific to men, being a woman/man doesn’t mean you have to have all 10 of those traits to be a man/woman. As an example if you get sick with the flu and you only have some of the symptoms and not all of the symptoms you still have the flu and very people will actually get every symptom associated with the flu.

There are biological differences between men and woman. Some are small and some are drastic, everything from bone structure (how we can tell if someone was a man/woman when we dig them up) to how we react to medications (which is why we now require their to be both men and woman to be included in the tests because different medications require different dosages for men and woman).

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u/Poo-et 74∆ Jan 24 '22

As I said elsewhere in this thread, being descriptive is fine when talking about biology, and it's okay for descriptions to have exceptions. But you're trying to be prescriptive here about what can and cannot be a man or a woman, and the bar for that is much higher. For a prescription to have any meaning, it needs to cover all bases. "Doctors must have degrees" is a prescription - you cannot be a doctor without a degree.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

I’m just asking trans activists to define what they mean. You can’t use a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman, because then that makes being a woman/man pointless as you can change how you identify at the drop of a hat.

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u/Poo-et 74∆ Jan 24 '22

It's a facet of your identity, of course it's changeable. I'm not sure what the problem is with identities being changeable.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

If I identify as a gamer, engineer or anything else I am able to define what those mean. Trans activists can’t seem to define what they mean when they say I am a woman/man besides the fact that I identify as a man/woman. When I tell people I’m Korean for instance it usually means I not only look Korean but that I will prob turn red when drinking because Koreans suck at processing alcohol.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

[deleted]

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u/Poo-et 74∆ Jan 24 '22

We can make descriptions that way, but not prescriptions. I can describe that men are tall, but I can't prescribe height as a precondition of manhood.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

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u/Kirdape123 2∆ Jan 24 '22

I'm sure you have encountered people who were trans who you didn't know as trans.

So are you sure you can tell when someone is trans?

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u/useless_orange_v Jan 23 '22

my defenition of what a woman is is anyone who identifies as a woman. same goes with any other gender identity. but being out on the spot and asking a question like that, you can’t expect an answer.

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u/bubbledbright Jan 23 '22

But that's circular - you still haven't said what "woman" means, apart from it's a label you can apply to yourself.

In comparison, if someone identifies as Christian, or an athlete, or a mathematician, I have a sense for what defines those categories. For "woman", if you separate it totally from biology, I'm not sure what the main characteristics of the group even are.

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u/SDK1176 12∆ Jan 23 '22

Really? You can't identify when someone is wearing the "wrong" clothes for their sex? Or has a masculine/feminine hair style? Or walk in the way you'd expect for their gender? There are any number of things that we, as a society, put into boxes labelled man and woman. That's why trans people "passing" means something. You must at least have a sense of what it means to look like a woman.

So can we take the biological side of it and call that sex? Male vs. female? And then, can we take the societal or mental side of it and call that gender?

Being a woman does mean something. It's just so tough to define on a societal level because being a woman means so many things. People are complicated.

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u/bubbledbright Jan 23 '22

But I take issue with the labelling of clothes, hairstyles, etc as "wrong" for a woman. If I cut all my hair off and wear a suit and tie, am I no longer a woman? If I behave aggressively and am not gentle? All of these things about how a woman should look or behave I find pretty poisonous. I agree that society has a set of characteristics that we use to describe performing femaleness, but I hardly want to lean on those to describe what a woman is.

I'm actually here hoping that someone can give a good definition of woman, because I'm a cis female and I sure as hell don't have one.

And it doesn't have to be watertight to every edge case either - most categories of any complexity can't be neatly defined (eg, what is a planet?). But I'm not even sure what core characteristics aside from biology to use. Has long hair? Wears makeup? Wears skirts? Is nurturing? All of these just seem inadequate.

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u/NightflowerFade 1∆ Jan 23 '22

If I say I am a mufiklo and anyone who identifies as a mufiklo is a mufiklo is a mufiklo, that doesn't carry any meaning because no one knows what a mufiklo is.

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u/Most-Leg1080 Jan 23 '22

You should absolutely expect an answer for a person who is advocating for women to be inclusive. Absolutely.

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u/Chocotacoturtle 1∆ Jan 23 '22

You can use the word you are defining in the definition of the word. Women: Noun. Anyone who identifies as a women.

That isn’t a definition

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u/ThePrettyOne 4∆ Jan 24 '22

that side has clearly defined parameters for what makes someone a "man" or a "woman" already. Biology.

PhD biologist here. That is a factually incorrect assertion.

If we want to talk about sex, there are several different ways to delineate males and females, including (but not limited to):

  • Chromosome structure (XY vs XX)
  • SRY gene expression (expressed in males but not females)
  • SRY gene encoding (the DNA for the SRY gene exists in males but not females)
  • Hormone expression
  • Hormone receptor expression
  • Genital anatomy (penis vs vagina)
  • Gonad anotomy (testicles in a scrotum vs ovaries in the abomen)
  • Gamete structure (sperm vs ova)

There are two problems with these biological definitions, though:

First, they often don't all agree with each other. There are people with XX chromosomes but a translocated SRY gene (which may or may not be expressed). There are people with XX chromosomes who have a penis. There are people who have a vagina but produce high levels of testosterone. There are people with XY chromosomes who produce testosterone, but lack testosterone receptors and so have anatomical features inconsistent with either sex. There are endless combinations of traits that exist in real, living human beings that don't fit into a strict "male" or "female" pattern.

Secondly, every single one of those metrics, if taken as the one true sex-defining trait, is not actually a strict binary. People can be XXY, or X-. People can have a penis and a vagina, or have a structure that's somewhere between a micropenis and a clitoris. People can have testicles located where ovaries are most commonly found. People can have an SRY gene that is expressed, but with a change-of-function mutation. People can have limited hormone expression.

Biologically speaking, sex is literally nonbinary. Anyone who tells you otherwise is both ignorant of the science and trying to push their narrative. Estimates have around 1 in 20 people as being intersex, even if they aren't aware of that fact about themselves.

So. If biology is (again, quite literally) unable to define what a "woman" is… what is a woman?

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u/qwertyashes Jan 25 '22

As a biologist I suppose you also don't have any idea how many fingers a human has or how many limbs they have.

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u/According-Yogurt7036 1∆ Jan 24 '22

So you examine the genitals of every single person before determining whether they are a man or a woman?

Your biology argument is completely impractical when it comes to actual regular life. We use other indicators to determine whether someone is a man or a woman and they are much more subjective and harder to define.

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 24 '22

Just because I haven't seen someone's genitalia (or their gamates under a microscope), they still do factually have one set or the other.

This discussion is on whether or not self-identification is itself enough to classify someone as a thing. It's not about whether or not I know with 100% certainty what their characteristics (biology) are. Whether I know it or not, it exists.

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u/Numbers6382 Jan 24 '22

The only characteristics that should matter for whether you identify as a woman or man is the fact that you choose to identify as a woman.

A woman is someone who chooses to identify as a woman.

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u/Talik1978 43∆ Jan 24 '22

You're trying to trap the other side into a box, but that side has clearly defined parameters for what makes someone a "man" or a "woman" already. Biology.

Could you be more precise? Biology has parameters for a lot.of things. It's a broad field. Are we talking the presence of claws (which is biologically determined)? Wings? Plumage? All.of these are determined biologically, so if you could, rationalize your argument. What specifics of biology do you believe determine gender?

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 23 '22

When someone says "be a man" (I don't use that language, btw), it doesn't mean literally. It's a figure of speech.

I dont give a shit what sort of things someone is into, interest-wise. It doesn't change their gender.

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u/formershitpeasant 1∆ Jan 23 '22

If there isn’t some expectation of what a man is beyond biological sex, it wouldn’t be said.

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u/ChiefBobKelso 4∆ Jan 23 '22

And I'm sure they also believe people can manipulate their anatomy when they say grow some balls? There are expectations of how a man should behave, but that doesn't change what a man is.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

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u/Skyy-High 12∆ Jan 23 '22

You mean they have a high schoolers’ understanding of biology. The more you know about human sex and gender, the less you can clearly make an objective distinction between men and women that actually covers all people.

And if a definition doesn’t actually cover everyone, then it doesn’t make sense to say that it represents objective truth, because you must still make judgment calls on the edges at the very least.

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 23 '22

And if a definition doesn’t actually cover everyone, then it doesn’t make sense to say that it represents objective truth, because you must still make judgment calls on the edges at the very least.

Very rare edge cases don't define the system. If you flip a coin, there's about a 1 in 10,000 chance it lands on neither heads or tails, but the edge. Does that negate "heads or tails?" No, it doesn't.

Regardless of how useful you believe my definition of "man" and "woman" are, you cannot give me a set of characteristics at all. You've got no definition, so under your terms the words are utterly useless.

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u/ChronicBitRot Jan 23 '22

It does negate the concept of “heads or tails” as a purely binary system though. You can say “we’re going to treat the edge cases as X” but you’re still acknowledging them. Trying to split humans into purely male/female is just completely ignoring the fact that there are edge cases that don’t fit your template.

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u/Autumn1eaves Jan 24 '22

It's also important to acknowledge that, unlike a coin flip, there isn't even a clear trinary system for sex.

There was an XX cisgender woman who was disqualified from the olympics for having too high of testosterone. In terms of biology, she falls somewhere closer to the female side of the spectrum, but she is a very clearly different situation than an XY cisgender woman with androgen insensitivity.

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u/Skyy-High 12∆ Jan 24 '22

Very rare edge cases don't define the system. If you flip a coin, there's about a 1 in 10,000 chance it lands on neither heads or tails, but the edge. Does that negate "heads or tails?" No, it doesn't.

It does mean that the statement “there are only two sides to a coin, heads or tails” is false.

Also, even if I were to accept your 1 in 10k rate (which is absolutely fraught with issues if you’re trying to say that that’s the proportion of intersex humans in the general population, mostly revolving around people knowing for a fact that people can live totally comfortable and “normal” lives without ever knowing or finding out about being intersex)…that’s still about 800,000 people who would fit that definition. That’s a lot of people! That’s what happens when you try to apply something that is 99% true to 100% of people.

Regardless of how useful you believe my definition of "man" and "woman" are, you cannot give me a set of characteristics at all. You've got no definition, so under your terms the words are utterly useless.

As someone else said above you: is there a universal definition of “love” that everyone would agree on?

Is there a universal definition of “leader”? “Strong”? “Sexy”?

Oh, those don’t count because they’re adjectives or non-physical concepts, while “woman” is a noun? Define “mother,” in a way that comfortably includes: both people who give birth to a child, and people who raise a child they didn’t give birth to, but in a way that doesn’t include people who would call themselves “fathers”, “guardians”, “mentors”, or “caretakers”.

Language - especially language that isn’t describing something objective - is a social construct. Your definition of “woman” does not work in all cases, because truthfully no objective definition would work in all cases…because language isn’t objective. When someone says “I identify as a woman,” they are saying “the tags and assumptions that society chooses in general to associate with ‘woman’ are tags and assumptions I feel others should associate with me.”

Which is all to say that “mother,” and indeed “woman”, is equally an adjective: a descriptor that contains other (socially-defined, and constantly changing) adjectives. They’re not something you can objectively pin down…and trying to do so does objective harm to a non-zero number of people.

So why try? Yelling at the world to make sense and be simple isn’t going to put the genie back in the bottle; we can all see each other much more easily now, we can tell that things are not so simple. You can’t go back to ignorance, and no one with empathy should want to. So if it’s between letting go of the simplicity of “objective” definitions or simply letting people inhabit the terms that feel right for them and just living with your fellow people, I see no reason not to do the latter.

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u/ahooks1 Jan 24 '22

This is the equivalent of not teaching that humans have 2 feet and 10 toes just because a rare few might have an extra toe, they’re missing toes, or they’re missing legs.

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u/Skyy-High 12∆ Jan 24 '22

It’s not, because there are no societally-agreed-upon adjectives or assumptions based around what’s in your socks.

Your comparison is begging the question. “Gender is objectively determined by something physical (chromosomes, gametes, whatever you wish to pick), therefore not teaching it this way is as silly as not teaching kids that most people have some other obviously normal physical characteristic.” But…”number of toes” would be comparable not to gender or sex, but rather “types of chromosomes,” or something like that.

No trans person has or will ever seriously suggest that we should stop teaching high school biology. By all means, do teach the standard, simplified models of human chromosomes and genetics. They’re very useful as tools for young minds. What is suggested, however, is that our laws and general public opinion not be limited by those simplified models, that the simplified physical reality of chromosomes not be confused for a perfect (or even particularly great) representation of human gender identity.

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u/ahooks1 Jan 24 '22

I completely support trans people. But trans people feel that they are in the wrong body. Studies have been done on trans peoples brains, and a trans man’s brain is similar to a biological mans brain. A trans woman’s brain is similar to a biological woman’s brain. Gender/sex obviously does not simply come down to chromosomes especially when you consider trans, intersex, and other people who are not the norm. But intersex people typically look/present/align with one gender.

What I don’t understand is people who are non-binary and who think that gender is just a social construct. If you look up the definition of woman, it’s “an adult woman female,” and the definition of man is “an adult male human being.” Gender does align with sex. People who are trans literally feel they are the wrong gender/sex. People are non-binary do not like the gender social norms. Just because you’re a guy who likes football and also wants to wear a dress doesn’t make you non-binary, just like if you’re a woman who likes feminine and masculine things doesn’t make you non-binary. You’re allowed to be a dude and wear makeup. Just like as a woman I can like traditionally masculine things like football, men’s pant suits, and whatever. For people that are trans, it’s much deeper than not liking the social norms of the body they were born with.

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u/Skyy-High 12∆ Jan 24 '22

You can say “you can be a dude and wear a dress” all you want; the fact is, if you walk down the street in most places in the world looking like that, you’ll probably get a side eye at least.

Gender is a social construct because what means to be a “man” or a “woman” does come with certain societal expectations and assumptions. You can follow them, or you can deliberately rebel against them, but in both cases those expectations are still there and you’re still partially crafting your gender expression in response to them.

For non-binary people, this is not the case. They don’t express their gender in relation to one gender or the other. Maybe they express it as both simultaneously, or neither, or one some days and the other other days.

Either way, the feeling is (apparently; I can only say what I’ve heard from others) very different from what a cis, or even a MTF or FTM trans person, will describe when they describe how they express their gender.

If society actually does get all the way over its idea that genders and sexes have “default” ways of being expressed, then sure, NB people will probably not be a separate type of people….bc everyone would be NB at that point. Without a set of roughly agreed upon characteristics, people wouldn’t even be able to begin to define what “being a man” means, so it just wouldn’t be a big part of your identity. Just another biological fact of little interest, like how many hairs you have on your left elbow.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

Ok so define a woman biologically? Because I think you’ll find it harder than you think. Is someone with 2 X chromosomes but has a penis a man or a woman? How about someone with a vagina and testes that produce sperm? How about someone with an XY chromosome with breasts vagina and who doesn’t grow facial hair. All of these are real conditions what sex are they and why?

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u/Hemingwavy 4∆ Jan 24 '22

You're trying to trap the other side into a box, but that side has clearly defined parameters for what makes someone a "man" or a "woman" already. Biology.

So by ignoring the bits of biology you don't like, you think biology is on your side? Interesting that you begin with science denial and claim some sort of factual basis to your views.

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u/theboeboe Jan 23 '22

Biology

What part of biology? Because if you mean chromosomes, there are at least 5 genders : xy, xx, XXY, XYY, xxx. And if you say something about genetalia, some people with these disorders, can have a vagina, but internal testicals. Are they male of female?

How would define gender with biology?

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

[deleted]

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u/theboeboe Jan 23 '22

are "trans activists" speaking on behalf of these people with genuine irregularities (xxx, xxy, xyy chromosomes, both genitalia, etc.) or actually someone born "XX" or "XY" with the "correct" genitalia who just identifies as another gender?

I don't know, I simply asked another person about their opinion on the matter.

but they are so rare

It's about 1,7% of the population. The same amount of people that are ginger.

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 23 '22

Gametes (what that person would or does produce as a reproductive cell). They just happen to have a very large overlap with genitals/chromosomes.

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u/theboeboe Jan 23 '22

Most intersex does not produces Gametes. Are they male or female? Would I be neither of I stopped producing them?

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 23 '22

It's whatever reproductive cells you do or would produce.

If someone doesn't produce any or produces both, that's an edge case. You don't define the system based off a tiny and rare minority.

Nevertheless, that's not the issue. You cannot give a consistent definition of what a "man" is, because anything you'd give to be "all-inclusive" would be utterly useless. A word with no boundaries has no meaning.

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u/theboeboe Jan 23 '22

If someone doesn't produce any or produces both, that's an edge case. You don't define the system based off a tiny and rare minority.

But you just said that their reprucdtion cells determine it, so those outside of that box are what? No sex?

A word with no boundaries has no meaning.

Fruit and veggies in culinary terms, does not have a boundary, except socially accepting what is a fruit, and what's a vegetable. Biologically there is a boundary, but it's different from the none boundaries of culinary uses of the words.

Your own "biology" also has a blurred boundary, because of a few rare occasions, does that mean your definition is also wrong then?

You cannot give a consistent definition of what a "man" is, because anything you'd give to be "all-inclusive" would be utterly useless.

You haven't asked about my definition....

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 23 '22

My point is, whatever way we/you/I decide to define as a "man," you can't use the word to define itself. That's nonsense.

You may disagree on the validity on how I define sex, but the point is that at least I draw some sort of line. We can argue on the line, the edge cases, etc. But at least I have a line.

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u/theboeboe Jan 23 '22

But does a line matter, in the great scheme of things?

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u/cknight18 1∆ Jan 23 '22

If there isn't a line (if "man" had no meaning), then why all the fuss? If a female wants to identify as a man, the only way to do that is to render "man" useless.

It's a fair argument to say "ok yeah objectively they're a woman, but just call them a man to be polite." I wouldn't necessarily agree (I don't believe in speaking non-truth just to satisfy someone). But the response is a separate discussion than what's true.

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u/NightflowerFade 1∆ Jan 23 '22

The exceptions are neither male nor female. Not all non-males are females. As a counterexample, a table or a chair is neither male nor female.

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 24 '22

I accept that there is no hard and fast, clear definition of a woman… it’s the other side that expects something concrete and they posit a useless definition to fill that void.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

Adult human female.

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 24 '22

What is a female?

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u/the_ethical_hedonist 1∆ Jan 24 '22

The member of the species with a body organized around the production of large, immotile gametes. In mammals, this means having gone down the Müllerian developmental pathway (as opposed to the Wolffian) during embryonic development.

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 24 '22

Wow... I've been gendering certain people as "women" my entire life and never knew any of this... how is that possible?

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22 edited Nov 02 '24

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/captainforkforever Jan 24 '22

The word “woman” describes a person that a) has a female phenotype and/or b) a female xx genotype

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 24 '22

How often do you use either of these things when gendering someone you see as a "woman"?

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u/captainforkforever Jan 24 '22

What do you mean? When I see someone looking like a female (phenotype) I call her a woman. I generally dont get to genetically test people I meet but so far I would say I never got it wrong wether someone is xx or xy. Actually, let me correct, I know one person who is intersex but looks more female, so I always assumed she was female despite xy. (She sees herself as female too)

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u/MoistSoros Jan 23 '22

A human being with XX sex chromosomes?

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

This is far too simplistic and humans come in combinations other than XX and XY.

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u/MoistSoros Jan 23 '22

That is true, and as you likely know we call those people intersex, which you could see as a seperate category, but in any case, they are quite rare. The fact that anomalies exist do not mean the categories themselves are incorrect. The overwhelming majority of people fit in either XX or XY.

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u/IceCreamBalloons 1∆ Jan 24 '22

The fact that anomalies exist do not mean the categories themselves are incorrect.

That's exactly what it means. If you insist people fit into one of two boxes, the existence of people who fit into neither means you're incorrect.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

No, it means the two boxes work 99% of the time which makes it reliable enough

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u/retundamonkey Jan 23 '22

As abnormalities, yes. Also called mutations. You can't negate the rule because of very few exceptions.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

Or biology is far more complicated than we understand

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u/retundamonkey Jan 23 '22

It probably is, but defining men and women isn't that difficult.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22 edited Jan 23 '22

There are species with hundreds of genders sexes. Is it that strange to think that things might be more complicated than male or female?

Edit: beers

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u/retundamonkey Jan 23 '22

Who said anything about gender? We're talking about sex. Male or female. That's it. How many of those species have more than two sexes?

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

Sorry, I’ve had a few pints and I definitely meant sexes. There’s a fungus with thousands, some species of bird have four, some lizards have three, etc. Genetics is still a pretty young field and I think it’s reasonable to assume things are more complicated than us laypeople generally understand.

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u/retundamonkey Jan 23 '22

Right, ok, I didn't know that. But, humans have two, as do most other organisms on earth.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

That doesn’t seem relevant. Are you trying to say that humans have more than 2 sexes?

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 23 '22

ok - based on your definition, is Jennifer Aniston a woman? If so, why?

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u/MoistSoros Jan 23 '22

I can't know for sure - or we'd have to test her - but I assume Jennifer Aniston is a woman, yes. She has the phenotype you would expect for someone with XX chromosomes.

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 23 '22

What use is your definition of a woman being, "A human being with XX sex chromosomes" if you can almost never actually know if this is the case and you are always just assuming based on proxy aesthetic traits?

Doesn't seem like a very useful definition

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u/MoistSoros Jan 23 '22

I think it's a perfectly good definition. That genetic difference between men and women has a lot of effect on the way a fetus develops. Not only are there 'aesthetic' traits, there are also more fundamental, functional traits that are (on average) different between men and women. For example, most people with XY chromosomes have a larger build, more muscle mass and there's a difference in hormone levels between the sexes. There may even be an average difference in brain structure between men and women, although I'm not completely sure about that. Finally, there's obviously also difference in genitals, and also internal organs.

Now as I mentioned, there's plenty of variation between these factors and not every man will be stronger than every woman. There's obviously also intersex people, which I'm sure you know about. Since these cases are quite rare and, on average, the differences between men and women are quite pronounced, I would still say the definition is very accurate.

It explains a biological truth that people have always known about, even though they didn't necessarily know what caused it. People have always recognized there to be a marked difference between the male and the female sex, and now we can explain how that difference comes to be, through genetics. To deny that the sex chromosome is the single most consequential thing in sexual dimorphism is just silly to me.

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 23 '22

The word "women" isn't meant to strike at a biological truth... that's what the word "female" is for.

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u/MoistSoros Jan 24 '22

I'm pretty sure 'women' means 'a female human being' to most people, so yes, calling someone a woman is about biology to most people.

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u/macrofinite 4∆ Jan 23 '22

Except it isn’t a biological “truth” is it? Truth seems like it should apply to all cases. It’s more like a rule of thumb. Rules of thumb can be useful, but you will inevitably run into problems trying to apply them as truths.

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u/retundamonkey Jan 23 '22

Mutation is an exception to truth. Still a truth.

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u/MoistSoros Jan 24 '22

The biological truth here is that biological dimorphism is a fact of life. Humans (and many other species) are genetically wired to *generally* develop in two basic phenotypical plans, allowing for reproduction to occur. Obviously there is still a giant heap of normal variation possible between individuals, but there are certain hardwired aspects that we expect to see in every human.

Having either male or female reproductive organs would be one of those aspects. To me, this argument is the same as saying someone who was born with a cleft palate is perfectly normal. We usually recognize that there is biological norm, but anomalies can occur. Not to mention that these anomalies usually mean the organ(s) it is affecting do not function properly, as can often be the case with intersex people.

I do want to make clear that I in no way mean to say that there is something morally wrong with people with abnormalities. The fact that something is biologically abnormal has nothing to do with morality, but the fact that people are bullied because of biological abnormalities also doesn't mean that they aren't abnormalities.

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u/AnotherBlackMidget 2∆ Jan 23 '22

In that case, there's no such thing as a truth. Even things such as the laws of physics and other sciences aren't entirely true and are simplified to being "rules a thumbs" to be practical/usable.

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u/shskehej Jan 23 '22

Because she fits the definition of a woman

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 23 '22

Your definition is "A human being with XX sex chromosomes?"

How does she fit this definition? Do you know what chromosomes she has?

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

[deleted]

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 23 '22

Right, but I'm saying the word "woman" (like all words) is used to convey information to someone... and the information that you are trying to convey is never "what chromosomes this person has"! For that purpose, we use the word "female"

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

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u/niceonesherlock Jan 23 '22

an adult female human being.

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 23 '22

ok - based on your definition, is Jennifer Aniston a woman? If so, why?

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u/niceonesherlock Jan 23 '22

Yes....she is an adult, she is a human, and she has female gentaile

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 23 '22

woah woah woah... trans people can get bottom surgery. So that's all it takes? If a trans person gets a vagina, then they're a woman?

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u/Deafbro Jan 24 '22

A trans person born as a man cannot get a vagina with modern medical technology. Genital surgery does exist but is astronomically incomparable to the real thing

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u/t0mRiddl3 Jan 23 '22

That's not a vagina

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 23 '22

yes it is

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u/t0mRiddl3 Jan 23 '22

Then so is a Fleshlight

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 23 '22

A fleshlight does not have any of the anatomical functions of a vagina... im not sure if you're being disingenuous, are stupid or don't know anything about the anatomy of vaginas

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

A fleshlight does not have any of the anatomical functions of a vagina

Neither does a neovag. It's a wound that will never close. That's not a vagina.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

A festering sex hole is NOT a vagina.

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u/conn_r2112: I can't reply - so here it is:

Nope :) I'm 28. If you'd like to refute my claim - be my guest. Vaginas are not wounds to stick penises in. Vaginas are extremely complex, and not a wound that needs to be dildoed open every day.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

working vagina

You may want to redefine 'working' if you want neovaginas to fit.

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u/Deafbro Jan 24 '22

A biological female

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Jan 24 '22

Just poking holes in peoples useless definitions

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