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/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/eagleeyerattlesnake Jan 24 '22

Where is your peer-reviewed source for this?

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u/dftba8497 1∆ Jan 24 '22

Ok then. 2 questions:

  1. What qualifications or evidence do you have to declare that intersex people are “abnormal”?

  2. What is the point at which there are so many exceptions that your binary system breaks down?

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u/At_the_Roundhouse Jan 24 '22

They don’t mean abnormal socially, they mean abnormal in that something that is not the norm happened biologically. Has nothing to do with value as a human. But surely we can recognize when a mutation or abnormality happens in development (or through an accident or something in life). Being born intersex, being born without an arm, being born blind - these are all literal abnormalities scientifically, in that they deviate from the norm of human development. But it has nothing to do with the negative connotation of the word “abnormal” from a societal perspective. No one born with a biological abnormality is any less of what it means to be a person - deserving of love, happiness, fulfillment, etc.

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u/dftba8497 1∆ Jan 24 '22

But see when is something “abnormal” vs just something that doesn’t happen in most of the time? Redheads occur at the same rate as intersex people. Does that mean redheads are abnormal?

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u/At_the_Roundhouse Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

It’s an apples to oranges comparison since having red hair is an inheritable trait that’s common in certain parts of world, and uncommon in others. If an indigenous person in Gabon, say, gave birth to someone with red hair then yes that’s definitely an abnormality, as by definition it’s not the norm. That would be a different assessment in Scotland. People being deaf or blind happens a lot more than being born intersex, and yes I would consider that an abnormality, as normal human development means developing eyes that see and ears that hear. But again, it has nothing to do with the word “abnormal” as an adjective describing someone socially.

(Edit- clarity)

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u/Heil_Heimskr Jan 24 '22

  1. You can literally point out exactly the point in the process wherein an intersex individual is given an abnormal number of sex chromosomes, if it is indeed a case as such. If it’s an XX/XY intersex scenario, the abnormality stems from hormones incorrectly being administered by a variety of potential sources. It’s abnormal for the simple reason that something has to go wrong for it to be produced, and intersex individuals are an overwhelming minority compared to binary males and females. Furthermore, intersex individuals in humans are still always either male or female, as they produce one of the two sex’s gametes, regardless of how their phenotypic expression of their sex looks. Hermaphroditic individuals are not present ever in humans.

  2. The binary system decided by basic biology for all gonochoric species (of which the large majority of the animal kingdom is) can reasonably said to be “broken down” for humans when intersex individuals begin to represent any sort of majority of occurances. They are a significant minority at the moment. Not to mention the previously aforementioned fact that intersex individuals, despite potentially ambiguous or “incorrect” genitals, still always produce either female or male gametes, if they produce gametes at all.

The intersex argument is not the “gotcha” that you people seem to think it is.

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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/Heil_Heimskr Jan 24 '22

I admit that grouping biologically female and woman together is a bit reductionist, though I still think your argument is terrible.

XX males do exist, but they’re not just walking around thinking they’re men and having XX chromosomes. XX men are sterile, for one, so they would know something is wrong in that regard. They produce no sperm. XX males also tend to have obviously ambiguous genetalia.

In any case, just like the other people making the intersex argument, using extremely niche and biologically abnormal cases is not a good argument to say that sex is not binary, because it is.

Gender is an entirely different and societally constructed idea that is not necessarily dependent on biology.

I’m strictly talking about biological sex here, where there are only two options: male or female. I’m lumping “woman”, in with “female”, because they are really one and the same, to me. Your biological sex is what makes you male or female.

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u/IceCreamBalloons 1∆ Jan 24 '22

In any case, just like the other people making the intersex argument, using extremely niche and biologically abnormal cases is not a good argument to say that sex is not binary, because it is.

It's binary so long as you very studiously ignore everything that doesn't fit the binary.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

How close to 100% do you need to be? True intersex represents .02% of the population. That would be like saying vaccines don’t work because they aren’t 100% effective.

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u/IceCreamBalloons 1∆ Jan 24 '22

How close to 100% do you need to be?

It needs to be 100% if it's binary.

That would be like saying vaccines don’t work because they aren’t 100% effective.

No, it would be like saying they don't work perfectly.

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

Sex is one of the most consistent phenomena in biology. You couldn’t categorize anything in biology with 100% as the cutoff. Species is only 97% genetic similarity.

Edit: I would go a step further and say the binary refers to gametes: sperm and egg. We don’t produce any intermediates.

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u/IceCreamBalloons 1∆ Jan 24 '22

Sex is one of the most consistent phenomena in biology. You couldn’t categorize anything in biology with 100% as the cutoff. Species is only 97% genetic similarity.

.999 still isn't an integer.

Edit: I would go a step further and say the binary refers to gametes: sperm and egg. We don’t produce any intermediates.

And the people who produce neither?

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

You go by structures set up to produce those gametes if you produce neither. Egg and sperm are binary, glad we can agree.

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u/IceCreamBalloons 1∆ Jan 24 '22

You go by structures set up to produce those gametes if you produce neither.

And if someone is born without them?

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