In light of recent controversy and its handling, the twice-a-year FediForum unconference for April 1st and 2nd has been canceled by its organizer.
In light of recent controversy and its handling, the twice-a-year FediForum unconference for April 1st and 2nd has been canceled by its organizer.
That is usually how males and females of a species are differentiated in general: males have the small gamete and females have the large one. (As you said, some individuals may not produce gametes so it only applies in general).
Of course humans are a lot more complicated. We have a concept of gender which doesn’t necessarily align with biological sex, and many people modify their sex characteristics to match their gender, so applying generalizations blindly gets you nowhere.
Indeed, just as gender is a spectrum so is sex. I love when someone says “Its basic biology” because the best response is “and this is intermediate biology”.
With all due respect, sex is not a spectrum.
It’s a clearly a binary. Yes, there are many exceptions and edge cases, but they are all based around a universal binary biological structure.
You don’t have say three distinct sexes required for reproduction outside of sci-fi. It is a binary with some edge cases and variations in how exactly the two parts of the binary interact.
So on other words, not a binary? What you’re describing is more accurately described as a bimodal distribution.
It’s far closer to a binary distribution than a bi-modal distribution. You can be pedantic, but that’s not a real arguement. I admitted there are edge cases.
This is not tied to pure outcomes and is derived from actual earth bio-chemistry.
There is no triple helix or quadruple helix as a foundational system of genetic bio-chemical reproduction.
When you flip a coin, there is a chance that it will land on the side, yet we still use a coin flip for a 50:50 probability scenario because it is close enough.
Then it’s not binary.
Absolutely. For day to day life, “there are two outcomes” is safe way to describe coin flips. But given that a coin landing on its side can happen, it’s not a binary system. It only becomes binary when we ignore the edge cases. Just like sex…
And that’s before we get to the point that there isn’t even a single definition of sex that accounts for all scenarios. People can change their legal sex, people can change their morphological sex, “genetic sex” isn’t foolproof, as it doesn’t always correlate with morphological sexual characteristics, or even gamete production.
Calling sex binary is either a generalisation, or something you want to be true. At no point is it reality of the situation though…
I strongly disagree. I am only happy for people to be the best version of themselves and to feel comfortable in their skin.
Changes in legal or morphological sex is not relevant. This is not what we are discussing.
I already mentioned that there are edge cases. Edge cases do not discredit foundational frameworks that define reality.
The bio-chemistry of terrestrial life is built upon a binary sex framework. This has been true for hundreds of millions of years. There is no such things as a triple helix or quadruple helix in terms of reproduction. Even trees and plants have a binary sex.
You claim that this is something I want to be true. I would argue the same (on a vice versa basis) for you and that you’re framing the discussion using irrelevant examples (how is a morphological change in sex even relevant to what we are discussing).
Of course they’re relevant. I’m trans, and I’m cis passing. Sex being immutable, easy to define and binary is at the core of the tactics that transphobes use to exclude and legislate against trans folk.
So the fact that it’s not easy to define, has multiple definitions in different contexts, and has no single definition that works in all instances is very relevant.
You talked about “genetic bio-chemical reproduction” earlier. There are women who have literally given birth, who have XY chromosomes. Similarly, there are XX men with SRY genes. Using your “genetic sex is the truth” approach, they are both folks with a different genetic sex to their physical and legal sex. A transphobe would catch those people and throw them under the bus too whilst they target trans people.
Yep. I’ll agree with that. But the framework it is built on is not the end result. There is no meaning or intent behind the framework. There is nothing about it that is more “real”.
The real part isn’t the genetic plan that was used to create someone. The real part is the body they’re actually walking around in.
To you, this is all an interesting argument. You’re arguing about things in black and white, because none of it actually matters to you. So you can argue for how you think things should work.
The very same arguments you are using are being weaponised and turned against gender diverse folk and intersex folk. Your re-use of them, arguing about some sort of ideal that exists only in your head isn’t harmless. The fact that sex is nuanced, that gender is nuanced, that they both have multiple, contradicting definitions, and neither have a single definition that is more true than the others is incredibly important, because the only reason to ignore that is either to hurt people, or because you’re so far removed from the reality of what’s happening, that you place a higher priority on things being neat and tidy than on the people that false belief hurts.
Let me take a step back for a second.
We are not discussing the strategies used by the far right to demonize trans folk (or anyone else). We are discussing something completely different that has no bearing on the strategies used by the far right. What will me moving away from what you call “my ideal” change in this world?
Let’s say we have some deus ex machina method to close the discussion around the nature of sex and make everyone believe that sex is a spectrum.
Do you really think this will magically get rid of transphobia? I would even go as far as saying a lot of the people who claim to be concerned about “trans issues” don’t actually care about them and they are simply being led by oligarch propaganda. And oligarch propaganda will leverage anything that they think will have an impact.
So how will me rejecting my understanding of genetic bio-chemical reproduction (as is proven by hundreds of millions of years of life on earth and the a reproductive framework that span millions of species) change anything?
Do you see what I am getting at?