Sorority files appeal to man's membership, California governor vetos bill requiring family courts to consider parents affirmation of gender ID, Michigan judges ordered to use preferred pronouns
"[Tennessee] Senate Bill 1440/House Bill 239, effective since July 1, 2023, establishes sex in all state codes as “a person’s immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics ..."
You probably saw this earlier news item along the same line, but, to emphasize the idea, Oklahoma did more or less the same thing in early August:
KJRH: "For example, the Order defines 'female' as a person whose biological reproductive system is designed to produce ova. 'Male' is defined as a person whose biological reproductive system is designed to fertilize the ova of a female."
But while both of those Bills are something of a step in the right direction, the fact of the matter is both definitions conflict rather profoundly and quite "problematically" with the standard biological definitions for the sexes. They stipulate that to have a sex is have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being sexless:
Hardly "immutable". Technically speaking, none of us acquire a sex until the onset of puberty and can lose our "membership cards" in those sex categories thereafter. Interesting article in Wiley Online Library that emphasizes the point:
Wiley: "Another reason for the wide-spread misconception about the biological sex is the notion that it is a condition, while in reality it may be a life-history stage. For instance, a mammalian embryo with heterozygous sex chromosomes (XY-setup) is not reproductively competent, as it does not produce gametes of any size. Thus, strictly speaking it does not have any biological sex, yet."
Thanks Lila. "non-corruptible definition" certainly seems the crux of the matter, particularly given the efforts of so many to bastardize & distort them for fun and profit.
Apropos of which, you might be "amused" by this "honorable mention" in those sweepstakes, courtesy of transwoman Riley Dennis:
RationalWiki; Dennis: "For example, if someone was assigned male at birth, but took puberty blockers and hormones and had a vaginoplasty, they would have 'female' hormones, secondary sex characters, and genitals. So, three of their five ways of determining sex would be 'female'... That means three-fifths of the sex criteria point to female, and only one-fifth points to male – and if you believe that sex is an unchanging biological fact, that couldn’t be possible. But it is."
So, there you have it, right from the "horse's mouth" itself -- best 3 out 5; change your genitalia, change your sex ("Act now! Offer ends soon!" 🙄).
Sadly, many people do seem to "think" that way; a very large part of the problem. For example, see my response-to/conversation-with Christopher Rufo who seems to think that most people endorse what is little more than the Kindergarten Cop "definitions", i.e., boys have penises & girls have vaginas:
Moot of course whether those standard biological definitions really qualify as "non-corruptible" themselves, whether they're the last and final word. Biologists may well find a better one "down the road apiece" -- as the Rolling Stones once put it 🙂. But until that time, I think we're justified in saying that they should qualify as trump -- so to speak. 🙂
In any case, you might have some interest in a conversation and debate on the topic I'm having over on Helen Dale's Substack, particularly relative to that "life-history stage" term and quote:
The article itself, by Lorenzo Warby, is something of a hatchet-job on philosophy in general, but it at least provides some useful discussion of a paper by Australian philosopher Paul Griffiths which defends those biological definitions.
"[Tennessee] Senate Bill 1440/House Bill 239, effective since July 1, 2023, establishes sex in all state codes as “a person’s immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics ..."
You probably saw this earlier news item along the same line, but, to emphasize the idea, Oklahoma did more or less the same thing in early August:
KJRH: "For example, the Order defines 'female' as a person whose biological reproductive system is designed to produce ova. 'Male' is defined as a person whose biological reproductive system is designed to fertilize the ova of a female."
https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/gov-stitt-signs-womens-bill-of-rights-through-executive-order
But while both of those Bills are something of a step in the right direction, the fact of the matter is both definitions conflict rather profoundly and quite "problematically" with the standard biological definitions for the sexes. They stipulate that to have a sex is have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being sexless:
"Gamete competition, gamete limitation, and the evolution of the two sexes" https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990 (see the Glossary)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181020204521/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/female
https://web.archive.org/web/20190608135422/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/male
https://twitter.com/pwkilleen/status/1039879009407037441 (Oxford Dictionary of Biology)
Hardly "immutable". Technically speaking, none of us acquire a sex until the onset of puberty and can lose our "membership cards" in those sex categories thereafter. Interesting article in Wiley Online Library that emphasizes the point:
Wiley: "Another reason for the wide-spread misconception about the biological sex is the notion that it is a condition, while in reality it may be a life-history stage. For instance, a mammalian embryo with heterozygous sex chromosomes (XY-setup) is not reproductively competent, as it does not produce gametes of any size. Thus, strictly speaking it does not have any biological sex, yet."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/bies.202200173
Thank you @steersman for this deep dive on these details. So what need we call for as regards a more truthful and non-corruptible definition?
Thanks Lila. "non-corruptible definition" certainly seems the crux of the matter, particularly given the efforts of so many to bastardize & distort them for fun and profit.
Apropos of which, you might be "amused" by this "honorable mention" in those sweepstakes, courtesy of transwoman Riley Dennis:
RationalWiki; Dennis: "For example, if someone was assigned male at birth, but took puberty blockers and hormones and had a vaginoplasty, they would have 'female' hormones, secondary sex characters, and genitals. So, three of their five ways of determining sex would be 'female'... That means three-fifths of the sex criteria point to female, and only one-fifth points to male – and if you believe that sex is an unchanging biological fact, that couldn’t be possible. But it is."
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Riley_Dennis#On_biological_sex
So, there you have it, right from the "horse's mouth" itself -- best 3 out 5; change your genitalia, change your sex ("Act now! Offer ends soon!" 🙄).
Sadly, many people do seem to "think" that way; a very large part of the problem. For example, see my response-to/conversation-with Christopher Rufo who seems to think that most people endorse what is little more than the Kindergarten Cop "definitions", i.e., boys have penises & girls have vaginas:
https://substack.com/profile/21792752-steersman/note/c-16193243
Moot of course whether those standard biological definitions really qualify as "non-corruptible" themselves, whether they're the last and final word. Biologists may well find a better one "down the road apiece" -- as the Rolling Stones once put it 🙂. But until that time, I think we're justified in saying that they should qualify as trump -- so to speak. 🙂
In any case, you might have some interest in a conversation and debate on the topic I'm having over on Helen Dale's Substack, particularly relative to that "life-history stage" term and quote:
https://www.notonyourteam.co.uk/p/the-failings-of-philosophy/comment/41100436
The article itself, by Lorenzo Warby, is something of a hatchet-job on philosophy in general, but it at least provides some useful discussion of a paper by Australian philosopher Paul Griffiths which defends those biological definitions.