"Cis allies" being asked to provide "protection"

Confusing the ideology, politics and opinions for being more important than consensus based on evidence which is the essence of facts is why society across the world is in the mess its in.

It’s also obvious that a. TRAs have no true understanding of real intersex conditions or DSDs and b. They are trying to lump any minor sex anatomy abnormality into the intersex label so they can say ‘oh but SO MANY people’.

A hypospadia is NOT an intersex condition. An enlarged clitoris is NOT an intersex condition and if teens with these conditions are being told they’re intersex then that is gravely wrong, coercive and disturbing.

The way children are preyed on by this movement is breathtaking. I cannot imagine any other ideology being able to interfere with children and teenagers’physical, mental and (eventually down the line when they’re older) sexual health without so much as a peep from wider society.

This needs to be talked about in the wider press without any of the spin being put on it by TRAs.

chthulucense

"In other words, if you want to know whether someone is male or female, it may be best just to ask."

Why don't you ask Malala Yousafzai how she knows she is a woman?
Or the girls who were raped and abused in Rotherham and Telford - how do they know they are female?
Or the Chibok girls who were kidnapped - I mean if its all so ambiguous, how did Boko Haram know who to kidnap?
Or the numerous victims of FGM all over the world - how do the people who carry out that practice know whose genitals to multilate, how do they even know what to do if you can't tell what female biology looks like? How do you think those victims know they are female? What if they had 'identified' as boys, would that have saved them?
When John Worboys raped possibly 100 women, presumably he drove lots of men around and well. How on earth did he know who to rape and who to leave alone? Do you think he asked them how they identified before raping them?

Human biology is not a human construct. It works the same in animals. The rest is word salad and a political manipulation of language.

You can not change your biology. You remove bits and take artificial things but the underlying bits that remain stay the same. You can't exactly have a skeleton transplant.

Our social roles are a construct which has changed over time.

Consensus over science does change over time on the basis of new evidence. What is being limited is the ability to have a free conversation to reach a true consensus and there are pressures not to explore research to prove evidence to support theories for or against the prevailing political ideology. Enlightenment does not happen in authoritarian political conditions.

while for you it's "just a matter of debate."

No, it isn't. It's a need to protect the rights of women and girls. It's deadly serious to me and many others here, don't you worry about that.

According to that article: 'follow-up tests had revealed something astonishing about the mother.'

Astonishing is the keyword here. Intersex is not the norm. Almost all of us have the characteristics of one biological sex, unless there's been medical intervention. That includes transgender people.

Ffs.

That nature article is AN OP ED PIECE

It’s someones opinion. It’s not a peer reviewed article, or a review, or anything like that. It’s the equivalent of the fluff sidebars that the DM puts out screaming Are our kids turning into knife wielding maniacs?!?!? when there’s another stabbing in London.

I am a scientist. The science says that humans are sexually dimorphic. The pseudoscience and ignorance and general lack of understanding over science in the TRA community is stunning. Any 16 year old with a halfway decent biology A level could demolish their arguments, so think how utterly foolish they look to anyone who is a scientist

It’d be like me weighing with my ‘opinion’ on what kind of structural materials to use in a bridge. I know chuff all about it and I’d look like a twat.

Sorry too soon! It would seem so.

We're not going to have a link off are we?

Before you invoke biology, you may want to check what peer reviewed science is actually saying, folks.

Have done thanks.

Folks?

A dance off might be the way to go angry as long as its not me doing the dancing

Stop appropriating intersex conditions. The scientist is clearly referring to situations where an intersex person has conflicting sex characteristics. In which case it makes total sense to ask them how they identify and respect their decision. Do you think that the same logic should apply for non intersex individuals?

Before you invoke biology, you may want to check what peer reviewed science is actually saying, folks.

That linked article is about two things, the first being that determining sex is more complex than just your sex chromosomes, which is correct. Just because something is complex to determine doesn't make it fluid or changeable.

The second theme of that article is about describing a range of intersex conditions. The existence of intersex conditions does not mean that humans are not sexually dimorphic/that there are multiple sexes.

Can we have a dance off instead, Rufus?

"Some men are small, therefore biological sex doesn't exist"

When you're reaching this hard maybe it's time to stop and ask yourself if determining your desired conclusion and then working backwards in the attempt to find arguments that support it is really the best way to go, intellectually speaking?

"So if the law requires that a person is male or female, should that sex be assigned by anatomy, hormones, cells or chromosomes, and what should be done if they clash? “My feeling is that since there is not one biological parameter that takes over every other parameter, at the end of the day, gender identity seems to be the most reasonable parameter,” says Vilain. In other words, if you want to know whether someone is male or female, it may be best just to ask."

Nature 518, 288–291 (19 February 2015) doi:10.1038/518288a

www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

Oh god

We're not going to have a link off are we?

Therefore biological sex, as well as being construct, is also fluid

Errrr no

Dont disagree with the last few paragraphs of your post but...no

Also, trans women are women. Contemporary law, medicine and biology all recognise this. To imply otherwise is either incredibly ignorant or incredibly bigoted. There's really no excuse to be either.

Biology?! Oh dear, it looks like it might be time for this little reminder again. There really is no ambiguity about this stuff. We all know what a woman is and we all know what a man is.

Biological sex is only a 'social construct' in the same way age is. Not all 2-year-olds and not all 70-year-olds are the same, but there are significant differences between the two groups that go beyond social construction. That's known as 'biological reality'.
I like that way of putting it.

www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

Biological sex is a construct as it is actually the clustering together of five different features - chromosomes, gonads, secondary sex characteristics, hormones and reproductive organs - none of which alone determine sex

And yet the vast majority of mature humans have chromosomes, gonads, secondary sex characteristics, hormones and reproductive organs corresponding to their born sex, unless they have a medical condition or have gone through medical intervention. That includes transgender people.

Biological sex is only a 'social construct' in the same way age is. Not all 2-year-olds and not all 70-year-olds are the same, but there are significant differences between the two groups that go beyond social construction. That's known as 'biological reality'.

I feel I've entered a new speak biology textbooks.
While humans as a species tend to cluster around two dimorphic poles, these spheres are not mutually exclusive, and no single characteristic can alone determine sex.
There are biological men, biological women and intersex people. That's biology.

Now GENDER is a social construct, but increasingly word use is being rewritten. (E.g. woman doesn't refer to an adult, human who is biologically female, they need a new prefix / sex and gender are the same thing, whilst trying to remove biological sex from the debate)

Like many people on here, I will defend tje righy of trans people to live free from harrassment and have safe spaces, but I don't accept the rewriting of facts and the attempt to shut down any challenge of the TRA agenda as being transphobic or bigoted.

I'm starting to feel like the entire 'conflate sex and gender' is fast becoming a go to stick of choice to get women (yet again) to bit and argue back, purely so TRAs can go see! Look everyone. Women are so awful to us.

Not a construct. There are only two human sexes : male and female, both of which are needed for human reproduction. There are also intrsex people who do not want SJWs hijacking their condition.

It has clearly not been difficult for human beings to figure this out prior to SJW insanity as there are 7 billion of us on planet earth and we all got here the same way.

Mumsnet is no place for such intellectual bullshit. It's a site full of women who have given birth and lived the very thing your telling us is a 'construct'. If you were prepared to be even remotely honest here you'd admit your children got here the same way, and are themselves either male, female or intersex. I think you'd be more at home on Twitter.