How accurately do humans identify biological sex?

I agree, Quixote9. OTOH, identifying a person by their biology is stunningly easy. But we have to lie to validate another person's feelings.

Biology prof here, so I have huge issues with the whole sex recognition business. The underlying sex is so hugely obvious that, for instance, facial hair on a transman just looks glued on and breasts on a transwoman seem prosthetic. The hairline is different, though that can be altered. The line of the cheekbones relative to the jaw is different. The neck is different. Hands, also as has been mentioned, and feet. The angle of the thigh relative to pelvis and relative to lower leg. It just goes on and on.

So with all the automatic processing ticking all the boxes on one side, the mental gymnastics necessary to use a preferred pronoun which contradicts all that is a major effort. He-click-hum-no-wait-not-he-something-else-she-no-no-no-he-no-no-just-told-me-they. I don't mind doing the gymnastics for kindly people, and it's probably helping prevent Alzheimers, but it is a fact that it's not completely easy.

Apologies for the rude comment the other day @SuitedandBooted

Why is SMG moaning about misgendering. This is a feminist forum, there's no such thing as misgendering, that's trans talk. Correctly identifying a person's sex is important to feminists as feminism is for women.
No, most people won't misgender in work because they are scared.
That's patriarchy for you.

I assume my comment has already been said by a pp- but of course human can detect sex by eye 99.9% of the time.

I agree that passing in real life is 99.99% a myth.
I knew a very lovely TIM who passed very well... almost. We (myself, dh & a friend) clocked them immediately, though of course this didn't effect how we treated them, they were welcomed into the family.

I agree with the previous posters, it was the uncanny valley thing. I felt like something was off, like I was being tricked, something I couldn't articulate that made me take closer notice. I didn't think they were a danger, they were a lovely person.
I second guessed myself based on other contextual information - mainly the person they were dating. Stereotypical 'gay panic' guy, I honestly was afraid for the TIM's safety.

The very purpose of puberty, is to indicate when a human is gearing up for mating/be able to bear young. Females hips widen to bear a child, they menstruate to ovulate eggs to be fertilised, they develop breasts to feed offspring.

Males testicles enlarge and begin producing sperm/semen, they develop broader shoulders, voices deepen, muscle mass increases.

Humans are inherently able to distinguish between the two, for the purpose of procreation, it is a basic human instinct.

Anyone who argues it is not, or that you cannot tell in almost all cases whether someone is male or female (without surgery etc being used to mask ones true sex) is delusional, no study is needed. Mankind and our increasing population is the best example there is.

*Come to Manchester Lass.

There are many transwomen out and about on a Saturday and Sunday.

They are ostensibly men doing a parody of a woman. Mind you they don't at all threaten me in any way. *

There is (was? I don't go out much nowadays) a club off Canal Street that admits Drag Queens and Transwomen for free (and charges everyone else).

Thus, those performing femininity are pleased to be charged entry as it means their performance is successful.

This is a very clever marketing ploy by the bar (who probably just charge almost everyone, anyway).

Oh, and these are the photos that I remember being used for the press campaign to shift Tara

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3294717/Transgender-prisoner-moved-women-s-prison.html

So seeing Tara Hudson contorted, posed faking, pretending for a publicity shot is the 'real' but the shot of them built like a brick shit house, massive male entitlement and towering over their mum walking down the street is the 'unreal' one.

I thought of those pics as soon as I saw the Munroe conversation here. Tara passed VERY well in the posed (and possibly photoshopped) pics chosen to manipulate the public into moving them and their penis into a female prison. However further photos show that Tara is unmistakably male, very obviously so.

a huge market demand from TIMs for training by women in how to come across as less masculine

There are places that show cross-dressing men how to dress / walk in a 'female' way. I suspect that TIMs, as they 'identify' as female feel that they don't need this.

Good point, maybe that’s why it doesn’t ring true - they’re playing at being the type of woman that men want. Whereas we are happy to be brash and unladylike, to talk in a throwaway manner without sounding like we’re trying to say everything very deliberately.

Fat fingers/autocoriander-fail: *Too busy telling us their being male isn't 98% immediately obvious to us.

Probably doesn't help that these guys get all their "passing" tips from other guys. I mean, you'd think with so many coming out as "trans" these days, there's be a huge market demand from TIMs for training by women in how to come across as less masculine, that they'd be lining up to ask our advice on what gets them clocked by us.

But since most of them are hetero males, of course they still carry the arrogant belief that they know better than us how to do the womanning. (And they're too busy telling us that their brings me isn't 98% immediately obvious to us.)

Angry I think you’re right, sometimes you will see guys banging on about how gorgeous a woman is when you can see that she’d be pretty plain without all the make up, but has blonde hair and big tits so that is shorthand for gorgeous, even if she has a face like a bag of spanners.

Sometimes I think that some men would get an erection over a traffic cone if someone glued fake boobs to it and drew lips on with lipstick a few inches above, and then popped a blonde wig on top.

The fact that some men's sexuality is broken in that particular way tells us absolutely nothing about how women perceive sex.

I think it becomes most obvious when watching them perform womanhood. The artificially soft voice, the ‘ladylike’ poses, the demure demeanour, most regular women don’t behave like the parody of womanhood that we see played out by those who are trying desperately to pass. That’s when I think the uncanny valley thing happens - even when someone looks very feminine, the ‘acting’ is glaringly obvious and jarring.

I’m sure there are those who pass, but I think that women especially are able to spot them as ‘not us’ more easily than men can spot them as ‘not women’.

Re Suited's video, Bergdorf looks like a man who's had plastic surgery, so no surprises that a child assumed he was male. Suited is not a bad parent for not training her son to assume that anyone with long hair is female.

On the main topic, of course we can tell what sex people are in the vast majority of cases. Even with the people most would refer to as androgynous you can usually tell their sex at the second glance if not at the first. One thing that I have noted is that there seems to be a correlation between autism and not being good at telling sex by looking at faces and thus relying more on superficial gender markers, which might be an interesting thing to look into in terms of how many young trans people are on the autism spectrum. Maybe they think most people can't tell because they can't tell themselves.

Yes, we can always tell. Nuances register quite quickly.

It's one thing to have official still photos - coiffed, artful make-up, posed for the camera, and then photoshop.

It's totally another to watch movement, to hear voice, and to smell.

you can just always tell. always. it's something quite primal.

Aha we maybe have a mystery interloper lol.

I think it gets much harder to tell as people get older - I guess post-menopause when hormones alter, but in this society where people work to maintain a 'youthful look', I would imagine it might take until people were 70+ to pass. In typical aging, a man's voice gets higher, a woman will lose some of her high notes. Skin quality changes, height changes, hair patterns change, gait changes, less fat deposits around face and hands. I've often thought that my older patients can be much harder to spot as male/female immediately. But I am certain that some trans people would pass with me at most ages; obviously I do see trans people and the ones I spot are really obvious within a few seconds, but which ones am I missing?

Ah. That would explain why the two people look so different. I can see the similarity between Hudson and h** mother; however, the very tall person in the photograph bears no resemblance to either person.

Now look at this photo taken when Hudson was attending court (that's Hudson's mother on the left). Much more obvious that Hudson is a transwoman when seen next to someone else, particularly if the other person is female

I'm not sure the very tall, skinny person behind Tara's mother is Tara Hudson. I think that photograph might be of a supporter at the appeal.

Yes quite a difference Olennas. is that really TH though I thought this was her www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/tara-hudson-the-harrowing-reality-of-being-a-trans-woman-in-an-a/

Seems confusing, who is who? I know this is not really relevant but I'm curious now. This is Tara with dark hair:
choiceradio.co.uk/transgender-prisoner-tara-hudson-calls-for-reform/

This is her mother Jackie:
www.express.co.uk/news/uk/614886/Tara-Hudson-Transgender-Jackie-Brooklyn-Prison-Bristol-Magistrates-Female-Assault