Science says there's no simple answer to define 'woman.' USA Today

Funnily enough I was going to ask you if the old amelogenin PCR amplification plus agarose gel was still being used, as I worked on this 20 years ago!!

Not sure but I could ask - next gen sequencing is what everyone does now for human research at least. But we do still use PCR for some work and teaching. It's not my field - I'm a mass spec girl!

I guess we've just outed ourselves...wink
Haha maybe - but I've been on mumsnet off and on for 20 years - I think I've probably done that more than once!

[quote Mytholmroyd]@IamAporcupine Did you? Small world!

It's not DNA but peptides - residual fragments of the sex-linked enamel-forming amelogenin protein - very elegant - but only present in enamel.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1714926115[/quote]
Oh wow, mass spec! Funnily enough I was going to ask you if the old amelogenin PCR amplification plus agarose gel was still being used, as I worked on this 20 years ago!!

I guess we've just outed ourselves...

@IamAporcupine Did you? Small world!

It's not DNA but peptides - residual fragments of the sex-linked enamel-forming amelogenin protein - very elegant - but only present in enamel.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1714926115

This will be the Democrats downfall. As with Labour here.
Fuck 'em. They've been warned.

Can’t even be bothered to read the article. Yawn.

DontLikeCrumpets and NecessaryScene - I think you are agreeing with each other. Definitions are not to be found in the world, but instead we (scientists) choose them either to better describe what we observe or to express hypotheses and experiments we wish to test and carry out.

Is it as hard for them to define 'female'?

@NecessaryScene
"Science doesn't determine definitions. It chooses definitions to help it determine facts."

I disagree. I would say that science uses facts to arrive at definitions. Are you suggesting that a scientific hypothesis is equivalent to a definition?

Of course what they mean is, they know and everyone else knows it's adult human females and politically a group of TQ+ people of both sexes who would like the immersive fiction of being in fact the other sex than the one they are, and who do not appreciate such material reality being stated anywhere at any time and have successfully made this group politically afraid to say so.

Regardless of the impact upon the entire half of the human race who are adult human females and bloody need this reality unobscured.

So it's adult human females

And:
At times adult human females who would like to be known as men, NB or other chosen words
and at times adult human males who would like be known as women.

However both above groups rely on everyone actually knowing woman means adult human female, in order to either identify them into or identify out of the category they would like everyone to treat them as being.

But you mustn't say so out loud.

If they don’t know what one is - what exactly are these folks deciding they are then?

Hi @GingerPCatt - a variety of ways - firstly on the skeleton - pelvis, cranium, mandible, long bones. That is usually enough and very reliable (around 95% accurate) if all the skeleton is present.

If that's not conclusive due to damage/key attributes missing/immaturity, we can obtain XX/XY from tooth enamel with pretty much 100% accuracy - cheaper, quicker and better preserved usually than DNA but doesn't quantify how many X or Y is present, i.e. in disorders of sexual development (e.g. XXX or XXY) which is very rare. For that, yes, you would have to do DNA analysis - and hope preservation/survival was good enough - it isn't always - petrous and ear ossicles (inner ear bones) are best or teeth sometimes.

Woman. Its a complete mystery.

@Mytholmroyd Your job sounds really interesting. Do you test the chromosomes to tell the difference between the men and women? What was the difference from the ones you couldn't easily identify?
I'm assuming you're a forensic anthropologist. I've always been fascinated by that.

The answer is, of course, because the whole thing is a load of sexist, stereotypical BOLLOCKS.

And yet,

There is no debate in Ukraine as to who gets to leave at the border. There's no endless discussion and musing over what definition of man and woman they're using.

There's no debate in Afghanistan who is denied education. Who has to stay home and who can walk around freely.

There's no confusion in a packed bar on a Friday night. Some people get leered at and their bum pinched and arms put round their shoulders at the bar, and some don't. Some people do the pinching and the leering and the groping and others never do.

How do football leagues work out who to pay millions a week to? And who to not even bother featuring on the TV?

There's no mistakes at a termination clinic or a maternity ward. No one is there by accident.

Only some secondary school pupils carry spare underwear, sanitary products and painkillers in preparation for managing their first period when it comes.

People who claim it is difficult to define what a woman is should maybe given an IQ test.

This is brilliant!

I wonder if some of these scientists, who aren't actually biologists, don't understand how classifications in biology work (I also don't believe they are really arguing in good faith).
Biological definitions in systematics aim to provide the lowest common denominator not an all encompassing description. Like if I say mammals give birth to live offspring, lactate, have body hair and are warmblooded, then this includes everything from naked mole rats to Amur tigers and the Highland cows two fields from my house, but you couldn't picture any of them in detail based on that definition. So, a definition of women as a human who at some point in their live will make eggs (with a proviso to DSDs) catches all adult human females but it tells you nothing else about them, their looks, their presentation, their likes and dislikes. For a systematicists this is really all that is needed or wanted.

@linguini

I couldn't just rock up into Italy and say "I identify as Italian", and get an Italian passport and have everyone refer to me as the Italian lady, despite the fact non of my relatives are Italian.

No, you couldn't. But you could live in Croydon as the Italian lady, if you wanted to. Because it wouldn't affect anyone else, then. There would be no administrative knock on effects.

Maybe they are scientists of fiction.

A good measure of whether you’re a woman, is whether answering the question of what a woman is with the words: ‘Adult Human Female,’ is likely a career ending action.

Do they have problems defining men, or elephants or a lioness? What nonsense.