Why do people use human abnormalities to prove sex isn’t binary?

Actually this idea of a “female brain in a male body” could be very interesting to research - if you could find enough trans men and women you could scan their brains and measure the overall size of the brain, % of grey matter and size of the hippocampus and amygdala.

It would be absolutely fascinating to discover if trans identifying people had a brain physiology more similar to the average brain of the gender they are identifying into. And if yes, does that mean we could diagnose someone who has a likelihood of having feeling of being “born in the wrong body”?

stanmed.stanford.edu/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different/

It's the Trumpian 'flood the zone' technique, whereby they are throwing out lots of information to try to confuse/distract you.

They're trying desperately to muddy the waters, put doubt in your mind, so you forget the core principles.

This. Although, so many other great comments

there’s a thread trundling on currently that illustrates this perfectly

You do realise a lot of people are just plain stupid don't you?

Thread on this deconstruction method.

x.com/wokal_distance/status/1290479330477240320?s=46&t=TMUOZCqGbx3Pv9MjeQqrig

Trans ideology has used dsd in two different ways. One was to claim trans is a dsd of the brain. Its where the female brain in a male body comes from.

The other idea is that a trans person who is modifying their body becomes 'intersex' - they become outwardly one sex and internally the other.

Lots of people who have been, quite frankly, conned by this, are now claiming that sex is so complicated and DSD are so common, we cannot possibly know a persons sex 9,999 out of 10,000.

They are either
a) brainwashed
b) too dim to understand the truth or
c) desperate and a vague hope of bamboozling general people who haven’t given it much thought is all they have left.

It makes as much sense as trying to argue that because some people don't have two legs, that humans aren't bipedal.

And confirmation bias. If someone wants to find evidence to support their felt sense of be kind then they will.

As ever, comedy - funny because it is so ridiculously implausible - predicts reality.

No need for the computer program, just TRAs.

Here's one of their tactics: posting links to highly-specialised articles which may or may not support their argument, but they claim they do, and they bet on nobody having the specialist knowledge to say otherwise.

The condescending, blinding with science 'educate yourself - you might benefit from reading this this and this' is a common tactic. It tends not to work very well on here because we are fortunate to have some very knowledgeable women who are qualified to assess these scholarly articles and call BS, if appropriate.

.

Nice question.

I agree with a lot that's been said, especially the destabilising and needing to sound scientific.

Also, there's this trend towards individualism as if any idea that treats people as units of a larger whole is somehow unkind. Subjective experience rules. And any generalisation is suspicious because of hearsay and anecdote that contradicts it. Ironically that actually reduces personal choice and responsibility rather than increases it.

Just to chuck some thoughts out there...

"Cigarettes are not bad for you because my grandad smoked his whole life and didn't get ill"

"BMI is faulty because it doesn't work on an individual basis"

I think the internet and context collapse have something to do with it as well. And confirmation bias. If someone wants to find evidence to support their felt sense of be kind then they will. Not to mention if they have a strong sense of "sides" i.e. this person who is on my side says it so it must be true.

You are quite right to question this OP, it is a political action of leveraging a group's medical condition to destabilise established science.

Of course, queer theory needs this destabilisation so that it can rebuild language to suit the theoretical framework. That being that a male person can be female in any way and can be included in the language needed for female people to use to uniquely describe themselves.

The group who supports that the philosophical belief of gender is prioritised over sex often leverage other group's axis of oppression as well. For instance, those who are same sex attracted and sometimes those who face racial discrimination.

Here is an example of leveraging other groups through forced teaming in this Messaging Guide : Transgender Youth and the Freedom to Be Ourselves

From December 2021
Transgender Law Center

static1.squarespace.com/static/5fd0f29d0d626c5fb471be74/t/61b13d00236e2f7f2dbb9a36/1639005441624/Transgender+Youth+and+the+Freedom+to+Be+Ourselves.pdf

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/4439659-Ryan-Grim-results-of-latest-trans-activism-poll-A-tweaked-playbook-for-the-US?reply=113763453

As posters have mentioned. This is usually also done to add legitimacy and to create an emotional response. Utilising that emotional response is manipulative.

Whilst steadfastly ignoring or refusing to engage with counter arguments that highlight the problematic nature of 2 + 2 = 5 for others.

That's great @lechiffre55 !

I think it’s part of a policy of hooking onto other causes to add to legitimacy. It is tricky, I have lots of sympathy for people who have dsd. It must be incredibly difficult. I’d agree with PP abiut the using of trans children, There’s has been an encouragement to weaponise mental health and suicide ideation in children.

Its obfuscation, sex is a spectrum, dsd’s, brainwaves, hormones. Clownfish can change sex! Be kind. No debate ( don’t think about this too much or you are a bigot / transphobic / akin to a nazi).

I think it’s why TRAs are so quick to disavow the Isla Brysons of the world. If they honestly believed they’d be declaring him a woman and campaigning for him to be in a woman’s prison. They know it won’t wash so it’s back to let’s look over here.

I’m genuinely tired of the how would I possibly know my / anyone’s sex as I can’t see their chromosomes. Pretty sure you can tell at a glance 99%+ of the time.

Because they have no better argument. They are clutching at straws.

There's an old American lawyer's saying.

When the law is on your side bang on the law.
When the facts are on your side bang on the facts.
When neither the facts nor the law are on your side bang on the table.

This is them banging on the table.

try to prove……..

In a futile attempt to validate their fetishisms and also to compel everyone to go along with the lies.

Because wibbling on about DSDs is a convenient distraction from discussing whether people who are unambiguously male and don't have a DSD should be given an all access pass to female only spaces based on nothing more than how they claim to feel inside.

Of course sex is binary. That's why the very tiny number of people who aren't completely unremarkable XY males or XX females are considered to have a disorder.

They're clutching at straws and/or aren't very intelligent.

Because they are evil and happy to exploit these people who have told them time after time that their health conditions are not relevant to this argument.

The curiosity show approach draws people in, clearly provides a platform for scientific research according to a previous poster who was describing papers looking at trans identification in twins.

it’s also all a very lucrative industry (surgery, hormones, campaigning, charities etc) and they need to provide a scientific backdrop.

It is because the ultimate aim is validation at all costs. So the collateral damage of damage to children, massive insult to people with DSDs and the stripping away of single sex services mean nothing in the greater case of meeting the needs of trans identifying men. And to do this you either have to force people to accept that gender identity always trumps sex (ie biological sex is a transphobic dog whistle) or that sex isn’t binary. They use people with DSDs to try and prove the latter.