To think that the sex of cats is not on a spectrum?

[FindTheTruth]

Just saw this comment in the comments section of Times Article today talking about Play for Women taking taking the ONS to court for redefining sex in the census

Comment:
I thought that it was an exaggeration that there were extremists who denied sex. Then I went to a local meeting about the toilets in our town. Person after person stood up to say that segregating them by sex was wrong because “sex is reductive and must be replaced by gender identity”. My father - a retired vet - got chatting to one of them afterwards and asked if he knew humans are mammals.
“Ye-es,” he said.
“And if you were to get into breeding other mammals as pets - you would know which cat was of the sex class that could get pregnant by observing their sex organs. So you see, sex is not reductive but instead an absolute basic fundamental in the classification of mammalian life.”
His stupefying reply: “sex is a spectrum, so there would be no guarantees. In that scenario I’d buy a group of cats, leave them alone and they’d figure it out. By the way, you sound like a transphobe.”

AIBU To think that the sex of cats is not on a spectrum?

My childhood pet cat identified as the Queen of Sheba.

On the (non) argument that only a vanishingly small number of women may be effected by trans inclusion. Flip it on its head. Give one good reason why a vanishingly small number of trans people should, just because they want to compete in sport or whatever, bring about a wholesale change to sporting rules, social norms, sexual relationships and common terminology?

Women athletes are going to die’ (paraphrased) has entertained me though in its utter nonsense, I guess the whole debate is a moot point as all the female athletes will die off soon

The two women who had their skulls fractured by Fallon Fox might not feel it’s nonsense.

From the ONS. You think there's nothing to be worked up about tgat you can make up your sex? How will that give an accurate figure?

I can see what you're saying, but I think the inclusion of the gender identity question will make the sex one more accurate.

Transgender individuals will have been recording their sex as whichever they identify with, for a long time. Including on the last censuses. Nothings changed there. This additional option means they can be more specific and I think, increase the accuracy of the sex question.

Besides there are always inaccuracies on the census and the percentage affected is tiny. I still can't get worked up about it.

I think I will record as agender though. I also don't really have one.

I can see what you're saying, but I think the inclusion of the gender identity question will make the sex one more accurate.

How is putting down 'female' for sex and gender when you're born male (as an example), accurate? The sex response is a lie, and tells the reader that person is female, when they only ID as one. It is utterly pointless having both sex and gender as a 'put down what you feel rather than the facts' option, we may just well have gender if that's the case.

I will write in 'gender atheists' if I must and make clear I don't believe it's anything but a belief system that I don't follow.

@Shannon9873 but don’t you understand that it’s the principle that matters? If ‘Brenda’ gets pushed out of first place in an egg and spoon race because the person formerly known as ‘Kevin’ beat her (by virtue of the well documented fact that biological men are stronger and faster) and this is ALLOWED in law then this gets allowed in all other areas such as:
Women in prisons sharing with men
Women in single sex spaces being vulnerable to men (including underage females, elderly and frail females, victims of sexual assaults, religious women who can’t adjust hijabs with men present etc)
Women applying for bursaries, awards and scholarships which are meant to level out disadvantages based on their sex- like time out for maternity leave etc.

If the legal principle of ‘Kevin’ in the egg and spoon race exists then you have to extrapolate it to all areas.
That’s the point. And it WILL affect all women. It already does, and the fact we’re now unable to talk freely about women, biology and sex makes it even harder to retain our sex based rights.

Cheers to your dad, OP, for trying to explain reality to someone who thought cats might identify as transgender! Good man. I’m glad vets still understand mammal biology.

[quote YouSetTheTone]@Shannon9873 but don’t you understand that it’s the principle that matters? If ‘Brenda’ gets pushed out of first place in an egg and spoon race because the person formerly known as ‘Kevin’ beat her (by virtue of the well documented fact that biological men are stronger and faster) and this is ALLOWED in law then this gets allowed in all other areas such as:
Women in prisons sharing with men
Women in single sex spaces being vulnerable to men (including underage females, elderly and frail females, victims of sexual assaults, religious women who can’t adjust hijabs with men present etc)
Women applying for bursaries, awards and scholarships which are meant to level out disadvantages based on their sex- like time out for maternity leave etc.

If the legal principle of ‘Kevin’ in the egg and spoon race exists then you have to extrapolate it to all areas.
That’s the point. And it WILL affect all women. It already does, and the fact we’re now unable to talk freely about women, biology and sex makes it even harder to retain our sex based rights.[/quote]
And it’s already happening here. A teenage family member missed out on a place in the championship squad because someone not born female decided they wanted to participate in the girls race.

None of the parents felt that they could make any fuss about the obvious injustice and stand up for their girls. How depressing.

*Ok hands up, how many of you here have been pushed out of sport or have a family member/friend who has?

Really, none of you?

See, that’s what I mean, there’s the odd fringe case now and then but it’s all a bit of a non-issue*

You are joking? I fucking have. And I'm not the only one. We've been threatened with discinplinary action because we refused to follow a policy that lets men into womens sport, boys line up with girls and males now can change with the girls because their penis is now female.

@Coffeeandaworry

My female cat 'phantom sprays', where she appears to be spraying like a male cat but with no urine. I've never seen it before but it's known to happen.

We had a queen and four (neutered) toms. The queen used to 'phantom spray' too - our vet said it was a sign of dominance/marking her turf, because even though no spray came out... her scent was still there. In fairness, she was "top cat" as the toms (and our dog) were all slightly terrified of her!

Also, chickens change genders - again rare, I think 1 in 100,000 if I'm remembering the statistics correctly - but it happens. We had a hen, whom we'd seen lay eggs (put my son off eggs for life...), become a rooster. Grew more wattle, started to crow, even had little stubby talons at the back of the feet start to form. We already had a rooster, but he preferred to spend his time perched on me, so one of our hens instinctively seems to have decided they needed to step up and protect our little flock. Again, to do with dominance. Of course our little hen-to-rooster couldn't fertilise any of the eggs - although they did mount one of our hens, so they gave it a fair go! - and according to our vet, would have had an injury to one of the ovums, or perhaps even a tumour, causing them to produce more testosterone than normal, thus changing them from female to male. Knowing how much of a Mama's Boy our actual rooster was, though, I'm more inclined to go with our family's theory than our "miracle hen" simply went "oh, fucking hell... someone's got to sort things out!" and physically altered their biological sex.

So it's not entirely beyond the realms of possibility, but... as mad as our world has become, I find the above anecdote implausible. Unless you were there, taking notes, for example, FindtheTruth (ironic name, if ever I've heard one on here!)?

This is equally depressing and hilarious. The sex of anything isn’t on a spectrum!! These loons need certifying.

Well done to your DF for standing up to them!

Female cats spray because it's a territorial behaviour, not a sex behavior. Male cats tend to spray more than female cats in general because their sex tends to make them more territorial on average, so we tend to think of spraying as a "male" trait but it's not exclusively so and some males are not very territorial and some females very much so.
The point here is that when cats smell the sprayed urine they know whether it was left by a male or female cat and react to it based on the sex of the sprayer and not some woolly idea that any spraying cat must be somehow "male" just because males are more likely to spray than females.
Humans are also pretty good at identifying whether another human is male or female regardless of personality traits and appearance (though not as good as cats, admittedly) and this provides an underlying tension to the whole trans debate that is rarely discussed - that we are being asked to deny and override our deepest and most basic instincts which naturally lead us to react differently to males and females. Our reactions are primal, automatic and programmed by thousands of years of evolution shaped by the drive to survive and reproduce.
Just like cats, humans - male and female - are a product of our biology and no amount of saying black is white will change our basic roles - males impregnate, females get impregnated - and this difference is fundamental when it comes to everything related to reproduction and physiology but is mostly irrelevant when it comes to personality and temperament.

Sod the cats, but does that mean I cannot tell my dogs they are GOOOOOD boys?

To those who think that the census is fine, what do you think will happen if someone has changed their sex on their passport that the census guidance indicates is the appropriate answer.

Do you naively think that someone will answer honestly because 'there is a gender question as well'? The guidance is telling them it is ok to lie at the moment. So, in effect, it makes the sex question completely meaningless ....

In Scotland we are waiting the outcome of a court case where the Scottish Government has widened the definition of women to include men who have a stereotypically females name on their gas bill (though you are not allowed to ask for any evidence). If a public board was 100% men then it would still be considered gender equal in half of them said (without needing any evidence or making any changes to their appearance) that they identified as women.

It's not just MMA that's a risk to women if biologically male people can compete in the women's class. Rugby is a contact sport which has strict rules about age classes, women's game being separate from the men etc because of the very real risk of serious injury. World Rugby took scientific advice and decided that they needed to maintain a strict sex segregation. Stonewall et al aghast and as a consequence English Rugby has said segregation by gender identity is their preference. Women's safety seems to count for nothing.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/49298550 BBC article about Kelly Morgan, who plays in a women's rugby team, having previously played in men's rugby at county level.

At nearly 6ft she stands out among her team-mates, and club captain Jessica Minty-Madley recounts a time she folded an opponent "like a deckchair".

A trans person entering into a fun run doesn’t affect YOU personally (although no doubt it will turn out that you’ll claim I am Wrong)

A trans woman entering into a women’s golf tournament in a sleepy village in Kent does not affect YOUR life. When it does by all means do something about it but it’s all a storm in a tea cup.

With apologies to Martin Niemöller

First they came for the female prisoners, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a female prisoner.

Then they came for the sportswomen, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a sportswoman.

Then they came for the sexual assault victims, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a sexual assault victim.

Then they came for the religious women, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a religious woman.

Then they came for the female Parliamentary Candidates, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a female Parliamentary Candidate.

Then they came for me
And there was no one left to speak for me.

Admittedly I don't (usually) crap in my own garden so I'm more complex than a cat in that regard.
Surely the whole point of cats is that they crap in other gardens, not their own. Sounds like your cat identifies as a dog.

Well, some cats are intersex, but that is not the same thing as trans.

As a veterinary nurse I can attest that we always somehow know what kinds of cats need their testicles removing, and what kinds need their uterus and ovaries out. Its also weird how breeders know which kind of dogs or cats they need to use to 'fertilize' the other kinds of dogs and cats.
And so it will be forevermore. Amen.

@334bu

I told my cat they were on a spectrum. They ignored me. I told my cat they could identify as they wished. They ignored me. I told my cat that the tuna in the dish shouldn't be eaten as it identified as non cat food. They ignored me

Damn cats!

Sex isn’t a spectrum full stop.
Women have periods, ovaries, a uterus, a vagina when they are born.
Men have testes, sperm, a penis.
Some women want to be men so they have an operation and hormones to live as men. They aren’t men but they want to be treated as such and that’s ok. We should respect that want.
Some men want to be women, so they live as women and eventually have hormones and an operation to try to be as like a woman as possible. They want to be treated like women and that’s ok. We should respect that want.
Saying they actually are women when they are men and vice versa is not ok.

@Alfaix

Sex isn’t a spectrum full stop. Women have periods, ovaries, a uterus, a vagina when they are born. Men have testes, sperm, a penis. Some women want to be men so they have an operation and hormones to live as men. They aren’t men but they want to be treated as such and that’s ok. We should respect that want. Some men want to be women, so they live as women and eventually have hormones and an operation to try to be as like a woman as possible. They want to be treated like women and that’s ok. We should respect that want. Saying they actually are women when they are men and vice versa is not ok.

I was deleted from a thread the other day for saying something similar. Yes, it's that ridiculous. I wonder if I can extrapolate the scenario to animals? Would this be acceptable and unoffensive to those with tender sensibilities? A male dog has its testicles removed. It is still a male dog forever in every cell of its body. A female has its ovaries and uterus removed. It is still female forever in every cell of its body. Males can even have their penis removed in certain circumstances (see a previous post, pretty rare but it does happen). They are still males. Females can have their mammary glands removed, they are still females. No vet would argue otherwise. Yet here we are in a human situation and the rules are changing.

In my next life I want to be a cat.

I hope if the person the OP refers to has a cat it scratches or wees on them.

Sex and gender both exist

Not in the same way.
Sex exists as a biological fact. Gender exists as a concept/social construct.