"There are only two genders, change my mind".

[Childrenofthestones]

Not my words but Steven Crowder's (like him or loathe him). in this interesting experiment on a campus.

Lancelottie, So if sex is defined by the type of germane they produce then anyone who is infertile by that definition doesn't have a sex then. AKA a third option.

GuardianLions Likewise you have taken variation of chromosomes and bundled them up into the binary model and ignored the very differences they do have as they are not always sexually indistinct. Indeed infertility is one thing that makes them distinct from fertile versions of the chromosome combinations.

They only fit the binary model because your ignoring the things that prove the model is incomplete

Oh and nature having infinite variation does not mean all variations currently or previously exist, just that its possible they could.

A line of evolution could have created a version of winged humans, indeed it still could, whether we would still call them humans though would depend on who is writing the books on evolution at the time.

No Debbie - there are other causes of infertility than chromosomal abnormality - but they are not what the op is about.
'Infertility' is not always caused by abnormal sex chromosomes.
Chromosomal abnormalities that lead to disorders in sex development/ambiguous sex characteristics and infertility are not a third reproductive sex.

Debbie, male and female are biological terms.
Gamete a producing or gamete b. Having a disorder or interruption in your gamete production doesn't invalidate the fact that this is how humans and mammals and birds and I don't know what else, reproduced sexually by the union of these two different gametes.
It is an objective truth.
Not how somebody feels or acts or dresses. People can do what they want in this regard. But they will always be gamete type a / type b people. Doesn't always matter but when it does, it does.

A line of evolution could have created a version of winged humans, indeed it still could, whether we would still call them humans though would depend on who is writing the books on evolution at the time.

Ever heard of Ockham's Razor Debbie?

I think now might be a good time to use it.

Tricky to write the books if your hands have turned into wings, I should think.

Or are you contemplating the evolution of a whole extra pair of limbs? You'd have to go a lot further back in the evolutionary tree for that.

Lancelottie, So if sex is defined by the type of germane they produce then anyone who is infertile by that definition doesn't have a sex then. AKA a third option.

We define humans by bipedalism. Do we need a second category of human for people who are atypical in this respect?

irretating:- I thought we were defining sex. Are you saying people with one leg are not human now?

Don't think i could agree with you on that either.

debbie what are you playing at?

I was applying your logic to a comparable situation. It falls flat because the logic is bad. This is your problem, not mine.

^^ ah ninja'd. That was to debbie.

There are two sexes. Human beings are either male or female depending on reproductive potential. That some human beings are infertile does not remove them from the respective classes of male or female. It's not about actually producing gametes; it's about having a reproductive system designed to produce them.

The existence of intersex disorders is evidence for human sexual dimorphism, not the other way around. We are only able to describe them because we have working models of normal, healthy male and female development. That's why they're disorders.

irretating:- I thought we were defining sex. Are you saying people with one leg are not human now

she said the exact opposite. Which is also why your idea of sex is wrong.

Well here we are after numerous post still with sex is a binary but only because.

Its chromosomes - except it isn't
Reproductive ability - except it isn't.

Its biological fact but no one can show what that simple fact is other than Ockham's Razor must apply because otherwise we may have to accept that sex and gender are not binary.

Maybe we just need to be more open and accepting.

No, we need to understand biology. Sex is binary. It just is, it is a statement like "water is wet" , it is axiomatic. Inescapably undeniably prima facie just truth.

How about logic debbie - why not use that? It might help.

So how about:

Just because some cases of a are b, doesn't mean all cases of a are b.

Do agree with it debbie?

Its chromosomes - except it isn't
Reproductive ability - except it isn't.

Yes, yes it is.

It's chromosomes. XX people are female, ie. of the type of human that produces large, immobile gametes (eggs) and gestates young

XY people are male, ie. of the type of human that produce small, mobile gametes (sperm)

People with chromosomal disorders, have chromosomal disorders and are outside standard human sexual development - doesn't make them any less human, or mean there is more than one sex, or change how sexual reproduction works. 1 sperm producer + one egg producer required to make a baby. No amount of sperm producers alone can make a baby, just as no amount of egg producers alone can make a baby. That's what 'sex' is. It's how reproduction works.

Just as humans are bipedal (have 2 legs) and people with 1 leg (or 3 legs) are no less human for having a different number of legs than is standard, and it doesn't change the fact that humans are bipedal as a species.

To be perfectly honest I have always thought of gender as a spectrum from feminine to masculine as the traditional social construct of gender dictates that men and women are diametric opposites. However, one could argue that this is not very relevant or not as relevant in modern society so who knows.

Ultimately I think that gender is all in our heads (as opposed to sex which is in our DNA) so I don't see why there can't be as many genders as you like.

GuardianLions

So how about:

Just because some cases of a are b, doesn't mean all cases of a are b.

Do agree with it debbie?

Yes but that also doesn't exclude some cases of A being C, especially if you cant give a better argument of what A and B are than "it just is"

Logic requires that if we cant define A and B then we cant know if C exists or not, but many here seem to think that logic doesn't apply, and they can eliminate C based on incomplete data or by ignoring any evidence that may lead to evidence of its existence.

You might not care Debbie but the evolutionary process is based on sexual reproduction. One sperm, one egg. One male, one female. That's how babies are made.

We're not snails or worms or hermaphrodite bryozoans. We're people. Two sexes. And some 'noise' because we need generic variation to produce evolution. Some of that works, some is discarded by evolutionary process.

Gender is cultural bullshit. Feel free to adopt it, play with it, reject it or whatever. Doesn't mean that men can start gestating young.

To be perfectly honest I have always thought of gender as a spectrum from feminine to masculine as the traditional social construct of gender dictates that men and women are diametric opposites.

But how does that work in practice? How can it be a spectrum? Mustn't it be a scatter plot? Or does society assigns a masc/fem index to a behaviour/hobby/piece of clothing, I then pick the bits and pieces I like/do/wear, and from the average (mean/mode/median?) I get my fem/masc index number?

I am an experienced knitter, but I also program computers. I can cook, but I wear boxer shorts etc.

Of course none of this really matters at all, because the crux of it is, if DP and I bump uglies, I get to gestate our young, and that'll never change

Not all people (but 99.5% do) fit into the XX/XY sex binary system.

But all people are born from XX and XY parents, grandparents and ancestors. And to carry on the descendancy line, those progenitors will be XX or XY likewise.

What human beings do/present as/identify as outside the realm of reproducing offspring is purely down to them. However, the fact humans are biologically a sexually dimorphic species, has huge political implications for how both sexes navigate the world, balance earning an external income with family live and how much control they have over their own bodies. That is where feminism comes in. To say that being a woman, and feminist analysis is about feelings and identities around femininity is disingenuous. To strip biology out of feminism is to erase the means to discuss the roots of our oppression and how to overcome it. A woman is a material, objective state of being, not an ethereal, subjective feeling.

I used to think of gender that way resting but now I see it as a spectrum of phoney, irritating performances people engage in. You have to kind of opt in or opt out of gender. Most people I hang around with don't really bother, we have more important responsibilities to be getting on with - so maybe as people get older they are more confident in their own personalities, so they don't need to hide behind a gender performance like a bunch of grating teens?

"Its shameful to mark a variation as a disorder"

It's really, really not. There are lots of variations that are mistakes in that they are chromosomal abnormalities. If you take offence to that then crack on but it doesn't make people who acknowledge it for what it is (without emotive thoughts surrounding the fact) wrong.