GCSE Biology

[InsulatedCup]

Article in Sunday Times here:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scientists-fail-edexcel-exam-board-for-confusing-sex-and-gender-in-its-gcse-exam-28hxv9c9d?shareToken=2c8bcb2fd43e84abdcb0c7913b598273

Apparently "gender" can be inherited - using the word sex would mean children wouldn't understand.
We are really going to work hard to dig ourselves out of this hole. Well gone to Fair Play fro Women to getting it in the news.

I don't believe that anyone is literally 'born in the wrong body' - I am not religious and I don't believe in gendered souls.

How literal minded is this?

"Born in the wrong body" is just a euphemism to describe the feeling of gender dysphoria.

TRAs want to remove sex segregated spaces, many of which are there for the protection of women and girls. This sounds like men's rights to me.

I've never heard a MRA campaign for the removal of sex-segregated spaces. Virtually all MRAs I've ever seen have rolled their eyes at these new "gender neutral toilets" we've all seen.

I actually arrived here after being signposted to the 'hardcore feminists on mumsnet' by someone on another forum which had gone from general discussion to being quite a woman-hating place.

What board is this?

I imagine a MRA message board to be like that, or maybe an even more extreme version, so I wouldn't seek one out. It was pretty unpleasant. I'm much more at home here.

Have you BEEN to one?

To me, it seems you are just imaging MRAs to be what you want them to be (ie. people you hate who believe the polar opposite of what you believe). You should actually browse their boards to see how they think. I could name a few, but I'm not sure if the website's rules allow me to do so.

From what I've seen, MRAs typically have very traditional, conservative values. They lament the existence of women who don't want marriage, families, and children, and clap their hands with glee whenever this lifestyle backfires. For example, they love digging up articles about career women who can't have children because their frozen eggs didn't survive the thawing process, and say she wouldn't have had that problem if she had settled down and married sooner. Given their conservative, traditional values, they despise gay people, are usually anti-abortion... and have a strong dislike of transgender people.

To claim there’s commonality between MRAs and GC feminists on the basis that neither share a particularly extreme belief is as absurd as lumping atheists and Christians together on the basis they aren’t Scientologists.

All ideologies have something in common. Christians and Scientologists both believe in the supernatural, for example. Catholics and atheists both generally accept evolution by natural selection.

You can draw these comparisons between just about any two ideologies; yes, even the USSR and Nazi Germany.

Bunbury time people. We are being derailed by one of the nuttiest pieces of derailment I've ever seen ("feminists are just like MRAs").

The point a page or so back, that all this is like Lysenkoism, with science playing second fiddle to political ideology, is in a nutshell what this thread is about. And it's fucking horrifying.

Sex in mammals is about two reproductive sexes (with occasional, rare cases of disorders of sexual development in utero - many of which are evolutionary dead-ends, because the people unfortunate enough to have them are not able to reproduce). Genotype is determined by chromosomes - XX, or XY - and (barring aforementioned DSDs) largely then drives phenotype. It is observed at birth 99.9% of the time (not assigned - that would only be the case when a child was recognised to have a DSD and the medics were sufficiently stuck in the 1950s to feel they had to "assign a sex" via medical intervention - something not considered to be medical best practice these days).

Gender either means "sexist stereotypes imposed upon the sexes according to the culture you happen to live in" or "some kind of internal feeling" - it's a matter of sociology, anthropology, psychology, not of biology. (There may be a neurological underpinning to intense feelings of dysphoria about one's sexed body, but the evidence for such is a long, long way from being unequivocal - but note that even were such evidence found, this would still only be an explanation of the feelings of dysphoria, not evidence that brains were intrinsically sexed.)

You can draw these comparisons between just about any two ideologies; yes, even the USSR and Nazi Germany.

Congratulations for totally missing my point. You should take up fencing.

This is almost as bad as what I saw in another thread the other day... someone asking if men can only trace ancestors through their father, and if women can only trace ancestors through their mother.

Both sexes can both trace their maternal ancestry through their mitochondrial DNA; only men can trace their paternal ancestry through their Y chromosome DNA.

Congratulations for totally missing my point.

Not understanding what an analogy is...

Both sexes can both trace their maternal ancestry through their mitochondrial DNA; only men can trace their paternal ancestry through their Y chromosome DNA.

Daughters can be linked to their fathers. Yes, women don't have Y chromosomes, but there's 45 other chromosomes that can be looked at, you know.

Given their conservative, traditional values, they despise gay people, are usually anti-abortion... and have a strong dislike of transgender people.

How does that work then? Transgenderism is gay conversion. If you're anti-gay, the logical position is to support transgenderism. Haven't you ever heard of 'trans away the gay'? Ask the Tavistock - it's happening.

If you're anti-gay, the logical position is to support transgenderism.

Given that the proportion of transgender women attracted to women is far higher than the proportion of women attracted to women, it would be completely illogical to support transgenderism if you are anti-gay.

The religious right in the western world attempts to "correct" homosexuality by converting homosexual men and women to heterosexual men and women, not by helping them to transition.

Haven't you ever heard of 'trans away the gay'?

I have never, ever heard of that, and that's definitely not a common position among traditional conservatives.

You can just about make a case for saying ‘gender’ in humans instead of sex but but gendered apple trees? I have never heard of gender organs either.

Given that the proportion of transgender women attracted to women is far higher than the proportion of women attracted to women, it would be completely illogical to support transgenderism if you are anti-gay.

Logic doesn't always come into it - where's the logic in being anti-gay? But I take your point, and since you've mentioned it ... Have you heard of autogynephilia?

Daughters can be linked to their fathers.

Well, duh, what with them inheriting half their DNA from them. However, they only inherit 25% from their grandfather, 12.5% from their great grandfather, etc. With each generation the amount halves, making the genetic link harder the trace. However, men and women inherit 100% of their mitochondria from their mother (barring slight mutations). This means you can determine maternal history through generations with a high degree of certainty.

Mitochondrial DNA remains unchanged because it doesn’t undergo meiotic recombination. Nether does Y-DNA. Since only men inherit Y-DNA and it is passed on from father to son you can trace the paternal line through generations through Y-DNA.

Yes, women don't have Y chromosomes

Glad you agree - but TRAs would not. They’d consider that transphobic.

but there's 45 other chromosomes that can be looked at, you know.

All autosomes undergo recombination. Ancestry becomes less precise the more generations you go back.

I have never, ever heard of that, and that's definitely not a common position among traditional conservatives.

It certainly is in conservative countries like Iran.

As for 'trans away the gay', here's an article from a few weeks ago about the Tavistock.

It feels like conversion therapy for gay children, say clinicians
Ex-NHS staff fear that homophobia is driving a surge in ‘transgender’ young people

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/it-feels-like-conversion-therapy-for-gay-children-say-clinicians-pvsckdvq2

If you don't have a Times subscription, this is a free article.

www.spiked-online.com/2019/04/11/stop-this-trans-exploitation-of-children/

Yes, there are lots of Male born trans people who are attracted to women. Quite a number of them think they are lesbians, and are keen to have lesbians say they are lesbians too, and even accept their male anatomy as 'lesbian' too.

Can't imagine why anyone would think that was anti gay at all.

If you redefine lesbian sex to include PIV sex, that’s pretty anti-gay.

Given that the proportion of transgender women attracted to women is far higher than the proportion of women attracted to women, it would be completely illogical to support transgenderism if you are anti-gay.

Just to be clear on this, dwatsuts, a relationship between a 'transgender woman' (to use your term) and a woman is a heterosexual relationship (unless the 'transgender woman' is in a relationship with another 'transgender woman'), since people can't change sex. So it's not illogical for such a person to be anti-gay, since they are not actually gay, even though they might be playing out fantasies of being a lesbian.

Many of these heterosexual transsexuals are autogynephiles. Some heterosexual 'transgender' people are simply crossdressers, like Alex Drummond.

Forcing lesbians to accept penis or label them a bigot is pretty much the definition of 'anti-gay' IMHO.

Logic doesn't always come into it - where's the logic in being anti-gay?

You said "If you're anti-gay, the logical position is to support transgenderism," now you are saying "logic doesn't always come into it."

Can you hear that flip-flopping sound? Flip, flop, flip, flop.

As for 'trans away the gay', here's an article from a few weeks ago about the Tavistock.

I don't have a Sunday Times subscription. The Spiked article says it's done to counteract homophobic bullying in some cases, but there's no evidence that this is common, there's no evidence that this is common among children from traditional conservative families, and there's no evidence that the majority of MRAs support children transitioning to counteract homophobic bullying. Certainly, if you do some digging around online (again, I won't link to MRA websites in case it breaches the rules), you will find plenty of MRAs who say some very hateful things about transgender people.

You should watch videos produced by MRAs and read their message boards; in order to oppose someone's position, understanding it first is absolutely essential. I read tons of stuff that I don't agree with.

This is from the Times article which is behind a paywall.

So many potentially gay children were being sent down the pathway to change gender, two of the clinicians said there was a dark joke among staff that “there would be no gay people left”.

"It feels like conversion therapy for gay children,” one male clinician said. “I frequently had cases where people started identifying as trans after months of horrendous bullying for being gay,” he told The Times.

“Young lesbians considered at the bottom of the heap suddenly found they were really popular when they said they were trans.”

I have no interest in MRAs or what they think. I misread the original reference to MRAs as TRAs, and replied accordingly. Transactivism does seem to be a men's rights movement, though.

Supporting both homosexuality and transgenderism makes no sense. You can oppose both, or support one or the other, but it makes no sense to support both, because they are in opposition to each other. If you support the idea that people can change sex, what does it mean to have a same-sex relationship?

Transactivism does seem to be a men's rights movement, though.

Again, this is nonsense and there is no evidence for this. Go and look at MRA websites; I won't name them and you know what ones I would link you to anyway.

Supporting both homosexuality and transgenderism makes no sense. You can oppose both, or support one or the other, but it makes no sense to support both, because they are in opposition to each other. If you support the idea that people can change sex, what does it mean to have a same-sex relationship?

Just... what...

Supporting transgenderism does not mean wanting everybody to be transgender. Only a tiny fraction of people are transgender. For everyone else, well, what it means to be gay or straight is obvious.

You're mad keen on getting people to look at mra websites.

You're mad There! Fixed that for you 7Days

Attached file is an Edexcel Biology exam question from 2015 (disclaimer - this is IGCSE biology so a slightly different specification).

It’s definitely Bunbury time.

Back to the topic.

We may be a woman, but identify with the outlook and social norms of men.

When we feel this way, we are transgender.

On the BBC?!? My god. What a load of stereotyping nonsense. This is so blatantly sexist. Is it so hard for these morons to grasp the idea that nobody fits into neat little boy girl boxes and that we have unique personalities that have nothing to do with pink and blue brains? This is so damn annoying.