Help me get my ducks in a row here...

[GCSciFiFan]

Ok so I seem to have some friends (who I thought had more brains but hey ho) who believe that because Alice Roberts says there's more than two sexes it must be true.

Anyway - I'm happy with the definition of your sex being to do with your reproductive class...but I can see a glaring hole in that one that she will find and I don't know an answer that will work....

If you are a woman because you are of the class of people who produce large, stationary gametes, how do you know you are a member of that class if you don't produce them (ie are infertile)? Why doesn't your class change (if we use that definition) if you have your ovaries removed?

How do you then say that "you are still a member of that class even though your biology is broken" without opening that up to men saying that they are actually a member of that class just with more badly broken biology?

(And no, I'm not saying infertile women aren't women - I'm preparing an answer to the argument).

My worry with this is that you are a member of that class because either it's blindingly obvious in the same way as the fact you are human is blindingly obvious - or we are back to a woman is someone without a Y chromosome (Do I mean a working SRY region on the Y chromosome here?) - at which point why use the reproductive class argument?

Then you get into the "but scientists say that it's more complicated than just chromosomes"...and I'll end up where we started. Plus she will then bring up sex-changing fish (apparently birds and mammals are unusual in having their sex linked to chromosomes rather than other factors - I checked) and will use the "if fish can do it then scientists in the future will be able to make humans do it - you'd never have predicted IVF etc" argument....

On a slight tangent does anyone know of anywhere in the world that has a useable, non-circular legal definition of sex?

This business of people who are scientists going on about how sex is actually "complicated" is a huge problem IMO. I think for many, they don't realise the extent to which people are confused by the idea of biological classes.

But for many, they read this stuff, and they think, well I am not a scientist, and neither is this person talking to me. But National Geographic had a whole series of articles saying sex is not binary and I am going to believe them.

And who can blame them?

Sex is determined by: Chromosomes. Gonads. Gametes & Genitals.

It's related to Wittgenstein's critique of Cantor's set theory. Cantor would say that if A,B,C & D are subsets of X, you need all four to be in X.

Wittgenstein said you did not necessarily need them all, just enough of them to preclude any other alternative to being part of X.

If there are more than two sexes, why do so many males now identify as female and not as one of these other sexes?

And why is non-binary generally (and linguistically) described as being an absence of identifying with either male or female if it means that someone is a 'third' (or fourth or fifth) sex? Why define it in the negative?

If you take the Occam's Razor approach (that, in the absence of further evidence, the simplest explanation is probably true), it seems far more likely that there are two biological sexes and that gender is a deep-rooted social construct that has damaged many people's self-esteem and self-perception to the point they question their very biology.

The alternative, that there are more sexes out there but they just haven't been discovered and/or categorised properly yet over complicates a simple situation.

And it's obvious why - science is still largely dominated by men. Being the beneficiaries of the patriarchy, men are less likely to accept that gender is a social construct. So they see the simplest explanation to be that there are undiscovered sexes, because the notion that they're living in a society where women are oppressed by the patriarchy in so many ways all the time is unfathomable to them. You only have to look at men's reaction to the #metoo movement to see how inconceivable gender oppression is to them.

I mean to men generally - obviously I know that NAMALT and there are individual men who appreciate gender oppression is real (especially since #metoo).

“ Sex is determined by: Chromosomes. Gonads. Gametes & Genitals.

It's related to Wittgenstein's critique of Cantor's set theory. Cantor would say that if A,B,C & D are subsets of X, you need all four to be in X.

Wittgenstein said you did not necessarily need them all, just enough of them to preclude any other alternative to being part of X.”

I like this as a properly scientific explanation of classes - that’s where I was struggling .

Thanks for everyone else’s thoughts too btw - will try to put them into a good solid argument! But I do think part of the issue is that there are “respected” scientists saying it is complicated so that’s what people believe...rather than the obvious truth of their own experiences!!!

I also think that some people are working backwards to find evidence to fit a predetermined conclusion. And that it doesn't necessarily matter what you say.
The "it's complicated, you wouldn't understand" nonsense is irritating.

Also ask them to think about their friends, family, colleagues, neighbours. Are there any that they really don't know what sex they are?

So why is a man who removes his penis not still a man?

Because removal of a penis does not create female reproductive organs, a female phenotype or female chromosomes.

Maybe ask her how these “many sexes” plan to do things when they wish to have children. Because in all human history either entirely naturally or via whatever medical intervention a sperm fertilises an egg. There are two sorts of gametes and two sexes.

But I do think part of the issue is that there are “respected” scientists saying it is complicated

I think respected scientists like Alice Roberts get caught up in the weeds of clown fish and mushrooms, and forget about the practical consequences of sexual reproduction.

Even if you could successfully argue that a male brain can exist in a female body (which is an idea that depends on philosophy and linguistics as much as biology), the person with the male brain wouldn't be able to escape the consequences of having a female body e.g. need for access to contraception.

Few people know they are infertile until they try to have children. They will have been treated as male or female throughout their lives based on their genitalia and other sexual characteristics. And when infertility is suspected (usually due to trying and failing to get pregnant) the doctors will know which tests to apply to which partner. Nobody is asking for a sperm sample from a woman or scanning the fallopian tubes of a man!

Your friend brought Clownfish in to this.

Ask her to go talk to a farmer about sexing chicks or milking cows. Sex is immutable.

@HandsOffMyRights that is a really good article, thank you for linking

Yes Smiley It is a helpful piece.

Can't believe we even have to explain the basics in 2019, along with why Earth is round...

And yet it moves.

Humans are bipedal. If you only have one leg, through accident of birth or just accident, are you no longer human?

If you get a wooden leg, are you a table?

Ask her to go talk to a farmer about sexing chicks or milking cows. Sex is immutable.

I do think this nonsense could never have taken off in a society that was primarily rural and was used to the real mucky business of raising and breeding animals.

Simple question - when Prof Roberts digs up a skeleton, how does she know whether it is a human or a clownfish? Oh yeah - cause people aren't fish.

On a slight tangent does anyone know of anywhere in the world that has a useable, non-circular legal definition of sex?

In the UK your sex is determined by biological sex characteristics; chromosomes, gonads and genitals being the 3 main ones.

Corbett v Corbett
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbett_v_Corbett

Oh thanks inebriati I didn't know about the marriage of April Ashley, well at least not how it ended. Interesting.

I do think this nonsense could never have taken off in a society that was primarily rural and was used to the real mucky business of raising and breeding animals.

Or one where there was no artificial contraception of the type that you can forget about it.

In the minds of many people now sexual activity is mainly done for fun, or as an expression of love, they no longer think of it much in their lives in terms of its main biological purpose. You'd think they would, but they don't.

I suspect it's because they often believe ideologically that sex should not be thought of that way in humans, and it creates a kind of odd forgetting of the facts.

Many people are really very separated from their physicality.

Forget your foolish friends, stay at home and watch PeachYogurt’s Transgender and the Bicycle Analogy. You’ll have way more fun.

Ignore Alice Roberts, she's a bitch. She's the one who tells other females that they are not real scientists so she can fuck right off.

If you're interested in the philosophical exercise, this can be a great way to sharpen your thoughts.
But the people who pose these 'gotcha' challenges are not interested in philosophy, or linguistics, or logic.
They already know that a car without petrol is still a car, and they know that a woman without ovaries is still a woman, and they know that a man with penis and testes is still a man.

So, whilst you can engage, and discuss necessary vs sufficient, or classifications of exclusion, your efforts will be as wasted as they are on the people who declare 'this is the least violent, most oppressed group' and proceed to scream in your face when you present evidence that this is untrue.
They don't want the truth.

A more effective approach is to challenge their own bias
"So, you are saying that breast cancer survivors with mastectomies are not actually real women? Wow. And women with hysterectomies are almost men? That's horrible."

Let them defend why they think removing body parts changes sex in people who are ill. They want you to be defensive, but they are the ones with misogynistic ideas about people. Let them justify themselves, let them explain to someone who really IS vulnerable why they're not a woman because they had a hysterectomy. Let them squirm.

On fish - ask her if people can also breathe under water. If the answer is no then comparisons to fish are irrelevant.

As others have stated, the leg analogy is the best - some people are born with 1 leg (or unfortunately have one amputated); there have also been cases of babies born with 3 legs (you can google it). Does that mean humans aren't 2-legged? Outliers are outliers for a reason.

Barracker
You are wise!

I have just wasted half an hour arguing on Twitter with angry sex denying teenagers. Lol.

Your approach is much better.

My go to statement on sex is Dr fond of beetles..... but you're right. They don't want the truth. They want to argue about how many angels dance on the head of a pin.