I've just been called "unscientific" for saying that you cannot change sex

[CloudyMoment]

It's just a rant really, but also fishing for possible counter-arguments.

I thought that nobody really properly argues against the fact that sex is something you are born with, and that his cannot be changed.

Apparently those people think sex is not immutable. That it actually can change- because apparently also eye colour can change throughout life. I tried arguing against, that we are still born with a coded expression hair or eye colour, and that this does not change. I feel that this is very much a philosophical discussion to be had.. but meanwhile. How do you show robustly and scientifically that sex is immutable?

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128035061000516

You aren't even an academic ... I can see that from the simplistic tone in which you write.

this is so revealing.
It is true if you’re a professor of genderbollocks, writing in big words is all you’ve got going for you. The only method you have to signal you’re not one of the plebs is making simple things appear complicated.

Academics in scientific fields, by contrast, try to make complicated things appear simple. They don’t use big words for their own sake, if they’re competent writers. So a competent academic in a scientific field writing about sex determination in mammals, is going to sound quite simplistic because that really is a simple topic, DSDs not withstanding.

@Iamhangingin

My son was born with a birth defect which means he has a-typical genitalia. Which is a condition obviously that only effects boys. It doesn't mean sex is a spectrum or complicated, it's just sometimes during pregnancy things go wrong (in my case around the 12 week mark and sex is decided at the point the egg is fertilised). A chromosomal abnormality is just that, an abnormality not a 3rd sex.

Ann Boyle was born with an extra finger. I don't think anyone has argued this is proof that human hands are a spectrum with any number of finger options. It seems unbelievably cruel to be using terms like intersex and using these conditions to argue ideological points.

My son is now going through puberty and I'm horrified he might be exposed to this and the impact on his body image. I really feel for other parents who's children have complex medical issues, I can't imagine how upsetting the appropriation of DSD conditions (and the adding of I to LGBT) is for their families.

Funnily enough, I had an on-line discussion the other day about this - this woman seemed to think that the existence of polydactyly made 'the number of fingers' a spectrum! When I said that's not what a spectrum means, she argued back. So there you go - 'spectrum' will be redefined now too!

Well the average (mean) person has less than two legs.

@NecessaryScene

I guess our minds are just too highly trained.

I see you there.

But what is the question?

...don't blunder into such simple traps when making your simplistic distinctions. If 'a woman' is to be defined as 'a person with a cervix.'

A woman is not defined as a person with a cervix.

A person with a cervix is defined as a woman.

allmywhat: "Academics in scientific fields, by contrast, try to make complicated things appear simple. They don’t use big words for their own sake, if they’re competent writers. So a competent academic in a scientific field writing about sex determination in mammals, is going to sound quite simplistic because that really is a simple topic"

Exactly. Even at my level of competence.

Although I am chagrined to realize how much time I wasted studying when I could have just googled. Oh well.