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?

But phenotypes change all the time based on environmental factors and the physiological process of aging, it's obv not all genetics. So it is literally possible though potentially not socially/culturally significant

And if they insist "sexual characteristics" are sex, point out the logical fallacy - they must know what sex is to distinguish sexual characteristics from mere characteristics...

But phenotypes change all the time based on environmental factors and the physiological process of aging, it's obv not all genetics. So it is literally possible though potentially not socially/culturally significant

Still nothing to do with changing sex. My hair resembles a badger's now but nobody is calling me Brock.

@GoldenSun1

But phenotypes change all the time based on environmental factors and the physiological process of aging, it's obv not all genetics. So it is literally possible though potentially not socially/culturally significant

Phenotypes aren't solely appearance. They also include innate traits. So a penis has essential biological traits and functions. You can change its appearance via cosmetic surgery, it then may somewhat assume the general form of labia etc but won't be able to assume the function as its own function is inherent.

So it isn't literally possible. It's cosmetic, incomplete, a facsimile.

Your statement that phenotypes change due to ageing is also mistake, We age, that is our natural state. So our phenotypes don't change, they age with us! They don't morph into something else, with different function etc.

And yes, that does also include the malfunction of ageing and cancers etc.

Genotypic/chromosomal sex cannot be changed, phenotypic sex is modifiable (by developmental processes, hormone treatment, surgery) and gender is a social construct

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10943/

[quote GoldenSun1]Genotypic/chromosomal sex cannot be changed, phenotypic sex is modifiable (by developmental processes, hormone treatment, surgery) and gender is a social construct

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10943/[/quote]
I think that is pretty much what I was saying!

[quote GoldenSun1]Genotypic/chromosomal sex cannot be changed, phenotypic sex is modifiable (by developmental processes, hormone treatment, surgery) and gender is a social construct

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10943/[/quote]
Phenotype doesn't mean just breast and external genitals, it also means reproductive system, pelvic shape, heart size, lung size, muscle strength, size of hands, voice, gait, torso length.... Surgery is just that - it artificially changes appearance.

There seems to be so much clutching of straws by the TRAs, they will soon have enough for a straw man.

I'd stop now Tibtom Even when still trying to refute the science @GoldenSun1 is posting links to data that justcnfirms what we are saying.

Either they assume the writer is male and so must be much more clever than us; they assume the author is NOT one of us - as I pointed out a few years ago, that isn't always a safe thing to assume ; or they think that because we carefully remove all the multi syllable words in an attemot to clarify, we ain't got it right.

All they show is that they don't understand what they are linking to!

II'd stop now Tibtom Even when still trying to refute the science @GoldenSun1 is posting links to data that justcnfirms what we are saying.

" None so blind as those who will not see" No point arguing with ideologues. If the facts don't suit they'll make them up.

@ThomasPenman

Anyone mentioned Project Nettie yet?

projectnettie.wordpress.com/

Sexual reproduction, the generation of offspring by fusion of genetic material from two different individuals, evolved over 1 billion years ago. It is the reproductive strategy of all higher animals and plants, including the mammalian class to which humans belong. Humans can be differentiated into two categories by their reproductive roles. Females make eggs and gestate live young. Males generate sperm to fertilise the female egg. In accordance with their respective roles, females and males have different reproductive anatomies (“biological sex”). No other reproductive mechanism exists in humans. In contradiction of evolutionary history and millennia of human observations, highly-esteemed scientific periodicals are running articles undermining the observable reality of biological sex.

“Biologists now think there is a larger spectrum than just binary female and male.” Scientific American, Oct 22 2018
“The research and medical community now sees sex as more complex than male and female.” Nature, Oct 30 2018

In response to these claims, Project Nettie was born. What is Project Nettie? Project Nettie is an online and regularly updated record of scientists, medics and those in related disciplines who, by signing their support for the Project Nettie statement (below), assert the material reality of biological sex and reject attempts to reframe it as a malleable social construct.

Many thanks for this! I've just signed up

Have you ever seen this?
The fact that they all exist does not make sex a spectrum though

You can't modify your phenotype. It's how you present without alteration. You can hide or obfuscate it but it's still there. If I dye my hair or tattoo my skin or get a boob job, I've changed my appearance but I haven't changed my actual phenotype.

The genitals that are created with reassignment surgery aren't real genitals. They are body modifications to resemble genitals.

You might alter your appearance drastically, you might even pass and be very attractive, but you still haven't changed your sex.

I’m uncomfortable with the amount that ‘intersex conditions’ are used as an example of sexual not being binary. Rarely do I hear people with intersex conditions suggesting they believe themselves to be a separate/alternative sex.

“ Cause it is not clear cut. That's what trans and scientific people find funny”

Debbie Hayton is both a transwoman and a scientist. Debbie doesn’t believe humans can change sex.

@Totallyrandomname

I’m uncomfortable with the amount that ‘intersex conditions’ are used as an example of sexual not being binary. Rarely do I hear people with intersex conditions suggesting they believe themselves to be a separate/alternative sex.

Claire Graham and other intersex advocates repeatedly ask to be left out of these discussions - they're nobody's human shield.

This thread has a link to an essay about the common male tactic of appropriating the struggles of others to justify something that puts them at the centre:

“It’s really hard to put into words what it feels like to have your complex and quite traumatic medical history paraded to validate someone else’s identity. The questions I see being asked; “Which toilets should intersex people use then?”, “If we accept women without wombs as women, then surely someone born male can be?”, “Where do intersex people fit into your regressive binary?”, “How do we know this child molester, with a beard, isn’t intersex?”.
The implication being that we’re not real women and that our medical histories can be used like a prize in a game show. It’s like being back in the Victorian era where intersex people were exhibited like freaks in a side show for the edification of others. In answer to those questions; we use the toilet that corresponds with our birth sex; yes, a woman without a womb is female and; no, she isn’t just like a man that was born with a fully functioning male reproductive system.
We fit into the binary fine, we’re male or female like everyone else, and to answer the last one; why is it so hard for people to believe that male pattern abuse and criminality exists that they’d rather blame women with a medical condition? To say this is offensive is an understatement. My inbox is full of intersex people talking about how the current debate, and our unwilling place in it, has reopened trauma they have spent years repairing and coming to terms with. The social stigma we have always avoided and feared is now a fun talking point for people that have never met us, never talked to us, never taken the time to learn about us and our conditions. It’s abusive and nasty. Apparently the womanhood of transwomen isn’t up for debate but mine is being put up for sale by people that do not care about me and apparently do not care to learn.”

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3400673-intersex-and-trans

Is someone suggesting that we are not real scientists if we don't believe the trans ideology?

Have they redefined the word scientist as well as woman ?

It's the only thing that make sense

@theresstardustinmyhead

Ok, more specifically look up androgen insensitivity syndrome. Insensitivity to androgens can make a person with XY chromosomes female. See more here www.nhs.uk/conditions/differences-in-sex-development/.

I'm not a TRA (had to google what that was!) but I do have a relative with this condition. And as Misty pointed out, the ease at which their reality is dismissed in these 'debates' is heartbreaking.

You can't argue with science.

CAIS does not give XY chromosomed people a uterus or ovaries. It gives them female external genitalia, but they have undescended testes.

Reading the Wikipedia article is a really low bar to pass

@midgedude

Is someone suggesting that we are not real scientists if we don't believe the trans ideology?

Have they redefined the word scientist as well as woman ?

It's the only thing that make sense

They said “scientific people”, not scientists. I assume they mean the kind of people who used to post “Science! Fuck yeah!” memes on Facebook, rather than actual working genetics researchers and gynaecologists.

@midgedude

Is someone suggesting that we are not real scientists if we don't believe the trans ideology?

Have they redefined the word scientist as well as woman ?

It's the only thing that make sense

But they haven't come back to critique all our scientific qualifications, so we'll never know

Well the Earth is round.

However it is not perfectly round.

It will probably change at some point.

Doesn’t make it any less round. Science is complex however it builds on knowledge - even if we discover for example that we are all really aliens with no sex connected to the matrix - at the moment we know that XX and XY produce different sexes for the lifetime.

@IamAporcupine

Have you ever seen this? The fact that they all exist does not make sex a spectrum though

I think I finally might have gathered a crowd geeky enough to appreciate this post I made on Ovarit, to rousing indifference.

"Spectrum"? Even if not a discrete "binary", no.

@NecessaryScene and then there is infra red... I read the article and liked it! Particularly as there is a link with autism and trans and fluid identity - and yet there is a view in many young autistic people that ‘it is NOT a spectrum - there is a tribe and it is called autism and it is distinctly different from neurotypical people’ - so saying ‘on the spectrum’ is now considered offensive in some circles. It is ironic as many of those I’ve read saying that are trans and autistic.

Personally I think differently! I think I have many autistic traits and that this is fluid, but I am also a woman which is not fluid. IMHO!

I think part of the problem over the years has been the terminology used to describe the chromosomal disorders of sexual development.

Using terms like 'inter sex' suggests that there is some 'othering' or 'alternative' or 'middle ground' to male and female, or that it is possible to hover somewhere on a spectrum.

I know I am guilty of still using the term, but I am endeavouring to use the term disorders of sexual development or difference of sexual development when talking about these things.

What do those with DSDs who are here on this forum feel? What kind of terminology do you prefer?
Although I keep saying it is unfair to drag these people into the trans debate, it WILL keep happening, as it is one of the fall back arguments when they have no other.