Changing sex is impossible

[Basicbitch40]

An xy person can never become an xx person and surely that's obvious. So why do so many people believe that you can change sex? I'm baffled.

mrstswift

When i was 13 I walked to the priest’s house to talk to him about my lack of faith

I just turned up at the priest’s house (catholic) 😀

Unfortunately id worn new too small boots and had no skin left on my heels by the time i got there…he had to ring my mum to come and get me 😀

Rufus

That is a grand story!!!

Isn’t at least part of this confusion coming from a prudish dislike of using the word ‘sex’ in polite conversation? Because sex describes both biological characteristics, but also used shorthand to mean the act. So, for decades now (longer?) people used the word ‘gender’ when they meant sex. This still happens all the time.

For example, this MN thread… www.mumsnet.com/Talk/pregnancy/4385619-we-were-told-the-wrong-gender (Although granted the OP may actually believe its gender, not sex being observed?)

In doing so, it left the door open for those with an end objective to retroactively argue their position. Maybe it would help to stop using gender when we mean sex…

Isn’t at least part of this confusion coming from a prudish dislike of using the word ‘sex’ in polite conversation?

To be fair, it was easier for teachers and similar to do that because otherwise they would have a slew of remarks, banter and disruption. 'Sex' on forms always brought out the 'Yes, please" or "If you're offering".

Maybe it would help to stop using gender when we mean sex

Yes. I find myself quoting SAGER guidelines when reviewing papers more often that I like (because there's no sign of them in use despite the number of signatories).

Heidari S, Babor T, De Castro P, Tort S, Curno M. Sex and Gender Equity in Research: rationale for the SAGER guidelines and recommended use. Research Integrity and Peer Review. 2016;1:2.

researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41073-016-0007-6

@DrBlackbird

Isn’t at least part of this confusion coming from a prudish dislike of using the word ‘sex’ in polite conversation? Because sex describes both biological characteristics, but also used shorthand to mean the act. So, for decades now (longer?) people used the word ‘gender’ when they meant sex. This still happens all the time.

For example, this MN thread… www.mumsnet.com/Talk/pregnancy/4385619-we-were-told-the-wrong-gender (Although granted the OP may actually believe its gender, not sex being observed?)

In doing so, it left the door open for those with an end objective to retroactively argue their position. Maybe it would help to stop using gender when we mean sex…

Good grief.

No, is the short answer to the question. No. Sex = biology. No, there is no prudishness. No one is conflating "sex" with "having sex".

Gender should not be conflated with sex. GC are constantly arguing this and it's not like this is news to anyone.

It is not a "gender" reveal. It is a "sex" reveal. You don't find out a baby's gender on a scan; you find out its sex.

As far as treating dysphoric patients by having everyone treat them as the sex they want to be, that is a completely irrelevant issue in 2021, since the official line of the transgender movement is that being transgender is not a mental illness that needs treating. The rest of the world can't be responsible for propping up someone's inaccurate assessment of himself as a treatment when there is no disease in evidence.

To get back to the idea that sex can't be changed. I have seen it suggested that Laurel Hubbard should be allowed to compete against females because Hubbard had taken estrogen pills, and therefore had had treatment to change sex. There is no pill that makes a man a woman any more than there is a pill that turns day into night. Your sex is a material fact that does have an effect on not only yourself, but on the people you interact with. And it is completely, utterly fixed. Oh, and it is wrong to say we are not made up by our chromosomes. We are.

No, is the short answer to the question. No. Sex = biology. No, there is no prudishness. No one is conflating "sex" with "having sex". Gender should not be conflated with sex

I agree that gender should not be conflated with sex. They have different and distinct meanings. And yet, I’ve noticed how ‘gender’ is the default word used when people actually mean ‘sex’.

Okay so maybe folks aren’t being prudish per se, but it is a habit to use gender instead of sex. On bureaucratic forms, in conversation, for teaching etc.

Alfonso I would argue that this has enabled a conflation of the two and in doing so has led to a linguistic acrobatics altering both original meanings.

People do push back against the conflation of "sex" and "gender". It's often commented on in this board.

Completely agree that there’s not just push back on these threads but strong arguments explaining the growing dangers of conflation, but everywhere else, even in medicine, people have grown accustomed to their interchangeability and we’re seeing the outcome of that now.

To borrow your phrase, so what?

The difference is we don’t see or interact with individual chromosomes. We see the expression of those chromosomes and it’s aspects of that expression that can be changed.

It gives them altered male ones.

That’s one way of describing it. If a characteristic is altered to female then it’s not a male characteristic. Many endocrinologists talk about inducing secondary sex characteristics. The sex characteristics induced by testosterone are male characteristics and the secondary sex characteristics induced by female hormones are female characteristics.