What is the biological definition of a woman (and man)?

[Wombat2WombatCombat]

I understand the argument for single sex spaces, but just for the avoidance of any doubt, does anyone have an exact, biological definition of a woman (or man) that we can hold people to? If we want to enforce the idea of single-sex spaces, we will need an exact criteria to determine who is or isn’t a ‘real’ woman, so I was wondering if anyone could tell me exactly what that is?

Adult.. easy overage 18
Human east
Female ... Gamates east

because ova are mobile - they move from the ovaries at ovulation through the fallopian tubes and into the womb

That is a bit like saying my ova are mobile because I get in the car and travel to town.

Can a biological male produce ova, OP? People with disorders of sex development aren't your gotcha. Just because some people's sex appears ambiguous, it doesn't mean they don't have a sex, or even more absurdly that sex doesn't exist, or that biological males will ever produce ova.

Mine are mobile cod I walk
And run

Bollocks with that phenotype complexity nonsense.

Male and female underpin the categories of men and women. That they fall into statistically different body shapes is irrelevant to being able to say what a man or woman is.

Confusing observations with biological definitions is one of the most irritating things this gender woo nonsense does.

No. That is the definition of female or male. OP asked about a definition of woman (or man). It is, I would argue, more complex than that.

No, woman is simply the word for an adult female human being. You can argue that "adult" is more complex maybe, but I don't accept that any women aren't female.

The OP can perfectly well recognise the difference between a man and a woman. Just like the way the OP can distinguish between an electric bike and a motorcycle, or between a cat and a dog. These are all simple categories that cause no problem in day to day life.

It's only because some people who are clearly one sex are wanting to be recognised incorrectly as the opposite sex that this is a problem at all.

Rather than getting hung up on a tiny number of potentially ambiguous edge cases, why doesn't the OP ask why on earth we should humour the idea that a person can change sex?

OP, there are apparently, 6,500 genetic differences between men and women.

I'm sure a biologist, scientist or endocrinologist could list each and every one of them with a detailed definition.

As it is, they culminate in the descriptions of adult human female of or denoting the sex who bears eggs, and adult human male of or denoting the sex who produce sperm. The word denoting is the one that takes into account all the different criteria.

Humans with disorders of sexual development also fall into the two categories, male or female but with sometimes harder than normal characteristics in order to make a classification. It's worth noting that some of these disorders are extremely dangerous and can result in early loss of life. They are not a gotcha. They are a human condition, identifiable and verifiable. The medical profession who do this are not sitting there scratching their chins wondering what the fuck they've got on their hands. These are real people with real issues.

As other people have pointed out, the 6,500 differences will usually produce a distinctive visual which is immediately obvious to the human eye.

Hence no one wandering around wondering which set of humans to put in charge, and which set of humans to treat like a service.

Funnily enough.

Ffs. There really is absolutely no end to which people will go to claim women should not have boundaries.

Not necessarily you, OP. But I wouldn't know either way.

OP I find your post very odd. Surely you know the difference between a man and a woman?

Its DNA. My DP has more in common DNA wise with a male gorilla than me.

The difference between the sexes is as wide as the gulf between different species.

Its not confusing. And intersex anomalies are still only found in XX or XY (different conditions but all sex specific) and it is not the same as XY males deciding they are women.

Outliers would generally have some sort of biological cause, so it doesn't negate the definition of male and female. For example, if the SRY gene was translocated to a non-sex chromosome then a person could be XX but be male (make male gametes). That does not negate the category of "male" because the definition of male is based on gametes, not chromosomes.

The sex differentiation pathway is complex, as is all of human development. But complex does not mean unintelligible. The definition of male and female, which is based on the nature of a person's gametes, is clear and simple. The development of secondary sex characteristics such as larger breasts, external genitalia, etc, does have outliers because those are downstream developmental processes. Women with very small breasts, for example, or disorders of breast development where breasts don't adopt the normal mature features. But, those women are still adapted to produce female gametes and are therefore still female. That's why features such as breast size, etc, are "secondary" sexual characteristics and not the primary characteristic.

Interesting paucity of replies from someone (the OP) who claims to be very keen on finding out how on earth we can agree on definitions of male and female.

Outliers that cannot be definitively classed as male or female (which I think is pretty much impossible anyway) do not change the definition of a woman. People who are born with abnormalities such as only one leg or with a leg that is not fully formed do not change the fact that humans are bipedal, for example.

@PossiblyDreaming

Outliers that cannot be definitively classed as male or female (which I think is pretty much impossible anyway) do not change the definition of a woman. People who are born with abnormalities such as only one leg or with a leg that is not fully formed do not change the fact that humans are bipedal, for example.

Quite.

If I cut all the legs off my table, it doesn't suddenly negate tables as a concept.

I am aware of the importance of single sex spaces, but recently I have learnt about all of the various intersex conditions, and wanted to know how they fit into everything.

Firstly, the number of people with intersex conditions is absolutely minuscule and they almost exclusively identify as one sex or the other in everyday life and will pass as that sex.

Secondly, why are you relating the issue of single sex spaces with intersex people? I have quite literally never heard of someone who has an intersex condition fighting to be allowed into the single sex space they haven't always been allowed into. This is an issue that has been raised and fought for by trans women and self proclaimed trans allies. You're using (or are being influenced by people using) intersex people as a gotcha in a debate many of them have in fact politely asked to be left out of because it isn't a concern for them.

It's not the gotcha you / they think it is. It's actually disrespectful to those with intersex conditions.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

No. That is the definition of female or male. OP asked about a definition of woman (or man). It is, I would argue, more complex than that.

No, woman is simply the word for an adult female human being. You can argue that "adult" is more complex maybe, but I don't accept that any women aren't female.

(Yes, I know they are very much edge cases but . . )

Are (adult) people with Swyer Syndrome or Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome men or women? Why?

@PossiblyDreaming

Outliers that cannot be definitively classed as male or female (which I think is pretty much impossible anyway) do not change the definition of a woman. People who are born with abnormalities such as only one leg or with a leg that is not fully formed do not change the fact that humans are bipedal, for example.

Can you understand this OP? I don't mean that in a patronising way but this is what it comes down to.

@TalbotAMan

Are (adult) people with Swyer Syndrome or Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome men or women? Why?

A quick search suggests the answers to these questions are clear...

Androgen insensitivity syndrome: a genetic condition which affects a child’s sexual development before birth and during puberty. People with this syndrome are genetically male (they carry both an X and a Y chromosome), but are born with all or some of the physical traits of a female. This happens because a mutation on the X chromosome causes the body to resist androgen, the hormones that produce a male appearance.

Swyer Syndrome: Borm orn with XY (male) chromosomal makeup, which means reproductive organs don't develop properly. To outward appearances, they may seem female, though their underdeveloped organs have knock-on effects for their hormones. These girls never go through puberty, because they lack the regular hormones that a young woman usually possesses. On a basic genetic level, they are male.

The biological definition? Doh. It's only in every single book about human anatomy and reproduction. Why are you asking on Mumsnet? Go to the library and look it up. Or better still, ask a midwife.

@lovelyweathertoday

The OP can perfectly well recognise the difference between a man and a woman. Just like the way the OP can distinguish between an electric bike and a motorcycle, or between a cat and a dog. These are all simple categories that cause no problem in day to day life.

It's only because some people who are clearly one sex are wanting to be recognised incorrectly as the opposite sex that this is a problem at all.

Rather than getting hung up on a tiny number of potentially ambiguous edge cases, why doesn't the OP ask why on earth we should humour the idea that a person can change sex?

Also, it's a standard argument from those who want males in females' facilities, that it's impossible to have single sex anything. It really isn't, & it never has been.

Oh, I see they're still denying sex. And we're having to teach them biology yet again.

And this is it, is it? The big idea? That there's no such thing as sex...

Funny how men are never confused about who is a woman is in real life.

Who to control, subject to FGM, which children to marry off to old men, which children to keep uneducated, who to traffic, who to rape, who to use when they need to produce a baby. Etc etc etc

It isn't complicated at all. No amount of waffle, trying to use sexual development disorders to pretend sex is now too complicated to define, will ever turn a man into a woman.

Take away the bullshit sexist stereotypes, and they have nothing.

There is no special genetic difference between a man and a man who claims to be a woman.

It's just occurred to me that I wonder if much of this problem boils down to some people not liking the fact that their gametes are referred to as small, even if mobile, and other peoples' gametes are referred to as large, even if immobile?

After all, to some people, size really matters.

There is no special genetic difference between a man and a man who claims to be a woman.

Yes. That is by far the more relevant question.

@Pluvia

Oh, I see they're still denying sex. And we're having to teach them biology yet again.

And this is it, is it? The big idea? That there's no such thing as sex...

Next we will be told it is a western idea imposed on the eastern countries such as China where they lived a pure spiritual life of advanced agriculture, invented printing 1000 years before us but struggled to produce food because they could not understand why two bulls would not yield a calf... China of course is also notoriously under populated as no one worked out how babies are made until westerners told them.