JK Rowling article

[DrDreReturns]

Interesting read. I know it's from a Conservative site but it seems only the right are gender critical at the moment.

www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2022/03/profile-j-k-rowling-striving-to-stop-starmer-nailing-his-colours-to-the-fence-on-trans.html

However exclusionary and unwoke it may be to say so, sex is entirely based on reproductive role. There are only two sexes because there are only two reproductive roles. If you think differently, name the third.

@Theeyeballsinthefuckingsky

Their skeleton

Next!!

Actually, skeletons are very difficult to sex reliably: www.researchgate.net/publication/288933047_The_Difficulty_of_Sexing_Skeletons_from_Unknown_Populations

And this also goes for males. If a male for some reason has undescended testes, or streak testes, they are not female and they do not have ovaries.

And if a male has their testes removed, they are still male, just with their testes removed.

Women are females and the word has forever been based on being a female. Because being 'female' can be medically and biologically defined.

That some people choose to destabilise that meaning for their own purposes does not change the word despite their wish to and defining the word woman on feelings and on stereotypes is regressive and that is what feeds into 'gendered' anything.

@Helleofabore

Sorry? You don't understand that all females have a body that contains the coding and usually the body parts to produce eggs? And that they are female regardless of whether they ever have produced eggs or not, or whether those body parts are fully working or whether they don't work at all. Or if they are missing.

You don't understand that that is the only thing that females on this planet have in common?

That their body was formed around a function even if that body has medical conditions or has been prevented in some way of doing that function?

Well, people with XY chromosomes also contain this "coding", in fact cis women usually only have one X chromosome active in each cell.

I'm not denying that there's no correlation between producing ova and being a woman, there's a strong correlation there. This correlation we call cisgender.

"You don't understand that that is the only thing that females on this planet have in common? "

But that's not true! You said it yourself "usually the body parts". Having ovaries, or having ova, or having wide hips are all traits strongly associated with being a woman, but not every woman has them.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

However exclusionary and unwoke it may be to say so, sex is entirely based on reproductive role. There are only two sexes because there are only two reproductive roles. If you think differently, name the third.

Firstly, I think that defining women as a reproductive role is anti-feminist.

What about people who don't or can't reproduce? Are infertile people a third gender, they are unable to have a reproductive role.

This correlation we call cisgender.

No. You do. Most people do not. It makes zero sense to me because I don't subscribe to your ideology. It's literally meaningless because women can only be adult human females to me. There aren't two sexes of women, female people are the category which precludes the inclusion of any males. It isn't personal.

What about people who don't or can't reproduce? Are infertile people a third gender, they are unable to have a reproductive role.

I have no idea what "gender" anyone is in your ideological worldview. Gender to me is a social construct based on sex stereotypes. Sex is not about whether you can or can't reproduce, it's about sex class as determined by your genes. There are only two. No one is fertile 100% of the time.

Having ovaries, or having ova, or having wide hips are all traits strongly associated with being a woman, but not every woman has them.

Again, you are bringing this down to individual body parts. You are not looking at the system as a whole. It is the 'body formed around' the process. Those bodies can be hugely varied and they are hugely varied.

But I've had these disingenuous conversations too many times to be arsed with them now. Go and find a peer reviewed biology paper that states there are more than two sexes. Not a gender studies one, or a blog, or a Twitter thread. A citation, by a respected biologist.

What about people who don't or can't reproduce? Are infertile people a third gender, they are unable to have a reproductive role.

My Bingo card is full.

Yes the variation is within each sex. There is no one that can fulfil both reproductive roles, even with extremely rare disorders of sex development. That's because the two development pathways are different.

Firstly, I think that defining women as a reproductive role is anti-feminist.

Readers, notice the elision here between defining women and defining "women".

Saying women have to be something is indeed anti-feminist.

Defining the word "woman" is just defining a word, not saying anything about what women should be.

A lot of the nonsense you see here is actually just failure to put quote marks in the correct place, and to try to produce this confusion between talking about women (real adult human females) and "women" (the word).

We say something about the word "women", Fuchs or similar counters with a non-sequitur about women, pretending we said something about some (actually undefined by Fuchs) group of people.

@ElaineFuchs

I find it very concerning that the gender critical movement is so closely aligned with people wishing to roll back abortion rights, promote misogynistic viewpoints and homophobia.

I don't think that every GC believes in this things of course, but there is a worrying overlap.

(full disclaimer, I am not GC)

What absolute bollocks. Most of the GC women are left wing - many of us are from ethnic minorities. Most of us are parents or grandparents and many of us have jobs in positions of safeguarding. What an utterly stupid thing to say.

Firstly, I think that defining women as a reproductive role is anti-feminist.

What about people who don't or can't reproduce? Are infertile people a third gender, they are unable to have a reproductive role.

What part of 'having a body formed around a certain reproductive role whether those body parts successfully produce large gametes' do you not actually understand?

No one is defining women as a reproductive role. We define women as their material reality - having a female body.

It seems to be YOU who is determined to make being a woman about actually producing children. We are saying that all women are female and that they are female because of this type of body.

What a woman does with that body is then up to them.

What on earth do you suppose negative sexist discrimination against women has been based on? Their long hair and make-up?

Really..... nothing to do with women being the class of human that reproduces and having a body that doesn't have the strength and the power that a male body has? Nothing to do with males taking ownership of that female body to reproduce and expand their power base?

It was all because of long hair? Well, that is ridiculous because how many of those men in history had long hair?

It was because of make up?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

But I've had these disingenuous conversations too many times to be arsed with them now. Go and find a peer reviewed biology paper that states there are more than two sexes. Not a gender studies one, or a blog, or a Twitter thread. A citation, by a respected biologist.

I'm not claiming that there are not two sexes. Sex is a bimodal distribution and not a strict binary.

Gender identity correlates strongly with sex characteristics, but not 100%. We should respect people whose gender identity doesn't line up with their sex characteristics, because ultimately the shape of someone's genitals or chromosomes is nobody's business but theirs.

I'm not claiming that there are not two sexes.

Great, no problem. Women are female and men are male.

Elaine, go and have a read about "Mitochondrial Eve" and "Y Chromosome Adam". Or about evolutionary genetics generally. It's fascinating.

This research is possible because we know Homo sapiens has two sexes, and we know which is which.

Likewise your vet knows exactly whether neutering or spaying is required on your pet cat. Note that spaying is more expensive, because due to female anatomy this is a more surgically complex. procedure. The cats themselves are also not confused about who is male and who is female.

Sex is a bimodal distribution and not a strict binary.

Please post the evidence to support this claim.

I believe even Claire Ainsworth came back and clarified, there are only two sexes. But within each of those sexes there is a large degree of variation.

I'm not claiming that there are not two sexes. Sex is a bimodal distribution

Hilarious. This time it's an elision between "sex" and "sex characteristics".

But just too blatant here. Of course you can't have a bimodal distribution without a continuous x-axis, but there are no "sex units".

That quoted bit would be true if it was "sex produces a bimodal distribution", but the "is" is substituted to make the elision.

It was all because of long hair? Well, that is ridiculous because how many of those men in history had long hair?

The poor old Vikings eh.

I believe even Claire Ainsworth came back and clarified, there are only two sexes. But within each of those sexes there is a large degree of variation.

Yes that's exactly what she said.

That quoted bit would be true if it was "sex produces a bimodal distribution", but the "is" is substituted to make the elision.

But of course, I only mean "true" for sexed characteristics like "height".

There's no bimodal distribution for number of penises, as Maya pointed out. (Can someone find those tweets? They were great).

Broadly, I view feminism as a movement against patriarchal power structures. Women aren't the only group harmed by this, people of all genders suffer from the patriarchy. For example men can be bound to gender roles too, and suffer from toxic expectations of masculinity. I would say in one way or another, everyone is a victim of the patriarchy (or course not all in the same way, or to the same degree).

So you see feminism as being against something rather than for something?

I think your position is not true. As a man I do feel constrained by patriarchal assumptions, because they narrow the field of what it means to be a man. But many men don't, and are really happy in the role. I'm just a bloody-minded contrarian. The only way you could defend such as position as yours, @ElaineFuchs, is if you have some kind of concept such as "false consciousness", which I reject for various reasons too complex to go into here.

Doesn't it make more sense for feminsim to be about, you know, women?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

This correlation we call cisgender.

No. You do. Most people do not. It makes zero sense to me because I don't subscribe to your ideology. It's literally meaningless because women can only be adult human females to me. There aren't two sexes of women, female people are the category which precludes the inclusion of any males. It isn't personal.

It's a common enough usage to make its way into the Oxford dictionary

There is loads of random shit in the dictionary. Most people think it's eye-roll worthy ideological in-group speak. Do a poll.