"Biological sex is a multidimensional variable with various components" - Discuss

[dunBle]

To save further derailment of the Sandie Peggie tribunal threads with people debating Tandora's statements on the above theme, I've started this thread to point them to instead.

And when it doesn't, those children are wrong.

They are not the opposite sex.

They are wrong about what sex they are.

I'm not this poster but it IS important me to understand how you (or anyone making the argument that sex is more complicated than commonly perceived to be) feels society should be organised.

Should we redraw the lines or should there be no lines?

That does not take a debate to answer. I am asking for the personal views of people who make the argument that sex is complicated.

Not wrong. Just different.

You literally referred to responding "correctly".

Yes but therein lies the problem. If you cannot answer simple questions like can a biological man with a penis walk freely around single sex changing rooms for biological women because of multi dimensionality then we have people suffering the crimes of exposure & voyeurism.

Until you prove ultra multi dimensionality of the sexual planes - the only safe thing to do is stop the criminal activity.

Then when the debate is settled come back and make safe law. Given the sense of the debate so far I’m sure we’ll be a while.

If by different you mean wrong about what sex they are compared to children who correctly say what sex they are, then I agree.

Doesn’t that all rather fall apart with ‘gender fluid’ people? They are not in any physical (including biochemical) way changing day to day.

Great that they're part of the debate.

Just bringing this back to your attention @Tandora as I think it's very important to understand and I don't want it to get lost.

TLDR - yes, anyone with CAIS as a DSD is male, despite sometimes being mistaken for female due to appearance of external genitalia. They could potentially produce sperm (and those with partial versions of the DSD have) but never eggs.

The claim that “there are absolutely female people with Y chromosomes” is a fundamental misunderstanding of human biology and the concept of sexual dimorphism. Sex is binary, male or female, based on the organisation of the reproductive system and the role played in sexual reproduction. This is established at fertilisation and reflected in the development of either large gametes (eggs, female) or small gametes (sperm, male), even if gamete production never occurs.

Individuals with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS) are genetically male ,they have an XY karyotype. Despite their bodies not responding to androgens, they do not develop the internal reproductive anatomy of females (no ovaries, no uterus, no fallopian tubes), nor do they produce ova. This categorically excludes them from being female in the biological sense.

CAIS individuals may appear phenotypically female in some external respects because of the body’s inability to respond to male hormones, but they are not biologically female. Saying otherwise conflates appearance or social assignment with biological sex, which is both incorrect and unscientific. Being “assigned female at birth” due to external appearance is not evidence of actual femaleness, it’s a medical misclassification, later corrected once the underlying biology is understood.

In medicine, science, and evolutionary biology, sex is a binary system that accommodates some disorders of sexual development (DSDs) like CAIS, but these are deviations from a binary framework—not new categories of sex. The existence of rare conditions does not dismantle the binary; exceptions do not negate the rule, they highlight it.

And now I come to think of it there was at least one trans woman as well.

I said that's how the question is framed/ phrased

Was this question ever answered? If not, I’m assuming sociology as well. Or gender studies.

Society, when functioning well, is organised based on common sense reality and agreed social and cultural principles. The biological foundations of sex and life on earth are really not in dispute - except in the trans sphere - where people twist reality to conform with their preferences.

There is no agreed definition on what it means to 'be trans'... 'Being trans' is not a fixed or stable condition which is reliably and consistently measurable. People 'transition' for all sorts of reasons, and many de-transition. This suggests that being trans is more a mental construct than anything else. It certainly has got nothing to do with 'Sex'.

And if sex was so ambiguous and so prone to metamorphosis then there would ne no need to transition in the first place, would there? What is it that one would be transitioning to, anyway.?

There is research into why a transgender identity develops which is rejected out of hand.

We've had years of public denouncement of this research.

Attempts to depathologise are common including by Rachel Levine,
Former Assistant Secretary for Health of the United States Department of Health and Human Services whose 2023 research paper
abstract says:

Conclusion:
A number of research studies have investigated biological factors that could potentially contribute to transgender identity, but results often contradict each other.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19359705.2022.2127042

With that admission of contradictions are you able to discuss this 2011 research without simply saying it's wrong? Lawrence is open about his own autogynephilia and has actually posted on this board many years ago.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22005209/#:~:text=Autogynephilia%20is%20defined%20as%20a,%2Dfemale%20(MtF)%20transsexualism.

Autogynephilia: an underappreciated paraphilia
Anne A Lawrence. Adv Psychosom Med. 2011.

Abstract
Autogynephilia is defined as a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female. It is the paraphilia that is theorized to underlie transvestism and some forms of male-to-female (MtF) transsexualism. Autogynephilia encompasses sexual arousal with cross-dressing and cross-gender expression that does not involve women's clothing per se. The concept of autogynephilia defines a typology of MtF transsexualism and offers a theory of motivation for one type of MtF transsexualism. Autogynephilia resembles a sexual orientation in that it involves elements of idealization and attachment as well as erotic desire. Nearly 3% of men in Western countries may experience autogynephilia; its most severe manifestation, MtF transsexualism, is rare but increasing in prevalence. Some theorists and clinicians reject the transsexual typology and theory of motivation derived from autogynephilia; their objections suggest a need for additional research. The concept of autogynephilia can assist clinicians in understanding some otherwise puzzling manifestations of nonhomosexual MtF transsexualism. Autogynephilia exemplifies an unusual paraphilic category called 'erotic target identity inversions', in which men desire to impersonate or turn their bodies into facsimiles of the persons or things to which they are sexually attracted.

Each to their own. I would prefer to read links that support someone’s opinion and to work out what is factual and what is opinion. And as you know, I do read the links in posts. That is how I, personally, learn. You may prefer a different method.

Incidentally, I am also someone who scans the leaflets and reads the ones that I find interesting. I don’t simply assume they are boring / irrelevant / or whatever and ignore them.

What I don’t believe I have seen from the poster claiming the expertise is a coherent argument that supports their over arching opinions and they don’t have evidence to support it either. I would expect someone with the expertise as claimed to be able to provide both.

Particularly when it is a detailed discussion and they are getting nowhere.

What happens though, is there is no evidence presented.

"Scientific truths" need to be backed by reputable published scientific research. You express your belief, you dont provide evidence.

I think it's really harmful to insist women with CAIS are 'male'. They are almost always -very appropriately - assigned female at birth, they are legally, socially female, medically 'treated' as such (with HRT etc), and they would fit the definition of 'biological' female under the SC judgement.

Even without that factor though, would the need for single sex spaces go away?

I'm male, I'm not exactly at risk from women in my changing rooms, doesn't mean I'm happy to change in front of them though.

Giving a male with CAIS HRT is not 'treating them as female' it is treating them as a male with CAIS.

Because females can't have CAIS and therefore there is no female specific treatment to give them.

Have tried to elicit a response from both @Tandora and @damsondamsel , no joy yet.

At what point am I able to adopt a long-suffering tone of martyrdom?

That thread had at least two male people with transgender identities.

We have historically had a handful of male people with transgender identities who understood they were male and who told us they didn’t use female single sex provisions or expect anyone to use female language for them. Sadly, quite a few of them were abused on threads by other male people with transgender identities who disagreed with them and turned abusive towards them .

We live on Planet Earth. We are creatures just like the rest. Human beings are either male or female. Our bodies are our fate- no matter how transhumanists try to pretend otherwise. Our fate is the set of conditions we have inherited. The ones we did not choose. Our bodies and the realm of biological life have their own rules and their own timing.

When you die, that means your body has ceased to function and you no longer exist on the earth...even though you may still exist in the memories of those left behind, and in the creations or conditions you have manifested whilst still alive.....but these too shall pass when their time comes.

The end.

Best just to accept the nature of reality, or the reality of nature and make the most of what time you have. Life is limited. We cannot be, nor do, whatever we want.

Exactly. Not a third sex. Also means you can’t choose to switch. You are what you are. Accept it. Get on with it. Change yourself surgically if you want, but it’s just cosmetic, and doesn’t alter your chromosomal sex.

Haven't RTFT, so this may already have been addressed, but...

Embryos do not randomly accrue characteristics. As Dr Emma Hilton memorably said, sex development is not like a Mr Potato-head. Sex is the organisation of the body around the production of either large or small gametes and sexual development is a pathway which is very occasionally disrupted or stalled. DSDs have specific causes and those factors affect either normal male or normal female development.

Individuals with CAIS are male. They have no internal female organs, they do have internal testes and produce testosterone in the male range. They are seen as women because their inability to use testosterone means that it is synthesised into oestrogen, which they can use and which results in an apparently female external phenotype. So what you see is a woman. Except that their body is not organised around the production of large gametes, which is what "female" means. Socially speaking, there isn't any point differentiating between CAIS individuals and women, but it matters for sport.

CAIS has a genetic cause and can be part of the genetic makeup of female embryos as well. Being totally unable to respond to testosterone is just as abnormal for females as for males. However, the sexual development of female embryos is not affected, because it is female sexual development and therefore not dependent on testosterone and other androgens synthesised from it.
So CAIS only results in DSD in males.

An individual with Swyers could be regarded as male in the most technical sense possible - the big switch which starts male sexual development fails and female development is therefore not suppressed. In Swyers, ovotesticular tissue remains undifferentiated and therefore produces no gametes. Only small amounts of both female and male sex hormones are produced by other glands in the body. Swyers individuals are regarded as women because it would be ridiculous not to do so given their almost complete female sexual development and indeed they can sometimes bear children with a donated egg and the support of exogenous female hormones. Like with CAIS individuals, society subjects them to the same socialisation as women.

Finally, nothing you say earlier about sex being multi-dimensional, etc, contradicts the essential facts. Sexual reproduction is a biological process based on the fusion of two gametes - one large, one small. Half of humanity contributes large gametes (assuming normal development) and the other half contributes small gametes (assuming normal development). Two sexes. There is no other way of making new humans than by fusing the genetic material of a sperm and an egg.

All of this is biological and nothing to do with subjective feelings.

Even if there is a biological cause for why a person feels they should be the other sex, the fact remains that this has no effect on what sex they actually are.

ETA: Inevitably, I have cross posted with loads of pps!