"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.

What actually sets them apart from women is that they are men.

Then why is their understanding of biology so poor?

@GetDressedYouMerryGentlemen

Exactly. The whole ideology is an attempt at redefinition. Just look at this thread. The purpose of the redefinition is to claim access to spaces & services that are provided exclusively for the opposite sex.

As suggested by the pp, I’m not worried about somebody ‘stealing my womanhood’, that’s impossible, it’s what I am. My concern is with men claiming to be women & inserting themselves into women only spaces.

My ‘womanhood’ isn’t threatened by a bloke in a dress called Cynthia, but my privacy, dignity & possibly my safety are threatened by his presence, his male presence, in my women only space.

They are not any kind of women, they are men.

Absolutely nobody believes they are women.

There are people who don't believe they are women, and people who pretend to believe they are women whilst treating them with about a thousand times more respect and consideration than they treat actual women.

If they were women, society would have collectively said, "Shh, we don't care about your identity, now get back in the kitchen and make us a sandwich."

I suspect that whatever 'work' Tandora does in 'this field' is paid per word.

Incredibly rare DSD aside... a trans person/ gay person / straight person knows what type of body they would need to 'mate' with to hope to produce offspring. They might not like the idea, they may never do it, they may wish they had that body type, they may hate all the social aspects and stereotypes that go with it... but they know from the point of view of reproductive sex what sex they are!

Dr Upton wants a word with you in the changing room.

He's not a robot, he's biological and therefore he's a biological woman.

And Dr Upton will also have you know that "biological woman" is also a transphobic dog whistle, the latest redefinition provided under oath.

Should rapists be in women's prisons and refuges or not?

The hyperbole here is just growing and growing.

The ”dogmatic quasi religious ideologies” are making you “ill”? Crikey. Better get yourself to A&E and get yourself checked out. Hope you don’t end up with a specialist doctor who believes that a male person with CAIS is genetically male and that it is important to recognise when it matters.

In the meantime, your emotionally manipulative posts are getting more so as the days goes by.

I don't think you understand the issue.

You can erase a word in two ways. You can take the word away, or you can make it's meaning so wide it becomes meaningless.

Saying "you can still call yourself a woman, what's the problem" while agreeing that "woman" now also includes people with totally different challenges, risks and life experiences that fall outside the group that was originally called women makes the ability to continue to call ourselves women meaningless.

Saying furthermore that because they now share the word "woman", this additional group now has equal claim on the resources, support and protections that are reserved for women, and that anyone speaking about women's lives and experiences is de facto also speaking for this other unrelated group further erases women, not in absolute terms but nevertheless in practice, because it erases our ability to speak about what it is to be us, the challanges we face because of our sex, and worst of all disconnects us from our history and ability to share our common expereinces and grow in our shared understanding.

You would not accept this being done to people of a marginalised race or a colonised country. You would not even accept this being done to people with dyslexia! So why do you accept it for women?

Are you denying thst if someone really really feels they are dyslexic that they are dyslexic! What a bigot! You’ll be saying men who really really feels they are they are women are not women next! The inhumanity!!

"They are not any kind of women, they are men.

Absolutely nobody believes they are women.

There are people who don't believe they are women, and people who pretend to believe they are women whilst treating them with about a thousand times more respect and consideration than they treat actual women."

Perfectly said.

I'm glad that Tandora is here to 'help us' understand these complicated biological concepts, because Tandora's 'been in the field' so long and understand it so much better than we laypeople do. I'm wondering if Tandora has ever tried to educate Richard Dawkins (ref my post from this morning) to 'untangle his twisted logic and misunderstandings'? I'm sure RD and Lord Winston (pioneer in the field of IVF) would be grateful for the 'help' from someone so wise and knowledgeable ?

As you have said before, I believe.

And as I believe I pointed out, any male person who demands or expects female language used in any way for them, such as pronouns, is indeed redefining the language used by female people for themselves.

Your denial of this fact is irrelevant to the reality of it being true. The very fact that the word ‘woman’ is the word prefixed with trans as the label adopted to describe them immediately shows the issue clearly.

If a male person wasn’t forcing the redefinition of the word woman, they would have adopted a version of using man or male for their experience or created a new word completely.

Because gender ideology trumps all.

Hi again @Tandora with a bit of insomnia I've been reading through your posts with an attempt at a summary of your core argument below...I'd be really grateful if you could let me know if this is correct or any changes suggested. I've given it a name, I see it as different from i.e. The Trans Argument from Kindness.

Trans Argument from the Biological Complexity of Sexual Development
We are continually discovering more about the complex nature of human sexual development.

Sex is multidimensional. For instance, some women have a male chromosomal pattern (XY) but present as phenotypically female.

Biological sex involves an intricate, ongoing process of development across the body—including the brain. It encompasses many factors: genes, karyotypes, hormone signalling, and more. As well as major variations, there are subtle differences across individuals. Of particular relevance is how sex hormones are produced and received, which has profound organisational effects on the brain and broader neuro development.

Trans identity roughly defines as a firmly held sense or belief about one’s self that does not align with one’s genitalia or chromosomes etc. It challenges the idea that sex is a straightforward binary fixed at birth, an "external" that children come to "know" in their day to day interactions.

Much like other aspects of neurodevelopment, there's growing evidence that being trans has biological underpinnings linked to developmental sexual variation rather than something somehow separate to it.

Conclusion: Transness is not a consciously chosen "false" belief—it reflects a real and natural part of human diversity and development. Understanding this complexity can help shape how we support and accommodate transfolk, as we do with other forms of human variation.

Apologies to other posters but probably won't get a chance for other debates/replies. I'm not advocating this view, I have the biological knowledge of a cucumber, just looking to understand better firstly.

I haven’t read the full thread but wanted to respond to this comment. @Tandora do you actually have experience of speaking to or interacting with a child in Tanner stage 2? I have, my youngest is in it at the moment and I can tell you, I would take any comments from her about thinking she’s a boy with a pinch of salt. It’s not that long since she wanted to be a unicorn farmer when she grows up and I didn’t take that seriously either. To absolutely believe what a 9 year old says about their innate being that will catastrophically alter the course of their life from such a young age is to cause irreparable damage that will never be fully recovered from. We should not be looking to make physical changes to individuals but rather to change attitudes and acceptance of people’s individuality. That way a man who wants to look feminine can do so, a woman who wants to look masculine can do so. And we keep single sex spaces where they’re needed.

Survival of the species is reliant on sexual dimorphism.

Globally, infertility affects around 1.35% of men and 2.79%. The fertile 97% really should not be in any doubt about which form of contraception they need to use to avoid an unwanted pregnancy or how to protect themselves from an STI. It would be absurd to suggest risks of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases arise from people not knowing whether they are male or female.

Of the 3% of the population who are infertile, should they access competent medical intervention, 100% will be able to discover whether they have male infertility or female infertility issues. I guarantee that the issue arising won’t be that they are neither male nor female.

Scientists are likely to discover more and more within and between sex variances than was previously understood. None of these will change the fact that sex is a binary system rooted in reproductive roles.

The nonsense talk about how ‘it’s not easy to determine sex’ is put to bed when focussing on issues relating to sexual reproduction and safe sex. I’m not aware of the WHO or government campaigns to prevent the spread of AIDS needing to address the issue of people not knowing which sex they are.

Whether trans identities arise from psychological or physical factors, or both, causal understanding does not / will not change anything about sex and sexual dimorphism.

Males and females may be more or less similar to each other in ways not currently understood. Our understanding of within and between group variance is likely to change over time. Insights into how similar or different males and females are across wide ranging variables will not change the fact that there are 2 sexes.

There are many areas of life where sex is immaterial. In such instances, ‘accommodating trans folk’ should simply require affording them the same dignity and respect as anyone else. In areas of life where sex matters, and having single sex services is reasonable and proportionate, accommodations for trans folk needs to exclude the option of them using single sex services designed for the opposite sex. If they are included, the service becomes mixed sex.

In the case of female services, it simply is a matter of if they have a penis, or had their penis inverted, they should not use the female provision. They are male (regardless of Venn diagrams showing overlapping characteristics) and their presence in the female only service renders it mixed sex.

All of the interesting scientific discovery about the unique characteristics of males with trans identities could be put to good use by applying it to improve gender neutral provision so it better meets their needs.

None of these will change the fact that sex is a binary system rooted in reproductive roles.

This is the important bit, the definition of sex only concerns itself with reproductive roles, it says nothing about brains. This is all it is. To widen the definition to include characteristics that have nothing to do with reproductive roles is a deliberate attempt at obfuscation.

Exactly. Whoch is why Tandora keeps avoiding direct questions pertaining to the binary.

I'd still like to find out what "transness" is. Is it the same for all trans people? Does a 12 year old girl, possibly autistic and/or bullied, who thinks it's really a boy and wants medical intervention experience the same kind of "transness" that Dr Upton has or, say Eddie Izzard?

I think you’d find ‘How long is a piece of string’ an easier question to answer.

The 12 year old girl though should be protected by responsible adults who won’t give her puberty blockers and encourage her to have body modifications.

That would be strange if it bore any resemblance to anything I’ve said.

There is no context where it is appropriate or justified to refer to a CAIS person as male. You can refer to the person as having a male karyotype, which is true. That is the end of any appropriate, scientific, reasonable, necessary application of the term “male” when it comes to women with CAIS.

You sound way too emotionally invested in this topic to be conducting research with any kind of objectivity. The STEM academics I work with (many of whom have won prizes for public engagement) do not speak like this.

It is not derogatory or offensive to note that CAIS individuals are technically male, whilst agreeing that in this specific situation it is not unreasonable to treat them as socially female. It is also clear to everyone but yourself that this has fuck all to do with Eddie Izzard insisting he gets to use the womens toilets on days he decides to wear high heels and a short skirt.