"Biological sex is a multidimensional variable with various components" - Thread 2

[MissScarletInTheBallroom]

The last thread ended with Tandora attempting to sidestep the question about what she would say if her daughter had been raped by a trans woman in a female only space and no longer believed that trans women should be in female only spaces as a consequence.

Her last reply was along the lines of, "The same thing I would say if she had been bullied by a green person at school and said she no longer wanted to go to school with green people."

@Tandora can we have a serious answer?

So if we've lost the word female to refer to biological women - how does the patient request same sex care so that Dr Upton doesn't turn up?

Really? Simple’s requesting a women when Upton turns up would be enough?

with no repercussions?

He isn’t though. Truth hurts at times. His (and your) denial of reality shouldn’t be hurting anyone else though.

You could say you wanted a doctor who was female at birth, or ask for a female doctor and specify that you are not comfortable with a trans woman.

@Tandora
I can see you are busy responding to numerous people so I'll try to be brief.

Having thought more, I think I'm starting to get it. I'll try to quickly get to the crux of the matter with a more pointed question.

In the absence of a person telling you their sex is there any way to correctly determine their sex?

You don't get to decide that.

It's not the 'Truth', it's your truth.

it's not 'reality', it's your reality.

DU has a different truth, a different reality.

If you continue to impose yours, without acknowledging hers, it does hurt and that hurt is being caused by you.

Nope. You’re attempting to blur the definition of sex, and the delineation between sexes, to such an extent that any attempt to define something as ‘single-sex’ becomes unworkable. You doing it at the expense of women (traditional kind) for the benefit of some men. This not a progressive or indeed kind position to take. Nor is it new.

Again. You prioritise the male person.

Nope, I'm telling the truth about the realities of 'sex' - which is that it is a complex measure with multiple components.

That doesn't mean we have to eradicate sex or we can never identity it. Things don't have to be binary and fixed in order for them to be real and identifiable.

No. I don't prioritise male people.

Correct, I don’t get to decide it. It just is. Dr Upton was born a male, is a male, and will remain male until the day he dies. He can feel whatever he wants to feel, call himself whatever he wants, but he’s not a woman.

When they dig up his bones in 200 years time they’ll find the bones of an adult human male.

Lots of people think the world is flat. That’s their ‘truth’ I guess. They really believe it.

But it’s not. You don’t get to decide red is now actually green because it’s suits you.

It just is

It isn't though.

That's your belief system - it is too simplistic and it doesn't reflect the true complexities of human diversity.

Helen Joyce just retweeted this excerpt from an old interview with an analytic philosopher from Oxford - seems very relevant to this thread. I'd recommend the 10 minute video clip.

“I think that a lot of contemporary theoretical discourse proceeds in an atmosphere of pretentious abstraction, in which it’s considered naive and illegitimate to make these very simple arguments of the kind that I’ve illustrated. If somebody does try to make them, they’re simply dismissed as not understanding the depth of the issue. Really, that is not because people who are dismissing such objections have any coherent explanation of what’s wrong with them.

“To some extent, one can compare it to the story of the emperor who had no clothes, where he was naked but all his courtiers treated him as wonderfully dressed until the little boy comes along and points out that the emperor has no clothes. It’s a matter of them having internalised their own confusions. They’re like the courtiers who have really convinced themselves that in a deep sense, the emperor is dressed in magnificent clothes, and the probably have a court philosopher whose job is to explain how it’s only on a very naive and unsophisticated understanding that you would suppose that clothes are the kind of thing you can see and touch, that in the deep sense of “clothes”, the emperor is wearing more clothes than anyone else.

“Unfortunately, once you have a whole community that’s emotionally, intellectually and culturally invested in nonsense of that kind, it’s very difficult to help it into any kind of clarification. Of course, what will happen in such a community when the little boy says that the emperor has no clothes is that he will be told to shut up, that he hasn’t studied enough philosophy and that when he’s older, he will understand that the emperor has more clothes than anyone else” – Timothy Williamson

https://x.com/d_kodsi/status/1949089954618900791#m

It really is. Again, it doesn’t matter what I believe. Fact is fact.

You can have your own feelings, you can’t have your own facts.

The emporers new multidimensional clothes to be exact.

Yes fact is fact, and you are wrong about the facts. You believe the facts are much simpler than they are, and you can't see the situation for the reality of is factual complexity.

It matters what you believe in the sense that you are determined to impose your beliefs on everyone in a way that is causing harm, right now, to people whose lived realities don't exist within your overly simplistic, reductive framework.

I’m not. You can repeat it as much as you like.

Nothing you’ve said so far (and it’s been a lot) has coherently explained how Dr Upton, or any man, can be a woman, like he states, that makes any iota of sense.

Care to answer the anorexic/non-binary questions you’ve been asked?

Male to me means a person whose gene combinations mean we would expect them to be able to produce sperm but would not expect them to have periods

thus Upton is male

1> can you accept that if we were to use the definition of male I have used than Upton is male ?

2>can you accept that a word is needed to describe the condition o call being male?

3> can you give any similarly succinct , externally verifiable definition for male whereby Upton is considered not male ?

this might help me understand you better

Does anyone else want to reclaim the time they've spent reading this insane thread? (No insult to those who have taken on the thankless task of rebutting the insanity.)

We can agree to disagree.

Nonbinary people are nonbinary.

Anorexia is a very different thing - because anorexia is not compatible with life. I had a cousin who died of it - a lot of people do if it's not cured.

Trans people can lead perfectly healthy, fulfilling, full lives, if only they are given the right support. There is nothing wrong with being trans, and no evidence that it can be 'cured'.

The bit you tacked on at the end after you originally posted it is so ironic it’s laughable.

By imposing your belief on others (yours is an ideological belief, which is not backed by science or material reality that you say you’ve researched but can’t evidence), that men can actually be women, it harms women. You’ve been given ALL the examples as to the how and why but you plough on with this belief regardless.

You aren’t winning this one I’m afraid.

I honestly don’t see the point in the threads bonfire

i know about lurkers but honestly its just such a load of bollocks i can’t see why people would waste their time on it

and i am at the ‘happy to use the pronouns of the trans/non binary people of my albeit acquaintance’ end of this debate!

You could specifically request what you need simply by asking for another female doctor. 'Please I would like another doctor, a woman, to perform this procedure. Thank you.

And the response from the Dr Upton's of this world will be I am a woman, I am female, you transphobic bigot

If a woman asks for female only care then there should never be any instance of a Dr Upton apearing to perform that care. The end.

That may be a better question. Why, indeed? But even so, you really do owe us an answer to the question I asked; it seems to get to an important aspect of your overall argument.

Here it is again, in case you've forgotten:

'... What is the relevant difference between (a man who claims) "I'm a woman, me" and "I'm Elvis, me" or "I'm cool, me"?
... How do we tell which is authentic?'

("Authentic" was your word.)

Any answer?

Trans people exist, they are real, they are legitimate and recognising these realities in no way harms women.