It has already spread much farther than I thought possible. Trans ideology that is now orthodoxy in the Anglophone world and much of Western Europe. The credo “trans women are [literally!] women” is the epistemic equivalent of the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist, in that both are a form of transubstantiation.
It has already spread much farther than I thought possible. Trans ideology that is now orthodoxy in the Anglophone world and much of Western Europe. The credo “trans women are [literally!] women” is the epistemic equivalent of the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist, in that both are a form of transubstantiation.
This is no longer a fringe minority view. Even Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson felt constrained to deny it.
I think most people say “trans women are women” because they want to be nice, like a title. Coleman Hughes’ analogy is apt here. An atheist might use the term “father” or “priest” or “nun” when speaking about a clergy member. I do, even if I don’t believe in Catholic anything. Doesn’t mean I believe the ideology. I’m just being nice and that’s an important distinction to make. Most people want to be civil and Tunisian d .
Not being able to define a woman is legitimately a hard question. Steve QJ up there will tell you a woman is defined solely by the gametes. Does that mean that every single biologist in the field has killed or anesthetized every single animal they’ve observed to take a good look at their gametes? Of course not. They observed secondary sex characteristics. Does that mean all of biology is wrong? Also no. It just means that sex is complicated and tied up in a plethora of factors including sex cells, reproduction, hormones, phenotypes, mating patterns, behavior patterns, evolutionary pressures, and much, much, much more. As someone whose daily career is spent analyzing sex itself, I can say that’s a legitimately hard question to ask, one that nobody in good faith can give a straight, simple answer to.
"Steve QJ up there will tell you a woman is defined solely by the gametes. Does that mean that every single biologist in the field has killed or anesthetized every single animal they’ve observed to take a good look at their gametes?"
AAARGGGHH!! This argument is so face-meltingly silly!!😅
Can you tell the difference between a dog and a cat just by looking? Or do you have to sequence the DNA of each animal you encounter? If a person with male external genitalia came up to you and asked you why "they" were having trouble getting pregnant, would you find that a "legitimately hard question"? Would you need to kill or anaesthatise me before you could tell that I have some sub-saharan ancestry?
The idea that our appearance is somehow divorced from our biology is just so...I don't even know how to finish that sentence.
As I've said several times here and elsewhere, secondary sex characteristics, especially external genitalia, line up with biological sex (i.e."sex cells, reproduction, hormones, phenotypes, mating patterns, behavior patterns, evolutionary pressures, and much, much, much more") in 99.98% of cases. Not just in humans, but in every single sexually dimorphic species. That's as good as it gets in biology or pretty much anything else.
You can have almost exactly the same degree of certainty that you've sexed somebody correctly by glancing at external genitalia as you can that if you flip a coin it won't land on its edge but on heads or tails (that's not hyperbole, I can dig up the number on this).
Plus, as every teenage boy in the world can attest, you don't have to kill an organism to get a look at its gametes.😉
Yesterday at the grocery store I again encountered Jake the cashier. Name tag filled from corner to corner with the block printed name JAKE. An apron purposefully hiding the presence of breasts. Very short hair curled at the ends. Not at all butch. That day a face mask so only her eyes were visible. Beautiful feminine eyes without makeup that crushed the attempted androgyny and yet subtle or I would not have noticed the androgyny.
The sex binary is anisogamy, pure and simple, for the overwhelming majority of the animal and plant world including primates--large and small gametes, ova and sperm, pistil and stamen. Everything else is variable and on a statistically dimorphic spectrum, including chromosomes and secondary sex characteristics. All the recent confusion ideologically, not empirically, motivated.
I have long enjoyed your writing on Medium. Thank you and goodnight.
It has already spread much farther than I thought possible. Trans ideology that is now orthodoxy in the Anglophone world and much of Western Europe. The credo “trans women are [literally!] women” is the epistemic equivalent of the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist, in that both are a form of transubstantiation.
This is no longer a fringe minority view. Even Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson felt constrained to deny it.
Those are two completely separate issues though.
I think most people say “trans women are women” because they want to be nice, like a title. Coleman Hughes’ analogy is apt here. An atheist might use the term “father” or “priest” or “nun” when speaking about a clergy member. I do, even if I don’t believe in Catholic anything. Doesn’t mean I believe the ideology. I’m just being nice and that’s an important distinction to make. Most people want to be civil and Tunisian d .
Not being able to define a woman is legitimately a hard question. Steve QJ up there will tell you a woman is defined solely by the gametes. Does that mean that every single biologist in the field has killed or anesthetized every single animal they’ve observed to take a good look at their gametes? Of course not. They observed secondary sex characteristics. Does that mean all of biology is wrong? Also no. It just means that sex is complicated and tied up in a plethora of factors including sex cells, reproduction, hormones, phenotypes, mating patterns, behavior patterns, evolutionary pressures, and much, much, much more. As someone whose daily career is spent analyzing sex itself, I can say that’s a legitimately hard question to ask, one that nobody in good faith can give a straight, simple answer to.
"Steve QJ up there will tell you a woman is defined solely by the gametes. Does that mean that every single biologist in the field has killed or anesthetized every single animal they’ve observed to take a good look at their gametes?"
AAARGGGHH!! This argument is so face-meltingly silly!!😅
Can you tell the difference between a dog and a cat just by looking? Or do you have to sequence the DNA of each animal you encounter? If a person with male external genitalia came up to you and asked you why "they" were having trouble getting pregnant, would you find that a "legitimately hard question"? Would you need to kill or anaesthatise me before you could tell that I have some sub-saharan ancestry?
The idea that our appearance is somehow divorced from our biology is just so...I don't even know how to finish that sentence.
As I've said several times here and elsewhere, secondary sex characteristics, especially external genitalia, line up with biological sex (i.e."sex cells, reproduction, hormones, phenotypes, mating patterns, behavior patterns, evolutionary pressures, and much, much, much more") in 99.98% of cases. Not just in humans, but in every single sexually dimorphic species. That's as good as it gets in biology or pretty much anything else.
You can have almost exactly the same degree of certainty that you've sexed somebody correctly by glancing at external genitalia as you can that if you flip a coin it won't land on its edge but on heads or tails (that's not hyperbole, I can dig up the number on this).
Plus, as every teenage boy in the world can attest, you don't have to kill an organism to get a look at its gametes.😉
Yesterday at the grocery store I again encountered Jake the cashier. Name tag filled from corner to corner with the block printed name JAKE. An apron purposefully hiding the presence of breasts. Very short hair curled at the ends. Not at all butch. That day a face mask so only her eyes were visible. Beautiful feminine eyes without makeup that crushed the attempted androgyny and yet subtle or I would not have noticed the androgyny.
At first glance there are people who pass as the opposite gender, until you look critically. Beautiful men and handsome women but there is this. https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/format:webp/1*96H2OommkTPWcEnVtDv7Rw.jpeg
Nature makes scientific proof of gender largely unnecessary.
"Blasphemous," but true... Evolution is vastly cleverer than ideologues.
Yes I get it. If you squint hard enough, everything becomes blurry. Or incoherent.
Just asking for consistency. 🤷♂️
Anyways, it’s late. It’s midnight. I’m off to bed. Good talking to y’all. ✌️
The sex binary is anisogamy, pure and simple, for the overwhelming majority of the animal and plant world including primates--large and small gametes, ova and sperm, pistil and stamen. Everything else is variable and on a statistically dimorphic spectrum, including chromosomes and secondary sex characteristics. All the recent confusion ideologically, not empirically, motivated.
I have long enjoyed your writing on Medium. Thank you and goodnight.
Mike