powerstruggle

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This user is weirdly obsessed with me to the point of eroticism. You'll want to be careful around them.

I'll explain again though that "pretending to be the last word" is the opposite of what I've done. I've cited many reliable sources to demonstrate that I'm merely conveying the consensus in biology. This user has done nothing serious.

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

One of those papers gets to the heart of your confusion and is interesting to consider, but first:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40199245/
- Did you read this before you linked it? "Here, we argue that dispensing with sexes would be a grave scientific error, depriving biology of one of its most powerful tools for explaining biological diversity. [..] Hence, it is essentialism and typological thinking that we should dispense with, not biological sexes." It agrees with everything I've been saying!
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.26.525769v1
- Biologist adding commentary to another biologist's takedown of this. It's nonsense: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/04/23/colin-wright-debunks-a-dreadful-paper-claiming-that-sex-is-multimodal/
  The authors of the MEA paper actually recognize that sex is binary when making arguments against it. For example, they mention the damn penis in the female hyena without realizing how they know she’s a female, and somehow think that variation within a sex effaces the sex binary.
https://www.asrm.org/advocacy-and-policy/fact-sheets-and-one-pagers/just-the-facts-biological-sex/
- Mostly uncited and wrong. The one definition it cites for biological sex comes from a committee of non-biologists tasked with improving data collection. Irrelevant (and also wrong).

You're confused about what determination means. It's not cyclical, please read and understand

Your other link isn't saying what you think it's saying (https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news-and-ideas/ideology-versus-biology). I'll start off by noting that it agrees with me:

Within the scientific community, Sun notes, Parker’s gametic definition of biological sex was generally accepted

It's also frequently incorrect (unsurprising since the article was written by a PR person), "binary definitions of biological sex fail to account for roughly 1.7 percent of the population according to one estimate" is false and relies on work from a deeply unserious person, Anne Fausto-Sterling, who got called out on her bullshit and said she was being "tongue-in-cheek" and "ironic".

But this is the real claim from that link:

Variations in genes, chromosomes, and internal and external sex organs are often called disorders in sex development in the medical community. I think that’s wrong in many cases. It’s just natural variation

It's not actually disputing the sex binary. It's basically a dispute about the term "Disorders of sex development" vs "Differences of sex development". So it doesn't disagree with me, though the question of "disorder" vs" difference" loops back to your confusion.

You're confusing the various meanings of the word "should" (or supposed to, or take your pick of terms). It can be used descriptively or prescriptively. You're saying that incorrect prescriptive use invalidates descriptive use, and that's wrong.

Using this interpretation, it would be ridiculous to define a human empiricaly around the fact that they are “supposed” to have feet at the end of their leg,

Humans aren't defined that way. Someone missing a foot is still human. You have the definition the wrong way around and complaining that it doesn't make sense, when in fact it doesn't make sense because you're thinking wrong.

A completely non-teleological definition is that sex is defined by what structures one has in their body that are required for production of one gamete type that are not required for production of the other gamete type.

powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

Sorry, I can't take you seriously until you finish your fanfic of being topped by me

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

Where do I say certain people shouldn't exist?

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

Which biologists are arguing against it? I think that's a more concrete claim.

Your argument is basically "This person was born without something at the end of their leg, but we can't say they're missing a foot. Maybe it was a fin! Or a baboon! Or an aircraft carrier! There's just no way to tell"

A human body tries to build a foot at the end of the leg. Sometimes it fails, but until we observe a stable, inherited body plan that doesn't grow a foot at the end of a leg it is not teleological to use "tries" in that sense. It's descriptive

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

Yes, it's still true

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

It's good to be careful about language like "should", but that doesn't really refute anything that I've said. Taking a step back, this is what the consensus is in the field of biology, which certainly has dealt with teleological arguments before. It's nothing new, and yet the consensus is still that sex is entirely defined by the gamete type one's body is organized around producing.

Why exactly do you think your comment is a counterpoint? I understand the limitations of phrasing like "should" or "supposed to", but concretely, how do you think that applies?

People with Swyer syndrome are female, not because of "supposed to"s, but because the end result is that their bodies are organized around the production of large gametes. It's an empirical description, just as you call for. From the link:

That's the difference between how sex is defined and how sex is determined.

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

This goes over the 5αR2D claim:

https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/11/20/imane-khelif-medical-records/

Note that it confuses gender and sex, and says that the reports are unverified, but that should be interpreted as "Nobody is willing to go on the record about leaked medical reports" which is a "no duh" because that's a good way to get sued. Here's a screenshot from the source:

There have been several leaks of medical records, and nobody has been willing to go on record saying "these are fake/edited/whatever". The IOC has directly implied it's a DSD case:

That's in addition to the sex tests that were requested by the IBA, but done by an independent accredited lab:

YMMV, but that along with other circumstantial evidence like Khelif avoiding any competitions that now require sex testing, is enough for me to conclude that the leaks are almost certainly correct. I'll gladly go back and edit my past comments if Khelif ever proves otherwise.

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

Khelif identifies as a woman, and was determined to be male by sex testing. Khelif likely has the same condition as Caster Semenya (5αR2D), which often results in being incorrectly assigned female at birth due to ambiguous genitalia.

Khelif is male due to producing sperm, which is why I wanted to clarify how biologists define sex. It isn't based on chromosomes, testosterone, or anything other than gametes (slightly longer put, the gamete type one's body is organized around producing).

If you want to discuss the accuracy of the sex testing done that's fine too, but for the sake of answering your question I didn't go into that.

So gender is female and sex is male.

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

If you can acknowledge that it's not me categorizing anything, but that I'm merely relaying how the field of biology defines sex, then sure. I make no claim other than referring to many sources saying exactly that.

The entire thread that started with "Why do you care so much?" was eminently silly and I didn't bother responding with effort, but that user engaged in other subthreads, where I did respond.

The other user is unhinged, to be honest. Like, something is wrong with them. I engaged in good faith a few times, but in the end they refused to acknowledge a basic fact and it wasn't worth engaging with effort.

powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

Sex is binary in humans. Correlates like phenotype/genotype (often confused with sex) are a spectrum though.

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

I responded "Why do you care so much?" to a user that started out engaging in bad faith by asking that question to start. I was simply mirroring their bad faith argument back to them. Elsewhere in the thread where they had an actual comment, I responded in good faith. I'm not going to waste my time on nonsense.

It's easy to say "it's pointless to talk to you". Other people have said that too, or "I'm just so tired" or "You're boring". I'll gladly talk about Khelif, but first:

Do you understand what sex determination is and how it differs from how sex is defined?

Let's get facts straight first.

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

What exactly are you qualifying as "the nazi argument"?

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

I don't really understand other people's obsession with spreading misinformation. In each of those threads I posted once, and then had to respond many more times pointing out how they're incorrect. "Patiently explaining" is a weird way of saying "doubling down on being wrong".

Like here as well. As in the previous thread, that graphic shows sex determination, which is not how sex is defined. Each one of those situations ends up being male or female. I'm having to write another comment to correct your misinformation, even though you could've seen the exact same response in the previous threads. Why are people obsessed with defending their ignorance? I'd have a fraction of my overall comment count and everyone could've done something more productive with their time.

Your statement that "sex is not an easy binary and that the categorization of sex in humans includes many factors and is not always binary" is wrong. Again, I've linked to many helpful resources, but in particular I want to redirect you to the original comment I made in this very thread which goes over several different types of DSDs and shows how they still fall into the sex binary.

Before we start going off on a tangent from this thread, can you acknowledge biological truth? It's pointless to talk about Khelif if you misunderstand the basics.

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

You're mostly arguing with what you want me to have said and not what I've said so there's not much point in responding to much of your post.

Your claims that "Human sex is not defined by gamete types" and "The actual science doesn’t support it" are incorrect though

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powerstruggle @sh.itjust.works 1mo ago

How does posting scientific fact assist in denying trans people bodily autonomy?