I totally understand what you’re saying, but if you take gender out of it and just think about humans as any other animal, you could classify animals with penises and animals with vaginas separately especially if you’re breeding them. The AI overlords won’t care when they’re breeding us.
EDIT: two types of genitalia instead of just penis and vagina. And not all but many animals.
Here’s the thing though, pretty much everything you just said is wrong. It’s not that simple if you think of humans as any other animal. Here’s a video link that is pretty long, but dives fairly deep into this topic that is massive from a scientific point of view.
Woah. I don’t have an hour and a half to dissect all the ways an animal with a penis and an animal with a vagina may not fit the standard classifications of male and female. Not discrediting that there are so many different life forms out there that can’t possibly just be two categories, but you also can’t say that “pretty much everything I said is wrong.” If I wanna breed dogs, I’m gonna need two types of genitalia. Elephants? Same. Salmon? Ducks? Lots of animals can be classified in that way. Not all their characteristics, but their reproductive traits for sure.
Yeah but toilets and changing rooms aren’t for reproduction.
If you go entirely by who has a penis or not, at least you allow some post operative trans people to live freely, but I’m not going to be checking any genitals at the toilet door, nor doing any blood tests for that matter.
This guidance deliberately leaves trans people with two bad options: go in one toilet and be harassed or attacked for being trans or go in another and risk being attacked legally.
Sure but you can classify the ones with just two types of genitalia as something or another. Doesn’t mean you can’t have other layers of classification.
I’m not entirely sure what point you’re making, when sex reassignment surgery exists.
Not all trans people get it, sure, but many trans men have dicks and many trans women have vaginas. These usually align cosmetically but will have functional differences to their cis counterparts. Where would you crudely sort such people?
There’s also genital nullification surgery (think Barbie doll - nothing at all).
All good. I’m referring to the comment that I replied to stating that they don’t like the term “biological sex.” Not saying that trans people should be bucketed into being men or women based on their goodies. I’m saying that biologically, across many animals, specifically mammals, we can say something has this kind of genitalia or that. Call it male or female. Call it bapu and beepo. It’s a biological difference that can be classified along with other traits.
Gotcha. Their point is kind of right though; sex is less of a strict binary category and more 2 clusters we (people) created that allow us to more easily classify specimens based on strongly correlated traits. Both clusters have some overlap, and no trait on its own completely determines the cluster.
E.g. I knew a case of this woman who grew up her whole life never knowing she has XY chromosomes, because she had seemingly typical female sex characteristics. It was only when she and her husband where struggling to conceive and they went to a fertility clinic, that that fact came to light. “Biological male” might be the cluster you’d want to put her under, but she lacks many of the features of that cluster, so in that case the binary classification is a little weak.
Of course most people/animals are not intersex (or transitioned), but the point is that the biological sex binary is kind of a shorthand / way of making life easier to classify most of the population, but it’s not perfect or tidy.
The easiest way to stay accurate is to just narrow down to the specific relevant trait (“person with facial hair”, “person with androgenetic alopecia”, etc.) depending on what specifically is measured/being talked about. But being that precise can come at the expense of being less clear/accessible to the layman, which is why we use biological sex as a concept.
Even in extreme cases, someone can still be determined to be male or female. Even if they can’t produce gametes, they still have structures in their body that are required for producing gametes of one type, and not used for producing gametes of the other type.
“centred around” is a subjective projection rather than statement of a fact in cases where gamete production genuinely does not occur. For this person, her gonads never developed into either testes or ovaries, so by this definition she would be of neither sex. I’m OK with that, but it does undermine your point about the strict binary.
My question to you is why does this matter, in the context of accessing bathrooms and changing rooms? Do you think inspecting reproductive anatomy is a proportionate measure?
More broadly speaking, what is the point of recording the ‘biological sex’ of a person who, through transition, has changed their physiology and endocrine profile to that associated with the opposite, and no longer has their natal reproductive anatomy? Who would this benefit?
Underdeveloped or non-functional gonads are still identifiable as sexually differentiated tissue. A streak gonad, dysgenetic gonad, or partially developed gonad is still distinguishable as male or female tissue. That distinction is fact, not subjective projection. It is also true that humans can’t change sex. Some sex traits can be modified, but not sex.
My comment is limited to ensuring scientific accuracy. It makes no claim about whether sex matters for bathroom access and changing rooms.
For sure. There are always outliers and opportunity for more granular classification. Doesn’t mean the classifiers we have now are wrong, just not complete. I think it wouldn’t be as big of a concern if we didn’t relate male and female so closely to man and woman.
Sure, but it’s sounding like guns kill people. People don’t kill people. We use skin color to discriminate against people, but doesn’t mean you can’t use it as a categorization in other ways. Anything can be used to discriminate against somebody. Credit score. Types of clothes they wear. Whatever.
I totally understand what you’re saying, but if you take gender out of it and just think about humans as any other animal, you could classify animals with penises and animals with vaginas separately especially if you’re breeding them. The AI overlords won’t care when they’re breeding us.
EDIT: two types of genitalia instead of just penis and vagina. And not all but many animals.
Here’s the thing though, pretty much everything you just said is wrong. It’s not that simple if you think of humans as any other animal. Here’s a video link that is pretty long, but dives fairly deep into this topic that is massive from a scientific point of view.
https://youtu.be/nVQplt7Chos
That’s a shit video. Here’s a deconstruction:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-025-03348-3
Woah. I don’t have an hour and a half to dissect all the ways an animal with a penis and an animal with a vagina may not fit the standard classifications of male and female. Not discrediting that there are so many different life forms out there that can’t possibly just be two categories, but you also can’t say that “pretty much everything I said is wrong.” If I wanna breed dogs, I’m gonna need two types of genitalia. Elephants? Same. Salmon? Ducks? Lots of animals can be classified in that way. Not all their characteristics, but their reproductive traits for sure.
Yeah but toilets and changing rooms aren’t for reproduction.
If you go entirely by who has a penis or not, at least you allow some post operative trans people to live freely, but I’m not going to be checking any genitals at the toilet door, nor doing any blood tests for that matter.
This guidance deliberately leaves trans people with two bad options: go in one toilet and be harassed or attacked for being trans or go in another and risk being attacked legally.
Agreed. Just commenting on biological sex. The law sucks.
…and animals with both, and animals with neither, and…
Sure but you can classify the ones with just two types of genitalia as something or another. Doesn’t mean you can’t have other layers of classification.
That’s tautological.
So you’re saying it’s true
tautologies are necessarily true, but usually not useful. for instance, I am either a bot or I am not. strictly true, but not a helpful statement.
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I’m not entirely sure what point you’re making, when sex reassignment surgery exists.
Not all trans people get it, sure, but many trans men have dicks and many trans women have vaginas. These usually align cosmetically but will have functional differences to their cis counterparts. Where would you crudely sort such people?
There’s also genital nullification surgery (think Barbie doll - nothing at all).
All good. I’m referring to the comment that I replied to stating that they don’t like the term “biological sex.” Not saying that trans people should be bucketed into being men or women based on their goodies. I’m saying that biologically, across many animals, specifically mammals, we can say something has this kind of genitalia or that. Call it male or female. Call it bapu and beepo. It’s a biological difference that can be classified along with other traits.
But humans aren’t just animals and this statutory guidance shouldn’t treat them as if they’re just animals.
Agreed. Just commenting on “biological sex”. The law sucks.
Gotcha. Their point is kind of right though; sex is less of a strict binary category and more 2 clusters we (people) created that allow us to more easily classify specimens based on strongly correlated traits. Both clusters have some overlap, and no trait on its own completely determines the cluster.
E.g. I knew a case of this woman who grew up her whole life never knowing she has XY chromosomes, because she had seemingly typical female sex characteristics. It was only when she and her husband where struggling to conceive and they went to a fertility clinic, that that fact came to light. “Biological male” might be the cluster you’d want to put her under, but she lacks many of the features of that cluster, so in that case the binary classification is a little weak.
Of course most people/animals are not intersex (or transitioned), but the point is that the biological sex binary is kind of a shorthand / way of making life easier to classify most of the population, but it’s not perfect or tidy.
The easiest way to stay accurate is to just narrow down to the specific relevant trait (“person with facial hair”, “person with androgenetic alopecia”, etc.) depending on what specifically is measured/being talked about. But being that precise can come at the expense of being less clear/accessible to the layman, which is why we use biological sex as a concept.
Sex is binary. Her body is still organized around producing one or the other of exactly two gamete types, which defines whether she’s male or female.
…nope. Her body can’t produce either. And she has a uterus and fallopian tubes.
Even in extreme cases, someone can still be determined to be male or female. Even if they can’t produce gametes, they still have structures in their body that are required for producing gametes of one type, and not used for producing gametes of the other type.
“centred around” is a subjective projection rather than statement of a fact in cases where gamete production genuinely does not occur. For this person, her gonads never developed into either testes or ovaries, so by this definition she would be of neither sex. I’m OK with that, but it does undermine your point about the strict binary.
My question to you is why does this matter, in the context of accessing bathrooms and changing rooms? Do you think inspecting reproductive anatomy is a proportionate measure?
More broadly speaking, what is the point of recording the ‘biological sex’ of a person who, through transition, has changed their physiology and endocrine profile to that associated with the opposite, and no longer has their natal reproductive anatomy? Who would this benefit?
Underdeveloped or non-functional gonads are still identifiable as sexually differentiated tissue. A streak gonad, dysgenetic gonad, or partially developed gonad is still distinguishable as male or female tissue. That distinction is fact, not subjective projection. It is also true that humans can’t change sex. Some sex traits can be modified, but not sex.
My comment is limited to ensuring scientific accuracy. It makes no claim about whether sex matters for bathroom access and changing rooms.
For sure. There are always outliers and opportunity for more granular classification. Doesn’t mean the classifiers we have now are wrong, just not complete. I think it wouldn’t be as big of a concern if we didn’t relate male and female so closely to man and woman.
It’s a concern when we use it to discriminate against trans people.
Sure, but it’s sounding like guns kill people. People don’t kill people. We use skin color to discriminate against people, but doesn’t mean you can’t use it as a categorization in other ways. Anything can be used to discriminate against somebody. Credit score. Types of clothes they wear. Whatever.
Very true.
I think we agree here.