Credit to @bontchev
this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
488 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37800 readers
410 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is wrong.
"Sex" is determined by myriad inter-related physical and chemical factors which are absolutely capable of changing.
The view you are adding whatever credence being trans gives you to the discussion not only is incorrect it is adopted and propagated to back-justify oppression.
Do not do that.
A woman who was assigned female at birth and later lost her uterus to cancer wouldn't stop being referred to as "female, late 40s" when her chart is being filled out by EMTs. The distinction you are attempting to hold up is meaningless to how "sex" gets used socially and epidemiologically.
This is pointless nitpicking. I agree with the definition, but presenting it this way is not useful. None of them think menopause removes your sex, that is not what anyone means by “sex change”. Not us, not them. I’m not lending credence to anything.
“Sex” as it is usually defined is the ability to either be fertilized and bear children, or fertilize someone who can. To my knowledge, no human who has ever possessed either ability has ever possessed the other one. We are getting close to making one of those possible, though (in the MtF direction).
This is what they mean when they say sex can’t change, and this is what they think you’re telling them is possible.
The other things you mention, which may scientifically be part of sex, is not what anyone means in casual conversation. Those may change, voluntarily or not, yes. But the main thing people mean when they talk about someone’s “sex” cannot change yet, although it can be lost, or never obtained at all.
It is not "pointless nitpicking". It is very important holding fast against allowing very determined forces of hate any foothold whatever.
I argue 3 things:
No one "in casual conversation" considers someone "sexless" when they lose their gonads to cancer, nor do you know the "sex" of anyone to whose sex you have referred in going on high-90s percent of cases by your ridiculously narrow definition—I can't imagine in those cases where you find yourself considering using either term you jam the person with a needle or jerk them off into a cup and bust out a microscope to check motility.
Finally I'm not sure what you hope to gain by your pedantry—they're never gonna let you into the car.