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[–]reluctant_commenter 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Hey! I just wanted to say, I appreciate you trying to engage in good faith and I think some of your points may be being missed. (I am not GC myself, strictly speaking, but I agree with the scientific definition of sex in humans as male/female, just as GC does.)

From how I understand it, this is what's going on:

Your perspective:

You state (1): "GC people believe that all species sexually reproduce the same way as humans, and want to apply the male/female labels to other species when it makes no sense to do so."

  • Claim (2) Not all "sexually reproducing species" have the same means of sexual production as humans do. (i.e. "male" and "female" is not universal across other non-human species)

  • Conclusion: (3) Therefore, the terms "male" and "female" are just made-up.

Here are the problems:

First, it is worth observing about your statement (1) that I've never seen a GC person claim this. GC people actually believe that male/female is true of humans, not other species. GC people do not believe that all other species' sex designation works like male/female does in humans. (If you ran across a nutty individual who believes this, though, my condolences.) If you have any examples of GC people saying this, please share with me, because I'm not GC and if they actually believed that then I'd love to know it. However-- regardless of what GC people actually believe, let's get to your logic.

  • Your Claim (2) is a true statement and I think all GC would likely agree with it. And so would a basic biology textbook.

  • Your Conclusion (3) does not follow from the evidence (2) that you presented. Just because "male/female" does not apply to NON-human species... does not mean that it does not apply to humans. Does that make sense? The concept of male/female was invented not by GCers but by scientists to describe how human sexual reproduction works. By definition, it is about humans (and other species that use male/female, many mammalian) and does not necessarily apply to other species.

My perspective

Some trans rights activists claim that sex in humans is a spectrum, and that there are more than just 2 sexes in humans. (Correct me if I'm wrong please.)

  • Claim: (1) Scientists have observed in humans the existence of 2 types of gametes used in human reproduction-- sperm and ova. They made up names for the reproductive systems and external characteristics that correspond to each of these two: "male" for sperm-gametes and "female" for ova-gametes.

  • Claim: (2) Not all species' sexual reproduction works the same way as humans' sexual reproduction does.

  • Conclusion: (3) Humans' sexual reproduction still works the same way humans' sexual reproduction does.

Does that help? Happy to talk more if you're interested!

Also would love to hear what got you thinking about all of this.