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[–]LemurLemur 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I know this must feel like an exciting "gotcha" because GC all tell each other that trans people "literally don't understand what sex is", but I feel like this is more just a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with how things are categorized when they're referred to.

Humans use the word "rooster" to describe a chicken they identify as male. If there was a mutant female chicken that developed plumage and secondary sex traits that made it appear like a rooster, without an invasive inspection, people would probably identify it as a "rooster" and if someone said "look at that rooster", no one is going to say WHAT ROOSTER I DON'T SEE ANY ROOSTER. Essentially, I'm describing the "looks like a duck" phenomenon.

And I know, I know "but LEMUR, those people are WRONG tho even if it LOOKS like a rooster!" Sure. But if I wanted a picture of a rooster, and was given a picture of the mutant-chicken, that picture would serve all the purposes a picture of a (lol) "natal" rooster, because I don't plan on breeding the rooster, or eating its eggs, so functionally speaking, there's no difference.

This is sort of the issue I think a lot of people face around the trans issue. For people who are supportive of trans issues, it's not that everyone literally thinks "they're the textbook example of the sex they want to be, down to the chromosomal level". I think it's more that people don't care about what people have between their legs - they aren't doing the thing I see GC talk about on Ovarit where they scour the faces of people on the bus "looking for an adam's apple" or whatever weird "one cool trick to clock the transes" that's in vogue at the time. If they are sitting next to a natal woman, or a trans woman, it doesn't really change the bus ride or harm anyone to say "he sat next to some woman".

I have a friend whos a transman. He's said it better "I know I wasn't born a man. I'm genetically female. But because I pass, people see me as a man, so I am treated as a man. In that way, I socially occupy the role of "man" for the people I interact with. At this point, I just don't correct people." I'm paraphrasing, but it was kind of interesting. He wasn't the type to insist on pronouns or anything - he always maintained gender was a joke, and no one should take it seriously. When he was earlier in transition, he said people both confidently call him "he", and some people confidently call him "she", and then literally debate with each other over it. He never would tell them which was accurate because he thought it was funny how important people thought it was to KNOW what he had in his pants.

So... I think I'm fine with the distinction between "gender" and "sex", for medical reasons. Gender is a social construct, because it affects how we are referred to socially. Sex is your biological plumbing.

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

people don't care about what people have between their legs

Just want to point out that like a lot of QT terminology, this particular phrasing - which is routinely used by genderists in discourse about sex and gender identity - reflects a distinctly male POV and framing. Because only the male gonads are between the legs. Women and girls don't generally describe our primary physical sex characteristics in ways that indicate we conceptualize and experience being female as something that's solely or principally about what's between our legs. Men and boys think that way - women and girls, not so much.

[–]LemurLemur 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

lol I'm a natal woman. Sorry for not living up to your stereotype. (Edit: I am legit not sure how what you just said isn’t like… classic sexism.)

I dunno, tho, I see a lot of GC sentiments centered around whether or not transwomen have penises and how that is the primary indicator of how their gender should be defined. They also talk a lot about how their vaginas are what make them women. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, as that is how sex is defined - by the sex-based organs. But that is what people ultimately want to know if they really want to know someone's sex. They want to know what their sex organs are.

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

Huh? I specifically said that

this particular phrasing - which is routinely used by genderists in discourse about sex and gender identity - reflects a distinctly male POV and framing.

I made no assumptions or statements whatsoever about your own sex as an individual. None at all.

Lots of the language and framing members of both sexes use about sex and gender issues, and many other issues, reflect a distinctly male POV and framing. Because for all of recorded history, it's been a man's world and most of the important texts written over history that influence us all were written to reflect a distinctly male POV and framing.

My comment was not a personal diss of you. It wasn't about you personally at all. It was about the terminology and framing. Sorry you took it as a comment about you.

FWIW, most everyone uses lingo that reflects a male POV and framing to some extent. Because we all grew up learning and citing famous phrasing like "no man is an island," "all men are created equal," "man's inhumanity to man," "hey man" and "man alive!" Medicine, law, philosophy, literature, art, criticism, history... all the major works in all fields reflect a male POV. Two books on the table next to me as I write this are Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning" and Ellison's "Invisible Man."

I see a lot of GC sentiments centered around whether or not transwomen have penises and how that is the primary indicator of how their gender should be defined. They also talk a lot about how their vaginas are what make them women. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, as that is how sex is defined - by the sex-based organs.

Yes, the reproductive organs are a major component of what defines and differentiates sex, but in weighing the importance of the reproductive organs in human sex determination and definition, the gonads always will be in first place because gonads play more central and fundamental roles than either the penis or the vagina. The gonads are where the gametes are made and stored, and the gonads are also the organs that produce most of the sex hormones that cause a fetus to develop as distinctly male or female.

Moreover, during gestation in utero, the gonads develop and differentiate into ovaries or testes first - and it's only after the gonads have differentiated into either testes or ovaries (at about 7-8 weeks) and then start producing the gonadal sex hormones specific to testes or ovaries that rest of the reproductive organs develop.

In a male, after the testes develop, the testes will then produce both anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) and testosterone. These will cause the fetus with testes to develop other male repro organs.

In a female fetus with ovaries, the lack of testes, testosterone and lack of AMH will result in the fetus developing female repro organs.

About eight weeks after conception the human foetus has two sets of ducts, one of which can develop into the male reproductive tract and the other into the female reproductive tract. If the foetus is genetically male (XY chromosomes) then the embryonic testes will produce anti-Müllerian hormone. This causes the Müllerian (female) ducts to disappear – hence the term anti-Müllerian hormone, whilst testosterone produced by the testes causes the male (Wollfian) ducts to survive.

The Wollfian ducts go on to develop into the different parts of the male reproductive system: the epididymis, the vas deferens, the seminal vesicles and the prostate gland.

In a female fetus (XX chromosomes) the Wollfian ducts disappear (because of the lack of testosterone) and the Müllerian ducts develop into the fallopian tubes, uterus (womb), cervix and the upper part of the vagina.

Anti-Müllerian hormone may also have a role in regulating sex steroid production in puberty and in the adult ovaries and testes. In the ovaries, anti-Müllerian hormone appears to be important in the early stages of development of the follicles, which contain and support the eggs prior to fertilisation. The more ovarian follicles a woman has, the more anti-Müllerian hormone her ovaries can produce, and so AMH can be measured in the bloodstream to assess how many follicles a woman has left in her ovaries: her ‘ovarian reserve’.

https://www.yourhormones.info/hormones/anti-mullerian-hormone/

BTW, the talk of penises and vaginas that you have you have correctly observed many with "GC sentiments" commonly engage in also reflects a distinctly male POV and framing. It's a framing that mistakenly regards the penis as the primary male sex organ, when in reality the male testes play a much more important role. And it's a framing that reflects the primacy of PIV intercourse in much literature and thinking about human sex over the course of history too.

Apologies for not choosing my words more carefully so as not to cause you personal offense.