all 12 comments

[–]MarkTwainiac 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The issue here is your tendency to take things people say on the internet at face value. For example, when a poster said

It's perfectly reasonable to consider children essentially sexless. Girls and boys are not yet women and men. They're distinct but until puberty the distinction is minimal.

You read every word in that post the most literal way possible & took it as the gospel truth. When, in fact, what that poster said is not actually, precisely true - something I suspect most readers understood, but which you chose not to.

Worse, you then rephrased what that poster said in a more extreme way, pretending what he or she really meant was

that children have no sex until puberty, there is no such a thing as a female or male child until puberty

Which I don't think is what that poster really meant after all.

In fact, human beings have a sex from the moment of conception. Sex differences have been observed & recorded in human placental cells five days post fertilization, and in the metabolism of human zygotes fertilized in labs via IVF earlier than that. Human sex differences precede the development of gonads in utero.

Those of us who have had prenatal testing when pregnant know full well that many of the fetal abnormalities tested for are sex-linked. Same goes for a number of the conditions that babies in the US, most of Europe & many other places are routinely screened for through mandatory blood draws & genetic testing shortly after birth.

Once children are born, there are thousands of physical differences in male & female human beings that are relevant medically and in terms of hygiene & safety from the get-go. The growth & development of infants is closely monitored & charted, but the charts are different because the normal ranges for boys' and girls' weight, length & head circumference are different. Moreover, the rate at which boys & girls grow and gain weight are different too.

More care needs to be taken when diapering female babies after bowel movements because the location of the female urethra unfortunately close to the anus makes girls highly susceptible to UTIs from fecal contamination. This is not an issue when diapering boys because the male urethra is inside the penis - and the little penises of boy babies are far from the anus. However, getting sprayed on definitely is an issue when diapering baby boys, but not girls.

Toilet training boys & girls is different. Teaching boys & girls how to cleanse & care for their "privates"is different too.

Many of the same genetic and childhood diseases manifest very differently in the two sexes, and have different trajectories, treatments & treatment protocols depending on whether a child is male or female. Many diseases that occur or become apparent in childhood are sex-specific. And diseases that occur at the same rates in both sexes still affect boys & girls very differently because of the many differences in male & female physiology. An excellent example is cystic fibrosis.

Female babies & children mount stronger immune responses to vaccines, and thus have more "side effects" than males.

Kids get tummy aches all the time. But when there's serious abdominal pain such that acute appendicitis is suspected, the assessment procedures & criteria are entirely different because the two sexes have different internal organs. For girls, the possibility of pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, ovarian cysts, uterine issues have to be taken into account.

Because boys' gonads are external, very exposed & easy to injure, boys have to be taught to protect themselves in play & sports - and they need to be equipped with cups when they do contact sports. At the same time, girls of all ages are more susceptible to concussion than boys are, and need to be trained and equipped accordingly.

If a nine-year-old boy tells his parents or teachers that there's blood in his underwear, the appropriate response is to get him to a doctor pronto. If a nine-year-old girl does the same, the appropriate response is further inquiry and - most likely - showing her how to use sanpro.

Youth athletic records show that boys outperform girls in most sports long before the puberty of adolescence begins.

Read up on the physical development of males and females in utero, in infancy and in childhood, and you'll find that there are many, many important biological differences between boys & girls long before the puberty of adolescence kicks in. After all, the puberty of adolescence is actually the second puberty children go through. The first one, aka "the puberty of infancy," occurs from the end of the first month after birth into or through the six month.

The youngest girl on record to have given birth was 5 years old, 7 months at the time. It's a travesty to suggest that she was sexless.

Those are some of the facts on which I base my argument.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't know why you keep defending empt.

"Children have no sex" is exactly what empt meant: https://imgur.com/a/Xe87zYj Imgur

They think children have no sex, they are not male or female, because they do not have developed sex organs. And even if they have a sex, it's better to ignore it because there isn't any difference between male and female children ...

[–]usehername 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

girls of all ages are more susceptible to concussion than boys are

Why? Skull thickness?

[–]MarkTwainiac 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's very complicated. I just know a lot of research has been going on in this area for about 20 years. From a recent paper:

The observation that female adolescents participating in soccer had a greater risk of documented SRC compared with male adolescents is in line with studies9,20 that have identified sex differences in SRC risk. For example, at the high school level, female soccer athletes have an approximately 60% to 80% greater risk of SRC than male athletes.9,20 Although multiple studies6,8-11 report increased concussion risk in female athletes, reasons for this increased risk remain unclear. In part, this finding might reflect greater likelihood of symptom reporting in female athletes.21

Alternatively, variation in SRC risk between the sexes may be a consequence of physiological differences between male and female athletes contributing to concussion propensity. Female soccer athletes have lower neck strength and girth compared with male athletes,22-25 with these variables inversely associated with linear and rotational head acceleration after soccer ball heading.24,25 At the cellular level, axons in female individuals have smaller and fewer microtubules than those in male individuals, predisposing them to greater risk of injury under dynamic stretch.26 Thus, as a result of anthropometric and brain microstructural differences between the sexes, female athletes may be at greater risk than male athletes of diffuse axonal injury, the principal pathology underlying concussion.3

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/article-abstract/2779117

[–][deleted] 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Girls are much more likely to receive child sexual abuse than boys are. Funny how abusers know which children to target.

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

The claim is that children have no sex until puberty

My mother bathed my brother and I together until we were about 6 and 5 respectfully. I can tell you with absolute conviction we knew he was a boy and I was a girl.

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

Dude. Do you know any medical, social, physical/physiological facts about boys and girls? Have you ever changed a diaper or toilet trained or worked as a camp counselor or coached children's sports? Are you seriously in need of arguments against this?

Here's one. My cats are both fixed, and have been since before either of them experienced any sort of "cat puberty" equivalent. I'm still aware that drinking milk is statistically more dangerous for the male(not sexless) cat, that it is more important for him to drink lots of water and get exercise(higher risk of weight gain/kidney stones). I'm aware that the female cat no longer wants to play-fight, and because she is smaller and less muscular, I occasionally need to separate the two. It would be less of an issue if they were both males.

Understand? These are just cats. The differences between male and female children and eunuch male and female adults(to say nothing of intact male and female adults) are vast and far better studied. Do your own research instead of demanding others do it for you.

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

Sex is based on genetics. XX = female, XY = male.

[–]levoyageur718293 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Let us imagine: You and I are both immortal space-entities who watch the world and humanity. You're Uatu the Watcher, and I'm your colleage Egma the Watcher. One day, we're watching a maternity ward in a large, prestigious hospital. As we watch a brand-new mother joyously cradle her minutes-old baby, you mention that you also observed the mother being some thirty-odd years prior. Thus inspired, I make you a bet. You get to pick ten babies born in the hospital that day. For each one that gives birth during its life, I'll give you three hundred quatloos. For each one that doesn't, you'll owe me three hundred quatloos. One could buy a lot of nice stuff with three hundred quatloos, and you could bag as many as three thousand.

Is there perhaps no word that would describe the babies you choose? They're all going to have something in common, aren't they? You tell us what you want to call it.

[–]FlippyKing 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I never understand posts like this. You receive a comment, and you ask others if they have an argument against those comments. Do you have arguments against any of them? Do you believe what they are saying? When they say children are "essentially sexless", did you ask what purpose the qualifier "essentially" serves? By adding it, they create some kind of wiggle room if they are called out on their BS. Of not called out on it, they create the false impression that children are sexless but they are instead prepubescent and not sexless. Do you not know that children are prepubescent? Are you too young to understand what that means? You should wonder about the motives of people who lie to you by saying things like "children are essentially sexless" because they are trying to manipulate you.

[–]usehername 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Who was OP?