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[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The issues with the phrasing you point out could easily be corrected, though. I personally think the phrasing in the removed section is poorly worded - it's imprecise and awkward. It's also asymmetrical in the way it names the female gametes, but doesn't name the male ones, which is not a good look in this kind of resolution. If I'd been consulted, I would have heavily revised that section.

Instead of

For purposes of state/federal law, a ‘female’ is an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova; a ‘male’ is an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female;

I would say something like:

For purposes of state/federal law, a ‘female’ is a human being who during gestation in utero developed gonads, or a single gonad or functional gonadal tissue, whose role in reproduction is the generation of gametes known as ova; a ‘male’ is a human being who during gestation in utero developed gonads, or a single gonad, or functional gonadal tissue, whose role in reproduction is the generation of sperm;

Wording like this would put the focus on the gonads, the organs where gametes are generated and immature gamete precursor cells reside, rather than on the "biological reproductive system" - a vague and clunky term if there ever was one. IMO, use of the term "biological reproductive system" here is "problematic" because the reality is that only the gonads generate ova or sperm. All the other parts of the male and female reproductive systems perform functions that are separate and additional to the making of gametes.

My wording establishes that the defining criteria of sex is the kind of gonad, or gonadal tissue, each individual developed during gestation in utero, ovaries or testes - not whether someone still has the gonads (or gonad or gonadal tissue) they were born with all through life. My wording also covers those born with a single gonad, or with two gonads but with a disorder leading to gonadal dysgenesis and/or dysfunction in one or both. And it allows for the differences in the ways that female and male gametes are generated, and the different stages of human development when the processes involved in the making and maturation of male and female human gametes take place.

My wording further insures that everyone can still easily be classed as either female or male even if they are currently pre-pubertal kids too young to be generating gametes from the gonads they were born with, or they are or post-menopausal women past the phase in life when gamete generation is possible in human females. It also covers all the cases of people who developed gonads, or gonadal tissue, during gestation in utero that never could perform, or never had the potential to perform, the function of gamete generation in the first place due to genetic medical conditions like DSDs; early in life medical interventions like chemotherapy, X-rays and gonadectomy; and other reasons such as environmental damage and exposure to drugs like DES during development.

Finally, focusing exclusively on gonads, and zeroing in on one single job that gonads do - "whose role in reproduction is the generation of gametes" - makes the defining criteria of human sex completely separate from other issues that are frequently dragged in, such as sex hormone levels now and other times, atypical sex chromosomes, misplaced SRY genes, malformations or problems with other parts of the male and female reproductive tracts and urogenital anatomy, how well a person's androgen and estrogen receptors work or don't work, individuals' outward phenotype and appearance, and which if any secondary sex characteristics individuals developed - and how pronounced those characteristics are.

This definition also removes the possibility of parents, doctors and gender ideologues insisting that when children on the cusp of adolescence are put on "puberty blockers" followed by high doses of Big Pharma sex hormones of the sort dominant in the opposite sex, these children for all intents and purposes cease being their actual sex and turn into the other sex. Because what makes a person male or female is the gonads we developed whilst we were still in our mother's wombs - and there is no way to go back and redo our prenatal gestation.