all 14 comments

[–]Juniperius 16 insightful - 8 fun16 insightful - 7 fun17 insightful - 8 fun -  (0 children)

Do you drive a car? Do you run red lights, and then argue with the cops about the spectrum between red and green when they pull you over? That's a real spectrum, unlike sex, and yet red and green are still different.

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex 18 insightful - 3 fun18 insightful - 2 fun19 insightful - 3 fun -  (3 children)

No.

Engage on your last almost identical thread before making another post with a question that has been answered as nauseum.

[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 9 fun6 insightful - 8 fun7 insightful - 9 fun -  (2 children)

The last thread was not identical at all. What's with you and your "omg you ask this so many times omg omg"?

I've never asked the questions in this post before. Either answer them or leave.

[–]kwallio 18 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 0 fun19 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Its not just houseplant, these questions are tedious and most of them can be answered by picking up a book or two or a google search.

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex 15 insightful - 3 fun15 insightful - 2 fun16 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I did answer you. That’s what the no was. If you’d read here a little first you’d see that sex as a spectrum has been very clearly debunked multiple times.

The freaking out you’re imagining is simple exasperation with brand new users coming here, positing a bad idea like sex as a spectrum, acting like the question is brand new and not answered.

How about you read up AND go away lol

[–]Spikygrasspod 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There's a tiny bit of fuzziness at the boundaries of many of our concepts, but that doesn't endanger the categories themselves. The real question is why you have decided to take this radically sceptical, deconstructive approach to sex and not to other concepts. It's a little uncertain where the sea turns into the sand but do you try to walk on waves, or sail in the desert? There could be some argument about when raw becomes cooked becomes burnt but do you eat cinders or raw meat? No, you don't, because there's an important practical difference and the exact boundaries don't matter most of the time. And anyway, sex is not a spectrum like thin to fat or small to big. There are two big, very different categories into which almost everyone falls, and a tiny number of hard-to-categorise cases.

Oh, and I can't believe I have to say this, but humans are not bananas. Humans are not merely a set of genes. They're an evolved kind. They're born from other humans. In other words, there's a process and a history involved, not just a list of properties.

[–]levoyageur718293 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A human being has only three potential reproductive capacities. Either they can produce - can now, have been able to in the past, or are equipped to do so in the future - sperm, they can produce eggs, or they can produce neither. A person who can produce sperm is male and a person who can produce eggs is female, full stop. As for the neithers, in 99% of cases it's medically obvious which one they would be able to produce if they were healthy, and in 99% of the last 1% it's obvious with sufficient study. The number of people whose sex is legitimately indeterminate is a fraction of a fraction of a percent.

[–]Penultimate_Penance 13 insightful - 2 fun13 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

This whole argument is nonsense. Human sex is not a spectrum. Either you are male or you aren't. Somethings are spectrums yes, that doesn't mean everything must be a spectrum. Are you getting tired of making these asinine arguments?

[–]bopomofodojo 11 insightful - 4 fun11 insightful - 3 fun12 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Humans are a sexually dimorphic species.

In sexually dimorphic species, the two sexes have differing traits that, in general identify male from female members.

There can be exceptions. Just as a random male robin may be lighter red than a rando female robin, in general, males have darker color.

In humans, the dimorphism includes height, muscle mass, bone density, strength, endurance, and many secondary sexual characteristics (for instance breasts in females and Adam's apples in men).

All of this is descriptive, not proscriptive. All of this is based off clear and present observation of human beings.

Now, moving beyond humans specifically, all sexually reproductive species have at least two sexes. That is generally part of the definition. How, exactly, each species is divided varies, as do what chromosomes trigger each sex to differentiate. Humans are an XY species. XX triggers female traits and reproductive organs, XY triggers male traits and reproductive organs. This is not particularly complicated unless you choose to believe that 0.1% exceptions invalidate a descriptive generalized observation, which is hogwash. Any exception is precisely that - an exception - and has nothing to do with trangenderism or any other such nonsense.

So yes, it is a binary, because our sexual reproduction is a binary process. Two gametes, two sets of chromosomes, dimorphism. There is no fallacy here, just observational fact.

[–]loveSloaneDebate King 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

« At what point does something stop being that thing and become something else?«

At what point are things allowed to just be what they are?! Why does everything have to be complicated? Do we really need to re-examine everything from sight to weight and try to change our understanding of these things just so that you can call a man a woman or a woman a man and pretend it’s true? It’s ridiculous.

Lines are drawn after observation, not arbitrarily. If humans are separated from plants and animals and insects, it’s not just because someone randomly decided to separate us- there were observable, relevant differences in form, function, life span, reproduction etc that prompted the separation. All males and females, not just humans, were separated from each other for the same reasons.

Most people don’t distort reality to fit the pattern of language. Language was built on the reality, words were made to describe and discuss reality. Trans people are the ones distorting reality to fit language, or maybe they try to distort language and reality simultaneously, idk. Language didn’t create the categories. The categories existed and language was created based on the categories.

The idea that because there can be degrees of sick or sight or fat or thin that also applies to sex is just laughable. Everyone in the world, be they fat, thin, tall, short, 20/20 vision or blind as the proverbial bat- we all have a sex. And it’s one of two. It’s proven. It’s observable. It just is what it is and some people really need to accept that because all the philosophical arguments in the world will never change that. Transwomen are men, who can still get sick with male specific illness yet will never be at risk for female specific ones, transmen are women, who can still get sick with female specific illnesses yet will never be at risk for male specific ones. And either of them can go blind or get fat or thin. They can experience any of the examples you offered, but they will still be the sex they were born because none of the things you tried to use as evidence that sex is not « black and white » are comparable to sex.

[–]worried19 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You post all these threads under various user names, but you don't meaningfully engage with anyone who takes the time to respond. And they're all about the exact same topic, doubting the reality of biological sex. It's hard not to see this as trolling. I'm happy to have QT posters who are willing to discuss matters that are actually under debate, but this is not that.

[–]MarkTwainiac 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Accurate measuring devices like scales, measuring tapes/yardsticks, calipers and so on are used to determine whether someone is of healthy weight, underweight, moderately obese or morbidly obese.

Over centuries, accurate data has been collected on humans of the two sexes showing the normal weight range for boys/girls and men/women of X height and X age. Accurate data has also been collected on matters such as how much fat and muscle males and females have at different ages, what normal bone density is, and the range of body shapes and proportions... This kind of data forms the basis that HCPs, physical trainers, life insurance actuaries - and most intelligent grownups - use to gauge if individuals are underweight, overweight or normal weight. These assessments aren't made by picking a couple of people at random and comparing them.

Human babies are weighed and measured frequently. Scans are done on them in utero to gauge whether they are of of normal size and are growing at the expected rate. Before modern imaging technology was invented, part of standard prenatal care involved measuring pregnant women's bellies with a measuring tape on a regular basis to make sure growth was proceeding as expected; even with scans, these measurements are still standard parts of pre-natal exams today.

Once babies are born, their growth is measured against growth charts that show customary body length, weight and skull circumference for each sex at each week after birth. These charts are based on the vast amount of data about human babies and children collected and recorded over centuries. Parents and pediatricians are alert to the signs of "failure to thrive" in babies.

In adults, there are all sorts of ways for determining whether a person is too skinny or too fat. Like body weight, BMI, waist circumference, pinching the flesh with fingers or calipers.

Eye doctors use a variety of very precise instruments to diagnose vision problems. Everyone has to take a vision test to get or renew their drivers' licenses. Many people have visual impairments of one kind or another, but most of them are not "legally blind."

When people feel sick, one of the first things usually done is to take their temperature. All sorts of tests and instruments are used to determine whether someone is ill or not - and if they are ill, exactly what ails them. Many illnesses are spoken of in degrees: acute pancreatitis; stage 4 lung cancer; end-stage renal failure; dormant TB; mild influenza...

There are two sexes. Some sex characteristics exist on a spectrum. But the two sexes themselves do not. Male and female are either/or categories.

[–][deleted] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I have been told that dichotomous/binary traits are actually very rare or don't exist.

A dichotomy is a mutually exclusive or oppositional difference between two things. Female and male aren't dichotomous, they're dimorphic (having two distinct forms).

the "law of the excluded middle" that requires the contrivance of making up fallacious dichotomies, and binaries, when in reality there are complex continuums

Contrast with taxonomy and biological categories, which are based on consistent categories of observables, not an excluded middle or overlap. Human sexes are two distinct categories and conform very reliably to female and male; exceptions are exceedingly rare.

Also, taxonomy is not a logical fallacy. It's an empirical organizing principle.

Who decides where to draw the line? And how can we trust that line?

We decide where to draw the line. That's why we invented science. We can trust that line through the consistency of proof. Science has consistently proven that humans are sexually dimorphic. This is a very stable understanding.

Humans share 50% of their genes with bananas.

Humans and bananas are also both carbon-based, capable of reproduction, and exist on the planet. Which comparables are we talking about here?

That means there is no such a thing as a human/animal, plant, or anything else?

No. It means there are categories of things constrained by consistently predictable qualities, and their qualities are so consistently predictable we can give them distinct names.

Are we distorting actuality to fit the pattern of language? Language creates all these discrete categories, where someone or something is either a certain type, or not that type at all.

Language does not create discrete categories. We create discrete categories based on given qualities (in science -- on concepts of empirical observables) and invent language to describe those concepts.

Whereas reality tends to follow the pattern of fuzzy logic i.e. fuzzy set theory, where there are degrees of membership, and where something is not in one discrete set or the other:

Where does degree of membership begin and end with a banana? If it contains a high degree of citric acid, is it still a banana? If it grows on a moist rock, is it still a banana?

You're mixing together various concepts from philosophy, linguistics, mathematics, biology, and rhetorical strategies (logical fallacies) in an attempt to prove that reality is mutable beyond the point of creating categories at all. The organization of knowledge doesn't quite work that way.

[–]SnowAssMan 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No, nature did that all on its own. What defines male & female is consistent throughout both sexes. Masculinity vs. femininity is our doing, along with the idea that men & women are opposites in innate ways.

How does attempting to blur the lines to the point of erasure help transgender ideology? If men & women are no different from one another than there is no justification for autogynaephiles to be legally recognised as adult human females.