all 7 comments

[–]FlippyKing 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

How are you defining men and women? Men: the group of humans whose genitals serve the role of providing sperm (small mobile gametes) needed in sexual reproduction. Women: the group of humans whose genitals serve the roles of producing eggs (large immobile gametes), receiving the small mobile gametes, and gestation.

Cells reproduce differently. Are cells humans, or are some cells part of humans? Do you acknowledge the difference, or do you like being lost in the smoke of your own ignorance?

[–]Michael_frf 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

That's never been demonstrated, and is unlikely to be.

I inwardly groan whenever a friend of GC talks about "chromosomal sex", since there are legitimate intersex conditions where the subject, without any surgery, looks completely male or female opposite to what their karyotype would suggest. In some cases, they may not realize until they find they are infertile, or a screening test flags them as the other sex. (Actually, since true hermaphroditism in a mammal appears to be impossible, such people account for almost all genuine human intersex.)

However, in this case, chromosomes do matter a lot.

Getting sperm out of an XX stem cell is hopeless, because there are a couple vital genes for sperm production that are only found on the Y chromosome.

There's no equally obvious reason why, but in practice intersex people who are XY but with the critical "testis determining factor" gene absent from their Y don't produce eggs. The development of their primordial gonads into testes never happens, but somehow they don't turn into ovaries either. The result is a body that appears mostly female but won't naturally undergo puberty. (While they take hormones like an MTF, unlike an MTF they do have a womb that can be made to work, but only as a surrogate to someone else's fertilized egg.)

Also, gametes aren't really that important. It's just something GC likes to tease transsexuals about, and for the moment a simple rule to tell COINing from a legitimate intersex confusion (ie: if you produce one sex's gametes, or would if medical interventions you chose to undergo hadn't happened, then you aren't intersex enough to protest your assignment.).

The important thing is that long before any transsexual actually gets near to crossing the gamete hurdle (such as if we invent brain transplants), GC will write new rules.

[–]UwUUwU[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

I don't understand this ...

Gametes are important. They are literally what determines and defines sex. It's not there to "tease" the TRAs. It's what should be paid attention to

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

Gametes are important. They are literally what determines and defines sex.

Only from an abstract, ivory-tower point of view. GC is at the barricades, not the ivory tower. They just feel smug that the ivory tower agrees with them and only an unlikely medical breakthrough can change that.

What actually matters is that sexual offenders are empirically really rare among the people GC recognizes as female. They are empirically not so rare among the people TRAs recognize as female. So segregation by sex means a great benefit to females, but only if the GC definition is in effect.

A naive observer might think the "not our crimes" side of GC, where really embarrassing behaviour by MTFs is held up to ridicule, is a form of teasing the other side. But it's actually closer to the meat of the argument than any teasing of MTFs about their inability to get pregnant.

[–]UwUUwU[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Only from an abstract, ivory-tower point of view

What does this mean? Gametes are what determines sex from a scientific view. English is not my first language so please correct me if I'm mistaken, but you sound like you're against GC? What are you doing in a GC subreddit if you're against GC?

What's with "GC considering something female" and "TRAs recognizing something as female" as though TRAs are "right"? It doesn't matter what TRAs "consider" or "recognize" as female because they base everything on "feelings"

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

you sound like you're against GC?

Not at all. Neither I nor a gametes-based point of view disagree with GC, in practice. There's just a theoretical niggle.

My point is that if MTFs found a way to transform their bodies to the extent that they do produce ova, that would not be enough to get them recognized as "truly women" by GC feminists. Hence, GC isn't actually using gametes as a philosophical basis.

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

"GC considering something female"

I just noticed something. I never said "considering" -- I used the verb "recognize" for both the GC view and the TRA view. Your impression that I used friendlier language for the TRA view must be a translation mistake.