this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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What? No.
This is the kind of shit that makes trans activism completely ridiculous.
Only for they gave inadequate context. Biological sex and genome expression is much more complicated than m/f but that discussion is not really in the scope of the thread.
I would suggest reading “Bodies that matter, on the discursive limits of Sex” from Judith Butler.
Pointing out how intersex people don't fit into the constructed binary is easy to dismiss, sex essentialists just call those people defective men and women.
(Which gets into how if you can't have kids or you can but you don't look a certain way you're "defective", which is a value judgement and doesn't have some universal or biological basis)
I would disagree on them calling them defective. This is unnecessarily confrontational.
I would rather say the neglige their existence while using the simplest useful model. They should consider if a better model might be more appropriate.
That is only one or the reasons it is wrong to call them defective. They arent defective.
Reading comprehension. I did not say so.
Actually the idea comes from feminism from literally the 1980s-1990s, from well respected feminist theorists. But thank you for illustrating how tied together the rights and oppression of cis women and trans people are.
Read "Bodies that matter, on the discursive limits of Sex" from Judith Butler.
Also understand the definition of a social construct. Social construct doesn't mean fake, it means falling into a classification scheme that is socially manufactured. Something that is 12 inches long isn't "fake" in its 12 inch longness because measuremenr systems are socially constructed, it just means that it can become 10 inches long or 14 inches long if the length of an inch is redefined. And you would be wrong if you told someone that no, it is incorrect to call it 30.48 centimeters long. People can apply different classification schemes/social constructs to the same physical object and still be correct. They could also call it ten blagards long and be internally consistent within their classification scheme, but that wouldn't have utility within a social context because the meaning of blagard hasn't been socially constructed.
An inch isn't some innate objective truth, it is a common standard.
The sex binary is a commonly applied standard, but it is arbitrary and harmful (see how women are treated rooted in myths around sex, the prolific mutilation of intersex infants, and the "trans panic defense"). If inches being the length they were started resulting in engineering failures that killed people we would change how we measure things.
Well, it does and we don't, but you get the point.
Do you mean that just like we have defined inch the length that is exactly 25.4mm (where mm is the length light travels in 1/299792458 seconds in a vacuum, seconds being whatever the fuck they are), we have also defined animals with XX chromosome females, and if they're human, women, while recognizing that there are rare exceptions?
Two things:
A) you're not thinking procedurally. Doctors do not generally check chromosomes when they determining sex generally. So it would be more accurate to say "in infants, doctors define sex by looking at genitals, in adults, by looking at a variety of characteristics. We use chromosomes in medical circumstances to look for potential conditions that may explain symptoms, and sometimes we can use that as a category in determining sex" The definition you are using is really most applicable in people who are doing research, not clinical work, or interacting with human beings in a social context.
B) cool, so we've established that is what you think sex is. Other communities define sex differently. You can't claim inches are some universal innate biological truth and those heathens over there using centimeters are wrong and need to accept the wisdom of inches. And while inches might be more useful to you, centimeters may be more useful to them.
I would really suggest that you read “Bodies that matter, on the discursive limits of Sex” from Judith Butler. She literally has a PhD in philosophy and has devoted her life to analysis of the way we as a society conceptualize sex.