Bastardizing Sex in Missouri

Good Intentions Paving Company

So there’s

Colin Wright

— CEO and CTO of that Good Intentions Paving Company [GIPC] — supposedly “Defending Sex in Missouri” while just paving the way to any number of seriously problematic consequences. While he is quite justified in supporting the concluding objective in the following — good intentions writ large — I rather doubt he has a flaming clue as to what is THE “scientifically accurate definition of biological sex”:

Without a scientifically accurate definition of biological sex codified into law, it is impossible to enforce the sex-based rights of women and girls that have been previously secured through intense and morally correct human rights activism.

For instance, he boldly asserts:

This coding of individual traits as male or female is possible precisely because the state of being male or female is independent of these traits and is defined by the type of gamete (sperm or ova) an individual can produce or is expected to produce.

And both the Missouri Bill (HB2309) and the Heritage Foundation’s “Defining Sex Act” he refers to do pretty much the same, respectively:

213.014. 1. The provisions of this section shall be known and may be cited as the "Defining SEX Act". The following terms shall mean: …

(3) “Female", an individual who has, had, will have, or would have [had], but for a 7 developmental or genetic anomaly or historical accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes eggs for fertilization;

Be it enacted that for the purposes of the laws, administrative rules, and guidelines of the state/commonwealth of __________:

1. A female is defined as an individual who has, had, will have—or would have, but for a developmental or genetic anomaly or historical accident—the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes eggs for fertilization.

But virtually NO reputable biological journal, encyclopedia, or dictionary says ANYTHING of the sort. For examples, see here, and here. From the Glossary of the first:

The salient difference, the sticky wicket, the elephant in the living room that the three of them — and too many other so-called biologists and philosophers (e.g.,

Carole Hooven

,

Emma Hilton

, Alex Byrne ) — are desperately trying to sweep under the carpet is that the standard biological definitions STIPULATE that to have a sex is to have FUNCTIONAL gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. There is absolutely NOTHING at all in any of those biological definitions that say ANYTHING at all about “can produce or is expected to produce” either type of gamete, or “who has, had, will have, or would have [had]” functional gonads.

Moot of course as to the roots of that dichotomy, though one might reasonably argue that the Heritage Foundation at least takes their marching orders from Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Who’s going to gainsay Jehovah Himself? 🙄 Though I don’t see anything that even suggests that “He” said anything at all about what it takes to qualify as members of the sex categories — particularly in all of the other species — or that the states were “immutable”, clearly not the case for the many species which actually change sex.

But many other people take being male and female as an “essential and immutable” part of their identity, and often get quite “offended” at any suggestion to the contrary. Which is largely what various transactivists are rather desperately trying to claim, though with much less in the way of any objective justifications. So while there is some “reason” undergirding the efforts of Wright and Company to turn the tide of the latter cohort, bastardizing the biological definitions for the sexes in furtherance of that objective is something in the way of a fool’s bargain, a case of shooting oneself in the feet and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.