When your philosophical meanderings can be used to facilitate the sexual assault of women and girls in single sex female spaces, in order to cater to the subjective ambiguity of gender and the extreme minority of men who have identity issues - you are absolutely on the WRONG side of history. Your endless mumbo jumbo is excessive mental masturbation at best. Here's hoping you keep as FAR away from women and girls as possible because you are aggressively clueless about the necessity of female sexual boundaries.
Pray tell, exactly how do you "think" that my "philosophical meanderings can be used to facilitate the sexual assault of women and girls in single sex female spaces"? Show your work ...
I think I've being rather clear -- here, there, and about -- that there's no way on gawd's green earth that any transwoman is EVER going to qualify as an "adult human female" since he lacks the ovaries that are kind of essential to qualify as such.
As for your "female sexual boundaries", I'm not quite sure how you think to be able to protect "female spaces" if you can't even say what it takes to qualify as one. And if you're not going to go with the biological definitions then I don't see that you have a leg to stand on when various transloonie nutcases claim to have changed sex.
Apropos of which and ICYMI, you may wish to review the Tickle vs Giggle case where the "judge" accepted the "argument" that "Ms." Tickle had changed from a male into a female:
BBC: "Giggle’s legal team argued throughout the case that sex is a biological concept. ... But Justice Robert Bromwich said in his decision on Friday that case law has consistently found sex is 'changeable and not necessarily binary', ultimately dismissing Giggle’s argument."
The transloonie argument is basically that to change one's genitalia is to change one's sex -- barking mad, the lot of them.
But while Giggle and the "gender critical" crowd have the high scientific ground in arguing that "sex is a biological concept", that necessitates accepting the standard biological definitions for the sexes, and the reasons why they're so defined. Which many "women" refuse to do, largely because those definitions "offend" their vanity -- they've turned a "biological concept" into "immutable identities" based on some "mythic essences". Hardly biological.
Certainly a rather small "band of brothers" -- and sisters, though rather too few of them. 🙂
But I certainly haven't been cutting my arguments from whole cloth -- kind of think Paul Griffiths, philosopher of science and biology now retired, was more or less first to draw attention to the problems that follow from that "expansion":
PG: "Human societies can’t delegate to biology the job of defining sex as a social institution. The biological definition of sex wasn’t designed to ensure fair sporting competition, or to settle disputes about access to healthcare. Theorists who want to use the biological definition of sex in those ways need to show that it will do a good job at the Olympics or in Medicare. The fact that it’s needed in biology isn’t good enough. On the other hand, whatever its shortcomings as an institutional definition, the concept of biological sex remains essential to understand the diversity of life. It shouldn’t be discarded or distorted because of arguments about its use in law, sport or medicine. That would be a tragic mistake."
But the problem is that too many so-called biologists and philosophers -- Colin Wright and Alex Byrne in particular -- want to make the sexes into social categories while at least genuflecting to the biology, but at the serious cost of corrupting it.
Thanks for that link to the debate with Wright, Boghossian, and ? Don't have time to watch it but hope to skim through the transcript, not least because your comments suggest that he has painted himself into a corner, and realizes it, by trying to use/misuse a biological category for "social engineering" purposes.
Wright and physicist Sean Carroll had a recent go-around on the point where the latter quite reasonably argued that biological definitions are "terms of art" in the field, though he may not realize that they are essential to it. But seem to recollect that Wright more or less rejected that idea -- seems that he thinks his own definitions are "primordial" ... 🙂
This article begs the question: How does a definition of a man as someone who is currently successfully producing small gametes, and of a woman as someone who is currently in a cycle of producing large gamete(s), successfully allow us to determine who gets to use which bathroom, play in which sports league, live in which prison, etc.? And do these definitions help determine whether it is a good idea to push synthetic cross-sex hormones and surgeries to remove healthy body parts (and/or create faux parts that don't look, feel or perform like the real thing, and stitch them onto otherwise health bodies), particularly on very young and vulnerable individuals, for the simple reason that they seem to want this?
Since this seems to be the point you are making (ie. if we want to create good social policy, we must understand the scientific definitions of "male" and "female" and "man" and "woman" and "boy" and "girl" - not a bad concept), it would be nice to have a part 2 of this article in which you show how the definitions you propose are useful for this goal.
I still don't see the present tense aspect as being part of the definition at all. In fact, the "male" and "female" definitions provided early on in the article indicate male and female as the one "that produces" small or large gametes, respectively. Nothing in that phrase indicates present tense, as the one "that produces" something could produce that thing at any point in its existence, as long as nobody outside of that class produces that thing. In other words, for example, a female is the one that produces large gametes, from puberty through menopause, not before or after that time.
Anyway, I liked the video of the car being made in the factory and I especially liked the napkin mechanism, although I'm not sure they gave me any insight into the answer to the definitions of "male" and "female." Overall, it was a thought-provoking article, and fun to read. My favorite part: the gift your mom gave you. :)
Hippiesq: “This article begs the question: How does a definition of a man as someone who is currently successfully producing small gametes, and of a woman ... who is currently ... producing large gamete(s), successfully allow us to determine who gets to use which bathroom, .... etc.?”
Good question. 🙂 Short answer is that they don’t. But that is not at all the purpose, objective, or justification for the biological definitions – which I’ve tried to illustrate. For a longer one, you might be interested in an article by a philosopher of biology, Paul Griffiths, on “What are biological sexes?”, even the Abstract, this bit in particular:
PG: “Finally, the fact that a species has only two biological sexes does not imply that every member of the species is either male, female or hermaphroditic, or that the sex of every individual organism is clear and determinate. The idea of biological sex is critical for understanding the diversity of life, but ill-suited to the job of determining the social or legal status of human beings as men or women.”
I’ve tried to show the solid reasons for those biological definitions, but that does not make them particularly useful for “determining the social or legal status” of men and women. To adjudicate access to toilets, change rooms, sports, and the like then we’ll have to use other criteria – maybe genitalia, or karyotype. Or “designed to produce particular gametes”. 🙂 But largely why I suggested, in the comments on your own Substack, that you might want to take a kick at that kitty yourself, at least to start the conversational ball rolling.
Hippiesq: “I still don't see the present tense aspect as being part of the definition at all.”
Bit of a thorny and convoluted issue there, one that I find some difficulty summarizing, at least in 25 words or less. 🙂 But also one that has more or less bedeviled much of philosophy for the last 2500 years – the problem of universals:
Though much of that might be because too many “philosophers” are engaged in “muddying the waters to make them seem deep”.
But, somewhat analogously, we might say that “produces a heartbeat” – present tense process – is the definition for “alive”. It’s kind of “essential” to have a heart beat to qualify as such; that “property” is a “necessary and sufficient condition” to qualify for membership in the “alive” category:
Although there are a few other “wrinkles” in that argument. For one thing, too many people want to make the sexes into identities in which producing gametes is merely incidental and of no particular relevance to sex category membership. But you -- and they -- are then evading the question of exactly what it takes to qualify as such -- "immutable essence" is then not an unreasonable conclusion.
Hippiesq: “Anyway, I liked the video of the car being made in the factory and I especially liked the napkin mechanism, although I'm not sure they gave me any insight into the answer to the definitions of ‘male’ and ‘female’.
Glad you enjoyed the video – quite a bit more effort than I thought, a steeper learning curve than I expected. Though it’s not a car that’s being made – the cart is just a moving assembly platform; the gizmos being assembled thereon – the gametes or dishwashers – are removed at the end of the cycle, and the same cart is moved back to the start to repeat the process.
Hippiesq: "Overall, it was a thought-provoking article, and fun to read. My favorite part: the gift your mom gave you. :)"
Thanks. A bit of a “personal interest” angle – may have to do more of that.🙂
Fair enough. I guess my own personal interest in this technical definition diminishes greatly to the extent that this definition is wholly unrelated to the question of what it means to be a man or a woman.
As for the analogy to a heartbeat, I think that proves the point, through obvious distinction, that present tense is not important in defining man and woman, but is important in defining alive. As I think I've said before, we have a word for whether someone is currently able to successfully produce small or large gametes, to distinguish from males or females who are not currently doing so. "Fertile" would more closely correspond to your "alive" analogy.
I agree that you need to bring more of the personal stuff into your essays! :)
Hippiesq: “… this definition is wholly unrelated to the question of what it means to be a man or a woman.”
As “Get Smart” used to put it years ago, “sorry about that, Chief”. 🙂
Though maybe not “wholly unrelated”, particularly if people want to bet the farm – as many feminists are doing – on “adult human female”. But I hope you’ll at least agree that the biological definitions for the sexes act as something of a line in the sand which at least emphasizes that there is no way, on gawd’s green earth, that any transwoman is ever going to qualify as a female.
In addition to which, one might also reasonably think that it is something of an arrow in your quiver, and in those of many other parents of dysphoric children, for use in your battle to disabuse your daughter of her belief that she will ever qualify as a male. Regardless of any “collateral damage” …
Hippiesq: “… that present tense is not important in defining man and woman …”
Yes, quite agree. And I’m more or less willing to accept your “designed around producing gametes” as the basis for the definitions for those terms. And have said so in a recent comment on your Substack:
However, I’m sorry to say, there really are more than a few flies in that ointment -- Ecclesiastes 10:1, Wikipedia informs me, so a saying of venerable provenance. 🙂 But chief among those “flies” is that you – and Emma Hilton, Colin Wright, Alex Byrne, and a host of other “usual suspects” – apparently want to make that “designed around producing” into the definitions for the sexes. Which is, as I’ve argued here, flatly contradicted by the standard biological definitions.
But even if you do restrict your definitions for “man” and “woman” to your “designed around”, and make no claims about them being based on “female” – which is likely to be a tough sale – then there’s some reason to argue that they really only qualify as genders – encompassing traits typical of particular sexes but still not the defining ones.
Somewhat apropos of which, you might have some interest in a rather fascinating Substack post by Katherine Lowrey, a professor of anthropology at a university here in Canada, where she argued, with some justification, that “Judith Butler didn’t invent gender ideology, anthropologists did.” Though I think she’s too quick to shoulder all of the blame – plenty to go around, lots of other “usual suspects” who should be in the docket with those anthropologists. But of particular note:
KL: Strathern’s 1981 article “Culture in a netbag: the manufacture of a subdiscipline in anthropology” ... allows us to spot in the wild a series of now-thoroughly domesticated assertions, chief among them that there is “No such thing as woman” …
The problem seems to be that many women simply don’t want to define the term “woman” with any degree of exactitude, particularly based on quantifiable biological properties. Far “better” to rely on a “je ne sais quoi” essence to the term. That may well retain an “air of mystery” to the category, but it really is not very useful for adjudicating access to toilets, change rooms, and sports leagues.
Hippiesq: “… more of the personal stuff into your essays! :)
Roger, Wilco. 🙂 At least to prove that I’m not a ChatGPT-powered robot? 😉🙂
Though I’m reminded of a quip made by woman friend of my ex – we’ve remained more or less friends ourselves though thick and thin over some 37 years, not bad, eh? 🙂 But both my ex and her friend were born and raised Catholic in Quebec, and the friend had observed that far too many people these days were all too quick to publicly share details of their lives that, fifty years ago, they wouldn’t have told their priests in confession. Signs of the times …🙂
Starting backwards, yes, this generation is known for "over-sharing" information that is often way too personal, and sometimes just not interesting. This does not apply to your personal shares, which are neither too personal nor boring! :) And yes, good for you to remain friends with your ex. I am still friends with my law school boyfriend, which is funny because, while we were dating, we never stopped fighting.
As for the rest, I just have to say this. If we want a line in the sand for "men" and "women" or "boys" and "girls," I would want menopausal women, and pre-pubescent girls on the same side with currently menstruating women, and trans women on the other side with other boys and men. Thus, the definition I am looking for clearly delineates men and boys (including trans women) on one side, and women and girls (including transmen) on the other. By your definitions, I am not sure pre-pubescent girls and menopausal women would be in the changing room with menstruating women. The "designed around" definition seems to do the trick in so dividing people.
It seems to me, in pressing the notion of present tense production of large or small gametes, you are inadvertently muddying the waters.
As for trying to assure my (way too stubborn to care what I say) daughter that she will never be a man, because her body was not designed around small gamete production, she never will be a man. She may end up looking like one, but looks aren't everything! Besides, she would argue she is no longer a woman once the testosterone prevents her from menstruating, and I certainly disagree with that.
I don't think the "designed around" notion needs to devolve into a "typical traits" discussion, and then into an "essence" discussion. I really don't think we need to go there. What is designed around production of large gametes doesn't cease to be that thing just because it is not currently producing them - without having to refer to an "essence" of womanhood.
In fact, I would think it is the trans activists who are relying on something of an "essence" in stating that a man somehow is a woman because he "feels like it" and vice versa for a woman who "feels like" she is a man. The "designed around" definition contradicts the "essence" idea, and makes it clear that feeling like a woman or a man is both nonsensical (a topic for another day), and irrelevant.
Now, to quote Porky Pig "Th Th Th That's All Folks!"
I am absolutely certain that the ignorance of biology is having a terible impact on all questions of the day that are in any way, shape or form related to humans, burning or otherwise. But I simply did not understand where your definitions or analyses differ from those you present in the text itself as deficient or lacking... I mean, I did not understand if you were presenting them as deficient or lacking, or as great examples of exactly what you meant, because I did not see the significance, in the broad scheme of things, of saying that they produce as opposed to, production is cyclical... The article seemed like a tangent, I guess, instead of... Instead of I don't know what, really. I usually like tangents, I love tangents. But this one left me more confused than expanded, if you know what I mean. Perhaps I did not read it well, or perhaps I just did not get how the fact of cycles makes a difference in these definitions/categories. When I cannot follow an author's journey, in my mind I think, "You lost me at hello" (which is a reference to "you had me at hello" or "you won me at hello" or whatever the character in that movie says to Tom Cruise's character, um, what's the movie? with the kid with round eyeglasses? sports-related? Oh! Jerry Maguire).
Sorry that I lost you at “hello” ... 🙂 Though I’m glad that my article whetted your curiosity or interest enough for you to read all or most of it. And thanks for some cogent observations and valid criticisms which I’ll try to address or clarify.
But my apologies that, as you say, you “simply did not understand where [my] definitions or analyses differ from those [I] present in the text itself as deficient or lacking”. I expect or assume that you were, to begin with, referring to the four “cases in the docket” that I had illustrated with some screen-shots, i.e., the article in the journal of Molecular Human Reproduction (MHR), the two tweets by Emma Hilton and Zach Elliott, followed by the quote from the Forstater case.
I had thought, I guess somewhat erroneously 🙂, that the four pictures illustrating those cases would have been sufficient descriptions of the “contenders” for the throne, and that I could simply proceed to the defense of the best one (MHR). Particularly as several of my previous posts had already dealt with various “pretenders” and “usurpers” in some detail. 🙂 For examples:
But something from the latter in particular which may address your related comment that you “did not see the significance, in the broad scheme of things, of saying that they produce as opposed to, production is cyclical.” Really kind of the crux of the matter, and one not easy to grapple with or elucidate. But to wit, first a quote from evolutionary biologist, and transwoman, Joan Roughgarden, and, second, a comment thereon made by “philosopher” Alex Byrne in a post on the Substack of Colin Wright, one of the signatories of Emma Hilton’s letter to the UK Times:
Roughgarden: To a biologist, ‘male’ means making small gametes, and ‘female’ means making large gametes.
Byrne: “Making” does not mean currently producing [yes, it does], but (something like) has the function to make … [my “editorializing”🙂]
But Byrne and Hilton and Wright – and too many other “biologists” and “philosophers” – all subscribe to what are hardly better than the folk-biology definitions for the sexes by which “producing gametes” is only something that may, or may not, happen sometime over the course of the individual’s life. Hilton’s tweet underlines that perspective with their view that simply having gonads of “past, present, or future functionality” is sufficient to qualify for membership in the sex categories.
But Roughgarden’s definitions – and those in the MHR Glossary, in the Oxford Dictionary of Biology, and in mainstream biology – all make the current production of gametes – your “production is cyclical” – into the requirement that must be met to qualify as male or female.
While one might reasonably wonder whether that isn’t splitting hairs at best, there are a large number of cases where that perspective of Roughgarden’s is more or less essential to the whole edifice of biology. For one example of many, there is the infamous clownfish 🙂 which – by mainstream biology – changes sex BECAUSE it changes the type of gamete it is actually producing.
But if we go by Byrne’s and Hilton’s claptrap then we would say that a clownfish actually produces, sequentially, both large AND small gametes at various times in its life. And is therefore BOTH male AND female.
Much of biology, science and math in general, is apparently predicated on naming things, on putting them into categories, because different types have different properties and behaviours. Impossible, at least in biology, if there are different criteria for category membership in different species. As Roughgarden put it, “.... 'Male' and 'female' are biological categories, and the criteria for classifying an organism as male or female have to work with worms to whales, with red seaweed to redwood trees."
Some complex issues, pitfalls, and devils in the details that I sure haven’t “plumbed the depths” of. But I hope some the foregoing will leave you “less confused and more expanded” than before. 🙂
When your philosophical meanderings can be used to facilitate the sexual assault of women and girls in single sex female spaces, in order to cater to the subjective ambiguity of gender and the extreme minority of men who have identity issues - you are absolutely on the WRONG side of history. Your endless mumbo jumbo is excessive mental masturbation at best. Here's hoping you keep as FAR away from women and girls as possible because you are aggressively clueless about the necessity of female sexual boundaries.
Pray tell, exactly how do you "think" that my "philosophical meanderings can be used to facilitate the sexual assault of women and girls in single sex female spaces"? Show your work ...
I think I've being rather clear -- here, there, and about -- that there's no way on gawd's green earth that any transwoman is EVER going to qualify as an "adult human female" since he lacks the ovaries that are kind of essential to qualify as such.
As for your "female sexual boundaries", I'm not quite sure how you think to be able to protect "female spaces" if you can't even say what it takes to qualify as one. And if you're not going to go with the biological definitions then I don't see that you have a leg to stand on when various transloonie nutcases claim to have changed sex.
Apropos of which and ICYMI, you may wish to review the Tickle vs Giggle case where the "judge" accepted the "argument" that "Ms." Tickle had changed from a male into a female:
BBC: "Giggle’s legal team argued throughout the case that sex is a biological concept. ... But Justice Robert Bromwich said in his decision on Friday that case law has consistently found sex is 'changeable and not necessarily binary', ultimately dismissing Giggle’s argument."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07ev1v7r4po
The transloonie argument is basically that to change one's genitalia is to change one's sex -- barking mad, the lot of them.
But while Giggle and the "gender critical" crowd have the high scientific ground in arguing that "sex is a biological concept", that necessitates accepting the standard biological definitions for the sexes, and the reasons why they're so defined. Which many "women" refuse to do, largely because those definitions "offend" their vanity -- they've turned a "biological concept" into "immutable identities" based on some "mythic essences". Hardly biological.
Sex is indeed supposed to have a very narrow definition, and I feel like you and I are in a very tiny minority on resisting its expansion.
Certainly a rather small "band of brothers" -- and sisters, though rather too few of them. 🙂
But I certainly haven't been cutting my arguments from whole cloth -- kind of think Paul Griffiths, philosopher of science and biology now retired, was more or less first to draw attention to the problems that follow from that "expansion":
PG: "Human societies can’t delegate to biology the job of defining sex as a social institution. The biological definition of sex wasn’t designed to ensure fair sporting competition, or to settle disputes about access to healthcare. Theorists who want to use the biological definition of sex in those ways need to show that it will do a good job at the Olympics or in Medicare. The fact that it’s needed in biology isn’t good enough. On the other hand, whatever its shortcomings as an institutional definition, the concept of biological sex remains essential to understand the diversity of life. It shouldn’t be discarded or distorted because of arguments about its use in law, sport or medicine. That would be a tragic mistake."
https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity
But the problem is that too many so-called biologists and philosophers -- Colin Wright and Alex Byrne in particular -- want to make the sexes into social categories while at least genuflecting to the biology, but at the serious cost of corrupting it.
Thanks for that link to the debate with Wright, Boghossian, and ? Don't have time to watch it but hope to skim through the transcript, not least because your comments suggest that he has painted himself into a corner, and realizes it, by trying to use/misuse a biological category for "social engineering" purposes.
https://www.ymeskhout.com/p/there-are-no-primordial-definitions?publication_id=394017&triedRedirect=true
Wright and physicist Sean Carroll had a recent go-around on the point where the latter quite reasonably argued that biological definitions are "terms of art" in the field, though he may not realize that they are essential to it. But seem to recollect that Wright more or less rejected that idea -- seems that he thinks his own definitions are "primordial" ... 🙂
This article begs the question: How does a definition of a man as someone who is currently successfully producing small gametes, and of a woman as someone who is currently in a cycle of producing large gamete(s), successfully allow us to determine who gets to use which bathroom, play in which sports league, live in which prison, etc.? And do these definitions help determine whether it is a good idea to push synthetic cross-sex hormones and surgeries to remove healthy body parts (and/or create faux parts that don't look, feel or perform like the real thing, and stitch them onto otherwise health bodies), particularly on very young and vulnerable individuals, for the simple reason that they seem to want this?
Since this seems to be the point you are making (ie. if we want to create good social policy, we must understand the scientific definitions of "male" and "female" and "man" and "woman" and "boy" and "girl" - not a bad concept), it would be nice to have a part 2 of this article in which you show how the definitions you propose are useful for this goal.
I still don't see the present tense aspect as being part of the definition at all. In fact, the "male" and "female" definitions provided early on in the article indicate male and female as the one "that produces" small or large gametes, respectively. Nothing in that phrase indicates present tense, as the one "that produces" something could produce that thing at any point in its existence, as long as nobody outside of that class produces that thing. In other words, for example, a female is the one that produces large gametes, from puberty through menopause, not before or after that time.
Anyway, I liked the video of the car being made in the factory and I especially liked the napkin mechanism, although I'm not sure they gave me any insight into the answer to the definitions of "male" and "female." Overall, it was a thought-provoking article, and fun to read. My favorite part: the gift your mom gave you. :)
Hippiesq: “This article begs the question: How does a definition of a man as someone who is currently successfully producing small gametes, and of a woman ... who is currently ... producing large gamete(s), successfully allow us to determine who gets to use which bathroom, .... etc.?”
Good question. 🙂 Short answer is that they don’t. But that is not at all the purpose, objective, or justification for the biological definitions – which I’ve tried to illustrate. For a longer one, you might be interested in an article by a philosopher of biology, Paul Griffiths, on “What are biological sexes?”, even the Abstract, this bit in particular:
PG: “Finally, the fact that a species has only two biological sexes does not imply that every member of the species is either male, female or hermaphroditic, or that the sex of every individual organism is clear and determinate. The idea of biological sex is critical for understanding the diversity of life, but ill-suited to the job of determining the social or legal status of human beings as men or women.”
https://philarchive.org/rec/GRIWAB-2
I’ve tried to show the solid reasons for those biological definitions, but that does not make them particularly useful for “determining the social or legal status” of men and women. To adjudicate access to toilets, change rooms, sports, and the like then we’ll have to use other criteria – maybe genitalia, or karyotype. Or “designed to produce particular gametes”. 🙂 But largely why I suggested, in the comments on your own Substack, that you might want to take a kick at that kitty yourself, at least to start the conversational ball rolling.
Hippiesq: “I still don't see the present tense aspect as being part of the definition at all.”
Bit of a thorny and convoluted issue there, one that I find some difficulty summarizing, at least in 25 words or less. 🙂 But also one that has more or less bedeviled much of philosophy for the last 2500 years – the problem of universals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals
Though much of that might be because too many “philosophers” are engaged in “muddying the waters to make them seem deep”.
But, somewhat analogously, we might say that “produces a heartbeat” – present tense process – is the definition for “alive”. It’s kind of “essential” to have a heart beat to qualify as such; that “property” is a “necessary and sufficient condition” to qualify for membership in the “alive” category:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensional_and_intensional_definitions
Although there are a few other “wrinkles” in that argument. For one thing, too many people want to make the sexes into identities in which producing gametes is merely incidental and of no particular relevance to sex category membership. But you -- and they -- are then evading the question of exactly what it takes to qualify as such -- "immutable essence" is then not an unreasonable conclusion.
Hippiesq: “Anyway, I liked the video of the car being made in the factory and I especially liked the napkin mechanism, although I'm not sure they gave me any insight into the answer to the definitions of ‘male’ and ‘female’.
Glad you enjoyed the video – quite a bit more effort than I thought, a steeper learning curve than I expected. Though it’s not a car that’s being made – the cart is just a moving assembly platform; the gizmos being assembled thereon – the gametes or dishwashers – are removed at the end of the cycle, and the same cart is moved back to the start to repeat the process.
Hippiesq: "Overall, it was a thought-provoking article, and fun to read. My favorite part: the gift your mom gave you. :)"
Thanks. A bit of a “personal interest” angle – may have to do more of that.🙂
Fair enough. I guess my own personal interest in this technical definition diminishes greatly to the extent that this definition is wholly unrelated to the question of what it means to be a man or a woman.
As for the analogy to a heartbeat, I think that proves the point, through obvious distinction, that present tense is not important in defining man and woman, but is important in defining alive. As I think I've said before, we have a word for whether someone is currently able to successfully produce small or large gametes, to distinguish from males or females who are not currently doing so. "Fertile" would more closely correspond to your "alive" analogy.
I agree that you need to bring more of the personal stuff into your essays! :)
Hippiesq: “… this definition is wholly unrelated to the question of what it means to be a man or a woman.”
As “Get Smart” used to put it years ago, “sorry about that, Chief”. 🙂
Though maybe not “wholly unrelated”, particularly if people want to bet the farm – as many feminists are doing – on “adult human female”. But I hope you’ll at least agree that the biological definitions for the sexes act as something of a line in the sand which at least emphasizes that there is no way, on gawd’s green earth, that any transwoman is ever going to qualify as a female.
In addition to which, one might also reasonably think that it is something of an arrow in your quiver, and in those of many other parents of dysphoric children, for use in your battle to disabuse your daughter of her belief that she will ever qualify as a male. Regardless of any “collateral damage” …
Hippiesq: “… that present tense is not important in defining man and woman …”
Yes, quite agree. And I’m more or less willing to accept your “designed around producing gametes” as the basis for the definitions for those terms. And have said so in a recent comment on your Substack:
https://hippiesq.substack.com/p/the-letter-my-18-year-old-trans-identified/comment/57228586
However, I’m sorry to say, there really are more than a few flies in that ointment -- Ecclesiastes 10:1, Wikipedia informs me, so a saying of venerable provenance. 🙂 But chief among those “flies” is that you – and Emma Hilton, Colin Wright, Alex Byrne, and a host of other “usual suspects” – apparently want to make that “designed around producing” into the definitions for the sexes. Which is, as I’ve argued here, flatly contradicted by the standard biological definitions.
But even if you do restrict your definitions for “man” and “woman” to your “designed around”, and make no claims about them being based on “female” – which is likely to be a tough sale – then there’s some reason to argue that they really only qualify as genders – encompassing traits typical of particular sexes but still not the defining ones.
Somewhat apropos of which, you might have some interest in a rather fascinating Substack post by Katherine Lowrey, a professor of anthropology at a university here in Canada, where she argued, with some justification, that “Judith Butler didn’t invent gender ideology, anthropologists did.” Though I think she’s too quick to shoulder all of the blame – plenty to go around, lots of other “usual suspects” who should be in the docket with those anthropologists. But of particular note:
KL: Strathern’s 1981 article “Culture in a netbag: the manufacture of a subdiscipline in anthropology” ... allows us to spot in the wild a series of now-thoroughly domesticated assertions, chief among them that there is “No such thing as woman” …
https://kathleenlowrey.substack.com/p/nobody-puts-baby-in-the-corner
The problem seems to be that many women simply don’t want to define the term “woman” with any degree of exactitude, particularly based on quantifiable biological properties. Far “better” to rely on a “je ne sais quoi” essence to the term. That may well retain an “air of mystery” to the category, but it really is not very useful for adjudicating access to toilets, change rooms, and sports leagues.
Hippiesq: “… more of the personal stuff into your essays! :)
Roger, Wilco. 🙂 At least to prove that I’m not a ChatGPT-powered robot? 😉🙂
Though I’m reminded of a quip made by woman friend of my ex – we’ve remained more or less friends ourselves though thick and thin over some 37 years, not bad, eh? 🙂 But both my ex and her friend were born and raised Catholic in Quebec, and the friend had observed that far too many people these days were all too quick to publicly share details of their lives that, fifty years ago, they wouldn’t have told their priests in confession. Signs of the times …🙂
Starting backwards, yes, this generation is known for "over-sharing" information that is often way too personal, and sometimes just not interesting. This does not apply to your personal shares, which are neither too personal nor boring! :) And yes, good for you to remain friends with your ex. I am still friends with my law school boyfriend, which is funny because, while we were dating, we never stopped fighting.
As for the rest, I just have to say this. If we want a line in the sand for "men" and "women" or "boys" and "girls," I would want menopausal women, and pre-pubescent girls on the same side with currently menstruating women, and trans women on the other side with other boys and men. Thus, the definition I am looking for clearly delineates men and boys (including trans women) on one side, and women and girls (including transmen) on the other. By your definitions, I am not sure pre-pubescent girls and menopausal women would be in the changing room with menstruating women. The "designed around" definition seems to do the trick in so dividing people.
It seems to me, in pressing the notion of present tense production of large or small gametes, you are inadvertently muddying the waters.
As for trying to assure my (way too stubborn to care what I say) daughter that she will never be a man, because her body was not designed around small gamete production, she never will be a man. She may end up looking like one, but looks aren't everything! Besides, she would argue she is no longer a woman once the testosterone prevents her from menstruating, and I certainly disagree with that.
I don't think the "designed around" notion needs to devolve into a "typical traits" discussion, and then into an "essence" discussion. I really don't think we need to go there. What is designed around production of large gametes doesn't cease to be that thing just because it is not currently producing them - without having to refer to an "essence" of womanhood.
In fact, I would think it is the trans activists who are relying on something of an "essence" in stating that a man somehow is a woman because he "feels like it" and vice versa for a woman who "feels like" she is a man. The "designed around" definition contradicts the "essence" idea, and makes it clear that feeling like a woman or a man is both nonsensical (a topic for another day), and irrelevant.
Now, to quote Porky Pig "Th Th Th That's All Folks!"
o...k...
🙂 But rather "non-committal" ...
You think that the ignorance about biology isn't having some seriously negative impacts on those "burning" questions of the day?
Since you are, apparently, a "reader" who "works with words", you might want to pick up that "Splendid Feast of Reason" in particular:
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520239111/the-splendid-feast-of-reason
In perusing my copy, on re-reading the Preface, I see something, many things in fact, of note, but this quote of Ben Jonson in particular:
"Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book in hand./ To read it well: that is to understand."
Thanks for the book rec.
I work with words because I edit and translate academic texts. Not always feasts of reason.
I am absolutely certain that the ignorance of biology is having a terible impact on all questions of the day that are in any way, shape or form related to humans, burning or otherwise. But I simply did not understand where your definitions or analyses differ from those you present in the text itself as deficient or lacking... I mean, I did not understand if you were presenting them as deficient or lacking, or as great examples of exactly what you meant, because I did not see the significance, in the broad scheme of things, of saying that they produce as opposed to, production is cyclical... The article seemed like a tangent, I guess, instead of... Instead of I don't know what, really. I usually like tangents, I love tangents. But this one left me more confused than expanded, if you know what I mean. Perhaps I did not read it well, or perhaps I just did not get how the fact of cycles makes a difference in these definitions/categories. When I cannot follow an author's journey, in my mind I think, "You lost me at hello" (which is a reference to "you had me at hello" or "you won me at hello" or whatever the character in that movie says to Tom Cruise's character, um, what's the movie? with the kid with round eyeglasses? sports-related? Oh! Jerry Maguire).
Sorry that I lost you at “hello” ... 🙂 Though I’m glad that my article whetted your curiosity or interest enough for you to read all or most of it. And thanks for some cogent observations and valid criticisms which I’ll try to address or clarify.
But my apologies that, as you say, you “simply did not understand where [my] definitions or analyses differ from those [I] present in the text itself as deficient or lacking”. I expect or assume that you were, to begin with, referring to the four “cases in the docket” that I had illustrated with some screen-shots, i.e., the article in the journal of Molecular Human Reproduction (MHR), the two tweets by Emma Hilton and Zach Elliott, followed by the quote from the Forstater case.
I had thought, I guess somewhat erroneously 🙂, that the four pictures illustrating those cases would have been sufficient descriptions of the “contenders” for the throne, and that I could simply proceed to the defense of the best one (MHR). Particularly as several of my previous posts had already dealt with various “pretenders” and “usurpers” in some detail. 🙂 For examples:
Binarists Vs. Spectrumists; Shoot-outs at the Not-So-O.K. Corral ...; https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/binarists-vs-spectrumists
"Is ‘sex’ a useful category?”; Cell magazine's Lysenkoism and repudiation of biology; https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/is-sex-a-useful-category
But something from the latter in particular which may address your related comment that you “did not see the significance, in the broad scheme of things, of saying that they produce as opposed to, production is cyclical.” Really kind of the crux of the matter, and one not easy to grapple with or elucidate. But to wit, first a quote from evolutionary biologist, and transwoman, Joan Roughgarden, and, second, a comment thereon made by “philosopher” Alex Byrne in a post on the Substack of Colin Wright, one of the signatories of Emma Hilton’s letter to the UK Times:
Roughgarden: To a biologist, ‘male’ means making small gametes, and ‘female’ means making large gametes.
Byrne: “Making” does not mean currently producing [yes, it does], but (something like) has the function to make … [my “editorializing”🙂]
But Byrne and Hilton and Wright – and too many other “biologists” and “philosophers” – all subscribe to what are hardly better than the folk-biology definitions for the sexes by which “producing gametes” is only something that may, or may not, happen sometime over the course of the individual’s life. Hilton’s tweet underlines that perspective with their view that simply having gonads of “past, present, or future functionality” is sufficient to qualify for membership in the sex categories.
But Roughgarden’s definitions – and those in the MHR Glossary, in the Oxford Dictionary of Biology, and in mainstream biology – all make the current production of gametes – your “production is cyclical” – into the requirement that must be met to qualify as male or female.
While one might reasonably wonder whether that isn’t splitting hairs at best, there are a large number of cases where that perspective of Roughgarden’s is more or less essential to the whole edifice of biology. For one example of many, there is the infamous clownfish 🙂 which – by mainstream biology – changes sex BECAUSE it changes the type of gamete it is actually producing.
But if we go by Byrne’s and Hilton’s claptrap then we would say that a clownfish actually produces, sequentially, both large AND small gametes at various times in its life. And is therefore BOTH male AND female.
Much of biology, science and math in general, is apparently predicated on naming things, on putting them into categories, because different types have different properties and behaviours. Impossible, at least in biology, if there are different criteria for category membership in different species. As Roughgarden put it, “.... 'Male' and 'female' are biological categories, and the criteria for classifying an organism as male or female have to work with worms to whales, with red seaweed to redwood trees."
Some complex issues, pitfalls, and devils in the details that I sure haven’t “plumbed the depths” of. But I hope some the foregoing will leave you “less confused and more expanded” than before. 🙂
Thanks for your clarification! It was very useful!