Again, I offer this for readers’ comments; they aren’t yet my own final definitions. I say this because the subject is touchy and though I want to be biologically accurate, I also want to be civil. And we should recognize that there are diverse definitions of the terms below, though nearly all biologists adhere to the gametic criterion for “biological sex.”
So, here goes:
Sex: Classes of individuals in a species that have the potential to fuse their gametes with those of individuals from a different class, producing a zygote.
Humans (like all mammals and most metazoans) fall into two classes:
Biological Male: Individuals having the capacity/biological equipment to make small, mobile gametes: sperm.
Biological Female: Individuals having the capacity/biological equipment to make large, immobile gametes: eggs.
Under this definition sex is based on gamete type, which nearly always (but not always) correlates with chromosome type or bodily morphology (e.g., secondary sex characters like breasts and body hair). For example, some individuals with Turner syndrome (XO females, lacking one X instead of the common XX females) can make eggs and become pregnant), while some males with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY rather than XY) have motile sperm, though most are usually sterile. Regardless, these individuals fit into the biological “male” or “female” categories above, and do not constitute new sexes.
Likewise, many individuals with ambiguous genitalia can nevertheless make viable sperm or eggs, and thus fit into one of the two classes above...
I do not think transexual people are transgendered. A transgendered person exhibits cultural actions that defy their sex. A transexual person is trying to act in a gendered way that fits the sex they want to be. — Philosophim
I do not think transexual people are transgendered. A transgendered person exhibits cultural actions that defy their sex. A transexual person is trying to act in a gendered way that fits the sex they want to be.
— Philosophim
I'm unsure whether you misspoke here, or are conflating the two ideas you're trying to prise apart. — AmadeusD
In a similar vein, the concept of 'transexual' makes only logical sense, and not practical sense. Sex can't be traversed. — AmadeusD
It is ill-defined, badly researched and reported even worse. If it were possible to eek out an exact notion of transgenderism, we could move forward - but those who use the term seem terminally incapable of doing so. — AmadeusD
Transexualism seems the easiest word for this — Philosophim
I think trying to make a word better defined is a common pursuit in philosophy. If you wish to give up, that's fine. — Philosophim
I'm more interested in what you think about the underlying difference I've noted here. — Philosophim
Making the types of arguments we're making get people fired, in the real world. — AmadeusD
I think Gender is merely a loose system of categorizing social roles and behaviours, and should be relegated to a nicety and nothing determinant of anything whatever in Law or elsewhere. — AmadeusD
I think this is a good venue for it and philosophers need speak up. — Philosophim
Which is why using words that more clearly delineate between the two is important. — Philosophim
Sex isn't exactly binary either. — Vaskane
Thank you for clarifying what you're trying to say, and in that sense, I agree, and think this is why Gender is actually apt at all - we need not invoke aberration to note the wild variance within sexes). However, none of these examples presents anything other than a male or female individual. That's the issue that I think the "sex is a construct" people don't get.Sex has two extremes that it aims towards sure, but on occasion the spectrum is blurred between the two extremes. Even when the 23pair is XX or XY a male, for example could be born with fallopian tubes for example. And even still there are more karyotypes than just XY and XX although not different sexes persay, just not falling within the Binary extreme of XX and XY. — Vaskane
The division between sex and gender is complex because a person's identity as being male or female involves so much, including reproductive functions and sexual expression. — Jack Cummins
I know you're thinking only of the gametes. That's okay, outdated, but I understand where you're coming from. There's a reason why many "sexual aberrations" as you like to call them are referred to as "INTERSEX" conditions. And I take that as a valid view, just a very "stiff" view is all. — Vaskane
Hit me with your precise definition of Sex. (hehe I sense you know I'll find plenty to undermine your outdated position on only including gametes [it's why I say Sex is to State because it looks at the whole of the individual in question])
------------------------------------------------------ — Vaskane
Your reply seems a little simplistic and not embracing the dilemmas of transgender individuals. I have worked with people who are transgender in mental healthcare and the nature of labels, what one is biologically and what what one wishes to become. It does involve ideas of the 'body'. — Jack Cummins
dilemmas of transgender individuals — Jack Cummins
MALE and FEMALE can FUSE their gametes. — Vaskane
They have the potential to. They need not, currently, be able to do so. At what point that potential is read, as far as makes any sense to me, is the moment of the hormonal cascade beginning (either triggered by SRY activation, or not). Ignoring that, though, because fair - it's probably not the strongest argument on its face - on your account, someone who has had an horrific injury after siring 20 children is no longer male, either, as he is incapable of even producing sperm, let alone fusing any of them with ova. But I'm sure you'll agree that seems very wrong.have the potential to fuse their gametes
However, playing to my perspective, a "male" with female sex organs — Vaskane
Yet another crowning achievement of 20th century trans-Atlantic "philosophy", to the podium along with JTB. I will stick to the continentals.
Mammalian sex is, in fact, 100% binary to our knowledge. Aberrations in sex development don't change, or 'partial alter' your sex. If you're saying they do, I'm open to the argument at least
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