That's a very general law, and sufficient to action. What I find odd is the specificity. — Banno

Title 9 is a well known law, arising often in the context of college athletics, which is obviously a very large US interest. For many years men dominated the sports scene, but Title 9 dictated equal play for women., which required equal numbers of teams and sports scholarships.

Sports is big business (and it affects college admissions in many ways), so I think limiting your considerations to recreational types activities doesn't fully appreciate the significance of the disruptions caused by these trans issues.

I'll agree that the US sports culture, especially as it interplays with academia, is dysfunctional, but that's the reality and why this matters in other ways.

And men are not able to. No one alive or dead was born of a man. — NOS4A2

That's an empirical claim that requires first knowing what it means to be a man or woman and then looking to see if anyone meeting these conditions has given birth or breastfed.

So you first need to tell me what it means to be a man or a woman.

So you first need to tell me what it means to be a man or a woman. — Michael

What does it mean to be a male or female dog or sheep, apart from the anatomical differences? From our perspective, there are recognizable gender-related behavioral differences across mammals thar connect affect with perception and motivation. We assume a single normative gender binary ( masculine vs feminine behavior) for animals, but what if there are intermediates , and biologically male sheep with female gendered behavior? Would this be evidence for a hard-wired brain basis for homosexuality and gender ‘non-conformity’ in humans?

Animals don't have genders, just biological sexes.

The stuff between your legs doesn't make you run faster or kick better. — Banno

Except it does. Men overall sprint faster and have greater lower body strength. In fact, the biggest indicator of top speed is how much force one can exert on the ground, and women have about 70% the lower body strength of men. There is a direct causal link between "what is between your legs" and athletic performance on every level. You are kidding yourself.

Technique is different, and women can be just as if not more technical than men, perhaps even much more so.

It's for that reason that there is US law requiring equal access to sports opportunities at the college level (Title 9 rules) for men and women.
— Hanover

You needed a law for that? — Banno

Yes, there is a law that guarantees equal opportunities in our nation. I guess we are primitive patriarchs oppressing the super-sprinter women with gorgeous legs, the affections of whom men like you absolutely deserve because of your moral purity and ability to obfuscate any issue with unfounded pseudo-moralistic declarations.

I don’t know what any such characteristics would be. I can imagine waking up in a woman’s body, whether by magic or a brain transplant, and yet I’d continue to identify as a man, so it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with my body. And I can’t think of what psychological traits I have, except the obvious of identifying as a man, that would count as being such characteristics. — Michael

If you were a gay male , you may have experienced the following from childhood, as I did:

I had no reason not to label myself as a male , based on anatomy and how I was being classified by my culture. But ( and this is a gigantic but), I always felt different from most of my male peers, on the basis of a whole constellation of behavioral dispositions linked to gender. Among the least important of these was who I was sexually attracted to. I call these dispositions ‘perceptual-affective style’ because they are functionally integrated as a whole. We all have it from birth. It’s like a stable , life-long personality trait. It’s what allows us to distinguish masculine from feminine behaviors in other animals, but we deny it in ourselves , claiming that masculine and feminine behavior is purely a matter of social conditioning.

↪Joshs Animals don't have genders, just biological sexes. — Michael

A psychological gender is a set of behavioral dispositions that are linked together to form a recognizable style. Female dogs are, among other things, shyer and less aggressive than male dogs. This is gender.

Animals don't have genders, just biological sexes. — Michael

Why can't there be sociological functions assignable to biological sex within a non-human animal? Billy goat behavior is different from nanny goat behavior, which is what I assume you mean by "gender."

Again, I'm agreeing generally with the basic notion of human gender fluidity based upon the human will being more intentional and less driven by naturalistic forces than animals, with the final focus of the question being where is there an actual natural/genetic barrier to fluidity. That is, how much are we our will versus how much are we determined by our genetics (which includes gender).

But to argue that even animals don't behave in predictably natural ways seems a stretch that doesn't need to be made.

But to argue that even animals don't behave in predictably natural ways seems a stretch that doesn't need to be made. — Hanover

I'm not saying they don't. I just don't think animal behaviour has anything to do with gender.

I'm not saying they don't. I just don't think animal behaviour has anything to do with gender. — Michael

I get that animal sociology is less complex than human sociology, but it is accurate to relate animal behavior to their social function. I would also grant some amount of free will to an animal.

So, to my goats, the billy goat rears its head and swings it down on the other male goats to show his dominance and to declare the female goats for himself. That is no doubt a product of his genetics, but to some extent I would assume the goat could decide whether to be a combative goat or a nice goat, meaning it's not all pre-determined.

How are you using gender here?

A woman is an adult female human being. A man is an adult male human being.

The sociology of gender relates primarily to social facts concerning gender, which are linguistic in nature and absent in animals. So, yes, animals have a social life but no, they are not a subject of sociology, which studies human social relationships and under which the remit of gender relations falls. And the psychology of gender relates primarily to the identity function, described earlier by @Michael, which is also absent in animals. Only biological sex has any relevance to animals. And that's not an issue here. We all know what it is. The issue is about finding a social solution to a contradiction between psychological identity and biological identity. Your Billy goat won't help us with that.

Now define "female" and "male". You'll soon discover how silly and self-defeating your approach is.

>>A "man" is what is socially recognized as a man. A "woman" is what is socially recognized as a woman. Since there is no overwhelming social consensus, it's up to us to argue one into existence. Denialism is unlikely to be the winning formula, nor is, at the other extreme, pure self-identification which reduces gender to the status of an ice cream flavour.

Female: belonging or relating to women, or the sex that can give birth to young or produce eggs:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/female

Male: used to refer to men or boys, or the sex that fertilizes eggs, and does not produce babies or eggs itself:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/male?q=Male

You'll soon discover how silly and self-defeating your approach is. — Baden

A woman is an adult female human being.
Female: belonging or relating to women
Hence,
A woman is an adult women. — NOS4A2

No, he won't. That would require rationality.

You're defining biological sex over which there is no debate, not gender. We all know what biological sex is.

Here's gender:

"the condition of being a member of a group of people in a society who share particular qualities or ways of behaving which that society associates with being male, female, or another identity"

From the same dictionary.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gender

Get it now? A potential contradiction between gender and biological sex is socially recognized, including in our dictionaries. Your ignorance of reality cannot make it disappear.

Does society not associate females with the sex that can give birth to young or produce eggs?

Society does not exclusively associate women with biological females, obviously. That. Is. The. Point. Read the definition. Stop being an ignoramus.

Why do you always misquote me by removing much of what I said?

So you don’t associate females with the sex that can give birth to young or produce eggs?

Why do you always misquote me by removing much of what I said? — NOS4A2

Just to emphasis that your argument is consistent. A woman is a female and a female is a woman. Well done.

He's satrirtizing your silliness. And rightly so. You have no argument except denialism of the issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_woman

"A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth"

Nos>> :monkey:

So you don’t associate females with the sex that can give birth to young or produce eggs? — NOS4A2

1) I don't define a woman as a biological female. That was you, remember?

Therefore that

2) I associate biological females with the sex that can etc...

is of no relevance.

The issue, again, is the potential contradiction between gender identity and biological identity for which a social solution has not been found. I don't have the definitive answer to where the balance should lie, but I am here to participate in working one out.

You're not. You're here to do this >> :monkey:

Open your eyes. Participate.

Of course your rationality left out the most relevant parts. Brilliant.

That was the dictionary, actually. So you think a male can produce eggs?

Of course your rationality left out the most relevant parts. Brilliant. — NOS4A2

But it captured the essence of your argument.

It didn’t. Hence your failure to quote someone properly.

No, I don't think a biological male human can produce eggs. But I don't exclusively define a man as a biological male, and neither does the dictionary, so again, this is of no relevance.

Has this vacuous line of argument ever worked with a real live human being by the way? You've tried it on me twice, once for each sex, and it was the same both times.

Cheers, Nos. Folk can go back and check for themselves.

Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and rational members of TPF recognize there is an issue concerning biological, social, and psychological definitions for "man" and "woman". @NOS4A2 exclusively does this :monkey: If all you have is that, you are denying yourself a chance to be part of the conversation and it's your loss.

Fair enough. You accused me of denying reality, so I just wanted to know which reality I was denying. You could easily point me to one shred of evidence of human males producing eggs but won’t, for whatever reason. I suspect you don’t have any.

If simple human biology has no place in a discussion of reality and gender, I apologize.