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Do you believe a person has the right to change it? Some people are born with both male and female genitalia - as many as 1 in 2000. There are also chromosomal

Do you believe a person has the right to change it? Some people are born with both male and female genitalia - as many as 1 in 2000. There are also chromosomal differences that show up - not XX or XY. Here are some of the frequencies of this: http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency I agree with you that biologically, the majority of people are born with a well-definite biological sex. But the fact that there is an actual biological set of people that aren't XX or XY, however, means not even in birth is gender guaranteed to be deterministic. "I think, therefore I am" lends itself to gender identity, for me, anyway. Biology isn't 100%, and identity is even less so. Let people be what they want. I don't see where non-sex-identifying is really troubling. Edit: thinking about it more, is gender on documents used as one measure against fraud? Or as a way of protecting against potential sexual crimes? We have sexually separated things like bathrooms and prisons, and I wouldn't advocate for mixed-sex prisons (is there an argument for that I don't know?) so sexual identity and gender can't go away completely, right?

nostrebored 10y ago
First, the phrase you're looking for is sexually deterministic. 6 out of 10,000 babies are born without fully formed limbs. Is describing homo-sapiens as bipeds with four limbs no longer correct then? Where is the brink of acceptability for you? I find disputing the notion that human beings are sexually dimorphic to be an overreach. There are in fact arguments that transgender inmates should go to the prison that matches the gender that they identify with. This has (obviously) gone poorly a number of times so far. Another argument you can make is that self identification of gender skews statistics regarding violence by sex. For instance, even if 0.3% of men are transgender, given the huge disparity in violence by sex, you will see the differences start to narrow.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> But the fact that there is an actual biological set of people that aren't XX or XY And that, e.g., people who have Swyer syndrome (missing sex-determining-region-Y on the Y chromosome) are XY but more "female" in phenotype (and in development, with the usual course of treatment.) > I wouldn't advocate for mixed-sex prisons (is there an argument for that I don't know?) I'm not sure what the case against it is supposed to be; AFAICT, the main basis for segregation is implicitly (no one ever comes right out explicitly and makes this argument in full, but usually just makes vague handwaving toward sexual interaction and power dynamics that implies it without actually making an argument) based in the presumption that everyone is a cisgendered heterosexual, and that sexual drive and activity only occur with the availability of members of one's normally preferred sex, so that if you segregate by sex you avoid temptation for sexual interaction and associated power dynamics, violence, etc.
- hx87 10y ago
  IMHO if you're going to segregate prison populations in order to reduce violence, segregate prisoners by aggressiveness and violent tendencies, not by sex. Putting dominant, aggressive men together with passive men just because of their gender makes less sense than putting together men and women in the same prison.

nostrebored 10y ago

First, the phrase you're looking for is sexually deterministic. 6 out of 10,000 babies are born without fully formed limbs. Is describing homo-sapiens as bipeds with four limbs no longer correct then? Where is the brink of acceptability for you? I find disputing the notion that human beings are sexually dimorphic to be an overreach. There are in fact arguments that transgender inmates should go to the prison that matches the gender that they identify with. This has (obviously) gone poorly a number of times so far. Another argument you can make is that self identification of gender skews statistics regarding violence by sex. For instance, even if 0.3% of men are transgender, given the huge disparity in violence by sex, you will see the differences start to narrow.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> But the fact that there is an actual biological set of people that aren't XX or XY And that, e.g., people who have Swyer syndrome (missing sex-determining-region-Y on the Y chromosome) are XY but more "female" in phenotype (and in development, with the usual course of treatment.) > I wouldn't advocate for mixed-sex prisons (is there an argument for that I don't know?) I'm not sure what the case against it is supposed to be; AFAICT, the main basis for segregation is implicitly (no one ever comes right out explicitly and makes this argument in full, but usually just makes vague handwaving toward sexual interaction and power dynamics that implies it without actually making an argument) based in the presumption that everyone is a cisgendered heterosexual, and that sexual drive and activity only occur with the availability of members of one's normally preferred sex, so that if you segregate by sex you avoid temptation for sexual interaction and associated power dynamics, violence, etc.

hx87 10y ago
IMHO if you're going to segregate prison populations in order to reduce violence, segregate prisoners by aggressiveness and violent tendencies, not by sex. Putting dominant, aggressive men together with passive men just because of their gender makes less sense than putting together men and women in the same prison.