5 ms·

Sexual dimorphism is real and has important medical implications.

by stewx 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
zionic 4y ago
makeworld 4y ago
- cowtools 4y ago
  It is a statement of an obvious truth. It does not need to be "brave". If you find the point true but irrelevant then you would be better off not acknowledging it in the first place.
  - fourseventy 4y ago
- rhombocombus 4y ago
  It's not brave, it is an important topic. Hundreds of thousands of scientific studies over the last two centuries excluded female subjects because it was too hard to predict their wild female hormones or some other ghastly excuse. Biological sex differences do have important, medically relevant, and poorly understood impacts on health across the lifespan, and unfortunately the field is in its infancy.
- HL33tibCe7 4y ago
  [deleted]
  - kieselguhr_kid 4y ago
    It actually isn't. You know trans people know this better than anyone else, right?
CoastalCoder 4y ago
> Sexual dimorphism is real and has important medical implications. I'm guessing (well, hoping) that everyone agrees that the male/female distinction is medically relevant. E.g., I'd get more from a visit to a urologist than to a gynecologist. I think there's less agreement about the "di" part of "dimorphism". Obviously most humans fall pretty squarely into the "male" vs. "female" categories, but there's less agreement about there being precisely two, clearly delineated categories. Some examples: - hermaphrodites - conjoined twins with different genders (insanely rare, IIUC) - non-heterosexuals and transgender people, to the extent that those characteristics indicate underlying physiological differences
- HL33tibCe7 4y ago
  Like basically every biological category, the borders of biological sex are blurred. But the vast, vast majority of animals slot into one or the other category. So it’s pretty reasonable to accept the GP’s premise - that sexual dimorphism is real. The exceptions prove the rule. > non-heterosexuals and transgender The discussion here is about biological sex and its medical implications. People who change their gender, or exhibit traits of the opposite gender, aren’t relevant to this conversation. Edit: commenters below me make some good points that I didn’t consider when writing this. I slightly regret this comment now, but can’t delete it at this point. e.g: the fact that transgender people are relevant to this debate because of HRT, which is true, I didn’t think of that.
  - Latty 4y ago
    > The discussion here is about biological sex and its medical implications. People who change their gender, or exhibit traits of the opposite gender, aren’t relevant to this conversation. This seems obviously false. If the link is based around sex hormones, as an example, then being on HRT clearly changes your risk. As with all things, correlation vs causation.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - 4y ago
timbo1642 4y ago
[dead]
Latty 4y ago
Which demonstrates the important of distinguishing gender identity from biological sex (i.e: woman from female, man from male). When deciding what pronoun to use, biological sex clearly doesn't matter, when talking to a doctor, it may well matter. We can use the appropriate thing at the appropriate time, just as we do with, say, an adopted child, where most of the time you don't need to distinguish, but when it comes to inheritable disease it clearly matters. Likewise, saying "that female over there" when talking about a trans man is utterly useless to me because it doesn't help me identify them without pre-existing knowledge. Man/woman referring to gender identity clearly makes sense for casual conversation, someone's biological sex is none of your business in most cases. Of course, our increased understanding also says that dimorphism is an oversimplification: the reality is that sexual traits are varied and it is much more of a spectrum, and better understanding of this medically should lead to more personalised medicine that is more effective. This is especially true when it comes to trans people, if the issue is, for example, linked to oestrogen, then HRT can be more relevant than the chromosomes someone has.
- spinach 4y ago
  - Latty 4y ago
    This is clearly not very useful, or reasonable. People's biological sex is none of your business, so using it when talking about them is not viable. If you see someone who is presenting as a woman, calling them a man because you happen to know they are trans isn't useful to anyone you are communicating with, and it's reminding them of something they'd rather not be bought to the forefront, just as with specifying someone is adopted—it's irrelevant to the conversation in 99% of cases. > If we muddy these words to mean gender, then no one will understand what anyone is saying when talking about health, or sexual orientation, etc. We have trans/cis, male/female, and "biological sex"/"gender identity" to distinguish. We manage to be just fine referring to both biological and adoptive parents as just "parents" and we can still specify where necessary. > If we are talking about a transman, then you can talk about their sex by referring to them as a woman and as a female. Their gender identity is "transman". Even if they appear to look like a man, their sex has not changed. Transman isn't a word, it's incorrect. Trans men are men who are trans, in contrast to cis men. Turning it into a single word would be like calling someone a tallman. No one ever claimed their sex changed, their gender identity is distinct from their sex, that was very much the point.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Bolkan 4y ago

Sexual dimorphism is real and has important medical implications.

by stewx 4y ago

Sexual dimorphism is real and has important medical implications.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

zionic 4y ago

makeworld 4y ago

cowtools 4y ago
It is a statement of an obvious truth. It does not need to be "brave". If you find the point true but irrelevant then you would be better off not acknowledging it in the first place.
- fourseventy 4y ago
rhombocombus 4y ago
It's not brave, it is an important topic. Hundreds of thousands of scientific studies over the last two centuries excluded female subjects because it was too hard to predict their wild female hormones or some other ghastly excuse. Biological sex differences do have important, medically relevant, and poorly understood impacts on health across the lifespan, and unfortunately the field is in its infancy.
HL33tibCe7 4y ago
[deleted]
- kieselguhr_kid 4y ago
  It actually isn't. You know trans people know this better than anyone else, right?

CoastalCoder 4y ago

> Sexual dimorphism is real and has important medical implications. I'm guessing (well, hoping) that everyone agrees that the male/female distinction is medically relevant. E.g., I'd get more from a visit to a urologist than to a gynecologist. I think there's less agreement about the "di" part of "dimorphism". Obviously most humans fall pretty squarely into the "male" vs. "female" categories, but there's less agreement about there being precisely two, clearly delineated categories. Some examples: - hermaphrodites - conjoined twins with different genders (insanely rare, IIUC) - non-heterosexuals and transgender people, to the extent that those characteristics indicate underlying physiological differences

HL33tibCe7 4y ago
Like basically every biological category, the borders of biological sex are blurred. But the vast, vast majority of animals slot into one or the other category. So it’s pretty reasonable to accept the GP’s premise - that sexual dimorphism is real. The exceptions prove the rule. > non-heterosexuals and transgender The discussion here is about biological sex and its medical implications. People who change their gender, or exhibit traits of the opposite gender, aren’t relevant to this conversation. Edit: commenters below me make some good points that I didn’t consider when writing this. I slightly regret this comment now, but can’t delete it at this point. e.g: the fact that transgender people are relevant to this debate because of HRT, which is true, I didn’t think of that.
- Latty 4y ago
  > The discussion here is about biological sex and its medical implications. People who change their gender, or exhibit traits of the opposite gender, aren’t relevant to this conversation. This seems obviously false. If the link is based around sex hormones, as an example, then being on HRT clearly changes your risk. As with all things, correlation vs causation.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- 4y ago

timbo1642 4y ago

[dead]

Latty 4y ago

Which demonstrates the important of distinguishing gender identity from biological sex (i.e: woman from female, man from male). When deciding what pronoun to use, biological sex clearly doesn't matter, when talking to a doctor, it may well matter. We can use the appropriate thing at the appropriate time, just as we do with, say, an adopted child, where most of the time you don't need to distinguish, but when it comes to inheritable disease it clearly matters. Likewise, saying "that female over there" when talking about a trans man is utterly useless to me because it doesn't help me identify them without pre-existing knowledge. Man/woman referring to gender identity clearly makes sense for casual conversation, someone's biological sex is none of your business in most cases. Of course, our increased understanding also says that dimorphism is an oversimplification: the reality is that sexual traits are varied and it is much more of a spectrum, and better understanding of this medically should lead to more personalised medicine that is more effective. This is especially true when it comes to trans people, if the issue is, for example, linked to oestrogen, then HRT can be more relevant than the chromosomes someone has.

spinach 4y ago
- Latty 4y ago
  This is clearly not very useful, or reasonable. People's biological sex is none of your business, so using it when talking about them is not viable. If you see someone who is presenting as a woman, calling them a man because you happen to know they are trans isn't useful to anyone you are communicating with, and it's reminding them of something they'd rather not be bought to the forefront, just as with specifying someone is adopted—it's irrelevant to the conversation in 99% of cases. > If we muddy these words to mean gender, then no one will understand what anyone is saying when talking about health, or sexual orientation, etc. We have trans/cis, male/female, and "biological sex"/"gender identity" to distinguish. We manage to be just fine referring to both biological and adoptive parents as just "parents" and we can still specify where necessary. > If we are talking about a transman, then you can talk about their sex by referring to them as a woman and as a female. Their gender identity is "transman". Even if they appear to look like a man, their sex has not changed. Transman isn't a word, it's incorrect. Trans men are men who are trans, in contrast to cis men. Turning it into a single word would be like calling someone a tallman. No one ever claimed their sex changed, their gender identity is distinct from their sex, that was very much the point.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Bolkan 4y ago