4 ms·

Because most literature that teaches a topic usually does not expend much effort on a special case that covers 0.1% of cases -- it is just too unwieldy to talk

Because most literature that teaches a topic usually does not expend much effort on a special case that covers 0.1% of cases -- it is just too unwieldy to talk that way. Don't get me wrong, I am all in favor of people changing their genders and I would be beyond happy when medical technology evolves enough that even more scifi changes are possible. But when I am teaching a student about gravity, I do not start by talking about special relativity: I start by talking about the most common case of Newtonian gravity and just mention "by the way, there are some special cases when speeds become inhumanly great, we will discuss this next semester".

smoldesu 4y ago
Well, trans people aren't the only ones benefiting from more generalized pregnancy curriculum. Intersex folks and even supportive men now have clearer literature to work from. In your gravity example, I think it's more akin to teaching the theory of relativity on day 1 and wondering why half your students are lost. People need a basis of understanding for learning anything (especially complicated stuff), so that's why you teach people all of Newton's laws first, even if it's redundant to most of the class.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  > Intersex folks [...] now have clearer literature to work from. Whoa! The gender spectrum is absolutely unrelated to sex. Intersex people already had clear literature. A person with one disorder of male sexuality as just as male as a person with a different disorder or even none at all. Sex is binary even if we have a hard time seeing it or measuring it sometimes, or even if the answer is different in two places (Chimerism) etc. Intersex has been colonized by stuffing it into "the alphabet", largely as we see here in the service of transgender ideology, and this is vastly unfair to the people with DSDs - as stigma and ignorance are often their greatest enemies. This is why LGB Alliance is trying to separate homosexuality and sex-based rights issues from gender and identity rights issues.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    > Sex is binary even if we have a hard time seeing it or measuring it sometimes, or even if the answer is different in two places (Chimerism) etc. Aren't intersex people the canonical example that sex is not binary? If it were, there would be no intersex people. I agree that we shouldn't conflate intersex with transgender as they're entirely different things. But it seems to me that neither is binary.
    - Ygg2 4y ago
      That's like saying canonically people don't have two eyes. Some are born with one less or more. It's an edge case. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
      - nicoburns 4y ago
        Sure it's an edge case. But I think we've definitely gotten to the stage of this debate where we need to be considering edge cases. Better to say "sex isn't binary, but it's close enough that it's a useful simplification" than doggedly insist that it is when technically it isn't.
        Ygg2 4y ago
        So by same token you would say people don't have two eyes but in practice they mostly do. How is that more useful of a sentence than saying "People have two eyes, except in rare circumstances". It's obvious from article language is causing problems for the author. And by optimizing for the edge case, you impose problems for the most common case.
    - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
      No, because sex is ultimately about the type of gamete you produce, sperm or egg, and there are only the two. People with DSDs still fill the same role in reproduction. A male person with ambiguous external genitalia who appears female to a quick exam could still father a child for instance.

smoldesu 4y ago

Well, trans people aren't the only ones benefiting from more generalized pregnancy curriculum. Intersex folks and even supportive men now have clearer literature to work from. In your gravity example, I think it's more akin to teaching the theory of relativity on day 1 and wondering why half your students are lost. People need a basis of understanding for learning anything (especially complicated stuff), so that's why you teach people all of Newton's laws first, even if it's redundant to most of the class.

LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
> Intersex folks [...] now have clearer literature to work from. Whoa! The gender spectrum is absolutely unrelated to sex. Intersex people already had clear literature. A person with one disorder of male sexuality as just as male as a person with a different disorder or even none at all. Sex is binary even if we have a hard time seeing it or measuring it sometimes, or even if the answer is different in two places (Chimerism) etc. Intersex has been colonized by stuffing it into "the alphabet", largely as we see here in the service of transgender ideology, and this is vastly unfair to the people with DSDs - as stigma and ignorance are often their greatest enemies. This is why LGB Alliance is trying to separate homosexuality and sex-based rights issues from gender and identity rights issues.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  > Sex is binary even if we have a hard time seeing it or measuring it sometimes, or even if the answer is different in two places (Chimerism) etc. Aren't intersex people the canonical example that sex is not binary? If it were, there would be no intersex people. I agree that we shouldn't conflate intersex with transgender as they're entirely different things. But it seems to me that neither is binary.
  - Ygg2 4y ago
    That's like saying canonically people don't have two eyes. Some are born with one less or more. It's an edge case. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
    - nicoburns 4y ago
      Sure it's an edge case. But I think we've definitely gotten to the stage of this debate where we need to be considering edge cases. Better to say "sex isn't binary, but it's close enough that it's a useful simplification" than doggedly insist that it is when technically it isn't.
      - Ygg2 4y ago
        So by same token you would say people don't have two eyes but in practice they mostly do. How is that more useful of a sentence than saying "People have two eyes, except in rare circumstances". It's obvious from article language is causing problems for the author. And by optimizing for the edge case, you impose problems for the most common case.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    No, because sex is ultimately about the type of gamete you produce, sperm or egg, and there are only the two. People with DSDs still fill the same role in reproduction. A male person with ambiguous external genitalia who appears female to a quick exam could still father a child for instance.