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You ever look at a GitHub project and complain about how someone else used the same variable name as you, but had the gall to assign a different value to it? Wh

You ever look at a GitHub project and complain about how someone else used the same variable name as you, but had the gall to assign a different value to it? What you’re doing is the scientific literature equivalent. The term “man” is understood by a very broad swath of society, and overwhelmingly the educated class who writes for and reads these journals, to refer to the gender construct, not the biological fact. Clarity is always better.

jeswin 3y ago
> The term “man” is understood by a very broad swath of society, and overwhelmingly the educated class who writes for and reads these journals, to refer to the gender construct, not the biological fact. Clarity is always better. Are you saying that without the clarification, readers might be confused by what's implied by "man" here? Do we have to add this everywhere we use the term "man" now?
- derefr 3y ago
  > Do we have to add this everywhere we use the term "man" now? No; the journal article made the clarification because it was intentionally using the incorrect, not widely-understood definition ("people with a Y chromosome") for brevity. This group includes cis men, trans women, and — perhaps most surprisingly — XY people born intersex with "enough" feminine primary sexual characteristics at birth that they were then assigned to be female through genital surgery and lifelong estrogen injections. You might grow up all your life as female, and yet be more prone to these cancers, because you happen to have a Y chromosome — i.e. because you are "a man", in the chosen terminology of the paper. This is not how the word "man" is normally used!
lr4444lr 3y ago
> You ever look at a GitHub project and complain about how someone else used the same variable name as you, but had the gall to assign a different value to it? Without context? Literally, never.

jeswin 3y ago

> The term “man” is understood by a very broad swath of society, and overwhelmingly the educated class who writes for and reads these journals, to refer to the gender construct, not the biological fact. Clarity is always better. Are you saying that without the clarification, readers might be confused by what's implied by "man" here? Do we have to add this everywhere we use the term "man" now?

derefr 3y ago
> Do we have to add this everywhere we use the term "man" now? No; the journal article made the clarification because it was intentionally using the incorrect, not widely-understood definition ("people with a Y chromosome") for brevity. This group includes cis men, trans women, and — perhaps most surprisingly — XY people born intersex with "enough" feminine primary sexual characteristics at birth that they were then assigned to be female through genital surgery and lifelong estrogen injections. You might grow up all your life as female, and yet be more prone to these cancers, because you happen to have a Y chromosome — i.e. because you are "a man", in the chosen terminology of the paper. This is not how the word "man" is normally used!

lr4444lr 3y ago

> You ever look at a GitHub project and complain about how someone else used the same variable name as you, but had the gall to assign a different value to it? Without context? Literally, never.