5 ms·

Also one more thing of note before you go into "but intersex is just error": "Errors" are important in models. Look up Type 1 and Type 2 errors. If I had a mod

by zz3 1y ago

Also one more thing of note before you go into "but intersex is just error": "Errors" are important in models. Look up Type 1 and Type 2 errors. If I had a model for hair color, and it couldn't explain red hair, it would be a pretty terrible model. As I mentioned earlier, red hair and obviously, visibly intersex are about on the same order of magnitude. To further illustrate this concept, consider humans and horses. You'll notice there aren't human-horse hybrids. We can come up with a criteria or a model to separate humans and horses with 1's and 0's and there's nothing in the middle. That's an example of a binary system. We could come up with a bunch of terrible models too that can't differentiate between the two ("mammals"). But ultimately, I could disprove your argument about transgender in sports even ASSUMING a binary model in sex because it's pretty fundamentally irrelevant. If we can't measure the difference between two things (sports performance between ciswomen and transwomen after 2 years of hormonal therapy), then the difference doesn't really matter. The fact that there's transMEN regularly playing in the Olympics is also fairly revealing.

fringol__ 11mo ago
I think you've missed my key point which is that sex is fundamentally defined by gamete type, and is not a post-hoc clustering of traits. The underlying biological concept is reproduction via anisogamy, which is robust across a multitude of species, humans included. Anisogamy, which you should know as you studied biology, is a reproductive strategy involving the fusion of a small gamete with a large gamete, producing a new individual. In hermaphroditic species, the two halves of this reproductive system are both embodied in each individual, and are active either consecutively (as with sequential hermaphrodism) or concurrently (as with simultaneous hermaphrodism). In gonochoric species, these are embodied in two distinct classes of individual, via two distinct developmental pathways. Humans are a gonochoric species. When you claim "sex is a spectrum" or "sex is bimodal", you are confusing sex characteristics with sex. These characteristics are species-specific, whereas sex itself is a cross-species categorization in which sex determination, sexual development, and sex characteristics will vary. You comment "let's hypothesize that human sex is [always] determined by [XX or XY] chromosomes" and make the argument from this that conditions like Klinefelter syndrome and SRY-negative XY chromosomes disprove that hypothesis. Yes it does, but the hypothesis was flawed in the first place. There is no "human sex" that is different to "sex". More precisely, what you are actually talking about here are the mechanisms of sex determination and sex differentiation in humans. Analyses of DSDs have been very useful in gaining a deeper understanding of these, just as analyses of rare pathologies in other systems do. Claiming "sex is a spectrum" adds no utility here. It conflates development with definition, and is used for rhetorical ends rather than advancing scientific knowledge. As our conversation has shown, there's not even any consistent understanding of what this spectrum might look like or where individuals should be placed on such a spectrum. You mention sterility, but this doesn't change someone's sex. The elderly and infertile retain their sex because it's developmental, not performative. This is also why, for example, we can recognize worker bees as female despite them being infertile. Going back to sports, the available evidence does not show that male athletes weakened through testosterone suppression are equivalent to female athletes. It is not possible to unbuild the body of a human male and rebuild it as female. Your claim that "scientists have already looked into this, and they determined that after two years of hormone therapy transwomen are fairly hard to distinguish from the natural variation in ciswomen for all their metric" misrepresents the research and doesn't take into account what we see performance-wise when these males are allowed to compete in women's sport. Note that while we observe "transwomen" dominating women's competitions, we don't see the same for "transmen" in men's categories, even when they've been on testosterone for many years. This in itself highlights the impact of sex differences in athletic performance.
- zz3 11mo ago
  I think you're still missing several key points. Biological sex is more than just gametes. This isn't some weird, niche theory, this is just basic biology. Even if it were just gametes, there are still several intersex conditions. The data is not inherently binary, we measure models by their outputs. This is a common misunderstanding from those not very familiar with how models are used in science and math. > You comment "let's hypothesize that human sex is [always] determined by [XX or XY] chromosomes" and make the argument from this that conditions like Klinefelter syndrome and SRY-negative XY chromosomes disprove that hypothesis. Yes it does, but the hypothesis was flawed in the first place. There is no "human sex" that is different to "sex". More precisely, what you are actually talking about here are the mechanisms of sex determination and sex differentiation in humans. Analyses of DSDs have been very useful in gaining a deeper understanding of these, just as analyses of rare pathologies in other systems do. I'm literally talking about human sexual phenotype. That's it. Phenotype does not always match genotype, that's the whole point. Do you understand the difference between genotype and phenotype, because that's half the point of what I've been discussing. You've also missed my entire point about how we measure models in science and what a model is. That whole demonstration was to show you how we actually test models in science. > Claiming "sex is a spectrum" adds no utility here. It conflates development with definition, and is used for rhetorical ends rather than advancing scientific knowledge. As our conversation has shown, there's not even any consistent understanding of what this spectrum might look like or where individuals should be placed on such a spectrum I'm not claiming anything. Human sexual phenotype is not binary, as demonstrated through a binary model with proof by contradiction. This is how we evaluate models. Even if we assume a binary model, as I've mentioned, it doesn't actually matter much since there isn't a huge difference between the two genders for most sports. There are measurable differences for others, but that has nothing to do with gamete size and everything to do with different levels of hormones like testosterone, estrogen et cetera, not gametes. Once again, there is significant overlap between the two sexes to start with. > Going back to sports, the available evidence does not show that male athletes weakened through testosterone suppression are equivalent to female athletes. It is not possible to unbuild the body of a human male and rebuild it as female. I'm honestly baffled by this statement. No one is "rebuilding" anyone or anything. I'm not actually sure what you mean by this, but this just further demonstrates that we've moved very far away from anything like science. This just sounds like a strange straw man. If you can't even acknowledge that genotype can be different from phenotype, then there's no point in further discussion, this just seems silly. > Going back to sports... Men and women have a lot more overlaps than differences. This has been demonstrated. It was actually surprising to me when I first learned about it. We literally do see plenty of transmen in the Olympics, so I'm not quite sure where you're getting this from. Yes, there are differences too, but again, it has nothing to do with actual gametes and mostly it has to do with testosterone and possibly different forms of estrogen etc. What you're calling "sex characteristics." Here are a few papers: Sex differences and athletic performance. Where do trans individuals fit into sports and athletics based on current research? https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10641525/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10641525/ Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislators https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577?ref=goodoil.news https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577?ref=goodoil.news Transwomen might still be a little faster than ciswomen at least a year after hormone therapy, but most of the other metrics were within normal variation after 1-2 years hormone therapy.

by zz3 1y ago

fringol__ 11mo ago

I think you've missed my key point which is that sex is fundamentally defined by gamete type, and is not a post-hoc clustering of traits. The underlying biological concept is reproduction via anisogamy, which is robust across a multitude of species, humans included. Anisogamy, which you should know as you studied biology, is a reproductive strategy involving the fusion of a small gamete with a large gamete, producing a new individual. In hermaphroditic species, the two halves of this reproductive system are both embodied in each individual, and are active either consecutively (as with sequential hermaphrodism) or concurrently (as with simultaneous hermaphrodism). In gonochoric species, these are embodied in two distinct classes of individual, via two distinct developmental pathways. Humans are a gonochoric species. When you claim "sex is a spectrum" or "sex is bimodal", you are confusing sex characteristics with sex. These characteristics are species-specific, whereas sex itself is a cross-species categorization in which sex determination, sexual development, and sex characteristics will vary. You comment "let's hypothesize that human sex is [always] determined by [XX or XY] chromosomes" and make the argument from this that conditions like Klinefelter syndrome and SRY-negative XY chromosomes disprove that hypothesis. Yes it does, but the hypothesis was flawed in the first place. There is no "human sex" that is different to "sex". More precisely, what you are actually talking about here are the mechanisms of sex determination and sex differentiation in humans. Analyses of DSDs have been very useful in gaining a deeper understanding of these, just as analyses of rare pathologies in other systems do. Claiming "sex is a spectrum" adds no utility here. It conflates development with definition, and is used for rhetorical ends rather than advancing scientific knowledge. As our conversation has shown, there's not even any consistent understanding of what this spectrum might look like or where individuals should be placed on such a spectrum. You mention sterility, but this doesn't change someone's sex. The elderly and infertile retain their sex because it's developmental, not performative. This is also why, for example, we can recognize worker bees as female despite them being infertile. Going back to sports, the available evidence does not show that male athletes weakened through testosterone suppression are equivalent to female athletes. It is not possible to unbuild the body of a human male and rebuild it as female. Your claim that "scientists have already looked into this, and they determined that after two years of hormone therapy transwomen are fairly hard to distinguish from the natural variation in ciswomen for all their metric" misrepresents the research and doesn't take into account what we see performance-wise when these males are allowed to compete in women's sport. Note that while we observe "transwomen" dominating women's competitions, we don't see the same for "transmen" in men's categories, even when they've been on testosterone for many years. This in itself highlights the impact of sex differences in athletic performance.

zz3 11mo ago
I think you're still missing several key points. Biological sex is more than just gametes. This isn't some weird, niche theory, this is just basic biology. Even if it were just gametes, there are still several intersex conditions. The data is not inherently binary, we measure models by their outputs. This is a common misunderstanding from those not very familiar with how models are used in science and math. > You comment "let's hypothesize that human sex is [always] determined by [XX or XY] chromosomes" and make the argument from this that conditions like Klinefelter syndrome and SRY-negative XY chromosomes disprove that hypothesis. Yes it does, but the hypothesis was flawed in the first place. There is no "human sex" that is different to "sex". More precisely, what you are actually talking about here are the mechanisms of sex determination and sex differentiation in humans. Analyses of DSDs have been very useful in gaining a deeper understanding of these, just as analyses of rare pathologies in other systems do. I'm literally talking about human sexual phenotype. That's it. Phenotype does not always match genotype, that's the whole point. Do you understand the difference between genotype and phenotype, because that's half the point of what I've been discussing. You've also missed my entire point about how we measure models in science and what a model is. That whole demonstration was to show you how we actually test models in science. > Claiming "sex is a spectrum" adds no utility here. It conflates development with definition, and is used for rhetorical ends rather than advancing scientific knowledge. As our conversation has shown, there's not even any consistent understanding of what this spectrum might look like or where individuals should be placed on such a spectrum I'm not claiming anything. Human sexual phenotype is not binary, as demonstrated through a binary model with proof by contradiction. This is how we evaluate models. Even if we assume a binary model, as I've mentioned, it doesn't actually matter much since there isn't a huge difference between the two genders for most sports. There are measurable differences for others, but that has nothing to do with gamete size and everything to do with different levels of hormones like testosterone, estrogen et cetera, not gametes. Once again, there is significant overlap between the two sexes to start with. > Going back to sports, the available evidence does not show that male athletes weakened through testosterone suppression are equivalent to female athletes. It is not possible to unbuild the body of a human male and rebuild it as female. I'm honestly baffled by this statement. No one is "rebuilding" anyone or anything. I'm not actually sure what you mean by this, but this just further demonstrates that we've moved very far away from anything like science. This just sounds like a strange straw man. If you can't even acknowledge that genotype can be different from phenotype, then there's no point in further discussion, this just seems silly. > Going back to sports... Men and women have a lot more overlaps than differences. This has been demonstrated. It was actually surprising to me when I first learned about it. We literally do see plenty of transmen in the Olympics, so I'm not quite sure where you're getting this from. Yes, there are differences too, but again, it has nothing to do with actual gametes and mostly it has to do with testosterone and possibly different forms of estrogen etc. What you're calling "sex characteristics." Here are a few papers: Sex differences and athletic performance. Where do trans individuals fit into sports and athletics based on current research? https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10641525/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10641525/ Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislators https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577?ref=goodoil.news https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577?ref=goodoil.news Transwomen might still be a little faster than ciswomen at least a year after hormone therapy, but most of the other metrics were within normal variation after 1-2 years hormone therapy.