3 ms·

> "It's impossible to deny the biological reality that humanity is divided into two halves - male and female" Actually, it's pretty easy. Even on a biological/

> "It's impossible to deny the biological reality that humanity is divided into two halves - male and female" Actually, it's pretty easy. Even on a biological/genetic level, the lines can get rather blurry. There are people with male genitalia who have two X chromosomes, people with female genitalia who have a Y chromosome, and a bunch of other variations[0][1][2][3]. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter_syndrome [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XYY_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XYY_syndrome [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRY http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRY (EDIT: added citations, which scott_karana linked to in another comment thread)

asolove 13y ago
I have long wanted to see a completely straightforward, all-in-one-place explanation of these topics. It could start with the question: "Aren't we divided into men and women?" Then it would briefly describe the levels on which this duality is thought to occur: genetics, development, anatomy, sexuality, and psychology. Then it would describe the non-dual aspects of each level (XYY for genetics) and the way in which each level can "mis-match" with the others. On the 'bottom' levels like genetics and anatomy, most people are willing to believe the non-theoretical and purely evidence-based science about 'unusual' arrangements. Once these things have been established as perfectly understandable, it becomes easier to believe that someone might self-identify as a different gender than their genetics or anatomy indicates. Or that the psychological identities might not be strictly divided into male and female. Does something like this exist? The "but we're all men and women" argument is so common, and the knowledge about each individual way in which someone can differ from this norm is so scattered, it would be great to have it all in one place.
sliverstorm 13y ago
It's quite accurate as an approximation though, is it not? Genetic abnormalities are just that, abnormalities. I fully support equality, but... if I said "Humans have five fingers on each hand", would you disagree and declare "clearly humans have no defined number of fingers on each hand, as every now and again a human is born with four or six fingers on a hand"? I don't personally care how many fingers you have, but it seems pretty clear to me that is a biological accident, and does not refute the notion that "Humans have five fingers".
- wpietri 13y ago
  All of what we are is biological accident. Your notions about what makes for a human is something that lives in your head. Which is fine; the world is a complicated place, and we can't represent it in 3 pounds of meat without simplifying. But the mistake many people make with gender (and a lot of other things) is to try to reverse the flow, demanding that the world correspond to the mental model. As a non-gender example, I have friends who are ethnically complicated. Sometimes people will just ask them, "What are you?" Even strangers on the street. By which they mean, "I am uncomfortable because you don't conform to my notions of race. Please put yourself in one of my boxes." Those people always look like assholes. When I arrived in San Francisco 15 years ago, I used to worry about what gender people were. I was uncomfortable that they didn't fit in the categories I had inherited. Was that person "really" a woman? Eventually I learned that gender was much more complicated than I expected. But I also learned that other people don't have an obligation to fit neatly into my prejudices. Now my take is practical: unless I'm intending to have sex with somebody, what they have in their pants is none of my business. English, alas, makes ignoring gender entirely impossible. So sometimes I am forced to ask, "Hey, what pronoun would you like me to use for you?"
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    By which they mean, "I am uncomfortable because you don't conform to my notions of race. Please put yourself in one of my boxes." You seem to be assuming. At least when I ask what background someone is, it's usually either: - bewilderment. I'm mildly interested in the differences in morphology between ethnicity, so I get very curious when someone's ethnicity is completely ambiguous. I also get excited when I can successfully identify the ethnic background of people with a mixed background, which of course requires asking. "Your cheekbones look Native American; your nose & eyes look Swiss...?" - an attempt to quickly sketch out an early mental model of that person, to understand them better. Does every asian kid have super-strict parents? Of course not! But it is a common theme, so it gets tacked on to the early mental model: "May have had strict parents?".
    - wpietri 13y ago

asolove 13y ago

I have long wanted to see a completely straightforward, all-in-one-place explanation of these topics. It could start with the question: "Aren't we divided into men and women?" Then it would briefly describe the levels on which this duality is thought to occur: genetics, development, anatomy, sexuality, and psychology. Then it would describe the non-dual aspects of each level (XYY for genetics) and the way in which each level can "mis-match" with the others. On the 'bottom' levels like genetics and anatomy, most people are willing to believe the non-theoretical and purely evidence-based science about 'unusual' arrangements. Once these things have been established as perfectly understandable, it becomes easier to believe that someone might self-identify as a different gender than their genetics or anatomy indicates. Or that the psychological identities might not be strictly divided into male and female. Does something like this exist? The "but we're all men and women" argument is so common, and the knowledge about each individual way in which someone can differ from this norm is so scattered, it would be great to have it all in one place.

sliverstorm 13y ago

It's quite accurate as an approximation though, is it not? Genetic abnormalities are just that, abnormalities. I fully support equality, but... if I said "Humans have five fingers on each hand", would you disagree and declare "clearly humans have no defined number of fingers on each hand, as every now and again a human is born with four or six fingers on a hand"? I don't personally care how many fingers you have, but it seems pretty clear to me that is a biological accident, and does not refute the notion that "Humans have five fingers".

wpietri 13y ago
All of what we are is biological accident. Your notions about what makes for a human is something that lives in your head. Which is fine; the world is a complicated place, and we can't represent it in 3 pounds of meat without simplifying. But the mistake many people make with gender (and a lot of other things) is to try to reverse the flow, demanding that the world correspond to the mental model. As a non-gender example, I have friends who are ethnically complicated. Sometimes people will just ask them, "What are you?" Even strangers on the street. By which they mean, "I am uncomfortable because you don't conform to my notions of race. Please put yourself in one of my boxes." Those people always look like assholes. When I arrived in San Francisco 15 years ago, I used to worry about what gender people were. I was uncomfortable that they didn't fit in the categories I had inherited. Was that person "really" a woman? Eventually I learned that gender was much more complicated than I expected. But I also learned that other people don't have an obligation to fit neatly into my prejudices. Now my take is practical: unless I'm intending to have sex with somebody, what they have in their pants is none of my business. English, alas, makes ignoring gender entirely impossible. So sometimes I am forced to ask, "Hey, what pronoun would you like me to use for you?"
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  By which they mean, "I am uncomfortable because you don't conform to my notions of race. Please put yourself in one of my boxes." You seem to be assuming. At least when I ask what background someone is, it's usually either: - bewilderment. I'm mildly interested in the differences in morphology between ethnicity, so I get very curious when someone's ethnicity is completely ambiguous. I also get excited when I can successfully identify the ethnic background of people with a mixed background, which of course requires asking. "Your cheekbones look Native American; your nose & eyes look Swiss...?" - an attempt to quickly sketch out an early mental model of that person, to understand them better. Does every asian kid have super-strict parents? Of course not! But it is a common theme, so it gets tacked on to the early mental model: "May have had strict parents?".
  - wpietri 13y ago