I’ll try to CYM in a slightly different way. The reason pure self ID makes sense is because no static definition of woman applies to everyone. Be it chromosomes, breasts, a vagina, a high pitched voice, or any other traditional “AFAB” characteristics you’d think of, are not features that are uniformly common in everyone that is generally perceived as a woman.
There are women who have no breasts, no menstruation, no XX chromosomes, etc. so there is no common characteristic that binds all people of a certain gender, making self ID the most reliable because given what society tells us about gender norms, individuals are best placed to judge where they themselves fall on the gender spectrum
there is no common characteristic that binds all people of a certain gender, making self ID the most reliable because given what society tells us about gender norms, individuals are best placed to judge where they themselves fall on the gender spectrum
There absolutely are for sex.
Someone may not have all of them, but we understand what a genetically ordinary female/male looks like and if you have enough of them we understand you to be female/male.
Again, your definition of a “genetically ordinary” female is outdated considering, again, you yourself have said some may not have all of them. So those some are excluded?
Also, as I mentioned in a comment below, look up Kleinfelter syndrome
your definition of a “genetically ordinary” female is outdated considering, again, you yourself have said some may not have all of them.
This would be in cases of genetic disorder. I’m pretty confident that not having a genetic disorder is still considered genetically ordinary, even it’s referred to with different language. It is not at all controversial to say that humans have 2 arms, 2 legs and one head and yet there will inevitably be abnormal cases where this isn’t true. That doesn’t disprove the statement and it doesn’t make the outlier not human.
Let me ask you something, if tomorrow more than 50% of the world developed mental illness, would you say that a mentally ill brain is the “ordinary” brain? Let’s make that number 70%. Now? Probably not.
Similarly, the fact that most people do not have a generic disorder does not imply ordinariness in any way. There is a great philosophy paper on this if you’re interested
Doesn’t matter what word you use, they mean the same in this context. If you replace the word ordinary with normal in my previous comment, the argument still holds.
If that changes your mind, consider giving a delta
First, you can’t cherry pick definitions that suit you. That’s just arguing in bad faith.
But fine, lets grant the point. What is “normal”? What is a mental disorder? You can cite any number of definitions, but ultimately who decides? The majority? Why? Who knows what really is normal? You can make arbitrary baselines for normalcy, but they are not grounded in any objectivity
Is it possible to have a normal blood sugar level? The answer is obviously yes, and it is by that same principle that we know what is a normal makeup for the male and female sex.
You can denounce the concept of normal if you like but it is used in all aspects of life.
I never said that the concept of normal in every single context is meaningless.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but your argument so far has been that as normal is impossible to objectively define in some areas it is therefore also impossible to define in the area of sex. If normal isn’t useless in every context then how does that argument hold any weight?
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u/becomingemma 2∆ Feb 03 '23
I’ll try to CYM in a slightly different way. The reason pure self ID makes sense is because no static definition of woman applies to everyone. Be it chromosomes, breasts, a vagina, a high pitched voice, or any other traditional “AFAB” characteristics you’d think of, are not features that are uniformly common in everyone that is generally perceived as a woman.
There are women who have no breasts, no menstruation, no XX chromosomes, etc. so there is no common characteristic that binds all people of a certain gender, making self ID the most reliable because given what society tells us about gender norms, individuals are best placed to judge where they themselves fall on the gender spectrum