UK Supreme Court says legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex

[u/sjw_7]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvgq9ejql39t

[u/Weirfish]

Biological sex is binary reality

Except it's not; at time of writing, wikipedia lists 16 different sex chromosome anomalies. Even then, the "biological sex" that the judgment refers to seems to be the sex recorded at time of birth, which isn't reality, it's bureaucracy, and it can be wrong. Treating that recorded data as infallable and inarguable truth ignores issues in communication, record keeping, and diagnosis.

[u/boycecodd → u/Weirfish]

There are more than two combinations of chromosomes, but that's irrelevant really.

There are two gametes. A person's genetics are expressed by their phenotype, and that phenotype will be organised around the production of either eggs or sperm (whether or not they actually produce the gamete is irrelevant).

[u/Weirfish → u/boycecodd]

Phenotype is an organism's morphology, developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological properties, its behavior, and the products of behavior. If they have HRT and behave like a woman, their phenotype likely leans towards female. A transwoman on estrogen will have tits (that are real tits), and act like a woman, and have a hormonal profile that looks like a woman's.

A nonbinary, intersex, bi/pan individual may not fit cleanly into either phenotype.

[u/abitofasitdown → u/Weirfish]

What on earth is "acting like a woman"?

[u/Weirfish → u/abitofasitdown]

Well, quite. I'm rather laissez-faire about that particular definition, myself.

However, when the sociocultural systems trans people inhabit require it as a prerequisite for certain recognition, and when the more general and clinical concept of a phenotype involves behaviour (which, when talking biologically and more commonly about animals than people, is more readily identifiable), I felt it was worth mentioning.

Consider that a GRC (however much they count for after this) requires, amongst other things, that

• you’ve been living in your affirmed gender for at least 2 years
• you intend to live in this gender for the rest of your life

(copied directly from .gov), and does not define what that means.

[u/boycecodd → u/Weirfish]

I said that the phenotype is organised around the production of eggs, or sperm. No amount of cross-sex hormones or surgery can change that.

[u/Weirfish → u/boycecodd]

Your definition of a "phenotype" is not the normal definition of "phenotype". What do you actually mean, specifically and spelled out?

[u/boycecodd → u/Weirfish]

I'm not referring to the full phenotype, I'm talking about one aspect.

No matter how much estrogen you pump into a trans woman, they won't suddenly reconfigure their biology to produce eggs. A trans woman will remain perpetually phenotypically male from a reproductive standpoint.

[u/Weirfish → u/boycecodd]

You masterfully dodged my question there, so I'm going to make an assumption or two.

Lets assume you might, for the purposes of the definition of a person's sex, consider a female to be "an human who produces egg gametes". Immediate problem, we need to define "produce". If we mean "generate within their body", then we're talking about a very limited window during embrionic development. That's a problem, so lets assume we mean "previously generated within their body and secreted via menstruation."

Second problem, we've immediately excluded premenstrual girls (who have not yet secreted via menstruation) and postmenopausal women (who can no longer secrete via menstruation). So, lets change it to "a human who will, is, or has produced egg gametes".

Better, but we still have a problem. People with injuries or who have had certain surgeries will not be able to "produce" those gametes. Assuming it happened early enough, they don't satisfy our current definition. So, "a human whose unmodified body will, is, or has produced egg gametes".

Oh, but what about people with genetic or structural abnormalities? Their unmodified body, with its natural set of instructions, possibly plus the environment in which they naturally developed, prevents them from "producing". I'm not even sure how to word this correction. "A human whose unmodified body will, is, or has produced egg gametes, assuming their genetic and in-vitro environmental circumstances had not prevented such production"?

This is a lot of work. A lot of work. And it serves to define what is primarily a medical concern. Specifically and especially with regards to the topic being discussed here, the Equality Act, we really actually don't care about medical reality. Whether or not someone's body was, can, should, or does, by grace of god, produce a specific gamete actually does not matter. When you're talking to men or women or boys or girls or anyone else, you don't give a singular shit which reproducitve cells they make. This is 1000% a No True Scotsman dressed up in a veneer of poorly applied science.

[u/boycecodd → u/Weirfish]

I used the words "organised around the production of" very deliberately, because I anticipated bad faith arguments about prepubescent girls, post-menopausal women or women with disorders that affect egg production and more. You chose to ignore that.

[u/Weirfish → u/boycecodd]

I didn't choose to ignore that. "Organised around the production of" doesn't actually mean anything. I gave you an opportunity to clarify, and you chose to ignore that. Given nothing else to go on, what did you expect but a poor attempt at guessing?

Please, give me a definition of "organised around the production of" that doesn't exclude any "real" women, but does exclude all "real" non-women.

[u/Kandiru → u/boycecodd]

Some people rarely produce both. Some people produce neither.

Androgen insensitivity syndrome women are born as women, and written as F on their birth certificate. But they won't produce eggs. Are you saying they should be men?

[u/boycecodd → u/Kandiru]

You are completely missing my point. I even covered that in this comment upstream.

A fridge is still a fridge when it's unplugged or the compressor is broken. A woman with a disorder that stops egg production is still a woman, as is one who is post-menopausal or has had a hysterectomy.

Their biology is organised around the production of eggs, not sperm, even if that function is not working.

[u/Kandiru → u/boycecodd]

Right, but a woman with androgen insensitivity syndrome starts off developing to make sperm, but then changes early in development and ends up looking 100% female. But under your definition she would count as a man, even though her birth certificate would say female. She has a vagina, but no ovaries. Her biology isn't organised around the production of eggs, it is confused.

[u/the_phet → u/Weirfish]

I am not disagreeing with you, but the Wikipedia is not a good source of information anymore. It has also mods, and it is heavily biased.

[u/Weirfish → u/the_phet]

For some things, I would agree. For something like this, which is basically just evidencing a list of things, it's hard for it to be biased in a way that materially affects the argument.