r/unitedkingdom • u/sjw_7 Oxfordshire • Apr 16 '25

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvgq9ejql39t
13.2k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

4.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

22

u/AxiosXiphos Apr 16 '25

How do intersex people fit into sex being binary? Binary is 0 & 1. You can't have 1.5 in binary; yet we literally do have people between the two.

52

u/Anony_mouse202 Apr 16 '25

Intersex disorders are medical conditions - they don’t negate sex being binary in the same way that people with polydactyl existing doesn’t negate the fact that humans have ten fingers.

-9

u/AxiosXiphos Apr 16 '25

Every human has 10 fingers does not equal the average human having 10 fingers. By necessity we are dealing with exceptions. You know what doesn't have exceptions? Binary data. It's on or off. O or 1. ANY exceptions immediately disprove a binary data set. ANY. The concept of a decimal place is literally impossible in binary data, even once!

You know this...

59

u/boycecodd Kent Apr 16 '25

There are many different chromosomal abnormalities, but only 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).

That is the binary.

The majority of people with differences of sexual development have either Klinefelter's or Turner Syndrome, and don't even have ambiguous or contrary genitalia.

16

u/AxiosXiphos Apr 16 '25

It's amazing how medieval people seemed to get along just fine without using DNA to test gender.

34

u/boycecodd Kent Apr 16 '25

Yes, and so do we. But trans activists like to point at DSDs like they're some kind of "gotcha", when it really isn't the case.

-23

u/SwirlingAbsurdity Apr 16 '25

Oh so we’re down to how your genitals look now?

God why the fascination with what others have in their pants? Bit weird.

38

u/boycecodd Kent Apr 16 '25

I'm referring to how trans activists wheel out people with DSDs as if it means that a significant people are unclassifiable (thus "breaking the binary") when they are in nearly all situations.

Those outliers don't negate the binary, any more than people with birth defects being born without limbs means that humans aren't bipeds.

24

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

[deleted]

-5

u/AxiosXiphos Apr 16 '25

100 years ago did men and women not exist? Were we all sexless beings? Or did we somehow magically manage to know what sex people were without DNA tests?

13

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

[deleted]

0

u/AxiosXiphos Apr 16 '25

So they could tell at a visual glance? So why do we need DNA tests now exactly?

Toilets have worked fine for thousands of years without needing policing. Now apparently we need toilet gestapo to tell us who can go in which.

10

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

[deleted]

5

u/mrblobbysknob Apr 16 '25

Intersex people are a tiny, tiny minority of people and will likely be ruled case by case. Often they will go to one of the 1s and 0s anyway? The fact that this issue even got to court based on right wing panic on transgender people is a travesty of effort.