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[feelotraveller]

I just want to clarify that sex is extremely well-defined in biology because mammalian sexual development is "canalized", meaning that it is unable to develop ambiguously because of mutually exclusive systems. Male organisms are defined, biologically, as those organisms whose bodies are developed to produce sperm, regardless of whether they actually do in a given case, and female organisms are defined as those organisms whose bodies are developed to produce eggs. In mammals, that simply means that male organisms are those that can develop functioning testicular tissue and female organisms are those that can develop functioning ovarian tissue. For mammals, it is impossible to have both types functioning in the same organism, and, in the extremely rare case where neither is present, we can just look at the chromosomes to determine to which the organism is closer - which, for all mammals except monotremes, boils down to the presence or absence of a Y chromosome (or, specifically, an SRY gene). It's worth noting that different chromosome arrangements like X0, XXY, and XXX are not separate sex categories because the SRY gene functions as an on-off switch so its presence or absence is strictly binary. "Intersex", in turn, is an outdated term for people who definitely have one sex or the other, but whose sex may not be obvious from external observation due to developmental differences. It dates to a time when the underlying developmental process was not understood. These days the term "differences [or disorders] of sexual development", or DSD, is largely used instead in formal contexts.

Ah, the purveyor of alternate facts strikes again.  Biology* attempts to perform a bi-polar stratification of sex over a much more complex set of systems.  In fact 'sex' as we know it is an invention of biology - the natural world (that's us human beings here) remains much more diverse and unamenable to such simple classification.  For those interested in finding out for themselves look up the terms 'true gonadal DSD' and 'ovotesticular syndrome' or for quick summary consult wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovotesticular_syndrome

Ovotesticular syndrome (also known as ovotesticular disorder or OT-DSD) is a rare congenital condition where an individual is born with both ovarian and testicular tissue.

And yes, at the extreme there is

a hypothetical scenario, in which it could be possible for a human to self-fertilize.

Not that such a case has ever been documented.


*That is Biology writ large - talk to any biologist worth their salt and you will get quite a different picture: the devil is in the details.

[McTraveller]

Isn't the vast majority of gender identity tied to secondary sexual characteristics and social norms rather than procreation function though?  I'm not even talking about sexual attraction or mechanics of sexual stimulation, I'm really talking just basic procreation function.

That is, "what it means to be a woman" appears to me to be essentially social rather than "someday I could possibly have a new human growing inside me*", or being a man isn't really so much "I never have to worry about having a human growing inside me", isn't it?

[Mathel]

That Wikipedia article also mentions that of the 500 reported cases, only 11 were fertile, and of those only 2 were able to generate sperm.

And gender identity being nowdays tied to social norms rather than procreation is why I was using the terms male and female, which is still tied to biology and usually physiology.


And of course in something as complex and messy as biology and genetics, we can find exceptions. But if we group every exception into a separate category, we can just throw all the categories away. Every person is unique, after all.

But that kind of thinking doesn't work very well for society. If every person can operate on a different set of rules based on inobservable differences in what they are (or even worse, on who they are, as the who can change easily and can't be observed), then one will never know what to expect from somebody.

And by what one is, I am refering to their body, while who one is means their mind and identity.


What I am saying is this: A world where a stranger can treat you based on who you are is not going to happen. Not because the strangers wouldn't want to, but because to do so they would have to get to know you and no longer be strangers. And you can't expect a government to personally know every person in their country.
The closest is one where what you are is not taken into account. And since denying reality is foolish, I do not wish for such world. I want a world where what one is is taken into account exactly when it is useful to do so, but nowhere else.

[Maximum Spin]

Ah, the purveyor of alternate facts strikes again.  Biology* attempts to perform a bi-polar stratification of sex over a much more complex set of systems.  In fact 'sex' as we know it is an invention of biology - the natural world (that's us human beings here) remains much more diverse and unamenable to such simple classification.  For those interested in finding out for themselves look up the terms 'true gonadal DSD' and 'ovotesticular syndrome' or for quick summary consult wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovotesticular_syndrome

Ovotesticular syndrome (also known as ovotesticular disorder or OT-DSD) is a rare congenital condition where an individual is born with both ovarian and testicular tissue.

And yes, at the extreme there is

a hypothetical scenario, in which it could be possible for a human to self-fertilize.

Not that such a case has ever been documented.


*That is Biology writ large - talk to any biologist worth their salt and you will get quite a different picture: the devil is in the details.

Like I said, no human being has ever had both functional ovarian and testicular tissue at the same time. It's effectively impossible, because the conditions for ovarian tissue to function and the conditions for testicular tissue to function are disjoint. In fact, the vast majority of people with ovotesticular syndrome are of the female sex, meaning that the ovarian tissue is functional and there is trace nonfunctional testicular tissue present.

ETA:

Isn't the vast majority of gender identity tied to secondary sexual characteristics and social norms rather than procreation function though?  I'm not even talking about sexual attraction or mechanics of sexual stimulation, I'm really talking just basic procreation function.

That is, "what it means to be a woman" appears to me to be essentially social rather than "someday I could possibly have a new human growing inside me*", or being a man isn't really so much "I never have to worry about having a human growing inside me", isn't it?

It heavily depends on culture. I personally was raised in exactly the way your second paragraph negates.

[feelotraveller]

Like I said, no human being has ever had both functional ovarian and testicular tissue at the same time. It's effectively impossible, because the conditions for ovarian tissue to function and the conditions for testicular tissue to function are disjoint. In fact, the vast majority of people with ovotesticular syndrome are of the female sex, meaning that the ovarian tissue is functional and there is trace nonfunctional testicular tissue present.

No, you have not shown that it is 'impossible' or even the clarification 'effectively impossible'.  You have asserted this on the back of nothing.  Biology as a discipline does indeed consider it possible, for now, although not documented.

And going down the 'functioning ovarian tissue = female sex' line leaves us with most OT-DSD people being sexless.  (Props on saying something more sensible in your edits though, there was much more nonsense in the pre-edited version I started to respond to.)

Tying 'sex' to procreative function, or chromosones, just doesn't work.  Which is why the sporting authorities have such a hard time with non-standard cases having widely varying 'eligibility' standards and often arbitrary processes for making decisons.  See for example the recent boxing controversy at the olympics: https://www.npr.org/2024/08/02/nx-s1-5061280/olympic-womens-boxing-gender-imane-khelif-lin-yuting or the well documented case of Caster Semenya.

[Maximum Spin]

No, you have not shown that it is 'impossible' or even the clarification 'effectively impossible'.  You have asserted this on the back of nothing.  Biology as a discipline does indeed consider it possible, for now, although not documented.

To be clear, it's "theoretically possible" in that it could be possible for an extremely unlikely combination of hundreds of mutations to completely change the sex development system in such a way that both could be functional at the same time. This has never happened and it's never going to happen.

And going down the 'functioning ovarian tissue = female sex' line leaves us with most OT-DSD people being sexless.  (Props on saying something more sensible in your edits though, there was much more nonsense in the pre-edited version I started to respond to.)

This is a LIE. I did not change a single thing that I said in either post. My only edits were, in the former post, to the quote metadata, and in the latter post, adding the response to McTraveller. Not a single word of my own was changed, so you're just lying now.

[feelotraveller]

No, you have not shown that it is 'impossible' or even the clarification 'effectively impossible'.  You have asserted this on the back of nothing.  Biology as a discipline does indeed consider it possible, for now, although not documented.

To be clear, it's "theoretically possible" in that it could be possible for an extremely unlikely combination of hundreds of mutations to completely change the sex development system in such a way that both could be functional at the same time. This has never happened and it's never going to happen.

So you've gone from 'impossible' to 'effectively impossible' to 'theoretically possible... but never going to happen'.  Point of fact: you don't know (and neither do I) that it has 'never happened'. 

But saying 'impossible' wasn't a lie, right, and definitely not couched to be a neutral 'fact' for political purposes either.

[hector13]

I just want to clarify that sex is extremely well-defined in biology because mammalian sexual development is "canalized", meaning that it is unable to develop ambiguously because of mutually exclusive systems. Male organisms are defined, biologically, as those organisms whose bodies are developed to produce sperm, regardless of whether they actually do in a given case, and female organisms are defined as those organisms whose bodies are developed to produce eggs. In mammals, that simply means that male organisms are those that can develop functioning testicular tissue and female organisms are those that can develop functioning ovarian tissue. For mammals, it is impossible to have both types functioning in the same organism, and, in the extremely rare case where neither is present, we can just look at the chromosomes to determine to which the organism is closer - which, for all mammals except monotremes, boils down to the presence or absence of a Y chromosome (or, specifically, an SRY gene). It's worth noting that different chromosome arrangements like X0, XXY, and XXX are not separate sex categories because the SRY gene functions as an on-off switch so its presence or absence is strictly binary. "Intersex", in turn, is an outdated term for people who definitely have one sex or the other, but whose sex may not be obvious from external observation due to developmental differences. It dates to a time when the underlying developmental process was not understood. These days the term "differences [or disorders] of sexual development", or DSD, is largely used instead in formal contexts.

Ah, the purveyor of alternate facts strikes again.  Biology* attempts to perform a bi-polar stratification of sex over a much more complex set of systems.  In fact 'sex' as we know it is an invention of biology - the natural world (that's us human beings here) remains much more diverse and unamenable to such simple classification.  For those interested in finding out for themselves look up the terms 'true gonadal DSD' and 'ovotesticular syndrome' or for quick summary consult wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovotesticular_syndrome

Ovotesticular syndrome (also known as ovotesticular disorder or OT-DSD) is a rare congenital condition where an individual is born with both ovarian and testicular tissue.

And yes, at the extreme there is

a hypothetical scenario, in which it could be possible for a human to self-fertilize.

Not that such a case has ever been documented.


*That is Biology writ large - talk to any biologist worth their salt and you will get quite a different picture: the devil is in the details.

You linked to the Ovetesticular syndrome wikipedia page, which says:

In the past, ovotesticular syndrome was referred to as true hermaphroditism, which is considered outdated as of 2006. The term "true hermaphroditism" was considered incredibly misleading by many medical organizations and by many advocacy groups, as hermaphroditism refers to a species that produces both sperm and ova, something that is impossible in humans.

Emphasis mine.

I’m curious why you are continuing to say that biologists are saying it’s possible when your own sources say the opposite.

Further to that, there is doubt to the suggestion self-fertilization is possible in humans.

Edit:

No, you have not shown that it is 'impossible' or even the clarification 'effectively impossible'.  You have asserted this on the back of nothing.  Biology as a discipline does indeed consider it possible, for now, although not documented.

To be clear, it's "theoretically possible" in that it could be possible for an extremely unlikely combination of hundreds of mutations to completely change the sex development system in such a way that both could be functional at the same time. This has never happened and it's never going to happen.

So you've gone from 'impossible' to 'effectively impossible' to 'theoretically possible... but never going to happen'.  Point of fact: you don't know (and neither do I) that it has 'never happened'. 

But saying 'impossible' wasn't a lie, right, and definitely not couched to be a neutral 'fact' for political purposes either.

I’m sorry, what political ideology is being stealth-touted by saying human self-fertilization is impossible?

There have been zero reported cases of self-fertilization in humans, and only one reported case of self-fertilization in mammals. Scientists won’t say something is impossible unless it is provably so.

I’m not sure what the point is in arguing the semantics of this, beyond your distaste for MaxSpin.

[Maximum Spin]

So you've gone from 'impossible' to 'effectively impossible' to 'theoretically possible... but never going to happen'.  Point of fact: you don't know (and neither do I) that it has 'never happened'. 

But saying 'impossible' wasn't a lie, right, and definitely not couched to be a neutral 'fact' for political purposes either.

To be clear, it is, for all intents and purposes, impossible. It does not happen. It's not fundamentally impossible in the absolute sense - some animals are indeed hermaphrodites, so the possibility exists - but mammals are not capable of this under normal circumstances.

[Robot Parade Leader]

Dudes, this "only two sexes" thing is nothing but shifting goal posts and strawman arguments.

First it couldn't be done, but then it was practically impossible and now it can be done but can't be viable without "self fertilization,"

"I just want to clarify that sex is extremely well-defined in biology because mammalian sexual development is "canalized", meaning that it is unable to develop ambiguously because of mutually exclusive systems."

Quoting the person arguing.

It isn't exclusive. They lost but won't ever admit it and instead keep moving the goalposts. This happens over and over. There's more than just binary crap and I'm straight whatever.

Self fertilization? Who cares that's not "male and female" that' shifting the goalposts so it has to literally F*** itself to be valid and produce a kid too?

Functional? Who cares? They already lost this one with the infertility/menopause thing. it doesn't have to be "workable," or "functional." A broken arm is still an arm, and it doesn't change into something else just because I can't pick things up with it. The goal of "sex" as a characteristic is not only fertilization and procreation. Because again, that would mean infertile people would lose theirs. If that's not true and the only goal of sex is procreating and having kids then everyone who takes a little blue pill is only a man on that pill because it doesn't work without it. It makes no sense and there's way more to it.

The bottom line is that the way too far right people in the US are hiding hate behind this ideology again. The rest of us in the middle are just sick of the extremes and are just trying to live. I just don't give whole lot of a damn about the whole gay, lesbian, trans whatever stuff, but it sucks when I see people just being picked on and told they aren't real so they can be picked on more. Hey the whole world's going to hell but let's just pick on the gays or the trans or whoever we scapegoat so we don't have to fix it. There's more than just male and female and I don't care as long as no one is hurting anyone.

[feelotraveller]

You linked to the Ovetesticular syndrome wikipedia page, which says:

In the past, ovotesticular syndrome was referred to as true hermaphroditism, which is considered outdated as of 2006. The term "true hermaphroditism" was considered incredibly misleading by many medical organizations and by many advocacy groups, as hermaphroditism refers to a species that produces both sperm and ova, something that is impossible in humans.

Emphasis mine.

I’m curious why you are continuing to say that biologists are saying it’s possible when your own sources say the opposite.

Further to that, there is doubt to the suggestion self-fertilization is possible in humans.

Firstly that comment refers to hermaphrodism as a species property where all members of the species possess both sperm and ova, something that is clearly not the case for the human species. 

Secondly the term hermaphrodism was firmly entrenched in the scientific literature as a result of a Victorian age legacy.  The standard classification (Klebs) for a long time was a five sex model: females, males, female pseudohermaphrodites, male pseudohermaphrodites and true hermaphrodites. The latter classification was based on the presentation of at least one ovary and one testis or at least one ovotestis without regard to the production of either ova or sperm.  So scientifically the use of the term was incorrect when most of the people so classified produced neither sperm or ova.

If you look further down the page cited you will find the bit I quoted about self-fertilisation.  And yes the scientific word on it is still out, maybe forever, but the point I was making is that nothing we currently know biologically precludes it, at least in theory, and in contradiction of what MS was saying.

Edit:

No, you have not shown that it is 'impossible' or even the clarification 'effectively impossible'.  You have asserted this on the back of nothing.  Biology as a discipline does indeed consider it possible, for now, although not documented.

To be clear, it's "theoretically possible" in that it could be possible for an extremely unlikely combination of hundreds of mutations to completely change the sex development system in such a way that both could be functional at the same time. This has never happened and it's never going to happen.

So you've gone from 'impossible' to 'effectively impossible' to 'theoretically possible... but never going to happen'.  Point of fact: you don't know (and neither do I) that it has 'never happened'. 

But saying 'impossible' wasn't a lie, right, and definitely not couched to be a neutral 'fact' for political purposes either.

I’m sorry, what political ideology is being stealth-touted by saying human self-fertilization is impossible?

There have been zero reported cases of self-fertilization in humans, and only one reported case of self-fertilization in mammals. Scientists won’t say something is impossible unless it is provably so.

I’m not sure what the point is in arguing the semantics of this, beyond your distaste for MaxSpin.

The political ideology being touted has little to do with self-fertilisation but everything to do with MS making out that you are biologically determined to be either a man or a woman:

I just want to clarify that sex is extremely well-defined in biology because mammalian sexual development is "canalized", meaning that it is unable to develop ambiguously because of mutually exclusive systems.

"Intersex", in turn, is an outdated term for people who definitely have one sex or the other, but whose sex may not be obvious from external observation due to developmental differences

The self-fertilisation stuff is peripheral but it's relevance is that there is nothing that biologically precludes a given person from producing both viable sperm and ova at the same time.

In other words the (false) biological reductionism to procreative function does indeed serve a political purpose.

Assuming you are interested you might find these interesting.  I won't bother to summarise.
https://web.archive.org/web/20161220154642/http://www.aissg.org/PDFs/Dreger-Nomenclature-2005.PDF
https://www.gimjournal.org/article/S1098-3600(21)03508-5/fulltext

Preedit: Robot Parade Leader just posting while I was writing and I haven't read that yet.

[dragdeler]

Y'all in too deep. Obviously all these characterisations obfuscate reality. To define these things in singular words precludes us taking in a panoply of expressions. And as we come to realize that, there is obviously only one thing that truely matters, only ONE defining question, and that is... are they flexible enough to suck their own pleasureknob?

[feelotraveller]

Y'all in too deep. Obviously all these characterisations obfuscate reality. To define these things in singular words precludes us taking in a panoply of expressions. And as we come to realize that, there is obviously only one thing that truely matters, only ONE defining question, and that is... are they flexible enough to suck their own pleasureknob?

Some are...    Can you? 

[dragdeler]

Actually... 

[hector13]

@Robot Parade Leader I… don’t think you’ve been reading. The self-fertilization thing was leapt upon by feelotraveller as… some example of MaxSpin trying to stealth disseminate a hitherto unrevealed political ideology, and it’s a semantic argument about what the word “impossible” means, and pedantry over how MaxSpin is describing that.

Max also, as you quoted, was talking from a biological perspective, not social or whatever, which he again clearly stated at the end of the post you quoted, didn’t link to, and trimmed. Who was moving goalposts, again?

The rest of it are things folk asked Mathel about, because Mathel’s position is ridiculously reductive.

Edit: didn’t actually notice feelotraveller’s response.

You linked to the Ovetesticular syndrome wikipedia page, which says:

In the past, ovotesticular syndrome was referred to as true hermaphroditism, which is considered outdated as of 2006. The term "true hermaphroditism" was considered incredibly misleading by many medical organizations and by many advocacy groups, as hermaphroditism refers to a species that produces both sperm and ova, something that is impossible in humans.

Emphasis mine.

I’m curious why you are continuing to say that biologists are saying it’s possible when your own sources say the opposite.

Further to that, there is doubt to the suggestion self-fertilization is possible in humans.

Firstly that comment refers to hermaphrodism as a species property where all members of the species possess both sperm and ova, something that is clearly not the case for the human species.

Secondly the term hermaphrodism was firmly entrenched in the scientific literature as a result of a Victorian age legacy.  The standard classification (Klebs) for a long time was a five sex model: females, males, female pseudohermaphrodites, male pseudohermaphrodites and true hermaphrodites. The latter classification was based on the presentation of at least one ovary and one testis or at least one ovotestis without regard to the production of either ova or sperm.  So scientifically the use of the term was incorrect when most of the people so classified produced neither sperm or ova.

If you look further down the page cited you will find the bit I quoted about self-fertilisation.  And yes the scientific word on it is still out, maybe forever, but the point I was making is that nothing we currently know biologically precludes it, at least in theory, and in contradiction of what MS was saying.

Edit:

No, you have not shown that it is 'impossible' or even the clarification 'effectively impossible'.  You have asserted this on the back of nothing.  Biology as a discipline does indeed consider it possible, for now, although not documented.

To be clear, it's "theoretically possible" in that it could be possible for an extremely unlikely combination of hundreds of mutations to completely change the sex development system in such a way that both could be functional at the same time. This has never happened and it's never going to happen.

So you've gone from 'impossible' to 'effectively impossible' to 'theoretically possible... but never going to happen'.  Point of fact: you don't know (and neither do I) that it has 'never happened'. 

But saying 'impossible' wasn't a lie, right, and definitely not couched to be a neutral 'fact' for political purposes either.

I’m sorry, what political ideology is being stealth-touted by saying human self-fertilization is impossible?

There have been zero reported cases of self-fertilization in humans, and only one reported case of self-fertilization in mammals. Scientists won’t say something is impossible unless it is provably so.

I’m not sure what the point is in arguing the semantics of this, beyond your distaste for MaxSpin.

The political ideology being touted has little to do with self-fertilisation but everything to do with MS making out that you are biologically determined to be either a man or a woman:

I just want to clarify that sex is extremely well-defined in biology because mammalian sexual development is "canalized", meaning that it is unable to develop ambiguously because of mutually exclusive systems.

"Intersex", in turn, is an outdated term for people who definitely have one sex or the other, but whose sex may not be obvious from external observation due to developmental differences

The self-fertilisation stuff is peripheral but its relevance is that there is nothing that biologically precludes a given person from producing both viable sperm and ova at the same time.

In other words the (false) biological reductionism to procreative function does indeed serve a political purpose.

What is that political purpose? I get that conservatives use the sex binary argument to support their desire to oppress transfolk, but that doesn’t mean every instance of the argument “sex is binary” is supporting that position.

What false biological reductionism? I quote Wikipedia later on this.

Regardless, whether or not Max is mistaken about this doesn’t mean he’s mistaken about the rest of what he says, nor does it mean he’s making a political statement. I think you’re just focusing on one, quite frankly irrelevant part of the argument, but for why, I don’t know.

Assuming you are interested you might find these interesting.  I won't bother to summarise.
https://web.archive.org/web/20161220154642/http://www.aissg.org/PDFs/Dreger-Nomenclature-2005.PDF
https://www.gimjournal.org/article/S1098-3600(21)03508-5/fulltext

Preedit: Robot Parade Leader just posting while I was writing and I haven't read that yet.

Neither of those two things have anything to do with what MaxSpin said though? Indeed, what he said gels with what those links say: intersex is outdated, use differences in sexual development instead. Unless your issue is with using the terms “male” and “female”?

I mean, take the wikipedia page on the sex-gender distinction:

Biologists

Anisogamy, or the size differences of gametes (sex cells), is the defining feature of the two sexes.[26][27][28][29] According to biologist Michael Majerus there is no other universal difference between males and females.[30]

By definition, males are organisms that produce small, mobile gametes (sperm); while females are organisms that produce large and generally immobile gametes (ova or eggs).[31][32][33][34] Richard Dawkins stated that it is possible to interpret all the differences between the sexes as stemming from this single difference in gametes.[35]

Bhargava et al. note that the terms sex and gender are not, and should not be used as, interchangeable terms. They state that "sex is dichotomous, with sex determination in the fertilized zygote stemming from unequal expression of sex chromosomal genes." In contrast, gender is seen as including "perception of the individual as male, female, or other, both by the individual and by society".[36] The authors differentiate between sex differences, caused by biological factors, and gender differences, which "reflect a complex interplay of psychological, environmental, cultural, and biological factors".[14] Gender identity is thus seen as a "psychological concept that refers to an individual's self-perception".[14]

Other studies have noted that, while there is some tentative evidence for a potential genetic, neuroanatomical, and hormonal basis for gender identity, the specific biological mechanisms involved have not yet been demonstrated.

So biologists are saying that sex is male or female, and there’s no other universal difference between male and female beyond gametes.

I did also find this but I’m not paying £50 to read it.

I found it from here and the person that linked it quoted from it it’s unlikely sperm production and egg production both occurred at the same time. I think that also gels with what Max said.