But when an act violates a law they are mandated to report to authorities and inform the affected parties about it, about the nature of violation they discovered.
Based on what I seen here (unluckily cannot read the article in full, I do not want to register in yet another something for one article), also based on personal experience with them, the PayPal is a shady party here.
Sex characteristics are expressed primarily via hormones. That is why, for example, a person with an XY chromosome karyotype and complete androgen insensitivity syndrome will appear fully "female" externally.
Hormones are affected by DNA and genes, but can be overridden to alter secondary sex characteristics. Ideally (in most cases), this would be done pre-puberty, but even later in life it is possible to induce a "second puberty" which results in major changes. Further changes, including to primary sex characteristics, can be achieved surgically.
These changes do not need to follow a standard "male" or "female" template. Characteristics can be mixed, matched and/or rejected. Current medical technology has limits, but they are beyond what you might expect.
> I thought trans was about changing gender, not changing sex.
This is a matter of perspective and how one defines things.
An alternative view is that it is about affecting external change to match what the internal state was all along.
More poetically, one could describe it as "the realization that one needn't continue wearing the disguise that society seemed to demand".
Or, if one wants to be shitposty about coming out after having established a career, "New Game+".
A good example of an opposing point of view to 'sex realism' is this article (and one that's most often cited in online discussions of this particular topic): https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-using-phony...
Mostly true, but it's confusing. Historically, sex and gender have been used interchangeably. That is slowly changing. There are a lot of places that refer to "sex" where "biological sex", as you put it, is not what is meant. See e.g. how trans people can still get their "sex" updated on documents that refer to sex and not gender, and how many places described as single-sex are actually closer to single-gender.
This really isn't true. "Sex" was the only word anyone used for most of history; the idea that there's a distinction between "sex" and "gender" was invented by the sexologist John Money in 1955.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender#History_of_the_concept
"Gender" was originally a term from linguistics that had nothing to do with biological sex.
I don't get the "legitimatize" bit. If I acknowledge that some people believe the Earth is flat, and call them flat Earthers, how does this make their position legitimate?
Is the thought process here to pretend such people do not exist? I don't grok.
Everyone on both sides of this debate would claim to be a "sex realist". I'm not at all familiar with Colin's views, but "trans denier" or "biological determinist" might be more neutral terms.
So can we neutrally consider TRAs to be "biological denialists"?
Why?
Because worrying, caring about this is the ultimate red herring.
Imagine there are two sides. One which believes all blue people should be exiled, another which is opposed... including the blue people.
Now, to add to this frey, people start shouting at the name the other group calls themselves?!
I mean really, it's like caring that someone is putting too much salt on a sick of salted butter.
How about we argue about the salted butter itself?!
Worse, every erg of energy complaining about the name, is a wasted breath to fight the real issue. And even worse, the other side chose the name, likes it, so what's the point.
People will always think of them by this name. Always.