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Comment by IshKebab | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it's really about science. I mean if anything the science agrees with them. Sex is extremely bimodal (intersex is on the order of 1 in 1000):

https://isna.org/faq/frequency/

Also the use of gender as "it's like, how you feel, man" is very recent. When I was growing up (80s, 90s) it was just a synonym of "sex". If you look in old dictionaries that's what it says.

I looked it up and apparently the more recent definition came from feminists in the 70s (I guess it didn't catch on until later).

I think this is a massive over-correction (banning words is dumb) but they're not completely wrong.

I think the sane path lies in the middle: people shouldn't be forced to avoid "pregnant women" or "pregnant people". That includes being forced by social ostracism, which is the far left's method of choice.

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Taking it back to RealScience™ is fine.

Elemental distribution in the universe is also extremely bimodal .. moreso even than the exceptions to the reproductive male or reproductive female buckets.

Everything in the universe is either Hydrogen or Helium .. save for a tiny tiny cluster of exceptions known (to astronomers) as "metals" and as "every other damn element including carbon and oxygen" to the aquatic apes.

Science is quite happy to endlessly study things with a frequency of ppm (parts per million) and less.

> Everything in the universe is either Hydrogen or Helium

Not sure what point you're trying to make here but we don't live in a star.

We do all live in the same universe.

Give it some time, it may come to you eventually. Or not.

Well I guessed that you were trying to make a point about how our language is highly biased towards heavy elements even though they are a tiny proportion of the universe, and that means it also makes sense to bias our language towards intersex people even though they are a tiny proportion of the population.

But it can't be that because that is an obviously stupid point. So what was your point?

Remind me of your point, if you would:

> I think this is a massive over-correction (banning words is dumb) but they're not completely wrong.

Is it that "they're not completely wrong" to ban terms referring to events significantly more common than the occurrence of gold in the earths crust?

To quote another:

> it can't be that because that is an obviously stupid point. So what was your point?

----

For general interest:

* frequency of "true" (undecidable) intersex (1 in 5,500 births): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0022449020955213...

* Mean global crustal ppm of gold: 0.004 (four thousandth of one in a million) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth...

* Report on Gold deposits in a high yeild region: Gold Deposits of the Pilbara Craton https://www.ga.gov.au/pdf/RR0065.pdf (74 page AGSO report, 'rich' veins have 0.4 ppm gold)

This is a fantastic analogy!

> Also the use of gender as "it's like, how you feel, man" is very recent.

That's because we got to some level of acceptance in some regions where we got to agree on some English term. It's not like the non-binary people appeared only very recently. We just got to honestly talk about it now. But there's many known figures from the past who pretty much lived that way, including the Universal Friend.

Outside of the usual western countries, it existed for ages, like the non-binary "mahu" in Hawaiian culture.

> Also the use of gender as "it's like, how you feel, man" is very recent. When I was growing up (80s, 90s) it was just a synonym of "sex". If you look in old dictionaries that's what it says.

The changes in society are recent, the ideas are extremely old.

In our society, being gay used to be illegal, black people were property, and women had no rights. Then somebody would suggest that be changed, and the majority of people would freak out, for exactly the same reason: "that's not how it was when I was growing up!".

Yet multiple genders [not sexes] have existed for millennia, we didn't have the concept of two sexes [not genders] until the Enlightenment, and these words have changed their meanings and been used in different ways throughout time.

Society changes. Our understanding of the world changes. Sometimes we regress, like right now, like we did in the Victorian era, like we did after the fall of Rome, etc. But we need to push back, so that regression doesn't harm people, the way it has harmed people so many times in the past.

> (intersex is on the order of 1 in 1000)

Whoa, honestly, that is much more common than I expected in my mind.

Strict intersex, as in can't decide via genetic tests and physical examination is rarer.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex for why it's not straightforward and why the edges are pretty fuzzy.

The main take away would be that some people are born that are neither male nor female, others are born where assignment isn't clearcut or easy, and such births are more common than the frequency of gold in the earth's crust.

Everyone is born male or female, some just ambiguously so. Intersex is a colloquial misnomer, the correct and more accurate term is “disorder of sex development”.

Your opinion is readily falsifiable by empirical observation:

   "if the term intersex is to retain any meaning, the term should be restricted to those conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female" .. "the prevalence of intersex is about 0.018% (one in 5,500 births)"

In https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0022449020955213...

What I wrote is not contrary to what Sax writes, in any way. In fact, I fully support what he wrote, and would urge people who are interested in the subject to read his much fuller explanation on his website[0].

As such, I really do not understand your objection, and that’s probably because you don’t understand your objection. Sex in humans determined by the strategy for gamete production, which can only result in a large gamete or small gamete - not by chromosomes. Hence, “intersex” people are still male or female regardless of their disorder. This is well understood, settled science, and is not my opinion. If you think sex is decided based on your chromosomes, then you’ve been misinformed.

[0] https://www.leonardsax.com/how-common-is-intersex-a-response...

> and that’s probably because you don’t understand your objection.

Maybe tone that down a notch or three.

Gametes (egg or sperm) can mix-and-match with other sex markers—commonly, chromosomes, genitals, sex hormones, and secondary sex characteristics—to create a mosaic of sex traits.

We can’t create a sex binary using the reproductive organs (gametes and gonads), because:

* People can have both ovarian and testicular tissue (an ovotestis or gradation of cells)

* People can have ambiguous gonadal tissue

* It is common for all types of gonads (female/male/intersex) to lack gamete production

I refer you to:

  > “In anisogamety, an individual's sex condition coincides with the type of gametes it produces; male if it produces male gametes exclusively, female if it only produces female gametes, and hermaphrodite if simultaneously or at different times” [1]

  [1] The Biology of Reproduction, Cambridge University Press, Giuseppe Fusco, Alessandro Minelli

which you might be familiar with [0].

Note: " male if ..", "female if ..", and "hermaphrodite if .."

which is ( counts slowly 'cause can't understand stuff real good ) one, two, three buckets.

Not two.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42907868

An individual's sex condition *coincides* with the type of gametes it produces. Gametes are used to determine (in this sense, ascertain) sex because it shows the reproduction strategy.

> which is ( counts slowly 'cause can't understand stuff real good ) one, two, three buckets.

Humans are not hermaphroditic, no mammals are. Not sequentially, not simultaneously. (In fact, the way that sex development occurs it cannot happen, but that is going to be too high level for this discussion, clearly.)

> Gametes (egg or sperm) can mix-and-match with other sex markers—commonly, chromosomes, genitals, sex hormones, and secondary sex characteristics—to create a mosaic of sex traits.

Traits do not define sex, gamete size does (see above), adding them all up will not change that.

> People can have both ovarian and testicular tissue (an ovotestis or gradation of cells)

And only one reproduction strategy, which is why there are no human hermaphrodites, having both types of tissue does not mean there is possible gamete production, as evidenced by the total lack of any actual hermaphrodites in all of recorded human history, if not a knowledge of the process itself.

> People can have ambiguous gonadal tissue

Completely irrelevant.

> It is common for all types of gonads (female/male/intersex) to lack gamete production

Also irrelevant. Someone who has finished their fertile phase still has a reproduction strategy in place. Someone who has a disorder still has a reproduction strategy in place. Someone who is not disordered and still in their fertile phase yet not producing gametes right now still has a reproduction strategy in place.

There are only two reproduction strategies in humans, and only one in any individual, and only one is possible in any individual, and it cannot change.

> Maybe tone that down a notch or three.

It was an accurate observation, which you have only gone on to prove further.

> Humans are not hermaphroditic, no mammals are.

Most humans are not, sure. Some are: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02000779

Your claim is falsified.

> And only one reproduction strategy, which is why there are no human hermaphrodites,

Not all humans reproduce. Yes, there are only two reproductive genders, these do not cover all humans.

There are several strategies to identify gender, as we both (I hope) know, each has its edge cases, none is sufficient.

A laser like focus on sex-as-gamete-production (SAG) is completely adrift from social reality.

> It was an accurate observation, which you have only gone on to prove further.

Your attitude says more about you, the lack of self reflection most of all.

> Your claim is falsified

No, as we have both quoted, and you miscounted, there are four states:

- Male (gonochoric) - Female (gonochoric) - Sequential hermaphrodite - Non-sequential hermaphrodite

True hermaphrodite is a misnomer, a term for an intersex disorder known as ovotesticular syndrome[0]. To quote the great Wikipedia:

> In the past, ovotesticular syndrome was referred to as true hermaphroditism, which is considered outdated as of 2006. The term "true hermaphroditism" was considered very 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.

To check, we can apply "our" quote - a hermaphrodite would either be sequential, which we know humans are not (I hope we know that much), or able to produce both types of gametes at the same time.

True hermaphrodites cannot do that, and the paper you shared makes no claim that they can or that they have. None of the examples show that either.

Your claim is false.

> Not all humans reproduce.

I'm sorry, but you're bringing the conversation down to a level too silly to bother with there. Every human has a reproductive strategy, and from conception to boot. Whether any individual actual reproduces is irrelevant to that.

Really, that kind of argument is beneath the level of this forum.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovotesticular_syndrome

I don't think that's true. Or at best it's a tautological argument. Some people have crazy genes like XXY. There's no clear gender that they are "supposed" to be.

It's very rare though.

I refer you to my comment[0] (flagged for some inexplicable reason), chromosomes are not the method of sex determination in humans (or most animals), and are not even the necessary condition in the process of fulfilling the sexual reproduction strategy in some others.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42907868

I don't know how to read that comment, but your idea that everybody is exactly male or female is clearly wrong just by thinking about it.

Sex is clearly a continuum, just like everything in the world. If you smoothly vary someone's physiology and genetics from male to female there will be a region in the middle where it's kind of woolly and you can't really say they are definitely male or female.

Let me give another example. Is a spork a spoon or a fork? It's clearly somewhere in-between. You can't say "this spork is actually a spoon with some anomalous tines".

Now it just so happens that there are very few sporks in the world (due to the huge selection pressure). But they do exist and they aren't obviously "male with errors" or "female with errors".

You can't really argue against this, any more than you can argue that green is actually very blueish red. The English language dictates that it isn't.

You're free to go off and make your own not-English where green is "blueish red" but don't expect anyone to know what the hell you are talking about.

Sex is not colour. Colour does exist on a spectrum, sex does not (in humans or other mammals). Humans are also not cutlery. Both of your analogies are misplaced.

Humans, (along with 95%+ animals) are gonochoric, which means they are either male or female and cannot change that.

There is no spectrum because there are only two types of sex cell (gametes, sperm and ova) thus, only two reproductive strategies available.

We also know that the reproductive strategy coincides with gamete size (small and large, again, sperm and ova) and this is helpfully confirmed by non-gonochoric species that are hermaphrodatic, like clownfish. We know that a clownfish has changed from male to female when their reproductive strategy has changed to the point that they can produce the other type of gamete.

> You can’t really argue against this

It seems like your assumptions have been challenged, it would’ve been better if you’d do some of that yourself, and read some biology by actual biologists, not from activists.

> sex does not (in humans or other mammals)

Yes it does. It just has an extremely bimodal distribution.

> Humans, (along with 95%+ animals) are gonochoric, which means they are either male or female and cannot change that.

Sure, when the genetics all goes to plan. But it isn't perfect. Sometimes it doesn't.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about all of this but I can't quite figure out where it is. It's like you've only read a biology textbook and never really thought about it or something.

No, there cannot be a hermaphrodatic human because of the genetics, as only one reproductive strategy can be chosen even when there is a disorder.

Find me the third type of gamete and you’ll have a point.

Edit: I’ll add, traits are a bimodal distribution, sex is binary (because of all I’ve outlined here). If you believe that traits define sex then you are sorely mistaken (see 3rd gamete for why).

True hermaphroditism: Geographical distribution, clinical findings, chromosomes and gonadal histology

European Journal of Pediatrics, 1994

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02000779

Dealt with here[1] but I'm more than willing to post the quote again:

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42929198

0.001 > 0, especially multiplied by the population of the US, continent, or world.

If that's your standard you'll quickly find you can't say much about anything.

For example, you can't say humans have 5 fingers on each hand, polydactyly (had to google that one) has a higher prevalence than 0.001

And yet politicians don't spend their time demonizing people with an extra fingers spreading lies, fear, and hatred. Revoking protections to expose them to harassment. "The cruelty is the point" and all.

The context of the discussion matters. My friends are scared, I don't really think your desire to be able to easily generalize the human race is something I can care too much about.

>And yet politicians don't spend their time demonizing people with an extra fingers spreading lies, fear, and hatred.

People with extra fingers don't demand society bends backwards for them, branding anyone who presents any opposition whatsoever as bigots. They don't have a history of, funny enough, "spreading lies, fear and hatred" like trans advocacy does either.

Trans people deserve sympathy and care and I have little expectation the current US administration treats them as they should, but the amount of willful ignorance required to look at this as something that "just happened" rather than the result of abuses of power by advocates is such that anyone partaking in it is better off ignored.

> don't demand society bends backwards for them

clown comment from the start. utterly delusional bullshit. go on, what demands are trans people making of "society" other than "leave us the hell alone".

>. They don't have a history of, funny enough, "spreading lies, fear and hatred" like trans advocacy does either.

just outright making shit up, cool.

>what demands are trans people making of "society" other than "leave us the hell alone".

To be referred and treated to as a gender they are not perceived to belong to (often under legal penalties), often reaching into biological sex (see: sports, women spaces). To dismiss gender definitions altogether in order to blur the lines to accommodate for them (you yourself were doing this a moment ago).

>just outright making shit up, cool.

No. You are, again, doing this yourself, right now, by saying stuff like "The cruelty is the point" which is very evidently spreading hatred. Advocacy did A LOT of "spreading lies and fear" by spreading narratives like the "female brain in a male body" or "would you rather have a trans son or a dead daughter?". And again, the vast majority of trans people are innocent for these, they deserve no blowback, their situation is bad as it is to begin with, but this did not by any stretch of imagination begin with politicians and pretending that's the case only worsens the problem.

Pronounces is one.

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