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A friend of mine has a cat, which she's had since a kitten. When the cat was given to her, she was told it is male. However, when she took the cat to the vet for vaccinations, she was informed that the cat is in fact female.

A mistaken assumption doesn't change the underlying reality.

If she hadn't taken the cat to the vet and hadn't otherwise realized that the cat is female, and later, the cat had become pregnant, then she wouldn't be exclaiming how amazing it is to see a male pregnancy. No, she would understand that the cat is female, because only female cats can be pregnant.

Facial structure, body shape, voice. Humans have sufficient sexual dimorphism and are attuned to the differences enough to make this distinction correctly almost all of the time.

This is how we can, in most cases, ascertain a person's sex regardless of how they're attired.

It's also why the other commenter's view of women being "clothes, hair and makeup" is so absurd. A change of clothes, a haircut, and wiping off makeup doesn't somehow change women to men, or remove the ability of others to recognize sex.

Also, even if a person manages to disguise their sex or impersonate the opposite sex, this doesn't change the reality of their sex. Just may obscure it from observation, for some observers.

Getting back to the point of the thread, it's fine if you want to hold the personal belief that your sister is your brother. No-one is stopping you from that, nor should they. You could believe she's a cat and gave birth to a litter of kittens if you like. That is your freedom of belief.

However, the CDC should have its focus in reality, not fiction. If a woman says she's a man, she does not somehow transform into a man. This is a nonsensical belief.

It's a bit like Catholics believing that bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ. Fine for them to hold that fictional belief if they want to, but it would look ridiculous if the CDC published this within their hematology resources as if it's a fact.

To state that men can be pregnant is incorrect, and has no scientific consensus. The male reproductive system is incapable of pregnancy. You can try to "defeat" this but it's a losing battle, as it is plainly false.

You described a sibling with a female reproductive system, who has been pregnant. This means that your sibling must be a woman.

That you refer to her as your brother rather than your sister implies that she calls herself a man, and that because she calls herself a man you have chosen to do the same.

You are of course free to immerse yourself in the fiction that she is a man, and make self-contradictory statements like "my brother is a man who has been pregnant." But it would be odd to expect others to agree with this, seeing as it is not based in reality.

I wrote: "This person is pregnant. From this fact alone we can infer the presence of a female reproductive system."

You replied with: "No, no you can't."

From this, it is reasonable to assume that you either you don't understand that pregnancy requires a female reproductive system, or that you don't understand what the female reproductive system is.

You wrote: "You understand she is a woman because of the societal context of her clothes, her face, her hair, her makeup, and 1001 other tiny little things."

From that, it is reasonable to assume that you have a view of women based on sexist stereotyping around clothes, hair and makeup.

If you don't like the ideas that your words convey, that's on you for writing them.

If you are unaware that pregnancy requires a female reproductive system and that this is the process the female reproductive system in humans and most other mammals is specialized for, then I would very much recommend you learn more before attempting to discuss this topic. At the very least, please look up what a uterus is and its role in gestation.

As for your view of women being "clothes, hair and makeup", this is a remarkably sexist perspective and I would urge you to rethink your understanding on this as well.

Think about this logically. Consider a person. This person is pregnant. From this fact alone we can infer the presence of a female reproductive system. Which means that this person must be a woman.

Or, we can look at this from the other direction. Male sexual development does not result in a female reproductive system. Therefore this person is not a man.

You can perform this exercise of logic with any species that has individuals with different reproductive roles. For example: consider a chicken. This chicken lays eggs. From this we know that this chicken has a female reproductive system. Therefore this chicken must be a hen, not a cock.

Sorry but your argument doesn't make much sense. If I decide to identify myself as a dog or a lampshade, it doesn't mean that I am a dog or a lampshade. It's just words.

Similarly, a pregnant woman who for whatever reason has decided to call herself a man is, in reality, still a pregnant woman. The mere utterance of words does not alter that material fact.

Also worth considering is just how contradictory it is for her to try to identify into a sex class that is, by definition, incapable of being pregnant.

No you've missed the point, which is that "people" includes both women and men.

Men cannot be pregnant, which is obvious from the fact that male sexual development does not produce a female reproductive system.

The term "pregnant people" is not just unnecessarily obfuscating but also linguistically erases the group of people who can actually be pregnant - that is, women.

Can the firmware be downgraded to a version that doesn't do this? That is, assuming the older firmware images are archived somewhere.

Edward Snowden is a Russian agent who sought to damage USA intelligence agencies as much as he possibly could, disingenuously framing it as whistleblowing.

It's unfortunate that many people, such as yourself, have been taken in by his story and don't see the bigger picture.

Also, gathering metadata on Tor usage to break anonymity is not actually against any law. It'll be done within the legal framework that permits collection and analysis of intelligence data.

Not sure what you mean. Gathering evidence is a vital part of investigating criminal activity. In the age of the internet, this includes evidence generated on computer networks, such as connection metadata from distributed systems like Tor.

Why, in your view, is this akin to Stalinism? It's just standard police work adapted for modern technologies, not an indication of totalitarian governance.

I don't think many people seriously think that terrorists planning attacks to maim and kill people, and pedophiles sharing child sexual abuse imagery with each other, have an absolute right to privacy in such communications, nor that doing so is an example of free speech.

Really it's a good thing that the "global adversary" is - almost certainly - keeping tabs on Tor traffic and tracking down who is responsible for the worst abuses within this network.