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Vaishnav Sunil's avatar

The biologists' view of sex as a life stage is interesting because it gets at something fundamental about life being a process. One can contrast this with how humans, both individually and as a collective, view themselves as individuals that have an essence - in other words - indenties. Now sex happens to be an important concept (as are most concepts) that laid the foundation for god knows how many other breakthroughs. But there's something interesting about the way we take concepts that define differences between individuals and turn it into an identity. I'm guessing this is a natural function of being social mammals since most of our higher level faculties including language probably evolved to help us relate to one another. It therefore makes sense that concepts that differentiate us would be intergral to us - since the only way we can talk about ourselves is by comparing and contrasting with others. There's no real argument here, just a semi-stoned rant.

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Steersman's avatar

"... gets at something fundamental about life being a process"

Indeed. ICYMI, a Psychology Today article:

PT: "No one has the essence of maleness or femaleness, for one simple reason: Since the 17th century, what science has been showing, in every single field, is that the folk notion of an 'essence' is not reflected in reality. There are no essences in nature. For the last three hundred years or so, the advance of science has been in lockstep with the insight that is what really exists are processes, not essences."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hive-mind/202003/terf-wars-what-is-biological-sex

Part of the problem is that many people don't realize that category names -- "male", "female", "teenager", "vertebrate" -- are just abstractions, and insist on turning them into real things -- the logical fallacy of reification. For details, see this post of mine, particularly the tweet by RadfemBlack on vertebrates:

https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/what-is-a-woman

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Oliver's avatar

I agree very much that there are no fundamental "essences" in biology. But it still often seems helpful to make some categories more rigid than others, at least in some contexts. In the category of "what foods should I consume," there are a vast array of options that would lead to success, so most people seem willing to see this category as a spectrum. In the category of "who should I marry," the ability to have biological children is very important for many people, so having a rigid definition of sex would probably be helpful for them in choosing a marriage partner. In other contexts, though, those same people might be okay with a more fluid definition of sex.

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Steersman's avatar

The problem is in having multiple definitions for the sexes, for "male" and "female", that are contradictory and inconsistent. Will we have one set of definitions for the kids in their humanities and law classes, and entirely different ones for their biology classes?

If the sexes are going to be used to adjudicate claims to access toilets, change rooms, and sports leagues then we simply have specify which definitions are trump, and what are the criteria for accessing those venues.

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Oliver's avatar

Maybe this issue would be easier to manage if we used "gender" for socially constructed qualities and "sex" for biological qualities.

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Steersman's avatar

Sure. But WHICH properties for WHICH category?

That comment of yours is, I'm sorry to say, hardly better than a statement in favour of motherhood and apple pie -- vague statements are pretty much useless, if not worse than useless.

Even in the case of the sexes, too many so-called biologists and philosophers don't know whether they're on foot or horseback -- see Griffiths' essay for details -- and are peddling idiosyncratic definitions which conflict profoundly with the more solidly justified ones of mainstream biology.

You might actually try reading and thinking about the specifics, about the devils in the details. See my:

https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/binarists-vs-spectrumists

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