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This conversation is a good example of where pretty clever people make stupid mistakes about language.
Most categories have fuzzy edges. That doesn't mean that the category doesn't function meaningfully to pick out something in the world, and it doesn't mean that things that https://twitter.com/McdowallLucy/status/1292581249765318658
Most categories have fuzzy edges. That doesn't mean that the category doesn't function meaningfully to pick out something in the world, and it doesn't mean that things that https://twitter.com/McdowallLucy/status/1292581249765318658
are not in the category are in the category.
Some mugs, like the ones for Irish coffee, are made of glass. That doesn't mean that the difference between mugs and glasses completely breaks down, and we can't tell whether a wine glass is a mug or not. And it doesn't mean this
Some mugs, like the ones for Irish coffee, are made of glass. That doesn't mean that the difference between mugs and glasses completely breaks down, and we can't tell whether a wine glass is a mug or not. And it doesn't mean this
could identify into the class of glasses... or that the difference between mugs and glasses is in some sense entirely arbitrary...
Some things differ in matters of degree from things to which they are closely related. A big stream becomes a river. A big hill a mountain. There
Some things differ in matters of degree from things to which they are closely related. A big stream becomes a river. A big hill a mountain. There
is no line where a big stream definitively becomes a small river. That doesn't mean the concepts of 'stream' and 'river' are meaningless. And it doesn't mean the Thames as it flows through the middle of London is a stream.
This is what they are doing with the intersex argument >
This is what they are doing with the intersex argument >
they are trying to present sex as a quantitate difference of degree between two points, with the implication that the difference is arbitrary, and that people can move along it is they choose.
Even were sex a matter of degree, this would be nonsense. There is a good deal of
Even were sex a matter of degree, this would be nonsense. There is a good deal of
liminality between 'day' and 'night.' But night is not day, and if we all decided it was and we didn't need to put the lights on, that would be really fucking stupid.
Moreover, while some secondary sexual characteristics might differ by degree, sex, in terms of reproductive
Moreover, while some secondary sexual characteristics might differ by degree, sex, in terms of reproductive
capacity is actually a difference in kind, not a difference of degree.
As this diagram makes comically evident.
As this diagram makes comically evident.
So, really as someone says here, this is all a lot of bad thinking and smoke and mirrors.
Human categorisation is usually fuzzy. Even in cases where it's fuzzy that doesn't mean that things clearly outside of the category are in it. And the categorisation of sex is actually,
Human categorisation is usually fuzzy. Even in cases where it's fuzzy that doesn't mean that things clearly outside of the category are in it. And the categorisation of sex is actually,
for all the obfuscation, one of the least fuzzy.
Egg making humans are not sperm making humans, and there is not a continuum between them. You can argue that the word woman doesn't mean 'adult human female' till you are blue in the face.
Egg making humans are not sperm making humans, and there is not a continuum between them. You can argue that the word woman doesn't mean 'adult human female' till you are blue in the face.
Adult female humans will still exist as a meaningful class and we'd like a word please thank you very much.
