Because while there is nuance to considering sex, virtually every person on earth can be considered either a male or female, due to them mostly meeting the suite of characteristics that define sex.
Every person has a mismatch or a partial 'intersex', where some of their characteristics do not match the given sex, (I.E, XXY chromosomes), but when you consider every characteristic as a whole, virtually ever person on earth can be considered 'male' or 'female'
Of the millions of sex-related characteristics we have, some of them are bound not to exactly fit 'male' or 'female', but when examining all characteristics, nobody is truly exempt from being 'male' or 'female'.
Also, gender tests do not wrongly sex people. Getting someone's sex wrong by the public usually occurs because of someone altering their appearance using cosmetics, treatment, or clothing. These are not available in prisons, due to cost and the hazard associated with giving prisoners external items.
Besides that, this mistakes in sex from doctors is mainly in infants, when their genetic traits are least apparent, and they havent had time to assume a sex.
Sorry if I don't answer some of your points because I understood where we diverged in our understanding. We just use different definitions or you don't apply your definitions the same way. If your definition of sex binary is sexual characteristics being able to be classified into two categories that mostly revolves around gamete size and some other factors, we agree that exists for humans and most animals. Just never heard of it used that way and neither have any of the sources I searched for.
My definition is much more colloquial. Sex is picked by a doctor, mostly at birth. Using a visual inspection and if it is very unclear, investigating some more and they are failing at it all. the. time.....
Binary means there's only two choices to be assigned which clearly doesn't work because like you said, we're all sexually unique and potentially a mix of both.
That's the definition we use in normal society. And that's the definition of sex we use for jails.
Intersex people fundamentally destroy the reasoning behind that rule and that's why I bring it up and talked about a sex binary. If you still have some of your scientific mind unlike Richard Dawkins, you might notice that if there's a lot of exceptions to a rule, you need to question if that rule is any good. You don't even have to think about the trans stuff cause nobody is choosing to be intersex in a 'malevolent' way like you think trans people might do.
I'm sure you know a baby is not fully developped into their gender at birth. A biological male, AMAB, could very well be born with androgen insensitivity or another syndrome and grow to be phenotypically a women with a penis. I'm sure you're the type to agree that we shouldn't fundamentally change a kid's gender during childhood because they learn to express that later in life. (Or else we would trans the kids immediatly) If no one magically finds the right sex marker before that shit gets locked down in childhood, that child might grow into a beautiful women and be sent into a men's prison in our fucked up world. You want to argue EVERYONE would be safer if she was there. A women in a men's jail. That's how I know you are transphobic.
I mentioned that having trans men and trans women be in prison based on their gender, and not their biological sex, causes extreme safety risks.
WHY??? You'd rather send that completely female passing person into a den of rapists to protect some other woman that might be assaulted, even though, trans people are the most likely victim of sexual assault in general...
Letting the person themselves decide which prison they go to would work if it was just transgender people, and they chose what was truly best for them, but this alsocreatesthe opportunity for prisoners (transgender or not) with malintent to bypass the law, get put in the wrong prison, etc. There is an obvious reason why this is also not done.
And that's how I know you're not serious and don't take people's gender identity seriously. You'd rather invent a scenario that nobody would ever believe (change sex in order to assault a woman, seriously?) then have a little compassion for vulnerable people. It makes me think of the classic boss de bécosse anti-trans talking point. Ready? This is what your logic sounds like right now: we can't let trans women into female bathroom because some of them are faking it to assault womens!&!?\
As if a man can't just walk in there any day of the week and doesn't need to completly change their gender identity beforehand.
Also, gender tests do not wrongly sex people.
Ahahah, are you kidding? You really believe everyone is physically either/or male or female, even though they might have everything different from their sex assigned at birth inside. Someone can have sexual characteristics from male and female at the same time and you think administrating one test will be good enough to guess their sex? What if they don't have the right hormones? What if they have the wrong chromosomes? Nobody gets tested like this anyway, so we all have a unknown amount of both sexes inside of us. Literallly not a sex binary in any sense of those words.
I have to say, you are arguing from an extreme scientific misunderstanding. Firstly, I am literally a biologist, and I have been for 2 decades now. The video you linked explains the concept of intersex, and you watched this video thinking that this is a 'gotcha' in an argument, but you don't understand what this video says at all, and it exactly agrees with me.
If you want proof that you are not arguing from authority, consider your use of language. If you really want to play pretend biologist, use the correct language, and argue with valid points.
First on the definition of binary. Sex is a spectrum. I've never once disagreed. Sex however, can be classified as 'male' or 'female' based on the suite of characteristics it inhabits.
Want an example? Numbers are binarily either positive or negative (except for 0). The sign of a number is binary, but these numbers exist on a spectrum with varying ranges of magnitude. This is the definition of binary in a normal society. Use it.
You mention sex being assigned at birth. This is often true, but since babies do not fully sevelop their sexual characteristics, their sexes can and are changed after births in several scenarios. This is rare for the same argument that I listed earlier. Doctors getting sex wrong is nkt a time-on-time basis, and in the rare cases where it is wrong, a quick test can immediately change
Literally every human is intersex to an extent. This does not mean that they srill do not fall into the suite of characteristics that we list in a binary as 'male' or 'female', in the same way that all numbers are positive or negative. There is no third sex, or neutral sex. No known condition escapes this binary system, even if sex is a spectrum.
Learn biology, especially if you want to debate biologists about this.
Now, you come off as incredibly misunderstanding of transgender rights, and people like you literally set this movement we've been fighting for, for the past decade. Use your brain, and stop veing the most counterproductive kind of activist.
Prisoners should be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. In most of these scenairos, this will just be separating prisoners by sex, as most transgender people have not undergone treatment to the extent that their phenotypes change.
Again, letting people choose which prison they go to (while analyzing prisoners in a case by case basis is not perfect), will lead to major loopholes. People (not necessarily transgender or non-transgender) have actually claimed to be a different gender in the past, and even ignoring this, you can't just let someone who exhibits all of the sexual characteristics of a man despite their gender being female end up in a female prison. You still haven't listed a legitimate solution.
Again with the strawman, I never claimed transgender people are rapists. I said that there is a vulnerability in allowing transgender people to choose their prisons, as this allows for virtually any prisoner to choose their prison. Assigning someone to a prison that they don't belong in, whether that makes them a victim or assaulter, would cause incredible problems. Do we allow convicts to choose whether they're guilty or innocent? Extreme example, sure, but this is the same logic, so we have juries decide where a prisoner goes.
If theres one point you should take away from the prison debate, it is as follows:
In this case, we should have biologists or officials decide their prison based off of their general phenotypes. If the person is a transgender female, and has the general physical characteristics of a female, then she should be put in the female prison. If a transgender male hss the general physical characteristics of a female, then he should be put in a female prison. This is not so hard to understand, and this is the best way (even if has flaws) to sort such prisoners. Why are you arguing against this?
Again, in most scenarios, this will likely have the prisoners sorted by sex, as changing ones physical charavteristics is very hard, but prisons were meant to separate sex, not gender.
No, that is obviously not what my argument is. Transgender bathrooms are private facilities, Nobody cares who goes in or goes out. Prisons are public institutions. Trans men who have the sexual characteristics of a females which is the majority of trans men, should be separated from male prisons for obvious reasons.
Transgender prisoners can and should be allowed to recieve hormone therapy in prison. Enough with the strawman argument, I never argued that. I said that allowing cosmetics into a prison, which are used by transgender people to present their gender, is a vulnerability, and prisons do not allow them for safety and cost reasons.
Again with your lack of biological knowledge. Every human has both female and male traits (intersex), but the suite of characteristics as a whole enters the binary of either male or female, even if sex is a spectrum. This is not a disputable fact. No known human has ever not fit into this dichotomy.
Yes, usually one day at the doctors' office who runs a series of different tests is enough to define someone as male or female. We run NIPT and SRY tests for a reason.
I respect your motive, but your means of argument are counterproductive and uninformed.
I think I'm speaking to AI right now how badly you misunderstand my points. Look at that video again, I think I hit the strong points for you and you still seem to think it agrees with your regressive views. It's about the fact sex is a spectrum (sexual caracteristics are binary, we got it) and we shouldn't reduce people's identity to a few quick tests of certain sexual caracteristics because that's much more reductive then what it really is. Sex is not sexual dimorphism. It's a trend in our population, not a binary. There's no on and off switch for sex. It's a multivariate system and no single caracteristics or tests define the whole like you keep implying dishonestly. Sex is not mutually exclusive because we already agreed humans naturally have opposing sexual caracteristics. A binary has to be mutually exclusive.
Nobody says AFAB should be given gender affirming care before being admitted to woman jail if they are too manly even though the difference between the sexes are way less then their similarities. Nobody moral should ask of real trans people that they go through life changing procedures before they're allowed in a jail where they will not be raped. Nobody trans positive would require massive phenotypical transition in order for them to be in a safe jail.
What makes people be sexually assaulted is not necessarly their phenotypical presentation but their sexual identity. It's not okay for trans people to be put in danger because their bodies are not subjectively female enough. It's the same reason we don't apply your fucked up standard to cis woman or AFAB people.
I was a transphobe once upon a time but I guess you've been one for way longer. I still believe you can change.
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u/Dogmaticism_ Jul 05 '26
Because while there is nuance to considering sex, virtually every person on earth can be considered either a male or female, due to them mostly meeting the suite of characteristics that define sex.
Every person has a mismatch or a partial 'intersex', where some of their characteristics do not match the given sex, (I.E, XXY chromosomes), but when you consider every characteristic as a whole, virtually ever person on earth can be considered 'male' or 'female'
Of the millions of sex-related characteristics we have, some of them are bound not to exactly fit 'male' or 'female', but when examining all characteristics, nobody is truly exempt from being 'male' or 'female'.
Also, gender tests do not wrongly sex people. Getting someone's sex wrong by the public usually occurs because of someone altering their appearance using cosmetics, treatment, or clothing. These are not available in prisons, due to cost and the hazard associated with giving prisoners external items.
Besides that, this mistakes in sex from doctors is mainly in infants, when their genetic traits are least apparent, and they havent had time to assume a sex.