Not always, in fact, if you ask Alice Dreger, who was on Sean Carroll's podcast (which I linked to earlier: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com...h-and-justice/) it is actually difficult to tell far more often than most people know, but it's something doctors don't talk about. A few years ago my wife's niece had a baby with "ambiguous genitalia. In the olden days (just a few years ago) doctors would see this condition and decide it wasn't penis-y enough and lop off whatever was there and say, "congratulations, it's a girl!" Many still do, especially in other countries.

The male and female sex organs start out as the same thing, and then either develop into penis/clitoris, ovaries/testes, scrotum/labia. But it isn't always either/or; there is a whole continuum of development in between. Dreger said there are about 30 different "combinations" of development, and that number could be 100 depending on how granular you want to get.

I was just putting it out there - 150 milly and I take the chop. Escrow required.

ETA: Had a conversation with friends a couple of months ago that went along the lines of "would you suck a cock for 50 mill". The overwhelming consensus was "yes", with a couple of holdouts (liars). Guess I have a new hypothetical bet to bring when the group reconvenes.

This should be brought up more then it is. As in which bathroom do the bathroom police want them to use. Who can and cant they marry. Can they serve in the military. And what teams are they allowed on.

I have no idea how to judge this thing. They did indeed take T lowering drugs and then weren't very good, court said you don't have to anymore and then 3 hormaphridites(I believe that's the correct term-apologies if it is not)finished top 3 in the 800m. I felt horrible for the Canadian Melissa Bishop who finished 4th with a larger gap to 5th than from 1st. She had an all time run in the Olympics and would have won by a huge amount and got lots of endorsements, but she finished 4th and got no attention.

you probably mean hermaphrodites

You've convinced me, I now agree with Inso that these people are creepers for using the women's restroom:






Which bathroom does this guy use, though?

I will try to explain the distinction. Bear in mind this is going to be incomplete, even though it's also going to be a bit long. In a nutshell, you can think of the distinction like this:

gender: cultural norms, values, customs, attitudes, etc.
sex: physiology

Clearly the two are associated. Culturally constructed ideas about what it means to be a "man" or "woman" are rooted in sexual dimorphism. If there were no physical differences there wouldn't be anything on which to construct the culturally dependent norms and so on.

But if I ask you to define "femininity", you aren't likely to refer simply to physiology. I doubt you will say that to be feminine is to have a uterus. You would not be confused if I referred to someone of female sex as lacking feminity, or described a male as not being particularly masculine. If I ask you to describe femininity, you might refer to having long hair and wearing a dress. But it's not as if only people with uteruses can present themselves in this way (ask this guy). You might think about tasks that are gendered as feminine (household tasks like cooking, cleaning, and childcare) compared to those gendered as masculine (mowing the lawn, car repairs, being a "handyman"). But clearly the presence or absence of specific sexual features doesn't dictate who can do those things. Rather, our cultural beliefs and attitudes structure our expectations.

Of course some things we associate with gender are more directly rooted in biological sex and others are not. The belief that men are physically stronger and that motherhood is an important part of what it means to be a woman are pretty closely connected to biology. But the point is we go much further than this. We stereotypically conceive of masculinity not just as being physically strong but being stoic, unemotional, rational. Women are expected to be more caring, emotional, nurturing, and passive. There may be some extent to which those stereotypes reflect actual physical differences on average (e.g. the role of testosterone in any of the above), but our cultural expectations go well beyond the actual physical variation and we enforce our expectations socially. Think of adolescent boys chastising other boys for not acting "manly" enough by calling them gay.

So that's the basic idea. As far as how it relates to transgender people, the point is that gender is also a social identity, related to all those culturally constructed beliefs and values. Someone who identifies as transgender may want to physically transition sex characteristics (while others choose not do this for various reasons), but I think it's clear that a lot of gender dysphoria is also about this sense of socially mediated identity. Otatop's pictures illustrate this: look at how the people choose to present themselves and relate that back to how physical appearance is gendered in ways that transcend actual physical difference, i.e. in style of clothes, hair, and so on. Much of what transgender people want is to feel recognized socially in the way that aligns with their self-image and individual identity. For them, which bathroom you use and which sports team you play on is not just about which sets of genitalia belong in which spaces, it's about the gendered social identity associated with those spaces. This becomes clearer if you think about other social contexts where sex is more important than cultural concepts of gender, for example an FtM transgender person who has not transitioned is unlikely to balk at having to see a gynecologist instead of having a prostate exam (although of course it may remind him of his desire to transition).

The basic logic of my proposition then was to try to emphasize the distinction between physiological differences which might make sense in sports for reasons of fairness while downplaying the social aspects that lead transgender people to feel like "I should play with that group of people because that is the gender I identify with," in much the same way that hopefully they recognize the distinction when they go see doctors in other contexts. The other point is really my hope that if people understand these distinctions and how gender functions socially they may be more open to expanding their view of what is socially legitimate, because ultimately that legitimacy is what trans people are seeking.


I wasn't actually talking about transitioning at all, but this isn't a problem for my suggestion, since I was arguing for placing people into different competitive groups based on their physical characteristics at the time they are competing.

Lots of solutions in search of problems itt.

I am OUTRAGED that Kalenjin men are allowed to complete in distance running. It's hardly fair to any modern day Sebastian Coes or Steve Ovetts, who don't stand a chance anymore. Jamaican sprinters need to be banned too, unless they complete for Canada.

Meanwhile no one is addressing the important issue. Which is the use of the fallacious argument "if trans men have an advantage then why aren't they winning competitions right and left" Its because the worlds best woman are competing against athletes who as men, were almost never in the top 10,000. Even with hormone therapy the top few 100 in almost any sport would beat the female champ even if they were the same weight and height.

How is it possible that these spurious arguments aren't exposed more often? That's far more important than worry about money made by athletes which doesn't deserve to be more than money made by registered nurses.

Bullying? Abuse? Suicide?

Oh, right.

I was half joking. But the fact is that if people weren't taken in by fallacious arguments, 90% of bullying and abuse would disappear.

I guess this maybe isn't entirely wrong, but it's a complete misunderstanding or rejection of humanity. People don't give a **** about logical arguments. I guess if you could change that, then the world would be a much more uncertain place.

They'd do it for way less than 50 megas. Find them a smokeshow instagram t-girl and most of them would have cash moving in the opposite direction.

I'm pretty sure you mean trans women.

Why not just have brackets based on skill (measured as wins or position on a leaderboard or whatever)? You can be either A League or B League or C League or etc. and gender doesn't matter.

If people stopped framing transgender people as dudes dishonestly trying to angleshoot sportsball games, there's probably be less bullying.

or as dudes trying to watch women take a ****

I don’t know. Bathroomphobia seems to be a substantial issue for people’s dander.

Right, but even then it's implicit that the transgender people are just angleshooting pervs who are lying to get in women's restrooms. There's no recognition that people legitimately have non-standard gender identities.

Fact is nobody's switching genders just to get an advantage in sports. The number of surgeries and hormonal changes one has to go through for a sex change are really intense for people who choose to undergo them. You don't switch to a woman, win a bunch of stuff, and then decide to go back to being a man after you retire.

The only time I can see people being concerned about trans women in sports is if it's in something like MMA or boxing where people are aiming to hurt the other person as much as possible. Maintaining the muscle mass of a man while being a woman and then being able to legally beat another woman for a living is pretty disturbing to me.

You think I disagree with that? This issue is more like the guy who had his his legs amputated who broke the world record in the bench press in the light heavyweight division.