Binary edit: I have moved the posts from the other thread into this one so the conversation can continue. @Dcc001 provided the below "starter" post for this thread, but posts are inserted in chronological order so I've edited the first post in the thread to duplicate the one that now appears below: I'm splitting this off from the Coronavirus thread, just in case it has legs... TOPIC: Is "male" and "female" a biological fact, or is it something the individual determines for themselves? Alternate Topic: How inclusive should the world become, in light of the expansion of transgendered rights? ------------------ A complete aside: when I googled the CDC for the pregnancy vaccine links, I noticed that their wording is now, "Pregnant people." Because, I suppose, men can also get pregnant. If you want to know why some people dismiss the CDC, ideas like "Men can also be pregnant" are part of the problem.
Because, as I said, I believe they picked a gender-neutral noun so as not to offend anyone by implying that only women can get pregnant. And if you don't think that women are the only gender capable of pregnancy, well, the rest of your science could be questionable.
People assigned female at birth can get pregnant. Not all women are assigned female at birth. Not all men are assigned male at birth. So yeah, not only self-identified women can get pregnant. The fact that trans people are being heard in our culture is new, and can be uncomfortable to some. But updating our use of terminology to reflect new knowledge and new voices is progress for science and does not detract from it, in my opinion.
It does detract from it, in mine. This is a complete aside, and we may need to break it off as its own thread. In the meantime... I'm completely for whatever treatments and medical intervention an adult who identifies as transgender requires. I also think that it's entirely reasonable for them to be able to change their name, their prefix, and use the washrooms they feel are appropriate without any kind of harassment. I stop at allowing male-to-female athletes to compete in women's sports. And, to bring it back to this discussion, the idea that what you would like to be, or the thing you psychologically identify with, can override the biological facts of medicine is completely wrong. The very definition of female is "the sex that can bear offspring." If you're born with a dick and balls, sorry, that is not you. A male-to-female person, even post surgery, is still biologically male (and vice-versa). Yes, some females are born without the ability to bear offspring. Just like some people are born with six fingers on one hand, we don't allow a medical defect or anomaly to alter the definition of the standard human biological presentation. The vast majority of the world sees this common-sense fact and when a top government agency caves to the pressure of being inclusive and woke in the face of biology, it undermines their credibility.
In your first post you were using "men/women" terminology, and now you're using "male/female" terminology. I don't know why you're complaining about the CDC being more precise with their language when that's exactly what you're doing here.
There are 2 trans men who go to the clinic where I work who have had babies in the 6 years I’ve worked there. They are definitely not women but definitely were pregnant. And now we get to see both cute little toddlers and their respective pairs of delightful gay dads.
The CDC using gender-neutral wording in the most explicitly gendered thing in existence is my overarching point. Also, I'm not the CDC. That being said, and I can't believe I have to type this out, but men are males and women are females. One could argue that the terms could be interchangeable.
But it's not gendered so much as it is sexed. Your own word choices bear that out, as you switched to explicitly sex-based language the moment you wanted to be precise about what you were referring to.
I'm splitting this off from the Coronavirus thread, just in case it has legs... TOPIC: Is "male" and "female" a biological fact, or is it something the individual determines for themselves? Alternate Topic: How inclusive should the world become, in light of the expansion of transgendered rights?
I just created a thread for this topic. Give me a minute to fiddle with the posts here and see if I can move them over.
This is not going to be the best transition; I seem to recall the old setup for this board made it possible to move posts between threads. I can't find where to do that right now. Just to move some of the discussions here until Nett or Binary shows me what a technical idiot I am:
So to be super clear, this is the language standard as I currently understand it: XX and XY are biological fact. The terms we use to refer to those are male and female. However, those are not the only categories. There are other chromosomal and biological possibilities, and the term we use for those is intersex. Gender is a social definition. The terms we use to refer to that include man, woman, non-binary person, etc. So, the CDC would be both grammatically and scientifically correct in using the term "pregnant people" to refer biological females/havers of XX chromosomes. Look, I get it. As humans, when we are unfamiliar with new definitions and terms, our first instinct is to say, I don't like this! Shut it down! But ask yourself: who gains by shutting down inclusive terminology? And who truly loses?
It never even occurred to me that flipping between the two words gave a connotation of anything; to me, they are interchangeable. Male/female is perhaps more clinical and man/woman implies a fully-grown adult, but in terms of WHO CAN BEAR CHILDREN, I'll stand by the notion that childbirth applies exclusively to women/females. I mean, they definitely are women, because they have functional uteruses (uteri?). Now, I'm sure they've undergone some kind of medical treatments and procedures that allow them to present otherwise. The fact that they've altered their appearances and adopted other affectations doesn't change that they are, in their biology, female. Again, to stress the point: I think society should accept them in whatever form they ask to be treated. And it should be a crime to target a transgendered person the same as it is to target a gay or a black person. The point I disagree with is that their biology is separate from their gender.