> Those petitioning for the change insist that there are an infinite number of genders, but just saying it doesn't make it so.
Funny that HE says that, since disregarding your moral stand point on a non cisgender person, the reality, observational and scientific, is that sex is much more complicated than male and female. What we do with that may be up for discussion, but I find ironic how he's trying to deny this reality, basically, by just saying so.
Yeah. Until it became relevant to people I actually know, I had just taken the male/female binary as a fact. But it's just as constructed as a child/adult binary or South Africa's former white/colored/black trinary. Or the 7 colors of the spectrum I learned as a kid, rather than the continuous span of wavelengths that exist in the real world, filtered through our particular biology and the cultural heritages that shape color perception: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term
But when I started paying attention and without being too invested in the notions I'd been handed, gender turns out to be more complicated than a boolean. Like you, I think the question is what we then do about it.
Does any of those mutations produce fertile individuals, with both reproductive organs fully functional though? I don't know enough to answer, but I believe that's what the parent is asking.
What I'm saying is, from a biological perspective, isn't sex determined by the gametes (which as far as I known, are two), regardless of vestigial organs, number of chromosomes, etc.? I think that's what caused the confusion on the parent about existing more than one sex (reproductive role); of course, by that measure, infertility is undetermined as it plays no role in reproduction.
Totally agree with you. At least in humans, there are two very clearly defined reproductive roles. Test tubes and surgical procedures can interfere a bit, but you can't be "mostly" a gamete donor or "only somewhat" of a gamete receptor.
Some inter-sexed people are fertile, but I don't think that's relevant to this discussion unless you also declare infertile cis-gendered people to be an invalid gender.
Biological sex is very complex but can appear simple with limited information because (1) many of the features are not superficially evident in gross anatomy, and (2) the majority of the time, most of the features line up in one of two main ways, making it seem like a simple binary thing.
And, in fact, there's research showing connections between transgender identity (where socially constructed gender -- usually based on the more obvious indicia of biological sex -- doesn't line up with gender identity) and instances where the various indicia of biological sex aren't aligned in the usual way. Its not, as I understand, apparently the only factor in transgender identity, but it seems to be a significant correlate.
The idea that gender ought to be simple seems largely supported by the illusion that sex is simple.
There's definitely a whole rabbit hole this way - lot of gender theory and stuff. If you're really curious, check it out, there are some interesting arguments (though few satisfying conclusions).
Funny that HE says that, since disregarding your moral stand point on a non cisgender person, the reality, observational and scientific, is that sex is much more complicated than male and female. What we do with that may be up for discussion, but I find ironic how he's trying to deny this reality, basically, by just saying so.