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andrew worth
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Comments by "andrew worth" (@andrewworth7574) on "Rationality Rules" channel.

To our ancestors sex and gender were almost always synonyms. Pointing to examples in which cultural expressions of the sexes were different to today isn't evidence of multiple genders.
35
Relatively doesn't dispose of newtonian physics, we don't rewrite meanings in the dictionary to suppress to traditional meaning of words. Woman is an adult human female is a traditional definition, as is doe is a female deer. People who use the traditional definition aren't "wrong" in their definition. You can invent new definitions, traditionalists aren't obligated to adopt your definition.
31
Your claims that "it's only a small number of people who regret being talked into surgery is not based on actual data, you're following your preferred narrative. Tavistock has refused or been unable to release the relevant data.
26
 @eattherich1793 which means women would almost never get to represent their state or their country. Such a situation sounds like misogyny.
19
Apparently some of what was going on a Tavistock contradicts your claim that ideology wasn't perverting the medical integrity of the process of gender reassignments.
18
What's wrong with being intersex? You guys are working on the assumption that others have a problem that some people are not of either sex, so rather than just acknowledge that they're intersex you're determined to define sex as not binary with some people not clearly members of either sex. Not being clearly member's of either sex doesn't make them less human.
18
Would be great if they took a serious look at the criticisms in the comments - but I'm not optimistic, in a previous video they did a disgraceful cherrypick on a discussion Dawkins had.
17
Yep, it's often the "tell", when people claim they're objective, scientific and rational that they're so emersed in their preferred ideology that they're incapable how much their opinions have been captured by that ideology, but they just can't resist the digs at those they see as the enemy.
17
Heck of a lot of comments criticizing Woodford's and Valkai's claims. Their response? Must be sexist, genderist Christian bigots. Ahh, nope, like me, most of your critics on this are your atheist subscribers.
12
1:22:00 claiming the religious are claiming the moral high ground. I'm not religious, but throughout this discussion Valkai seems to be the one claiming moral superiority.
11
1:16:00 So the word woman has no social utility unless people are mind readers. Someone has to believe they're a woman to be a woman, simply telling people they're a woman, or telling people they identify as a woman doesn't make them a woman.
9
Valkai always returns to ideology. He clearly brings "progresssive" ideology into the science. Real science isn't based in ideology.
9
What's your take on "gender is a social construct"? If I understand the meaning, this suggests that transgender people who feel they are in a body of the wrong sex don't have that feeling based on something innate in them, it's somehow a product of social conditioning.
9
@Neonb1bLes yes, I get it from ideologues on both sides, I guess I'm doubly persecuted, the cross I have to bear for sticking to the evidence.
9
Too many absolute assertions from Valkai without any numbers available to support his claims.
8
@coffeecoder8162 you're obviously an American, in case you haven't noticed, your entire country has gone nuts. I think Bill Maher is one of the few sane people remaining.
8
"Girl", "Woman", "boy" and "man" are not just words in english that have been used to label human females and males for nearly a thousand years. They've been the primary words for that function ("is it a boy or girl?") and for most I expect will continue to do so as their utility in that role is too high for them to be converted into gender terms. So, given that the push to change the meaning of such basic terms with such a high use and utility has been orchestrated by a minority of the population and against the interests of the majority, of course there's going to be push back against such linguistic piracy. Compare this piracy to the change in the meaning of the word "gay", it had already evolved from simply carefree to, in the 1950s, lackadaisical with an edge of promiscuity, and it was never an important word in English, it was an alternative to more commonly used words with similar meaning. If we need words to denote genders (and I agree we do) there are obvious options in "femme" and "masc", which were already serving or close to serving as gender terms.
7
@Melesniannon I think the OP is addressing the claim that sex is nonbinary. So the analogy would be as some people are born without legs, or with 3 legs, the human species is not a bipedal species, it is monopedel, bipedal and also tripedal. All the text books, people and scientists that say the human species is bipedal are wrong.
6
Very good, looking forward to your apology to all the Christians you've offended.
5
"But I must say, I'm with Alex O'Connor on this one, the only fair treatment of slaves is their immediate emancipation with adequate compensation". You're applying the morals of the world you live in today to a world that was completely different, in that other world most people died during childhood, if you had 6 children chances were that 3 to 4 of them would die when children, being the master gave you and your kids a better chance of survival than being the slave, but being the slave gave you and your children a much better chance of survival than if you were homeless, living on the street with your sons thieving to survive and your daughters selling their bodies for sex. So "their immediate emancipation with adequate compensation" was not a great prospect you imagine. Today we are lucky enough to live in a rich world, rich largely due to our technology, it means we live in a non-zero sum population world, for our children to survive other peoples children don't have to die. So if you ever magically find yourself back in that world, hang on to whatever form of food income you have, even if it's just as a slave.
5
Most of those comments criticizing Woodford and Valkai are from atheists.
5
@CorwinFound thanks for your thoughtful response. I do however think that your reply, with the evidence that I know Valkai has referred to in the past, pushes the weight of evidence towards a biological rather than social basis for gender. Obviously gender EXPRESSION is largely cultural, but I think gender orientation, like sexual orientation, is based on innate characteristics, though not necessarily heritable. I'm strong on evolution psychology, and when I see other primates adhering to gender roles, I think that's good evidence that it's instinctive. A couple of analogies: I think we have social instincts that shape human morality - but society has an overlay of cultural morality. Cake might be a social construct, but food is a biological necessity, dressing food up as a cake doesn't alter the fact that the cake is still food.
5
Who the f said intersex people aren't human! Huge strawman!
5
"Gender is a social construct" If so people in male bodies that see themselves as female choose to have that gender disphoria, rather than it being something beyond their psychological control. Perhaps for many these days that's true, being trans is trendy, but I'm certain that gender disphoria is a genuine condition, rather than being a "social construct".
4
Very noticeable at times "man" or "woman" was used in the discussion when, according to their definitions they should have been using "male" or "female".
4
 @HistoritorJimaldus economic freedom, individualism, democracy, these are things that the right stands for, should we talk pogroms, gulags, and poverty, creations of the left?
4
I question how genuine his claims of ignorance of sport are, when those claims amount to claims of ignorance about the substantial differences between male and female athleticism.
4
Regarding Woodford's earlier castle analogy, in which he argues that language is imprecise, words evolve and therefore women can have penises. Can I point out that it's not just a case of extending the means of the words "man" and "woman", which traditionally have meant adult human male and female respectively. If it were merely a case of extending the meaning, describing a transwoman (with male biology) as a "man" would be perfectly reasonable because, biologically, she's a male. What is required is for the traditionally meaning, as referring to sex, to be canceled and banned, and that the word only ever be used to denote gender. That's a complete redefining of the words "man" and "woman", two words that until today, and for nearly a thousand years, have had extremely high utility as nouns for adult human males and females, there simply are no substitute words with the same utility and meaning. "Male" and "female" apply to almost all animals and many plants, and apply to all ages, not just adults, other words like "lady", "dame" and "gentlemen" and "bloke" usually apply to subsets of "women" and "men".
3
@junetalon8796 I just watched a video by Forrest Valkai from 2 years back entitled Sex and Sensibility. He gets onto gender at about the 17 minute mark, stating "gender is a social construct", gives the usual arguments about men in dressed, girls as mechanics to support the "social construct" claim, but then goes on to explain how gender roles in other species are a product of biology - and then emphasizes that in humans gender is a product of the physiological brain structure - that it's males with female brain characteristics that are usually the ones with gender disphoria. Can you explain his claim that "gender is a social construct" given the evidence he then goes on to offer that gender is a product of biology? Am I (we) missing something, or has a Forrest fallen out of its tree?
3
@junetalon8796 Valkai didn't differentiate between gender roles and gender identity, in the video I reference, nor does Woodford in this video, the claim is "gender is a social construct" in both cases. Given the importance of biology in gender identity (overwhelmingly important) and how that would be a very considerable influence on gender roles (men hunt, women gather, men do things, women do people) I take the position that the "social construct" contribution to "gender identity" is negligible and to gender roles in any meaningful way small. So why the sweeping "gender is a social construct" claim when that is almost entirely not the case? Must be ideology is more important than science to Forrest.
3
@junetalon8796 The societies we live in in the West have been changed massively over the last century by technology and wealth. 100 years ago, keeping a family home in order was a full-time job, so required a full-time homemaker. Today appliances like washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and heat pumps, along with instant hot water and quick and easy shopping trips in cars to get food largely already prepared has reduced house keeping to a couple of hours a day. Additionally, technology has brought about inexpensive mass education and most employment being far less physical. The Western Europe of 100 years ago is in many ways more like the Middle East and India of today than the Western Europe of today, and as other parts of the world become wealthier they will also become more Western in culture. Conversely, if civilization crumbled tomorrow and Europe returned to the technology and energy availability of two centuries ago, poverty would quickly see a return to a similar culture and education levels of two centuries ago. To illustrate my point, I will mention that the life expectancy of 1920's Western Europe was less than it is in Africa today.
3
Yep, there's a lot of hypocrisy buried in all Valkai's motivated reasoning.
3
@junetalon8796 we also see it in some schools, those that encourage woke ideology, but not in others. If we look at those with gender disphoria we find the incidence of this condition is far higher in those with childhood trauma, especially sexual abuse.
3
@junetalon8796 woke ideology is a self congratulatory belief held by people who see themselves as morally superior to others in society on the basis that they see themselves as being awake to social injustices that they view others as being blind to. A lot like other religious beliefs that also look down on those blind to their faith. The adherents of these religions see confirmation in their beliefs in all things, this ability to see evidence in support of their beliefs everywhere is call confirmation bias. High correlation with childhood trauma is indicative that that trauma likely contributes to the gender disphoria, evidence that in many cases the disphoria is not innate. If a person has had childhood trauma that leads to a condition that causes them difficulty in later life, the usual treatment is to recognize the condition and treat it, not to affirm the condition as normal for that person. Western society is happy to live with gay people and transpeople, generally gay people are happy to live with the rest of society without demanding special rights, like, for example, demanding that members of one sex be treated as members of the opposite sex or being addressed as members of the opposite sex, having certain privileges that are given to people of the opposite sex, including entering those spaces reserved for members of the opposite sex.
3
I'm betting you're a Marxist with the good sense to choose not to live under Marxism.
3
The "gender is a social construct" claim became fashionable about 30 years with the "blank slate" theory, which was popular on the left as it supported the claim of oppression of women. The fact that Valkai continues to spout it, while at the same time claiming that there are physiological female and male brains, is a result of his buy in to woke ideology. Ideology is blinding him to the contradictions in his own words.
3
@citizenghosttown your reply isn't a rebuttal of my point: woman has historically meant "adult human female" and did not include people with a penis, the claim that it's meaning was imprecise enough to include males, in the way the meaning of the word "castle" is imprecise, is false.
3
 @Neckhawker I've watched another Valkai video in which he is categorical that brain physiology shows gender aligning with sex
3
We should be skeptical of claims not supported by peer review. 24 of each sex/gender group is a very small sample, I would hope Valkai has more papers to offer supporting his very adamant claims on brain physiology. It would be expected in science for a scientist making such claims to cite his evidence.
3
"Fear or aversion", ("phobic" is often used in chemistry) though I agree with you in principle.
3
I appreciate Stephen challenging Valkai at the end on sports issues, and Valkai revealed that, yep, for him it's all about the woke ideology he believes in. Valkai is proposing the end of female international sport, in fact the end of female sport at any senior level.
3
I'll also point out that both Woodford and Valkai slip up during their discussion and use the terms "man" and "woman" when referring to the sexes. Nice illustrations of the words' utility as descriptors of sex rather than gender.
3
"Woke" in this context, was developed as a self-congratulatory word for those who saw themselves as being "awake" to the alleged social injustices us lesser beings were supposedly unaware of.
3
@shannonkey9926 who claimed who doesn't exist?
3
@Capybarrrraaaa conservatives have a divergence of opinion like any other large group, if you see them all as the same, you're the ideologue, that is, one who is uncompromising and dogmatic on ideology.
3
@shannonkey9926 who's voted against whose rights and what is a "right"?
3
@shannonkey9926 oh, who creates or bestows these "rights" of which you speak? Are they God given, or given by some other high entity?
3
@shannonkey9926 so if a majority say such and such isn't a right, even though you think it's a right, it isn't a right.
3
@shannonkey9926 evidently you're incapable of defining what you mean by "we collectively decide our rights". I've had a couple of cracks at it, as I assumed you meant either society as a whole or individually. You now seem to rule out individually, so society as a whole. So if an elected government decides it disagrees with your definition of "rights" and take certain privileges away from some members of society, tough shit, they're not taking away your "rights" they're, likely in your case, taking away privileges that "we collectively" as a society, have decided aren't "rights".
3
@nonripeloki8959 A description of Forrest I read and agree with: "He's good on evolution, but devolves into anti-consensus babble when it comes to controversies on sex-related topics."
3
@nonripeloki8959 most biologists certainly don't agree with Valkai "anti-consensus" is the opposite of "consensus", your reading comprehension is very bad. The balance of your comment is just strawmanning me, no doubt motivated by the belief in the stereotypes your ideology instills in you.
3
@vansen-qod what scientific data are you referring to?
3
Put it like that a Forrest is obviously a misogynist, wishing to see women completely dominated by men in sport - sorry females dominated by males in sport.
3
@BlarglemanTheSkeptic2 saying a transwoman is a woman because it's in the name is not an argument.
2
Agree with your entire comment. What stands out to me though, is that to dismiss the deep feelings of gender disphoria that some have so lightly as a social construct sounds a bit dismissive and insulting.
2
@junetalon8796 what massive shifts?
2
@junetalon8796 and I could go on and on about how wealth and contraceptives have obliterated the importance of family honor in Western countries, a cultural feature that is still very important in poorer countries, countries in which there is no social safety net and where an unmarried mother would be a major financial liability to her family, a family hoping to see her married to the right man, because the wrong man would see serious hardship for any children and also the parents in their older years.
2
@junetalon8796 the roles are still relative to the biological and gender construction of human beings. If there's less need for time being spent on gathering or house keeping for women or on hunting or defense for men, the two genders still, on the whole, continue to favor the new roles available and created that best suit the psychology of each gender.
2
@junetalon8796 there are papers on all sorts of things. The hunter and warrior role for men and the housekeeper and caregiver role for women is rather well established. If we look at modern society, the men do certain things, especially physical and high-risk jobs, and women do the caregivers and less physical jobs, so the gender roles are still there.
2
@junetalon8796 because there are psychological differences between the masculine and feminine genders. Are you really disputing that? Physically the human species is moderately dimorphic, so are the genders. Remember the bit from Valkai about the differences in the brain structure that exists between the genders?
2
@junetalon8796 when people claim "gender roles are a social construct," they're saying that people of different genders are coerced or manipulated into roles that society says they're required to fill. They're arguing against the existence of significant biologically driven psychological preferences existing. Claiming otherwise, I think, would be disingenuous.
2
It has become a fad, but that large fad has been built on a small core of real people with gender disphoria.
2
A string of strawmen and nutpicking that can be refuted with two words that Woodford fails to address: gender disphoria. Just as intersex is a sex that occurs when biological processes go astray, and the existence of intersex people doesn't refute what nature is designed for gender disphoria is a disconnect between the mind and body. Nature intends men to be male and women to be female, the fact that that process goes astray doesn't make it a normal human condition for gender and sex not to align. Some people born with a cleft pallet or two heads doesn't make such conditions normal.
2
@CT-ju5lc I mostly disagree, they are not advocating for slavery in the form that it was actually practiced (as RR demonstrates), today or in any other form that the word is now used. They are trying to believe that slavery then was not what it in fact was. Christianity, as with any religion that has been able to survive over thousands of years of dramatic social and technological evolution, is adaptable, a Christian today is nothing like a Christian of two thousand years ago. Humans are foremost creatures evolved to survive, we are not so much rational as rationalizing - which is better for survival in a zero sum world. Rationally your own tribe is likely no more moral than the enemy tribe across the river - that's rational, but rationalizing your own moral superiority or superiority in some other way makes it a lot easier to wipe out the enemy, and so enhancing your own off-springs survival chances. So Christian of today rationalize away the passages in the Bible that don't suit the Christians of today. I've no doubt that in a breif discussion I can also catch you out rationalizing - as RR rationalizes that "the only fair treatment of slaves (of two thousand years ago) is their immediate emancipation with adequate compensation".
2
@citizenghosttown "a man is an adult human male" and "woman is an adult human female" are definitions that have been used for thousands of years, in the same way that "doe" and "stag" are definitions of female and male deer. Woodford's castles analogy is nonsense, as "woman with penises" is not a variation of that ancient and established definition of woman, it's a new and radically different definition.
2
Title and abstract of a paper I found. More papers saying the same thing would bring more confidence in the findings: Brain Sex in Transgender Women Is Shifted towards Gender Identity Florian Kurth,1,*† Christian Gaser,2,† Francisco J. Sánchez,3 and Eileen Luders1,4,5 Gianluca Castelnuovo, Academic Editor Author information Article notes Copyright and License information PMC Disclaimer Associated Data Data Availability Statement Go to: Abstract Transgender people report discomfort with their birth sex and a strong identification with the opposite sex. The current study was designed to shed further light on the question of whether the brains of transgender people resemble their birth sex or their gender identity. For this purpose, we analyzed a sample of 24 cisgender men, 24 cisgender women, and 24 transgender women before gender-affirming hormone therapy. We employed a recently developed multivariate classifier that yields a continuous probabilistic (rather than a binary) estimate for brains to be male or female. The brains of transgender women ranged between cisgender men and cisgender women (albeit still closer to cisgender men), and the differences to both cisgender men and to cisgender women were significant (p = 0.016 and p < 0.001, respectively). These findings add support to the notion that the underlying brain anatomy in transgender people is shifted away from their biological sex towards their gender identity"
2
@eattherich1793 so cite the studies. And 24 is a small sample size, hundreds would be a reasonable sample size.
2
@theboombody innate morality is built into our genes, it's morality that serves us as a social species across all cultures. So no need for universal morality outside of humanity - apart from other sentient species whose evolution would instill in their genetic makeup their own moral codes that best serve their survival in the ecological niche they fill.
2
 @HistoritorJimaldus Stephen also has referred to woke ideology in his videos. If you don't recognize it exists you're like a fish blind to the medium it's swimming in.
2
 @HistoritorJimaldus about 80% of the public are very familiar with what is meant by woke ideology.
2
Anyone who thinks they're free of bias, an island without bridges tying them to a narrative, should be regarded with skepticism.
2
@tomyossarian7681 the proof is in the results. Woke has become a call to suppress other opinions through violence and the threat of violence, including lies, misrepresentations, canceling people and threats to force dismissals from employment.
2
@traplover6357 a new definition doesn't automatically make an older definition wrong, so if Matt Walsh says woman means adult human female, that's a perfectly valid definition - and one that the majority of English speaking people agree with.
2
@Capybarrrraaaa definitely sounds like you're an ideologue. Fanatical about your own ideology, derisive towards those of other ideologies. Obviously driven by emotion and not reason. Very much a repeat of what I've seen from Valkai.
2
@shannonkey9926 so other people can decide what you claim as a "right" isn't a "right", so they're not taking any objectively defined "rights" away.
2
The sort of morality he's talking about is innate to us, so common to all humans, if it'a appalling, it's appalling to all of us, if not appalling, also not appalling to all of us - he even describes it as innate. So admits it's instinctive - a product of evolution.
2
@tomyossarian7681 the vast majority of people recognize that there are 2 sexes and that those 2 sexes are biologically quite distinct, that recognition is innate. So it's logical to have seperate sports events for the 2 sexes if we're want to see women competing in sport at senior levels, and yes, the vast majority want to see women competing in sport at senior levels. So that's how it is, and that's how it's going to remain. Despite your wishes, in the long term dictating to the vast majority always fails.
2
 @tomyossarian7681 in another thread Angelagreen refers to you as a moron. Angelagreen is correct.
2
@nonripeloki8959 bringing a biologist in that Woodford knows agrees with him, or takes an even more woke position than Woodford does, is Woodford's way of appealing to authority - something Woodford would normally be very critical of.
2
@citizenghosttown Appeal to authority fallacy refers to the use of an expert's opinion to back up an argument. Instead of justifying one's claim, a person cites an authority figure who is not qualified to make reliable claims about the topic at hand. Valkai is an evolutionary biologist, and as far as I can ascertain doesn't have a Masters yet.
2
@citizenghosttown Valkai isn't an expert and he speaks against the opinions of most biologists dealing in sex and reproduction which is that sex is binary.
2
@angryfoetus I'm puzzled by your reference to the Bible, do you consider it an authority on evolution?
2
@vansen-qod "thus a transgender person is one whose gender phenotype does not match their sex genotype. It's that simple" Unless "phenotype" has a new definition, what you describe is intersex, not transgender.
2
@vansen-qod "woman" was "adult human female" with no ambiguity until a couple of decades ago, it's analogous to words like: vixen, cow, sow, doe and hen. Perhaps you should look up the definitions of those words.
2
@vansen-qod all good, it's been an interesting discussion and has made me try to think from the various perspectives. Thank you.
2
Since when did gay rights equal feminism??
1
I thought Jesus was a Marxist?! "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. "
1
There's the liberal left and the illiberal left, the illiberal left has always been there, they've ruled in many authoritarian left wing governments.
1
@junetalon8796 yep, I always go back to how such things work in other social mammals. Obviously they have instinctive gender roles. For us, it's the same, but with a cultural overlay.
1
@junetalon8796 that's the cultural overlay.
1
@junetalon8796 perhaps the "gender is a social construct" claim is based more on an ideological agenda: women are oppressed by the patriarchy, if only that oppression were to end more women would be mechanics, drainlayers and plumbers.
1
@junetalon8796 that's a genuine question. You see massive shifts and ascribe them to cultural changes pushing aside traditional gender roles, I see the expected shifts in culture that are entirely expected given more significant changes driven by other interrelated factors.
1
@junetalon8796 the different gender psychology gives each gender a bias towards pursuing the roles available in a society that best fit each genders innate psychology. That is the opposite of "gender is a social construct." gender is real and innate and gravitates towards the preferred roles.
1
@junetalon8796 what evidence do you have that that wasn't largely the case? People in past times thought differently to how we do now. A century ago the unscaled IQ of European peoples was 20 points lower than today, a massive difference (look up Flynn Effect). In West Africa today FGM is a tradition promoted and enforced, not by the patriarchy as people imagine, but by the tribal matriarchies. Mothers in the times you mention brought up their daughters to adhere to the social narratives that existed at the time, just as you adhere to certain currently fashionable social narratives. People are far more individualistic today compared to past generations. Back then you were expected to make sacrifices in terms of personal freedom for the sake of the family that you were very dependent on. An analogy can be drawn with the military. In the army you have to conform because nonconformity can result in disastrous outcomes when the pressure is on.
1
@junetalon8796 the evidence also is that feminism, in its current forms, is recent. Since I referred to it, this from an article on FGM in Liberia: "In 2012, female genital cutting was a taboo subject in Liberia. Though women’s activists had done heroic work to kill the practice, Liberia’s political leaders, including President Sirleaf, avoided the topic. They feared enraging the powerful traditional societies that dominate politics in 10 of Liberia’s 16 tribes. The women’s secret society known as Sande—an ancient organization with its own traditions and religious beliefs, which predates Islam and Christianity—claims that cutting a girl’s genitals is essential for her passage to adulthood."
1
Thanks, now 16
1
If gender is primarily instinctive, you would expect an instinctive reaction from most people to others nonconformity to expected gender expressions - likely surprise and discomfort - which is a common reaction.
1
@BlarglemanTheSkeptic2 There's a gender instinct, that is, there's an instinct to differentiate between male and female gender and to conform to the cultural norms for those two genders. Trans people who see themselves as male in female bodies and vice versa feel that (I'm not trans but accept their gender disphoria as a genuine part of them) it's internal and not a "social construct" somehow imposed on them. Obviously how gender norms are expressed vary from culture to culture, but the existence of those norms are real and exist in all cultures, that is, within cultures there are distinct female and male clothing styles and makeup and people are most comfortable dressing up to fit with their gender in their culture.
1
@BlarglemanTheSkeptic2 gender disphoria is the motivation for people to try to switch genders (other than fake transgenderism where the motivations are less honest). Examples of multiple genders?
1
@stefanheinzmann7319 it's an instinct for parents to bring their kids up, do you dispute this? In some societies this up bringing is supported by a formal school system, is a formal school system a social construct? Does the existence of a formal school system prove that the instinct of parents to raise their kids doesn't exist? The confused thinking is yours.
1
@stefanheinzmann7319 humans are social animals, being such is instinctive to humans, do you deny this? In human societies there are numerous institutions laws and systems to support the function of our societies. Do you contend that the existence of these systems, laws and institutions is proof that humans actually don't have social instincts?
1
Your earlier point regarding Rachel Dolezal appears to require you to dismiss either the existence of racial dysphoria or that Rachel Dolezal has racial dysphoria.
1
@junetalon8796 you look at the evidence. What does a fad look like? A sudden trend that didn't exist before, with lots of people climbing on board, most popular amongst the "progressive" trendy within a demographic. For instance, in the US, being trans is far more popular in some states than in others, in the Western world, more popular in some countries than in others. If the true issue was innate gender disphoria, would we see such a strong correlation with young, trendy, far left progressives and not across the entire population?
1
@junetalon8796 I don't care if trans or gay present as cis. Their business, as long as trans women with dicks don't think their dicks don't preclude them being men - men being adult human males.
1
The opinion that we are not born with a blank slate is well established, we have a species wide moral foundation, on top of this genetic foundation the cultures we live in instill cultural moral principles. Isn't that just another way of looking at and reaching the same conclusions you have? We have "objective" morality as long as you define "objective" in terms of humanity, rather than inanimate universal laws, and we can have the very mailable "subjective" morality in terms of our complex interwoven "cultures"?
1
sasilik: "Newborn baby has already some moral concepts?" I think they do, even though those moral concepts don't necessarily express themselves from birth but develop as the child develops, young children rarely try to actually kill each other even though they are physically capable of doing so, we see similar moral restraints on other animals, lion cub siblings could also kill each other, but don't.
1
Skeptic Psychologist Three year olds are easily physically able to inflict mortal wounds on each other with readily available objects, they frequently inflict minor injuries on each other but very, very rarely go further, in fact off hand I don't know of any example of a young child hitting another child with a brick or stabbing another with a sharp object and causing death. You're right, they're very egocentric and lack the ability to consciously understand the effects of their actions. These facts are evidence that they're restrained through innate controls that prevent actions that seriously damage each other. Guns are obviously another matter, but we didn't evolve with guns.
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Skeptic Psychologist, I think you're more casting doubt than looking at reality. 3 year olds are not averse to assaulting each other, to dismiss the rarity of actions between them resulting in serious injury or death on mislabeling, absence of suitable victims ,rarity of opportunity or lack of means beggars belief. Young kids hold back from seriously hurting each other, I have several of kids, I once was a kid, my observation and experience is that they innately know not to go too far, and if the next step is suggest that maybe it's because their parents tell them not to fight or hurt each other that's not realistic. When I say that young children using readily available objects, (hard heavy and sharp objects that have been around children for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years) to assault each other without subconscious consideration of the risk of serious harm is rare, I mean rare to a degree at which more than, I think, chance or luck would account for, take a million 3 year olds, multiply by 10 years and I doubt there would be more than a handful of serious assaults involving heavy, hard or sharp objects, but there would be millions of minor assaults and hundreds of thousands of armed assaults in which the assailant held back, choosing not to inflict the damage they are physically able to. We can also look at the rest of the animal kingdom where instincts not to seriously hurt siblings, or with some animals, instincts to eliminate siblings, demonstrates a marked consistency of behaviour within species.
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I haven't been able to find a single example of a child less than 5 years old deliberately assaulting another child with a sharp or heavy object in such a way as to kill. Given the hundreds of millions of children that age, and young children's propensity to assault each other, the suggestion that it's all down to luck or worldwide good parental supervision rather than children having an innate restraint in their assaults on each other defies reason.
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" . . Kids don't kill or harm each other deliberately just because they don't know anything," No they do harm each other, frequently, they assault each other far, far more often than adults assault each other. "Its like saying that rocks have morals against killing because they dont' kill each other." Do you really think that's a reasonable analogy? Really? "Kids are not able to do anything really" Have you had no experience with children?? My youngest is 3, he can bash things with a hammer, fasten a seat belt, move a chair from the dinning room to get into the top kitchen cupboards to nick biscuits and gets into all sorts of other mischief, would he be physically capable of seriously injuring another child? You bet, but - and this is a huge but - he's not psychologically capable of doing it, no children his age are, it's against their nature. "And yes, its all down to good parental supervision, nothing to do with any innate morals." You've obviously had no experience with children in the real world. Frankly, in your desperation you're resorting to nonsense.
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“The child is a natural moralist, who gets a huge helping hand from its biological makeup,” writes de Waal in The Bonobo and the Atheist. But that helping hand from nature is rounded out by nurture. From his research on babies, conducted in the Infant Cognition Center at Yale, Bloom has come to see that we are born with this innate moral sense but that it gets fine-tuned over time through learning. " https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/11/as-babies-we-knew-morality/281567/
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KEvronista Did you read the link?
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So you reject the conclusion without reading the evidence on which the conclusion is based.
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If moral values have a genetic basis they would still exist within the individual even though, absent contact with humans or other animals, they would never be enacted.
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Word games. The difference between saying "moral code" and "moral coding"
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RR your whole case is built on a fallacy, in that you're comparing the religion of Islam with the non religious West, if you were to compare todays Islam with the teachings of other religions, Christianity or Judaism whatever, with Western societies that perhaps 50 or 100 years ago practiced those religions you'd find Western laws and practices, based in Christianity, that are far more repressive than the situation that exists today. Yassmn Abdel-Magied never claims that Islam is more feminist than todays non-religious West.
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@matthewgagnon9426 RR claims that morality is objective, and many Christians, at least by their actions, demonstrate they're willing to accept changing moral codes.
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"The Triumph of Evil" I dislike the use of the word "evil" here, punishment of heretics isn't exactly new, in fact not so long ago it was pretty common in many if not most major religions. To survive religions must serve the proclivities and biases of their adherents, for this aspect of Iranian Islam to change the views of Iran's Muslims will have to change. If Christian Churches still wished to punish heretics the religion would quickly die because adherents would not find such punishment acceptable today - but once they would have.
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What you refer to is one of the things offered by Woodford that most annoyed me. The accusations that Dawkins didn't differentiate between sex and gender based on earlier parts of the referenced discussion, which were focused on sex, when the difference between sex and gender WAS talked about later in the discussion, which Woodford apparently didn't watch.
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The reason the major Abrahamic religions have survived for so long is because adherents came pick and choose from vast quantities of scripture, with a huge range of interpretations and with many passages contradicting other passages, this huge diversity allows adherents to modify their beliefs to that which best suits the variations in society we've seen over the last few thousand years. Any religion that actually has immutable moral codes . . . dies.
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@lewreed1871 your reply is not a refutation, more like an admission you don't have an argument.
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Many overwhelmingly Christian countries despise homosexuality, because those countries are Christian, in the West homosexuality is accepted because western countries are increasingly nonreligious.
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@eattherich1793 I realize your primitive brain craves certainty, that's the problem, you're not interested in the soundness of the evidence your certainty is based on.
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@eattherich1793 if you posted a link to the study, that'll be why only you can see it.
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@eattherich1793 thank you. It's popular to label gender a social construct, as Valkai does, how does that work when there's a biological basis?
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@eattherich1793 I've addressed that question "how is gender a social construct when there's clearly a physiological basis?" to several people in these comments, sadly, they all run away without answering, or confuse gender (how one sees oneself), with gender expression, (what people wear, how they dress to align with their particular societies sex/gender). This confusion is obvious in Woodford's and Valkai's discussion.
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@stefanheinzmann7319 it is inconceivable to me because that's not what a social construct is. Listen very carefully to how Woodford defines social construct, and listen to how Valkai praises his definition and explanation. Or just look it up.
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@eattherich1793 "In the fields of sociology, social ontology, and communication theory, social constructionism is a framework that proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of the pure observation of said physical reality." [Wiki] Something created and agreed upon by social consensus rather than derived from physical reality. [Me]
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@eattherich1793 is gayness a social construct or are gay people "born that way"?
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@Capybarrrraaaa if you watch the video there's a point where they see a need to include intersex people as being a sex, apparently, because . . . Well, they never really explain why, but simply accepting that they fit outside the sex binary isn't acceptable. I think it's the need to include everyone so everyone can feel good about themselves. I don't know why someone being excluded from the sex binary should make them not feel good about themselves, or why science should be twisted to make people feel good about themselves. But there you have it.
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In other videos Valkai claims that transgender people in male bodies have physiologically female brains, and vis versa. I'd like to ask him how he can then claim gender is a social construct rather than a product of biology.
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 @HistoritorJimaldus sounds like you're also incapable of separating science and ideology.
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"I am a Marxist. . ." Ryan Chapman may be able to cure you of that.
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Government does not create the social contract, the social contract can be explained by evolutionary psychology, we are social animals, we have innate moral codes that are the basis of the social contract.
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Remember Alan Turing.
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If you have an animal (person) that's half horse (male) and half zebra (female) is it a separate species (sex) or just interspecies (intersex)?
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Excellent comment
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 @Bamstacks what source do you recommend for the number of detransitioners, I know Taverstock isn't releasing that information.
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There are two forms of morality: 1. Innate, which is instinctive morality that's a product of our genetic makeup, and which is common to humanity and for humans a constant, and 2. Cultural morality, which can change quickly in any given society and differs between societies.
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At the end you do raise a valid point, "equality of opportunity", if only such a thing existed within a country such as Britain, it doesn't. I suppose in theory it could be achieved if we built a society free of hierarchical systems, perhaps some form of communism, the problem is that social hierarchical systems are part of human nature, I've seen no evidence that human societies could be stable and efficient without social hierarchical systems.
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I thought we'd worked out that Einstein was wrong, that quantum theory means that God does play dice, and that quantum fluctuations can create a universe - without the need of a God.
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Every critical discussion on the protected and revered members of our society is hate speech, once the protected members were men of the church, at other times royalty were the most protected and revered of people. Today it's the trans-gender community and members of less well off minorities that have this popular protection by social consensus. Obviously the above statement would instantly be seen by the woke as proof of me being racist and trans-phobic, even though a considered analysis would conclude that what I say above is actually a criticism of and only of the woke mindset that's created this special protection from criticism, not and not of itself a criticism of the most protected and revered people of today.
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@HistoritorJimaldus there's a guy on YouTube, Ryan Chapman, with a video up The Intellectual Roots of Wokeness. Worth watching, he analyzes a lot of topics across the ideological spectrum and you will be surprised how thorough and neutral he is.
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@darkoleskovsek2558 so are you going to offer the rate and supporting data at which people later regret undergoing gender "affirming" surgery (and what caring person wouldn't want to be affirming of some unfortunate and confused youngster?)
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@darkoleskovsek2558 if you want to build a case on claimed data the onus is on you to supply it.
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@darkoleskovsek2558 there's nothing "hostile" in my comments, you labeling as such is just an ad hominem.
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"If we're deterministic entities Libertarianism simply doesn't work". I see no more basis for that claim than a claim that "If we're deterministic entities capitalism simply doesn't work" or "If we're deterministic entities socialism simply doesn't work".
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@rl7012 sex is binary, but intersex is a real condition, with people who are neither XX or XY, many of whom have an intermediate sex phenotype. There are also people with XX genotype but obviously male phenotype and vis versa. The reason I still say sex is binary is because I don't see the many intersex conditions being sexes.
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@rl7012 you're just making things up: male XY, female XX. Go look it up.
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@rl7012 so you think XX female and XY male is made up nonsense? How about XXY individuals with a female phenotype, they are male in your mind? Out of curiosity, in your opinion is sex determined at birth or assigned at birth?
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@rl7012 now you've created an argument for yourself, you say sex is determined at birth - this is done on phenotype, you also claim sex is only determined by genotype. In many intersex conditions phenotype and genotype are opposite, a person can be XY but have female anatomy. So your two absolutist positions contradict each other.
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 @rl7012 so in your opinion and in the opinion of people who say sex is assigned at birth, that assignment/recognition can be wrong.
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 @rl7012 I've deleted no comments.
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RR, don't wrestle with a pig, you get covered in mud and the pig enjoys it.
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@cropcircles5697 if there is a physiological difference in the brain that aligns with transgender people seeing themselves as the opposite sex it makes a mockery of Valkai's other claim that gender is a social construct. He tries to have it both ways.
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I am looking forward to your discussion with Colin Wright.
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Gender is not a social construct. The dated claims that it is are derived from the popularity of the Blank Slate ideology of two decades ago. Valkai actually provides the evidence that gender is innate - something that's a product of biology, rather than created by society, when he points out that there are differences in brain structure that align with gender.
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 @lewreed1871 Valkai clearly stated that only mind readers can have certainty about what another persons gender is (perhaps detailed MRI scans might show evidence, but not certainty).
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but Muslims and Christians worship the same god.
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@xB0505 the majority of English speaking people do however use that straightforward definition. If the scientists want a word for people of "socially constructed" genders that won't be confused with female human or male human they should go invent a new word. The English speaking world already has satisfactory uses for "man" and "woman".
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Yep, humans have had instincts baked into their genes over millions of years just as other animals have, and for primates, there exist distinct gender roles performed by the males and females of primate species. That doesn't mean that gender disphoria in humans isn't a real condition. In fact, given the impact that gender disphoria has on some people's lives, it seems insulting to them to suggest that gender is just a social construct rather than a deep part of their being.
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So, objective morality = axiomatic oughts = innate morality? There's nothing original about the idea of the various human moral codes being based on innate morality + culturally derived morality.
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@Capybarrrraaaa would one of the batshit mad axioms you refer to be that: "people should be judged by the contents of their character and not by the color of their skin"? This being contrary to the belief many on the left and the KKK hold that treating people differently depending upon their race is important.
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@shannonkey9926 or are you saying anyone can name their own rights? So if I think it's my right to unilaterally take possession of your car, it's my right to do so.
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@daviddeida We're social animals, as are wolves and dolphins, and just as those animals are protective of pack and pod mates we're protective of others in our tribes. Simple really.
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@daviddeida "Morality extends beyond time and space," Whatever that's supposed to mean, evidence? "however loving someone as your self extends way beyond your need to survive" I've no idea what you think that's supposed to mean. "It dissolves the notion you are separate from your environment that you need protection from." More gobbledygook.
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@daviddeida "For example.Killing someone for pleasure is morally wrong today, tomorrow and the future." If they're a member of your tribe it'll definitely be frowned upon by other members of your tribe, if you're killing a member of an enemy tribe your tribe might just give you a medal. "You simply dont understand..I understand..you think you are an object that causes events to happen." I think it's you that doesn't understand, I see explanations for all human activity that requires no god or god devised morality. Simply the innate social instincts that we get as the result of evolution as social animals.
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@daviddeida "So yeah have your subjective morality but there is no evidence to say its evolutionary" I was under the impression that the religious claimed their God had devised universal objective morality. I see nothing in the moral codes other than further steps in complexity that we see in the behavior of other social animals, we get on with and understand other social animals because our social behaviors and theirs are basically the same, having the same evolutionary origin.
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Woodford labels gender disphoria as a "social construct", so a condition people choose to have. That sounds like making light of a genuine disconnect many trans people have between their physical sex and mental gender.
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1. Claim: Gender is a social construct. Valkai states that there are female and male brains, that that's a physiological fact. I will accept that claim as there are papers offering support to that position. So how is it that various authorities claim that it's a social construct when the current evidence is that it's a biological fact? I think the explanation is that there was a narrative called the "Blank Slate" that became popular 30 or so years ago, it was a narrative being pushed to support supposed widespread misogyny, that girls were disadvantages by what was an imposed cultural aspect. 2. Claim: A woman is an adult human female. For nearly a thousand years, man and woman referred to the two recognized human sexes, ditto for boy and girl. If we're distinguishing gender from sex (which I obviously agree with given I accept the existence of male and female brains) what is being asked of society is not an expansion of the meaning of such terms, but a redefining of them. That might be socially acceptable - except that as terms referring to sex rather than gender their utility is too high, there simply are no other words even remotely well established that mean adult human male and adult human female. So I think this attempt by those with an agenda to change the meaning of those words will inevitably fail, the gender use should be abandoned, and other words with less existing utility used. I suggest "femme" and "masc." 3. Claim: Sex is best defined by phenotype. I think for social purposes, this is correct. We can get too carried away discussing gametes and chromosomes, for practical and reasons of "common sense" the physical equipment is what counts. This does not mean that when it comes to things like competitive sport, where past sex can be relevant to current abilities, the same rule of thumb need apply.
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It's the woke who have been the rulers of cancel culture.
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 @Cecilia-ky3uw Jim hates the right. He'd rather live in a communist paradise.
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 @tomyossarian7681 in Western democracy the principle of majority rule is what counts, if you don't like it you should go live in a country that adheres to your dictatorial inclinations.
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@yashwanths2622 when you have a person in a male body who deeply feels that their gender is female, are you telling that person that that feeling is just a "social construct", rather than from an innate condition? If so, do you apply the same standard to sexual orientation? That peoples sexual orientation isn't innate, it's a social construct?
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@yashwanths2622 in some of his other videos Valkai says that gender is associated with brain physiology, that transgender people in male bodies have been shown to have female brains. If that is so (and in the videos from Valkai I'm referring to he's adamant it is), how can gender be a social construct rather than a biological product of physiology?
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@yashwanths2622 you understand the difference between physiology and psychology?
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"Some of the fruit of my labour should go to those less fortunate" you seem to be making the assumption that somehow you're exceptional in this respect, you are not, the vast majority of people do care for those less fortunate, and because of this the state compulsion of welfare is not necessary, all that state welfare has done is support people who could support themselves if they had to, and cause people who would donate to those less fortunate not to because such charity is now largely seen as the duty of the state. The state has taken the duty of looking after those less fortunate away from family and the community, creating a bloated bureaucracy to do a job that people would otherwise do themselves.
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Whenever someone resorts to a defense of "it's common sense" you can be sure that they're talking nonsense, that their opponent is relying on more than just their own senses or unquestioningly regurgitating what someone else has told them.
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@nonripeloki8959 plonker, did you even read my comment, or do you think sex and gender are unrelated?
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@citizenghosttown who said gender isn't different to biological sex? Why do you feel the need to make that point to me, did I say they're the same thing?
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live for the day.
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You say gender is, in your opinion, a "social construct", a social construct is a belief, not something with a physical or deep psychological basis. Sounds like you make light of people with genuine gender disphoria. If it's a social construct, they should just be able to change their minds about which gender they are.
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@BananaJunior11 if gender is a social construct it becomes a simple choice for people what their gender is, rather than something forced on them by their psychology.
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@BananaJunior11 If gender is a social construct, it has nothing to do with an individuals gender disphoria. Clearly there must be a genuine belief in someone that their gender doesn't match their sex for them to go through the process of reassignment surgery.
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@BananaJunior11 so gender disphoria is a medical condition. We are in agreement. Though I'd describe it as a psychological condition rather than medical. The theory that there isn't a strong innate tie of gender to sex goes against the weight of evidence. There is also an innate tie between sex and sexual orientation.
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@BananaJunior11 so you acknowledge that there is an innate tie of sex and gender and you acknowledge that people have a deep psychological connection to their gender. No "social construct" required.
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@BananaJunior11 humans are a product of evolution, like other mammals, do you think that males and females of other mammalian species act out gender roles because they're social constructs or as a result of biologically directed instincts?
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@BananaJunior11 this discussion has become pointless. My position is that humans, like all other mammals and all animals, are shaped by evolution, and instinctive behaviors are an inseparable component of that. Gender is clearly instinctive in mammals and inevitably so also in humans. To argue otherwise is also instinctive, a drive to conform to accepted group beliefs.
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@BananaJunior11 another silly analogy. Who said it is inherently the case that mammals can't fly, or that birds can? Humans have human instincts. You (and many other humans) might chauvinistically imagine that Human actions aren't under the control of instinctive behaviors like all other animals, but they are. Humans have a million years of evolution during which women and men were molded by evolution to optimize them mentally for the roles that they were also optimized for physically.
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@BananaJunior11 your desperation that humans are so different from other animals is almost religious, but that's what happens when ideological reasoning (tribalistic thinking) is promoted above clinical reasoning.
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@BananaJunior11 and now you try to strawman me, implying I've argued something I have not.
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@BananaJunior11 you probably should start with a better understanding of evolution and of the meaning of the word "trait" in evolutionary term. Humans evolved recently in evolutionary terms and traits change slowly to improve a species ability to survive, 100 million years of core instincts that are advantageous to survival of all mammalian species aren't going to disappear with human evolution unless their continued existence would terminate the species. You don't want gender to be instinctive in humans not because you offer an evolutionary reason for Humans not to have such instincts but because it doesn't suit your ideology. Even after you've admitted that there are obviously deep internally created gender characteristics in people with gender disphoria. Or would you like to dismiss their claims that their gender is from within them, and not a "social construct"?
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@BlarglemanTheSkeptic2 the only comment of yours that I see which is addressed to me is your question whether I believe human sexual attraction is instinctive. My answer is yes, without doubt.
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@BananaJunior11 so being a certain gender is instinctive (as I've said) but gender is a social construct. As I see it if something is a social construct it doesn't exist as an instinct, which isn't to say that between cultures there aren't different cultural expressions of gender, differences in customs and broader gender roles.
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@BananaJunior11 when you say "influenced by biology" are you including evolutionary psychology? Using an analogy: humans have evolved social instincts, so we live in societies, those societies are held together with the support of man made (socially constructed) institutions, laws, governing systems etc. It would obviously be an error to look at this huge amalgamation of "social constructs" and be blind to the instincts that motivated, in fact required, their construction and continued existence for society to function, and conclude that there's no evidence that humans are instinctively social animals - in fact more accurate to say their existence proves that we are instinctively social animals.
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 @BananaJunior11 "race is a social construct " If that were true race couldn't be determined by a DNA analysis.
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@dangallagher6176 you claim gender is a social construct but then talk about biological males with "female brains", clearly an argument that in cases of gender disphoria that the disphoria is biological and not a social construct. Perhaps you should consider the possibility that the vast majority of males have male brains, and that is the reason they are male by gender, and the vast majority of females have female brains and that is the reason they are female by gender.
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@BananaJunior11 your reply doesn't even address my observation that a person's race can be determined by examining their DNA. Do you think that the breeds of various species of animals, including wild animals, is a social construct?
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@BananaJunior11 it sounds like you're determined to claim that gender is a social construct, no matter how strong and obvious the evidence is that there's a biological difference that drives people to one or the other gender.
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@BananaJunior11 I think we're going to differ on the definition of "race", I'd define it in terms of ancestry, but I also attach no importance to it, unlike many who see it as an important aspect of ones identity.
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@dangallagher6176 I'm starting to appreciate in these discussions people might be using different definitions of "social construct". To me if something can vary from one culture to the next it's a social construct, if it's a common trait across all human cultures it's almost certainly genetic, the smile is genetic, so not a social construct, the handshake not common across cultures, so is a social construct. Though different societies vary in the details, gender differences are universal.
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@dangallagher6176 Stephen's use of the semantics of the word "castle" I consider the epitome of playing semantic games.
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@dangallagher6176 the traditionalists say a woman is an adult human female, for a very long time that's been the definition, Woodford argues that "woman" can include people with penises, and that is only the accepted definition for some people in the last couple of decades. The traditional definition is straightforward. Those who advocate Woodford's position aren't expanding the definition, they're creating a new definition, the traditionalist focus on mind and body, this new definition completely removes body from the definition. That's completely different to the definition of castle, more like removing "large strongly constructed building" from the definition, it's removing the core of the definition, do that and any building is a castle. So it's two definitions that now exist, traditionalists are not wrong, they're using a different definition, and as it's the established definition they're entitled to do so. All a bit like arguing that people who use the old meaning of the word "cool" (cold) are wrong as the word really means great or fantastic.
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@dangallagher6176 as Woodford would be well aware that the traditional definition of "woman" excluded people with penises I think "tricky" is appropriate in the way he argues his case.
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@vansen-qod I mean thousands of years.
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@vansen-qod eunuchs, men who have been castrated, in that Matthew passage it looks like they include men born with no exterior testes. You have a point?
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@vansen-qod I've done no cherry picking, you however have resorted to strawmanning. And you sound like you know I'm right.
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@vansen-qod I have pointed out that up until very recently the definition of "woman" was "adult human female", if it disturbs you that I haven't said that until "man" was defined as "adult human male", and analogous to terms like: buck, stag, bull, drake and rooster. . . Well fixed. In this discussion haven't said that the modern definition of "woman" and "man" are wrong, just as I haven't said that the modern use of "cool" (great, fantastic, rather than cold temperature) is wrong.
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@vansen-qod if with "your definition" you mean "adult human female" and "adult human male" those definitions are based on phenotype. I haven't been arguing the phenotype vs genotype issue. People with intermediate sex characteristics I consider intersex, in my opinion it's up to them how they label themselves sex wise. Transgender I think of as gender disphoria. Psychological gender not matching physical sex.
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@vansen-qod so you acknowledge that the castles analogy Woodford uses is false and deceptive. That the traditional definition is different to the new definition, that it's not that the traditional definition was so vague that women could include people with male genitalia. Two distinct definitions are now being used.
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@vansen-qod but . . . But you should be! Transpeople are just like castles, Woodford said so!
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@vansen-qod you see yourself however you want, I'm not creating the definitions.
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@BananaJunior11 I've decided in terms of sex I'll got with binary rather than bimodal. There's male, female, and many intersex conditions, most of which are infertile and so are not sexes they're intersex. The analogy I'll use is with two equine species. There are horses and zebras, each is a species, but between those two species you will find infertile hybrids, zorse (progeny of male zebra, female horse) and hebra (progeny of a male horse and female zebra). These infertile hybrids are not species, so wouldn't be included on a graph showing equine species populations. Not being included on a graph does not mean they do not exist, it just means they are not equine species, but they're still equines. So in my opinion on a graph of human sexes intersex is not a sex, so not included, on a graph of human beings intersex people obviously are include. The inclusion of intersex as sexes is not about science and logic, it's about affirmation.
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@vansen-qod I think Woodford said in his opinion you can't change sex. As I personally place more importance on phenotype in this (social) regard, it's the equipment you actually have that counts, even if it doesn't work, and because surgery can change that equipment, I accept that a sex change operation is exactly that. I know that doesn't square with what I said above regarding intersex people, that was more from a logical and scientific perspective, the phenotype issue is, as I say, more a social and psychological issue.
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@vansen-qod you appear to be under the impression that I care about your private life. I do not, I don't and I know nothing about it and want to know nothing about it, it's not relevant to the discussion. I've repeatedly acknowledged that I think gender is about the brain and mind and not body, that gender disphoria is a condition in which the gender of the mind doesn't align with the sex of the body. You appear to be projecting your hang-ups onto me.
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You're starting to sound like Stefan Molyneux.
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I see no reason to believe that being a Libertarian requires a belief in "natural rights", I don't hold such beliefs, perhaps you could explain why, as a Libertarian, I'm required to hold such beliefs.
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Evolutionary psychology claims that human instincts govern and direct human behavior, just as dog instincts govern and direct dog behavior. That is science, it can be tested and measured, so that branch of psychology is certainly a science.
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