"Her noble motive—keeping men out of women’s spaces—stumbles when she calls a mother 'male' to dodge her own logic’s cracks."
I’d followed la scapigliata — AKA Dr. Maja Bowen — on Twitter some years ago and had even exchanged a few tweets with her. Generally a smart cookie who’s more or less on the right side of history, at least with most of “gender ideology”:
QUOTE: Conflation of words "sex" and "gender" has arisen from Christian prudishness in a language that doesn't have gendered words (English). "Sex" is a homograph - word w 2 meanings. Sex=intercourse. Also sex=man, woman, boy, girl, male, female. Gender=masculine, feminine, neutral. UNQUOTE
However, as your post emphasizes, she is, rather sadly, very wide of the mark when it comes to the definitions for male and female. Which is how she wound up painting herself into a corner with that rather astounding claim that some mothers are males — who knew? There goes the male seahorse’s claim to fame and fortune! 🙄
But that painting oneself into a corner reminds me of Ignatius Loyola’s Rule 13 on “Thinking With the Church”:
QUOTE: "That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity[...], if [the Church] shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black." UNQUOTE
Too many so-called biologists, philosophers, and doctors are rather desperately committed to the biologically untenable idea that everyone has to have a sex from birth to death, and insist on using contradictory criteria for category membership that are anything but what is stipulated in standard biological definitions. See the Glossary in this article for those definitions:
But by those definitions, to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types. And those with neither are, ipso facto, sexless — a category that includes some third of us at any one time and encompasses the prepubescent, vasectomees, menopausees, generally infertile adults, most intersex, and transwomen who cut their nuts off. You might note that “biologists” Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers endorse some or all of that argument, as does a trio of biologists at the Wiley Online Library:
JC: "Those 1/6000 individuals are intersexes, neither male nor female."
For instance, a mammalian embryo with heterozygous sex chromosomes (XY-setup) is not reproductively competent, as it does not produce gametes of any size. Thus, strictly speaking it does not have any biological sex, YET. [my emphasis].
"Her noble motive—keeping men out of women’s spaces—stumbles when she calls a mother 'male' to dodge her own logic’s cracks."
I’d followed la scapigliata — AKA Dr. Maja Bowen — on Twitter some years ago and had even exchanged a few tweets with her. Generally a smart cookie who’s more or less on the right side of history, at least with most of “gender ideology”:
https://x.com/lascapigliata8/status/957968082978340864
QUOTE: Conflation of words "sex" and "gender" has arisen from Christian prudishness in a language that doesn't have gendered words (English). "Sex" is a homograph - word w 2 meanings. Sex=intercourse. Also sex=man, woman, boy, girl, male, female. Gender=masculine, feminine, neutral. UNQUOTE
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p3WXxRcXJGvseW4c71uAGD_azeHgMA_U/view?usp=sharing
And she had a useful and illuminating exchange with Professor Alice Roberts on Confucius:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PHUutQIX043OAFoj0DoMr55lCGQddvSX/view?usp=sharing
You may wish to take a gander at her fairly comprehensive set of articles, including a co-authored letter to the BMJ:
https://lascapigliata.com/
https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o629/rr
Though I see she has also had some “harsh words” with Andrew Doyle — not sure who has the high cards there but I would probably tip my hat to her:
https://x.com/andrewdoyle_com/status/1848416704625328376
However, as your post emphasizes, she is, rather sadly, very wide of the mark when it comes to the definitions for male and female. Which is how she wound up painting herself into a corner with that rather astounding claim that some mothers are males — who knew? There goes the male seahorse’s claim to fame and fortune! 🙄
But that painting oneself into a corner reminds me of Ignatius Loyola’s Rule 13 on “Thinking With the Church”:
QUOTE: "That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity[...], if [the Church] shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black." UNQUOTE
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=St._Mary%27s_Higher_Secondary_School,_Dindigul&oldid=797030740#Jesuit
Too many so-called biologists, philosophers, and doctors are rather desperately committed to the biologically untenable idea that everyone has to have a sex from birth to death, and insist on using contradictory criteria for category membership that are anything but what is stipulated in standard biological definitions. See the Glossary in this article for those definitions:
But by those definitions, to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types. And those with neither are, ipso facto, sexless — a category that includes some third of us at any one time and encompasses the prepubescent, vasectomees, menopausees, generally infertile adults, most intersex, and transwomen who cut their nuts off. You might note that “biologists” Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers endorse some or all of that argument, as does a trio of biologists at the Wiley Online Library:
JC: "Those 1/6000 individuals are intersexes, neither male nor female."
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/06/04/sf-chronicle-sex-and-gender-are-not-binaries/#comment-2048737
PZM: " 'female' is not applicable -- it refers to individuals that produce ova. By the technical definition, many cis women are not female."
https://x.com/pzmyers/status/1466458067491598342
For instance, a mammalian embryo with heterozygous sex chromosomes (XY-setup) is not reproductively competent, as it does not produce gametes of any size. Thus, strictly speaking it does not have any biological sex, YET. [my emphasis].
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202200173?af=R
Wow!