But Max, in all of this you haven’t once accused liberals of hating freedom.
It’s like you don’t even care.
(sniff)
I would point out that even strongly bimodal sexual characteristics are not completely bimodal. Intersex individuals do exist. And, while I do not think that we should restructure society around that fact, it does point out that hard gender binaries are just as socially inappropriate as hard sex binaries are medically inappropriate.
Well, yes - that’s why I said strongly. But it is strong. In the great majority of cases, we don’t have any more trouble “sexing” human babies unambiguously at birth based on their primary somatic sexual characteristics than we do other mammals.
But the problem with this line of argument is precisely that primary somatic sexual characteristics are strongly bimodal, while identity certainly is not. So advocating for social acceptance of the great diversity of gender identity by analogy to primary sexual characteristics just doesn’t hold up.
Worse, AIS is caused by genetic defects. If you suggest that someone who has a nonbinary gender identity is analogous to someone with AIS, you are opening the door to: “I told you so, they have mental disorder.” The true state of affairs is that the primary somatic sexual characteristics are strongly bimodal and not analogous to the brain, which is vastly more complex, and which includes a great diversity of gender identity and sexual orientation as part of the normal range of variation.
I think you are missing my point. I don’t care what the underlying cause is. It shouldn’t matter whether any configuration of humanity is caused by genetic defect*, environmental factors, or some combination of both. What matters is how it impacts the individuals lives and if requires intervention or accommodation. The cause is interesting in the abstract as scientific knowledge, but only practically valuable if it helps individuals lead better lives. Like transgender individuals, intersex individuals may need specific medical assistance and may seek accomdation.
Also, while it may feel that individuals living as intersexed is much less common than transgendered individuals, that does not appear to be true. LGB individuals make up less than 10% of the population(I am seeing between 3.5% to almost 7% in recent surveys), but in those surveys, transgender is about 10% of that (0.35-0.7%). About 1.7% of population has intersex traits, and 0.5% are "clinically identifiable", right around the same percent that is transgender.
Even if being intersex was 10x less common then being transgender, so what? I think that there are legal and social structures that were designed with the 90% straight cis majority in mind that don’t need to completely scrapped, but that reasonable accommodations, such as gender neutral bathrooms, gender neutral marriage laws, etc. plus general acceptance and courtesy. Medically, treatment should focus on quality of life for the patient, like any other aspect of medicine. Sports are tricky, because the rules are arbitrary by their very nature. Good faith rules based on current medical and scientific knowledge will never be perfect, but can always be adapted.
*defect in this case can be a debatable term, and that can be a huge tangent.
Another perfectly good vituperative Pit thread degenerated into an intelligent informative discussion, I see. You people ought to be ashamed of yourselves. 
I think this is a key point. Those that are following the thread for knowledge per @Kimstu are discussing the enforcement of good faith laws. Whether the Canadian licensing or the ‘will provide care’ element, these efforts IMHO are being made to protect against a default (and probably correct) assumption that honest care may be infringed, and in such case, it is better to err on the side of making the protection as widely available as possible, which may in a few cases, end up causing some distress amongst those who are honestly conflicted.
Do I think Peterson or Octopus are those very rare honestly conflicted individuals? Hell no. (Pit territory again!) But given what we see, as a pertinent example, in the Republican War against Transgender thread, it is probably fully justified to go the extra step in light of continued efforts to minimize any care or protection to those who are challenged by their own gender identity.
To be completely clear - I don’t care either. We are obviously on the same page that all people should be treated with tolerance and respect, and none of this should matter.
Where I’m coming from is wanting to be on solid ground in presenting convincing factual arguments that other people should do so, people perhaps like the OP of this thread, who I suspect has been taken in to some degree by the bullshit of bigots but has an open mind.
I feel not just a question of prevalence. The distribution of primary somatic sexual characteristics is qualitatively different from the distribution of mental states (gender identity and sexual orientation). Although we might try to count what proportion of people fall into certain gender identity categories, the point is (as we both agree) it’s a diverse and continuous spectrum.
The other issue is that with many somatic intersex conditions it’s quite difficult to support an argument that they should not objectively be called disorders, even though you and I (and any civilized person) agree that this implies nothing whatsoever about how we should treat people. Some aspects can fairly be described as variation, but they often entail infertility and other functional deficits. It’s a hard row to hoe to make the case that this is all just something we can accurately describe as natural variation.
But now consider identity and orientation, where many people still want to call anything other than cis-binary identity and heterosexual orientation a mental disorder. Here I think we’re on very solid ground not only morally but as an objective scientific matter telling them they are wrong. Although gender dysphoria is a disorder, there is no gender identity or orientation (excluding traits that entail harming others) that we should (again - as an objective scientific matter, not just a moral one) treat as anything other than the normal healthy range of human diversity. I think we risk undermining the effort to advocate that accurate view of mental states by drawing an analogy with somatic intersex conditions where it’s really not so clear if we’re talking about natural variation or disorders/deficits.
No, that one is complete bullshit. It appears that nobody was forced to view the “offensive” material and ample trigger warnings were provided.
The artistic depiction of Mohammed in question was created by a pious Muslim and admired for centuries by other pious Muslims. As the teacher pointed out, not all Muslims believe that depicting the Prophet in art is forbidden, and that belief has only become widespread within the last couple centuries.
The college firing her is an example of non-Muslims getting involved in a dispute about Muslim religious law, which they shouldn’t be doing in the first place, and then compounding it by taking the reactionary side of the argument.
This would be analogous to a college saying you can’t wear the gay pride flag because it would be offensive to Christians. Among the many reasons why that would be bad is that it implies that nobody could possibly be both gay and Christian, thus de-legitimatizing the identities of those who do identify that way.
I think a lot of this becomes hard to discuss because the difference between sex and gender can be hard to express. They are clearly linked, but they describe different things. And, yes there are certainly conditions that cause individuals to be intersex that also cause significant other issues, and intersex presentation itself can cause medical issues. But, I have come to the position that the best way to handle things like this is not to theorize based on the medical research I may have read or my gut instinct, but to actually ask the people who are most impacted.:
Following diagnostic work-up, newborns with intersex should be given a gender assignment as boy or girl, depending on which of those genders the child is more likely to feel as she or he grows up. Note that gender assignment does _not_ involve surgery; it involves assigning a label as boy or girl to a child. (Genital “normalizing” surgery does not create or cement a gender identity; it just takes tissue away that they patient may want later.)
Medical procedures necessary to sustain the physical health of a child should be performed. Examples of these would be endocrinological treatment of a child with salt-wasting congenital hyperplasia, or surgery to provide a urinary drainage opening when a child is born without one.
Surgeries done to make the genitals look “more normal” should not be performed until a child is mature enough to make an informed decision for herself or himself. Before the patient makes a decision, she or he should be introduced to patients who have and have not had the surgery. Once she or he is fully informed, she or he should be provided access to a patient-centered surgeon.
#Does ISNA think children with intersex should be raised without a gender, or in a third gender?
No, and for the record, we’ve never advocated this. We certainly would like to see people become less freaked-out by people who don’t fit sex and gender cultural norms. But there are at least two problems with trying to raise kids in a “third gender.”
First, how would we decide who would count in the “third gender”? How would we decide where to cut off the category of male and begin the category of intersex, or, on the other side of the spectrum, where to cut off the category of intersex to begin the category of female? (To read more about how intersex is not a discrete category, go to our FAQ called What is intersex?)
Second, and much more importantly, we are trying to make the world a safe place for intersex kids, and we don’t think labeling them with a gender category that in essence doesn’t exist would help them. (Duh, huh?)
As much as I adore the conflict of the pit (I’m a bit of an ass and IRL troll, not so much online but I will troll to someones face). THIS is what I live for especially the sciences (biology especially since its my personal love, and semi education, I’m a bio drop out). I LOVE it when the pit becomes a polite bastion of “well actually what about X or Y”. Don’t get me wrong great debates is fantastic but there is something especially beautiful about a factual convo in the pit. Especially when you learn something… chef kiss brilliant…
Also its nice to be able to call out … saaay, Something eight legged(or 6 armed with two feet) for being an ass… (although I usually ignore in that regard). If they’re going to be “fallacy central” I’ll just shut down and avoid heh.
My personal faves for knowledge are Qad’s prison doc stories (sorry was going to write out the full name but now I can’t remember the whole thing whilst writing and I’m not sure if that’s skirting a rule , it feels like it is, just trying to spell/remember the good doc’s name in nested windows on my tiny laptop at work is giving me the heebie jeebies).
Here’s a nonpaywalled article on the Muslim art brouhaha.
Money quote:
Here, liberal “anti-racism” meets rightwing anti-Muslim bigotry. For bigots, all Muslims are reactionary and their values incompatible with those of liberal societies. For too many liberals, opposing bigotry means accepting reactionary ideas as authentically Muslim; that to be Muslim is to find the Danish cartoons offensive and the depiction of Muhammed “harmful”. Both bigots and liberals erase the richness and variety of Muslim communities.
But at least that guy is a doctor.
Oh, I totally concur. It’s the Dope version of “I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out.”
I largely agree with that quote BUT for one issue - there is also a line of thinking that only reactionary Muslims/Islamicists find depictions of Muhammad haram, and that’s also not true. Plenty of otherwise quite liberal Muslims also don’t want to see his visage depicted. That the idea of not depicting him isn’t itself a “reactionary idea” as that article makes out. It’s like with hijab, where plenty of women wear it because they want to.
Excellent point. Thanks for clarifying.
I can confirm this I have two fairly close VERY liberal muslim friends and they both are differing sects and will debate a little bit with each other but where they both get really uncomfortable(images of the prophet) but have such a hard time articulating it as they feel their feelings are “too much and they should relax”… but they definitely are perturbed by it.
It’s slightly amusing to me . Like your friend you know, who can’t stand a smell and you know he’s stewing in it just trying to keep a polite face type thing. That polite collar pulling (hyperbole) Um heyyyy! I am what one would call a “militant” atheist (I have a hard time respecting people’s religion, I try , but it is very hard for me, Im very “Jimmy Carr” on religion/supernatural, spent my childhood searching for just ONE hint of magic…did not happen… heh). We are an odd trio sometimes.