Your definition leaves out people who produce both or neither sex cell. Hence not binary.
But, no, your definition is not correct. There are many different aspects of sex. I’ve linked this Scishow video before.
If you’re intersex, how do you know what cells you would produce if you weren’t intersex? If you were more “male” or more “female” then (maybe) you would produce one or the other, but because of your condition, you produce neither.
And, aren’t there XXY and XYY people?
I want to add… there certainly can be good reasons to start with discrete categories. They generally have to do with looking at populations as opposed to individuals. If you’re trying to figure out if women are under represented in a certain career field, for instance, there’s value in starting with 2 categories and lumping everyone in to man or woman. Edge cases and outliers won’t affect your analysis so you don’t really need to concern yourself if Susan from app development was born with an XY chromosome pair but was AFAB due to an androgen insensitivity disorder.
That doesn’t mean when dealing with Susan as an individual that we have any reason to limit ourselves to the two categories that we created for an entirely different purpose.
No. Most of us would be able to produce sperm cells or egg cells if we’d been exposed to exactly the right mix of hormones, starting as an embryo. My son tells me there’s a documented case of an XY woman who gave birth, in the usual way, to a daughter who is also XY.
And our mix of chromosomes isn’t binary, either. Most people are either XX or XY, but there are people with three sex chromosomes.
Most people are born with either a penis or a vagina, but some have ambiguous genitalia at birth. Most people have either ovaries or testicles at birth, but again, some have neither. And there are testosterone-resistant women who are XY but are born with normal-looking ovaries and vaginas.
It turns out that biology is complicated, and that while it’s often handy to split individuals into “male” or “female”, that split is imperfect and some people just don’t fit.
To answer your rhetorical question, what happened is people are now refusing to be second-class citizens, and reactionaries have revved up the outrage to claw back their privileges.
I just wanted to take a moment to thank @puzzlegal (not for the first time) for reminding me of the above. I vented my opinions on Aspidistra in their own pit thread a while back, in that I found their research appalling as well as their lack of empathy. And in reading the thread, it pretty much just confirmed my feelings that they were a hate filled person that felt only their defended gender (for their own definitions of no less) was worth of having safety at the expense of others.
But the quote above reminds me that Appy is speaking from a position of fear: personal safety, changing norms, worry that acceptance of the trans community may make them less special, whatever. It DOES NOT excuse their behavior, or in any way change their lack of empathy, but at least it dials down my hate for the poster. Disgust remains the same, but less hate is good for my blood pressure.
So once again, thanks Puzzlegal - I’ll go back to my default of just thinking Appy can think what they want, and the rest of us can and should shun them for being a empathically-blind individual who tends to argue in bad faith, but without the hate. Of course, you’re free to hate, but while it can be motivating, it can also be tiring, and I need my energy for other things.
Trans people are, by and large, hurting virtually no one. I saw recently that the number of states that passed laws preventing trans girls from playing on girls sports teams exceeds the total number of individual trans girls in the US who play on girls sports teams. Instances of trans people attacking others in bathrooms is incredibly rare. Unfortunately, the opposite is all too common - trans people are still treated like freaks and abominations and subject to abuse and worse much more frequently than cis people.
It’s just incredibly obvious to me that this is a false panic, instilled by misogynists and bigots on the right for political purposes, pretty much identical to anti gay, anti minority, anti immigrant, and so many other fake panics of the past. It’s just bullshit for politics.
This should be obvious to everyone. It’s very sad that it’s not.
That’s an extreme oversimplication. You can’t say what the body “would do” if it wasn’t for the anatomical differences. The basic female body plan is the default during fetal development, and must be masculinized by hormones during development and again at puberty.
In the case of my friend that I described above, her body was never masculinitized but she’s XY. She looks female and her brain drives a female identity.
So should she be labeled male because she’s XY and would have developed male if not for the genetic disorder that made her male hormone insensitive?
Or should she be labeled female because she looks basically female and if on,y she had a uterus, vagina, and ovaries she’d produce eggs and be fertile as a woman?
It’s conditions like this that show 100% that sex identity, gender identity, and chromosomal sex are not in lock step and development of these identities happens at multiple points in development and can be influenced by multiple factors. The brain and body develop sex and gender differently, influenced by chromosomal makeup and specific genes. Most of the time they’re in sync. Sometimes they are not.
This x100. I was at an event taking a leak at a urinal. Several other urinals were in use. A woman came in, yelling, “EMERGENCY! The women’s room is full and I can’t wait”. She used a stall and I thought nothing more of it.
Later, I heard someone talking about a woman using the men’s and how they were going to complain. 
What the fuck’s wrong with “nonbinary”?
Anyway, when your argument is:
…and you then proceed to make “OR you would if you weren’t as you are”… goalpost moves in the very next sentence, either you’re too motherfucking stupid to be having this discussion with, or you’re too disingenuous. Either way, kindly fuck off.
I’d bet cold hard cash that a ciswoman is 100x as likely to be attacked in a single gender space by either a ciswoman or a cisman than they are to be attacked by a transwoman.
Those attacks are ignored by TERFs because the issue isn’t actually whether women get attacked or not, it’s about hating trans people.
@WalterBishop, I believe that all or most of the women in this picture would produce sperm if it weren’t for their intersex condition (androgen insensitivity syndrome). So, are they men?
When is there ever a need for binary classification by sex? Why do bathrooms and locker rooms need to be sex segregated? The only justifications I ever hear is to protect women and girls from predation by men, but in this world where gender doesn’t exist and everyone can live the lifestyle they choose why are men still so dangerous? Isn’t it just patriarchal conditioning that causes men to act this way? Or do you think just having a penis turns men into sex pests and rapists? Seems kinda essentialist if you ask me.
I’ve never heard that the primary reason for sex segregated bathrooms was to protect women from male predators.
I have a teenaged daughter. She has a trans (FTM) friend. Nobody at their school seems to give a crap about the transperson. The school has made a few trivial accommodations and that’s it. I’m certainly not losing my shit about it.
In the list of “things I worry about for her”, “molested by a trans person” is way down the list.
My wife has a valid point here. Bathrooms? Who cares? For the most part, you’re in an individual stall; no one sees nothing; really doesn’t matter, and a creeper is a creeper. Segregating bathrooms isn’t necessary.
Locker rooms? That’s a little different. From her own experience - as a teen, not stick-thin, she had enough anxiety changing into gym clothes in a girls locker room; what would her anxiety do if there were males present?
Now, one answer to that is “you’d get used to it.” yeah, at some time in the future. We don’t live in the future, we live in 'Merika now, where we have a long history of “Men over here; Women over there.”, and to change the attitude, you have to want to change the attitude, and that isn’t going to happen overnight.
I disagree, since even in this very thread an instance of a man attacking a woman in a bathroom was cited, as well as the possibility of a young woman encountering a dangerous man.
But even so, what other reason could there be? Urinals? The trauma of simply observing a penis? The trauma of being watched by someone who finds you sexually attractive?
My whole point is in the ideal Gender Critical world nobody behaves in the way that make sex segregated spaces necessary, because men are no longer the observers and predators and women are no longer the observed and prey.
lol, whatever. Blocked.
To everyone who isn’t a piece of shit, you’ve given me some interesting stuff to think about. I’ll get back to you asap.
I believe the reason for sex-segregated spaces is modesty. Men and women feel uncomfortable undressing in front of each other (tough shit if you are gay, but it’s always been that way, so deal).
And “modesty” has been enshrined with virtue, keeping people from inappropriate sexual liaisons. I’m not talking about rape, I’m talking about parents and patriarchs wanting to protect the virtue of “their” womenfolk.
My gym handles the modesty issue by having a few private stalls around the edges of the main changing area. Anyone concerned with their own modesty, or concerned that their appearance might disturb others, can use them.
The family camp i just returned from used to have separate changing areas for men and women. In an effort to be more inclusive, they hung medical curtains to turn each changing room into 4 private stalls.
There are ways to preserve modesty without excluding trans people.
I stay in a lot of hostels in Europe. I frequently encounter general shower rooms and rest rooms, plus dormitories where people undress without any uproar. Lack of segregation appears to be a much bigger source of alarm the US than in Europe.