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lynndotpy 5 hours ago

No, that is not a good analogy at all. It's so poor an analogy that it's challenging to interpret this comment generously. I think you might be arguing facetiously to make a different rhetoric point than the literal content of your post, bot I will respond to your text literally.

Humans have a wide variety of biological variation in metrics we think of as linked to "biological sex" and those metrics are accessibly mutable. Even within the Olympics, the natural variation of these metrics within cis women is a famous topic of debate (Imane Khelif, Caster Semenya, etc.)

Bipedalism is something which varies very rarely and is especially not accessibly mutable.

zahlman 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Humans have a wide variety of biological variation in metrics we think of as linked to "biological sex"

What is the total prevalence of all conditions medically recognized as intersex?

> and those metrics are accessibly mutable.

What is that even supposed to mean?

lynndotpy 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> What is the total prevalence of all conditions medically recognized as intersex?

Not all biological variation is classified as intersex.

> What is that even supposed to mean?

You can change a lot of your 'secondary sex characteristics' intentionally. This is much easier than removing a limb, and even easier than adding a limb.

zahlman 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Not all biological variation is classified as intersex.

Okay, but other biological variation is clearly not relevant to the discussion.

badc0ffee 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have a lot of sympathy for Imane Khelif and Caster Semenya, as they were assigned female at birth and raised as girls, and they want to compete with women. But I don't know if there's a case to be made that they're biologically female.

They have XY chromosomes, internal testes, a male testosterone level, and male muscle development. They have the SRY gene that the IOC is testing for, and are not one of the exceptions. Regardless of the fact that their DSD (5-ARD) results in no penis.

To be clear, I'm not saying they should start living life as men. But describing their situation as the natural variation of cis women is simplistic and not accurate.

NeutralCrane 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Bipedalism is something which varies very rarely and is especially not accessibly mutable.

This would apply to sex chromosomes as well

lynndotpy 4 hours ago | parent [-]

So? It would apply to sex chromosomes and only sex chromosomes, which is just one observed sex characteristic.

We are talking about sexual dimorphism and secondary sex characteristics.

Humans were understood to be sexually dimorphic before we discovered sex chromosomes in 1905, and we usually label our babies with a biological sex without the aid of consumer genetic testing.