system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: It's not "anti-science" to include transgender people with their gender of identification.

Critics of transgenderism (?) say that biology shows there's only two genders, male and female, based on sex chromosomes (which are implicit from one's anatomy and hormonal balance if one's chromosomes are not known). After all, biology classes do say that men have XY and women have XX. To not lump in transgender people with members of their biological sex, then, is denying biology.

I know that it's undeniably clear that we are a sexually dimorphic species. The division of people with XX chromosomes and people with XY (with their respective anatomy, sex hormones, etc) is about 50/50. This is something that can be empirically tested.

But if you were to say something like "people who have XY chromosomes and this kind of anatomy are men, and people with XX chromosomes are not and cannot be"--is that a statement that can be empirically tested?

My point is, it's only a "scientific" statement in the sense of "used for scientific purposes," not "demonstrable empirical fact of nature." Including transgender people with their identified genders when appropriate does not deny empirical facts of nature, as critics claim.

The statement "people who have XY chromosomes and this kind of anatomy are men, and people with XX chromosomes are not and cannot be" is merely a statement defining the boundaries of a category. These categorical criteria serve a purpose in many scientific, medical, anthropological, etc. contexts, but they need not be ironclad in all contexts. Different contexts sometimes call for categorical words to have different criteria!

Here are **four** examples of categorical words that have biology-based definitions but don't always adhere to those definitions in all contexts:

* Genetically, I'm <5% Jewish. This may be relevant in some medical contexts, bringing up what kind of conditions I or my progeny may be predisposed to. But in, say, a demographic survey, I wouldn't call myself Jewish. It's just not relevant in my life, neither ethnically nor religiously.
* I'm pretty sure we all understand that to be a "father," such as for the sake of celebrating Father's Day or contact info for the kid's school, need not involve the actual physical sire of the child. For many purposes, it's the male figure who's raised the kid as a typical biological father would. But if you were to go on the Maury show to be told, "You are not the father!", you'd *know* he doesn't mean "You are not the one who's been raising this boy alongside the mother his whole life!"
* Rabbits and hares were declassified as rodents in 1912 because their teeth suggested that categorizing these animals in a different order would reflect phylogenetics better. But in pet stores and pet owner communities, they might as well be rodents because they're lumped in right alongside them.
* To put it pithily, "knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing that it doesn't belong in a fruit salad." To put it more maturely, yes, tomatoes are considered "fruits" by botanical criteria, but in culinary contexts, they're not.

If people want to discuss whether it's a good shift to categorize transgender people by non-biological criteria in non-biological contexts that distinguish between men and women, that's worthwhile. It's just that the "anti-science" angle reflects a misunderstanding of what a scientific fact is, I believe.

In short, the big trans question isn't so much whether the biological definitions of male and female are valid so much as it is whether these biological definitions should serve as the categorical boundaries between men and women in all non-biological contexts.
gpt
>In short, the big trans question isn't so much whether the biological definitions of male and female are valid so much as it is whether these biological definitions should serve as the categorical boundaries between men and women in all non-biological contexts.

If you're talking about a context where this is not a useful distinction, why would ANY discussion of gender, biological or identified or otherwise, be worthwhile?