Recently, I found myself in an intense conversation with Exulansic, a former victim of gender ideology. Our dialogue traversed sensitive topics of gender, sex, surgeries, and the profound impacts these have had on Exulansic's life. Born female, her journey took an unexpected turn through what she described as a process influenced by college, personal trauma, and psychological makeup, leading her to start taking male hormones and embark on a highly self-destructive path.
It was a great conversation. Exulansic often has fascinating, thought-provoking takes on the subject of gender. She's clearly thought deeply about this issue, and often manages to spark deep revelations in even my own thinking, which I didn't think was possible, as I've been studying this topic for decades. I'm so glad you had her on!
I only wish you'd have let her delve into more of it without cutting her off due to what appeared to be your own discomfort with the realities of what these surgeries are and what they actually entail. More people need to be jarred by the reality of it. The public is so used to hearing euphemistic, nebulous language like "gender affirming care", "top surgery", and "bottom surgery", but what they need to hear is what these procedures actually *are*, especially when it comes to the complicated and dangerous surgeries that involve penises and vaginas. A double mastectomy, particularly on healthy tissue, can lead to all kinds of problems, but those issues pale by comparison when you get into attempting to create neo-phalluses and neo-vaginas. There is a huge misconception that these are clearly defined one- size- fits- all surgeries, when in reality, doctors are making it up as they go along. It's ALL experimental, especially when it comes to individuals who have had their puberty blocked and don't have the required tissue to start with. (Hello, Jazz Jennings 👋) Then there's the truly disturbing "neutering" surgeries, which attempt to create a Barbie or Ken appearance, or the "I want it all" surgeries, where people want both sets of genitalia. And there are zero ethics present on the part of these doctors, who are clearly indulging mentally disturbed, emotionally vulnerable, and often pornsick individuals.
It's incredibly difficult to get access to this information online in a way that doesn't try to: a) sell you on trans joy, or b) send you down a deviant porn rabbit hole. Please have her on again and *let her speak*. Allow her to explain what these surgeries involve and the inevitable complications thar arise from doing this to your body.
M. V.M, I was actually glad to see Boghossian's discomfort and I feel he allowed her to talk at length on many aspects of a personal and philosophical response to the societal and iatrogenic harms of what is euphemistically called "affirmative care." There's potential for a lot of great short clips in there, and the "woke" need to see this role model of normal alarm at the realities of sex trait modification surgeries.
And the Biden Administration is behind it. DO. NOT. VOTE. DEMOCRAT. They are creating seriously dire problems in the guise of "protection." It doesn't get any more Orwellian than "gender affirming care." What gets me is how all the evidence in the world that this is wrong, that these people are NOT transgender, but duped individuals, falls on deaf ears by those who are far too certain of their moral superiority.
This was one of Exulansic's best appearances. On my channel, we talked about the concept of crossdressing as placebo effect, the narcissism of it, and realizing life is about helping others, rather than seeking constant praise and approval of others.
It was emotionally upsetting to listen to this discussion. But it's necessary to hear this. I am stunned that anyone feels these barbarous procedures are justified for any reason.
One action that can be taken immediately is to cease normalizing this mental illness. The current presidential administration hires so-called transgender persons.
Stop doing that. They are not "transgender." They are mentally ill transvestites.
We are normalizing lobotomies, Dr. Mengele, and the Tuskeegee Experiment.
"We, (society and our academic appendages) are complicit in perpetuating cycles of medical dependency and psychological distress."
Absolutely heartbreaking. It's a horrendous and deviant message brought to you by the horrendous and deviant medical community, our horrendous and deviant current Administration, and it's Propaganda wing the media.
I am admittedly uneducated on this topic but, l am willing to learn. The descriptions and stories that this young lady recounted were quite hard to hear and l found myself crossing my legs and wincing several times.
Peter was clearly struggling to form a question but, l think more from a fear of being shadow-banned on X or demonitorized by You Tube than the actual subject matter. Thankfully Exulansic wasn't asked to provide before and after photos.
The psychiatrists and psychologists that are affirming what many believe to be a mental disorder (body dysmorphia) should be stripped of their credentials. I wonder what Sigmund Freud would have made of all this?
The politicians and judges that are condoning hormone blockers for children (without both parents knowlege or consent) should lose their seat. in Ontario earlier this year there was a case brought before the court by a biological man who wanted a vagina surgically "added" and because we have free healthcare, he insisted it should be covered under OHIP.
He lost because (a) Canada does not have any surgeons willing or able to perform this operation, (b) Canada's healthcare system is already failing, and (c) Canada is not as progressive as the USA despite our idiot PM's attempts.
The man known as KS.33 then appealled on the grounds that his consitutional rights were being infringed and, Ontario taxpayers will have to foot the bill and the people awaiting cancer care and life-saving surgeries will just have to wait. He won his appeal and he will be flown to Austin, Texas for his surgery.
All l can say is that the "surgeons" that are willing to perform this type of Frankensteinesque procedure on another humanbeing better top up their malpractice insurance policy. Maybe re-read the Hippocratic Oath a few more times just to be sure.
It was a really insightful and thought provoking conversation. I'm glad you guys were finally able to connect.
I'm a former radical leftist and i'm very well acquainted with this world and coming from a place where I have a deep understanding of it all, makes it scarier in a lot of ways.
One of the children in our family is trans identifying and seeking to transition. I live in Canada and this means that at 14 this child can get blockers/ hormones and begin the process on their own without any parental consent or even parental knowledge that they are undergoing these treatments. Being that this child is part of a blended family and their other parent supports the desire to transition this leaves very little that can be done to prevent it as any bit of resistance is framed as transphobia. It feels like we are sitting on a time bomb that is going to go off in a few months once they turn 14.
I have heard many people talk about social contagion, but I think it is also in part a semantic contagion. I think the language we are collectively using lends itself to making this type of distress make sense. We have pathologized normal anxieties and feelings that young people experience and they are seeing all these descriptions of distress labeled as gender dysphoria and relating to the underlying feelings, which are common.
I dont know the way out exactly but I hope this runs its course soon enough.
> "... the interplay between personal identity, societal expectations, and ideological capture of our institutions ..."
Amen to that -- a "nice" summary of the problem, of many of the problems in fact, and their problematic roots.
However ..., your own "born female" is part and parcel of the wider problem: turning the sexes into "immutable" identities -- what a ridiculous and quite anti-scientific "idea" -- instead of accepting "male" and "female" as labels for quite transitory reproductive abilities.
More particularly -- by the standard biological definitions published in reputable sources like the Oxford Dictionary of Biology -- none of us have a sex at birth; we only ACQUIRE one at the onset of puberty, and can subsequently lose our "membership cards therein" for one reason or another:
Somewhat academic, but too many clueless feminists (ain't they all? 🙄) have been busily engaged in bastardizing and corrupting the biology to comport with their anti-science, and anti-evolution, dogma. They're the ones peddling the ideological claptrap that "sex is immutable!!11!!" (Maya Forstater, Sex not Gender Identity); that every cell has a sex (NCBI, Yale Medicine); that every part of Helen Joyce's body, from her toes to her nose, is female (🙄):
Scientific illiteracy as far as the eye can see -- and you're contributing to it. Even if somewhat inadvertently – though ignorance of the law, and of basic biology, is no excuse..
But the upshot of that rather pigheaded ignorance -- more evident in some than others (*cough Andrew Doyle, Alex Byrne, Colin Wright, Christopher Rufo, too many suspects to name ... *cough) -- is the cretinous idea that having a sex is simply a matter of having a penis or a vagina. Which are the ONLY things that are detectable at birth. Which leads to the consequential "idea" that changing sex is simply a matter of changing one's genitalia. "Change your genitalia, change your sex! Act now! Offer ends soon! 🙄":
Someone needs to "tell" Rufo that "sex changes" are flat-out impossible, at least in humans. Though the gay community has been peddling that lie since Christine Jorgensen supposedly had one some 72 years ago:
But on reviewing the "vaginoplasty files", to coin a phrase, one might be hard pressed, so to speak, to tell which was the "real-meal deal", and which the ersatz replica: was that Ella or was that Memorex? 🙄
"How dare you deny that Christine and Bruce changed sex! How dare you!!!" 🙄
That's the upshot of that scientific illiteracy and "conventional wisdom". Which you -- and Exulansic's gender studies -- are contributing to. The rot is rather ubiquitous, and goes rather deep.
I think that you misunderstood how actually sex is defined in biology, or to be more precise how this definition should be understood. And citing PZ Myers is not a good idea, since he believes that sex is bimodal (which is a direct contradiction of this “strict definition of sex”).
Let’s take the definition of biological sex from Wikipedia: “Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes.”
This definition is not really clear because “produces” can be understood in two ways: either as the act of producing gametes (which simply means action which you execute at any given point of time) or as being source of gametes. Like in the sentence “This soil produces splendid crops”. Scientists don't need to know if this particular batch of soil produces “splendid crops” right now (not to mention that crop production is not just a single point in time) or even that this batch ever produced “splendid crops”. They only need to know the chemical composition (and other characteristics) of this soil which would justify saying that. If science would not be able to make judgments calls like this it would not be science (we would not have theories, predictions and knowledge other than a simple list of facts which already occurred).
Note that biologists basically never go with “strict definitions”. “Bipedal” individuals are not bipedal only at times when they are literally moving and when they stop in place they are stopping to be bipedal. Bipedal means that the anatomy of an individual is organized around a specific motility function - moving, primarily with two rear limbs (legs). Which also means that they can still be classified, counterintuitively, as “bipedal” if given individuals don’t have legs. The fact of losing (or even not having legs in “bipedal” species) legs doesn’t mean that your whole anatomy was reorganized around different motility strategies.
Sure you can go with “strict definition of sex”, but then you need to distinguish between how biologists classify organisms as “male” or “female” and what “male” and “female” sex is. Every individual which has “male sex” is male then, but not every male needs to have “male sex”. This is done even with a “pragmatic definition of sex”, since the non-reproductive caste of ants are also classified as females. Those obviously don't have “female sex” (non-reproductive) but their development pathways are modification of female (reproductive) development pathways.
As for “immutability” - this term should also be understood in a strict way - this only informs you about our current knowledge of the world. Mass of electrons is constant in physics and it is immutable - but this doesn’t mean couldn’t not change (e.g. scientists have some power to force it not to change). Science is not normative, it is descriptive. In the case of human sex it simply means that we don’t know any development pathways in humans which could be classified as “sequential hermaphrodites”.
> “I think that you misunderstood how actually sex is defined in biology ...”
Don’t think so. That Wiley Online Library post by a trio of biologists is quite clear that the sexes are DEFINED as transitory “life-history stages” contingent on the presence of functional gonads. Something elaborated on and emphasized in some detail by philosopher of science Paul Griffiths, co-author of “Genetics and Philosophy” – kinda think he knows his onions:
But a big part of the problem is that most people – including too many so-called biologists (e.g., Colin Wright) and philosophers – haven’t a flaming clue how categories work, and how they’re defined by reputable biologists and philosophers. Something of an exception is “philosopher” Alex Byrne who had a nice illustration of the concept:
Byrne: “Categories are basically the same as the properties (or features, or attributes) of things. My cat Maisie is furry — equivalently, she has the property of being furry. In other words, furriness is one of her features or attributes. Said another way, Maisie belongs to the category furry.”
And if Alex shaved poor old Maisie then she would no longer be a furry, no longer a member of the “furry” category, although she would still be a cat. “furry” is deemed an “accidental” property of members of the “cat” category, not an “essential” one:
Kind of like bipedality. That a species includes members which are typically bipedal does not mean that every member is always bipedal.
And the SAME thing with the categories “male” and “female”, although the defining and essential properties are “produces small gametes” and “produces large gametes”. Those properties consist of actually functioning MECHANISMS that MUST be present to qualify individual organisms – of ALL anisogamous species – as either male or female; no gametes, no sex – no tickee, no washee.
But something I’ve elaborated on in some detail in my Substack post, “Rerum cognoscere causas”, which relies heavily on a “Mechanisms in Science” article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP):
There IS some rhyme and reason, a great many sound principles of epistemology that go into those biological definitions. It’s not a free-for-all where anyone can play.
> “And citing PZ Myers is not a good idea ...”
He’s definitely a case of stopped clocks being right twice a day. And he does have a tendency, at best, to be talking out of both sides of his mouth. Although he was certainly “not amused” by my calling him on that “cis women are not female” comment of his – not that I disagreed with it, only with his hypocrisy. But that might be a case of him playing to his “Horde”, to his commentariat – we all have to pay our bills, some methods more ethical than others:
> “Like in the sentence ‘This soil produces splendid crops’. Scientists don't need to know if this particular batch of soil produces ‘splendid crops’ right now ...”
“producing splendid crops” is not an essential property of “soil”, only an accidental one. No one has defined “soil” as “produces splendid crops” such that if it’s not doing so then it’s not “soil”.
> Note that biologists basically never go with ‘strict definitions’. “
“never”? The use of those “strict definitions” is intrinsic in the quite ubiquitous concept of sequential hermaphrodites. Clownfish change sex BECAUSE they change the type of gamete they’re currently producing. And those definitions play out in many other fields of biology – regardless of whether other “biologists” and “philosophers” have yet “read the memo”.
> “... but then you need to distinguish between how biologists classify organisms as ‘male’ or ‘female’ and what ‘male’ and ‘female’ sex is. “
Clear as day; you might try reading the definitions I’ve linked to above. Biologically speaking, to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. Too many people don’t like those definitions because they’ve turned the sexes into “immutable identities”, into empty signifiers of tribal membership. Instead of accepting them as labels for transitory reproductive abilities.
> “Mass of electrons is constant in physics and it is immutable “
If an electron can be “annihilated” in a collision with a positron then it seems questionable to say the mass or the electron is “immutable”. If the mass disappears then the electron no longer exists. Hardly “immutable”:
I think that you misrepresent what Paul Griffiths and what is said in the Wiley Online Library bioassay.
There are no “essential” properties in biology in Plato understanding. Plato believed that in the existence of the realm of ideas which contain those essential properties and we only discover them using our inaccurate senses.
Biology is science, it is a pragmatic project whose goal is to allow us to navigate through a world which is in itself not categorized at all. Cats are not defined by any essence of “catness” which is essential to them being cats. They are categorized using quite straightforward methods rooted in sexual reproduction, methods which don't work for non sexually reproducing animals.
Sex can be defined in many ways - some are more useful than others. Yes, it is true that there are anisogamous species. Yes, it is true that in those species we can easily identify two morphologically distinguished gamete types which fuse as part of the reproductive cycle. And yes, that means that there must be some source of this gametes, organisms which can be identified as producers of those. Further, those organisms must have anatomical structures which are used for this production - this is also true. But this means that sex must be defined as “having such structures functional” - no it doesn’t. There are more steps in this reasoning chain - if there are organisms with such structures, they also must have developed in some way. So development pathways associated with those structures must also exist - and this is an extensive definition of sex - much more useful definition.
And your source explicitly confirm existence of those definition and their validity:
“Another reason for the wide-spread misconception about the biological sex is the notion that it is a condition, while in reality it may be a life-history stage.”
“it may be” - yes, in species in which it is easier to speak about sex in such a way (i.e. sequential hermaphrodites)
“What sex are worker bees? They are sterile workers whose genome was designed by natural selection to terminate ovary development on receipt of a signal from the queen bee. They share much of the biology of fertile female bees – but if someone wants to know ‘Are worker bees really female?’, they’re asking a question that biology simply can’t answer.”
Here it is clear that Paul Griffiths is not “essentialist” (only religious philosophers are “essentialist”). If he would believe that there is only one valid definition of sex (strict definition) then he would answer “no” to this question. “Worker bees are not really female”. But he acknowledges that there is no answer to such a question in biology.
“Workers and soldiers are both ‘female’ in an extended sense, but not in the full-blown sense that queen ants are female. There is a human imperative to give everything a sex, as mentioned above, but biology doesn’t share it.”
This is direct acknowledgement of the existence of “extended definition of sex”. And yes, obviously there is a difference between extended definition of sex and strict definition of sex. But both of those definitions are valid and part of the same reasoning chain.
People like Colin Wright intentionally use extended definitions of sex, because strict definition is useless in context of discussions which take place. If you say that there is only a strict definition of sex in biology and the biologist doesn’t know if boys are “male” or “female” then it is patently obvious that biological definition of sex is completely useless in a social context. This means that we need a social definition of sex (like “man have penis and woman have vagina”) and then of course you will end up with some definition which allows sex change very easily.
> “If an electron can be “annihilated” in a collision with a positron then it seems questionable to say the mass or the electron is “immutable”. If the mass disappears then the electron no longer exists. Hardly “immutable””
Nothing is immutable in a strict scientific sense (even only because you don’t have a way to verify if it is really immutable). Destroyed electron is not an electron any longer - it doesn’t have any “essential” or “accidental” properties. Question is if the “mass” of an electron changes as long as it is an electron? And if the “mass” of an electron is an “essential” property of an electron? Answer for the first question is: not as far as we know (so it is immutable). Answer for the second question is: not as far as the electron is defined.
> “I think that you misrepresent what Paul Griffiths and what is said in the Wiley Online Library bioassay.”
Possibly – it’s a complex issue. I’ve sent Griffiths a couple of emails which he has kindly responded to , and a salient point of his is this:
PG: “It is, indeed, all about the various different things we call ‘definitions’ and the roles of these various things in science and in practical life. That’s such a complex topic that it is not surprising that so many people – philosophers included – make such a mess of it.”
But he has also emphasized, many times, that “life-history stage” concept, and his Aeon article (linked to above) isn’t pulling any punches: “Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other.”
Something that constitutes an outright heresy to many people, including various “feminists”, “biologists”, and “philosophers”. They clearly have emotional commitments to people being either male or female – and from birth to death – which simply does not comport with foundational principles and insights of mainstream biology.
But he has also linked me to a PhilPapers article which asks, “Are sexes natural kinds?”:
That is, are they “groupings that reflect the structure of the natural world rather than the interests and actions of human beings”? Your “social definition” is clearly the latter – a world of difference from the former.
> “There are no ‘essential’ properties in biology in Plato understanding.”
Yes, I quite agree with you – too much of philosophy is still stuck in the “footnotes to Plato”. The problem is that, as the Wikipedia article on “Essentialism” emphasizes, “Essentialism has been controversial from its beginning”. Moot exactly where Plato and Company went off the rails, but some reason to argue that it’s because they lost sight of the difference between the criteria for category membership, and the names for the categories which they’ve “reified”. For example, there’s no “essence” to “teenager”, but the “essence” of the category “teenager” is “being 13 to 19”.
> “Sex can be defined in many ways - some are more useful than others.”
And quite agree with you there too. But there are a great many more solid reasons for the biological definitions than there are for the “social category” ones. Society may well want to create ones for a “social context”, but then it ain’t biology; a fraud to claim otherwise. But that may be fine – unless those peddling those definitions try to corrupt the biological ones. Which is largely what is happening and which is the general problem I’ve discussed in my open letter to Cell. But largely the theme of Griffiths' Aeon article.
> “ ‘it may be’ [that sexes are life-history stages] – yes, in species in which it is easier to speak about sex in such a way (i.e. sequential hermaphrodites)”
The thing is that – as Griffiths quotes evolutionary biologist, and transwoman, Joan Roughgarden saying in his PhilPapers article – “.... 'Male' and 'female' are biological categories, and the criteria for classifying an organism as male or female have to work with worms to whales, with red seaweed to redwood trees."
That is biology’s claim to fame and fortune, i.e., its “universalizing” of foundational definitions – the defining criteria apply to ALL anisogamous species, no exceptions. Roughgarden emphasizes the same point in “her” “Evolution’s Rainbow”:
JR: “To a biologist, ‘male’ means making small gametes, and ‘female’ means making large gametes. Period! By definition, the smaller of the two gametes is called a sperm, and the larger an egg. Beyond gamete size, biologists don’t recognize any other universal difference between male and female.”
Part and parcel of the whole concept of natural kinds. The sexes are, by definition, on-going processes, a working mechanism that is ubiquitous across literally millions of species. There may well be more fundamental aspects to the concepts of male and female – maybe there are two versions of a single protein, cis and trans versions?, that are characteristic of, or are present in millions of species – but the biological definitions at least circumscribe them.
> “... then it is patently obvious that biological definition of sex is completely useless in a social context.”
The biological definitions weren’t “designed” for that purpose. Trying to shoehorn the foot of “social justice” into the glass slipper of biology – so to speak – just cripples the former and shatters the latter beyond much use at all:
> “This means that we need a social definition of sex (like “man have penis and woman have vagina”) and then of course you will end up with some definition which allows sex change very easily.”
So you’ll have a “social definition” for the kids in their social studies classes and an entirely different one for their biology classes? “From contradictions, anything follows”.
So should children be taught that they will have a sex one day when they become reproductively mature? What sex will they be they will ask. Do we have a celebration day, call it sexday, when we can verify that they are producing gametes? When females start menopause, do we have a day of mourning for having lost their sex as they no longer produce gametes?
How should a supplier of mice and rats for scientific research determine the sex of members of a litter so they can can be segregated and thus supplied to researchers requiring specific sex animals for their research?
How does a breeder of horses know to pick pairs ro mate? How do they know what they should do with a newborn horse?
Do you see how tedious your arguments are? They be fine for a night of sitting around over a bottle of scotch. But they provide nothing in terms of operational value.
It was a great conversation. Exulansic often has fascinating, thought-provoking takes on the subject of gender. She's clearly thought deeply about this issue, and often manages to spark deep revelations in even my own thinking, which I didn't think was possible, as I've been studying this topic for decades. I'm so glad you had her on!
I only wish you'd have let her delve into more of it without cutting her off due to what appeared to be your own discomfort with the realities of what these surgeries are and what they actually entail. More people need to be jarred by the reality of it. The public is so used to hearing euphemistic, nebulous language like "gender affirming care", "top surgery", and "bottom surgery", but what they need to hear is what these procedures actually *are*, especially when it comes to the complicated and dangerous surgeries that involve penises and vaginas. A double mastectomy, particularly on healthy tissue, can lead to all kinds of problems, but those issues pale by comparison when you get into attempting to create neo-phalluses and neo-vaginas. There is a huge misconception that these are clearly defined one- size- fits- all surgeries, when in reality, doctors are making it up as they go along. It's ALL experimental, especially when it comes to individuals who have had their puberty blocked and don't have the required tissue to start with. (Hello, Jazz Jennings 👋) Then there's the truly disturbing "neutering" surgeries, which attempt to create a Barbie or Ken appearance, or the "I want it all" surgeries, where people want both sets of genitalia. And there are zero ethics present on the part of these doctors, who are clearly indulging mentally disturbed, emotionally vulnerable, and often pornsick individuals.
It's incredibly difficult to get access to this information online in a way that doesn't try to: a) sell you on trans joy, or b) send you down a deviant porn rabbit hole. Please have her on again and *let her speak*. Allow her to explain what these surgeries involve and the inevitable complications thar arise from doing this to your body.
M. V.M, I was actually glad to see Boghossian's discomfort and I feel he allowed her to talk at length on many aspects of a personal and philosophical response to the societal and iatrogenic harms of what is euphemistically called "affirmative care." There's potential for a lot of great short clips in there, and the "woke" need to see this role model of normal alarm at the realities of sex trait modification surgeries.
And the Biden Administration is behind it. DO. NOT. VOTE. DEMOCRAT. They are creating seriously dire problems in the guise of "protection." It doesn't get any more Orwellian than "gender affirming care." What gets me is how all the evidence in the world that this is wrong, that these people are NOT transgender, but duped individuals, falls on deaf ears by those who are far too certain of their moral superiority.
This was one of Exulansic's best appearances. On my channel, we talked about the concept of crossdressing as placebo effect, the narcissism of it, and realizing life is about helping others, rather than seeking constant praise and approval of others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rhmYp2Wq2E
Thank you so much for conducting and sharing such a wonderful interview! ❤️
That's why I often wear this "I identify as non Bidenary" shirt 👇 😂
t.co/foRV7Uk6Gc
It was emotionally upsetting to listen to this discussion. But it's necessary to hear this. I am stunned that anyone feels these barbarous procedures are justified for any reason.
One action that can be taken immediately is to cease normalizing this mental illness. The current presidential administration hires so-called transgender persons.
Stop doing that. They are not "transgender." They are mentally ill transvestites.
We are normalizing lobotomies, Dr. Mengele, and the Tuskeegee Experiment.
"We, (society and our academic appendages) are complicit in perpetuating cycles of medical dependency and psychological distress."
Absolutely heartbreaking. It's a horrendous and deviant message brought to you by the horrendous and deviant medical community, our horrendous and deviant current Administration, and it's Propaganda wing the media.
Stand firm. Teach your children.
I am admittedly uneducated on this topic but, l am willing to learn. The descriptions and stories that this young lady recounted were quite hard to hear and l found myself crossing my legs and wincing several times.
Peter was clearly struggling to form a question but, l think more from a fear of being shadow-banned on X or demonitorized by You Tube than the actual subject matter. Thankfully Exulansic wasn't asked to provide before and after photos.
The psychiatrists and psychologists that are affirming what many believe to be a mental disorder (body dysmorphia) should be stripped of their credentials. I wonder what Sigmund Freud would have made of all this?
The politicians and judges that are condoning hormone blockers for children (without both parents knowlege or consent) should lose their seat. in Ontario earlier this year there was a case brought before the court by a biological man who wanted a vagina surgically "added" and because we have free healthcare, he insisted it should be covered under OHIP.
He lost because (a) Canada does not have any surgeons willing or able to perform this operation, (b) Canada's healthcare system is already failing, and (c) Canada is not as progressive as the USA despite our idiot PM's attempts.
The man known as KS.33 then appealled on the grounds that his consitutional rights were being infringed and, Ontario taxpayers will have to foot the bill and the people awaiting cancer care and life-saving surgeries will just have to wait. He won his appeal and he will be flown to Austin, Texas for his surgery.
All l can say is that the "surgeons" that are willing to perform this type of Frankensteinesque procedure on another humanbeing better top up their malpractice insurance policy. Maybe re-read the Hippocratic Oath a few more times just to be sure.
It was a really insightful and thought provoking conversation. I'm glad you guys were finally able to connect.
I'm a former radical leftist and i'm very well acquainted with this world and coming from a place where I have a deep understanding of it all, makes it scarier in a lot of ways.
One of the children in our family is trans identifying and seeking to transition. I live in Canada and this means that at 14 this child can get blockers/ hormones and begin the process on their own without any parental consent or even parental knowledge that they are undergoing these treatments. Being that this child is part of a blended family and their other parent supports the desire to transition this leaves very little that can be done to prevent it as any bit of resistance is framed as transphobia. It feels like we are sitting on a time bomb that is going to go off in a few months once they turn 14.
I have heard many people talk about social contagion, but I think it is also in part a semantic contagion. I think the language we are collectively using lends itself to making this type of distress make sense. We have pathologized normal anxieties and feelings that young people experience and they are seeing all these descriptions of distress labeled as gender dysphoria and relating to the underlying feelings, which are common.
I dont know the way out exactly but I hope this runs its course soon enough.
> "... the interplay between personal identity, societal expectations, and ideological capture of our institutions ..."
Amen to that -- a "nice" summary of the problem, of many of the problems in fact, and their problematic roots.
However ..., your own "born female" is part and parcel of the wider problem: turning the sexes into "immutable" identities -- what a ridiculous and quite anti-scientific "idea" -- instead of accepting "male" and "female" as labels for quite transitory reproductive abilities.
More particularly -- by the standard biological definitions published in reputable sources like the Oxford Dictionary of Biology -- none of us have a sex at birth; we only ACQUIRE one at the onset of puberty, and can subsequently lose our "membership cards therein" for one reason or another:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990 (see the Glossary)
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3063-1
https://twitter.com/pwkilleen/status/1039879009407037441 (Oxford Dictionary of Biology)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202200173?af=R
And US biologist PZ Myers:
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
Somewhat academic, but too many clueless feminists (ain't they all? 🙄) have been busily engaged in bastardizing and corrupting the biology to comport with their anti-science, and anti-evolution, dogma. They're the ones peddling the ideological claptrap that "sex is immutable!!11!!" (Maya Forstater, Sex not Gender Identity); that every cell has a sex (NCBI, Yale Medicine); that every part of Helen Joyce's body, from her toes to her nose, is female (🙄):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12P9zf82TicPs2cCxlTnm0TrNFDD8Gaz5/view
https://mneill.substack.com/p/isbi-is-human-sex-binary-and-immutable
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222291/
https://medicine.yale.edu/ycci/news-article/every-cell-has-a-sex-x-and-y-and-the-future-of-health-care/
https://substack.com/@humanuseofhumanbeings/note/c-21582743
Scientific illiteracy as far as the eye can see -- and you're contributing to it. Even if somewhat inadvertently – though ignorance of the law, and of basic biology, is no excuse..
But the upshot of that rather pigheaded ignorance -- more evident in some than others (*cough Andrew Doyle, Alex Byrne, Colin Wright, Christopher Rufo, too many suspects to name ... *cough) -- is the cretinous idea that having a sex is simply a matter of having a penis or a vagina. Which are the ONLY things that are detectable at birth. Which leads to the consequential "idea" that changing sex is simply a matter of changing one's genitalia. "Change your genitalia, change your sex! Act now! Offer ends soon! 🙄":
https://www.meghanmurphy.ca/p/early-access-andrew-doyle-on-the/comment/59962371
https://www.meghanmurphy.ca/p/early-access-andrew-doyle-on-the/comment/60028617
"The Murky Business of Transgender Medicine
Did Texas Children’s Hospital commit fraud to pay for child sex-change procedures?" 🙄
https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-murky-business-of-transgender
"Tell Texas Children’s: No More Pediatric Sex-Changes" 🙄
https://christopherrufo.com/p/tell-texas-childrens-no-more-pediatric
Someone needs to "tell" Rufo that "sex changes" are flat-out impossible, at least in humans. Though the gay community has been peddling that lie since Christine Jorgensen supposedly had one some 72 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Jorgensen#Publicity
But on reviewing the "vaginoplasty files", to coin a phrase, one might be hard pressed, so to speak, to tell which was the "real-meal deal", and which the ersatz replica: was that Ella or was that Memorex? 🙄
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaginoplasty#Penile_inversion
"How dare you deny that Christine and Bruce changed sex! How dare you!!!" 🙄
That's the upshot of that scientific illiteracy and "conventional wisdom". Which you -- and Exulansic's gender studies -- are contributing to. The rot is rather ubiquitous, and goes rather deep.
I think that you misunderstood how actually sex is defined in biology, or to be more precise how this definition should be understood. And citing PZ Myers is not a good idea, since he believes that sex is bimodal (which is a direct contradiction of this “strict definition of sex”).
Let’s take the definition of biological sex from Wikipedia: “Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes.”
This definition is not really clear because “produces” can be understood in two ways: either as the act of producing gametes (which simply means action which you execute at any given point of time) or as being source of gametes. Like in the sentence “This soil produces splendid crops”. Scientists don't need to know if this particular batch of soil produces “splendid crops” right now (not to mention that crop production is not just a single point in time) or even that this batch ever produced “splendid crops”. They only need to know the chemical composition (and other characteristics) of this soil which would justify saying that. If science would not be able to make judgments calls like this it would not be science (we would not have theories, predictions and knowledge other than a simple list of facts which already occurred).
Note that biologists basically never go with “strict definitions”. “Bipedal” individuals are not bipedal only at times when they are literally moving and when they stop in place they are stopping to be bipedal. Bipedal means that the anatomy of an individual is organized around a specific motility function - moving, primarily with two rear limbs (legs). Which also means that they can still be classified, counterintuitively, as “bipedal” if given individuals don’t have legs. The fact of losing (or even not having legs in “bipedal” species) legs doesn’t mean that your whole anatomy was reorganized around different motility strategies.
Sure you can go with “strict definition of sex”, but then you need to distinguish between how biologists classify organisms as “male” or “female” and what “male” and “female” sex is. Every individual which has “male sex” is male then, but not every male needs to have “male sex”. This is done even with a “pragmatic definition of sex”, since the non-reproductive caste of ants are also classified as females. Those obviously don't have “female sex” (non-reproductive) but their development pathways are modification of female (reproductive) development pathways.
As for “immutability” - this term should also be understood in a strict way - this only informs you about our current knowledge of the world. Mass of electrons is constant in physics and it is immutable - but this doesn’t mean couldn’t not change (e.g. scientists have some power to force it not to change). Science is not normative, it is descriptive. In the case of human sex it simply means that we don’t know any development pathways in humans which could be classified as “sequential hermaphrodites”.
> “I think that you misunderstood how actually sex is defined in biology ...”
Don’t think so. That Wiley Online Library post by a trio of biologists is quite clear that the sexes are DEFINED as transitory “life-history stages” contingent on the presence of functional gonads. Something elaborated on and emphasized in some detail by philosopher of science Paul Griffiths, co-author of “Genetics and Philosophy” – kinda think he knows his onions:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202200173?af=R
https://philarchive.org/rec/GRIWAB-2
And see Griffiths’ earlier post at Aeon:
“Sex Is Real:
Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other.”
https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity
But a big part of the problem is that most people – including too many so-called biologists (e.g., Colin Wright) and philosophers – haven’t a flaming clue how categories work, and how they’re defined by reputable biologists and philosophers. Something of an exception is “philosopher” Alex Byrne who had a nice illustration of the concept:
Byrne: “Categories are basically the same as the properties (or features, or attributes) of things. My cat Maisie is furry — equivalently, she has the property of being furry. In other words, furriness is one of her features or attributes. Said another way, Maisie belongs to the category furry.”
https://medium.com/arc-digital/is-sex-socially-constructed-81cf3ef79f07
And if Alex shaved poor old Maisie then she would no longer be a furry, no longer a member of the “furry” category, although she would still be a cat. “furry” is deemed an “accidental” property of members of the “cat” category, not an “essential” one:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/essential-accidental/
Kind of like bipedality. That a species includes members which are typically bipedal does not mean that every member is always bipedal.
And the SAME thing with the categories “male” and “female”, although the defining and essential properties are “produces small gametes” and “produces large gametes”. Those properties consist of actually functioning MECHANISMS that MUST be present to qualify individual organisms – of ALL anisogamous species – as either male or female; no gametes, no sex – no tickee, no washee.
But something I’ve elaborated on in some detail in my Substack post, “Rerum cognoscere causas”, which relies heavily on a “Mechanisms in Science” article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP):
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/rerum-cognoscere-causas
https://plato.stanford.edu/Archives/win2021/entries/science-mechanisms/#toc
There IS some rhyme and reason, a great many sound principles of epistemology that go into those biological definitions. It’s not a free-for-all where anyone can play.
> “And citing PZ Myers is not a good idea ...”
He’s definitely a case of stopped clocks being right twice a day. And he does have a tendency, at best, to be talking out of both sides of his mouth. Although he was certainly “not amused” by my calling him on that “cis women are not female” comment of his – not that I disagreed with it, only with his hypocrisy. But that might be a case of him playing to his “Horde”, to his commentariat – we all have to pay our bills, some methods more ethical than others:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2022/07/12/what-is-a-woman-2/#comment-2141695
> “Like in the sentence ‘This soil produces splendid crops’. Scientists don't need to know if this particular batch of soil produces ‘splendid crops’ right now ...”
“producing splendid crops” is not an essential property of “soil”, only an accidental one. No one has defined “soil” as “produces splendid crops” such that if it’s not doing so then it’s not “soil”.
> Note that biologists basically never go with ‘strict definitions’. “
“never”? The use of those “strict definitions” is intrinsic in the quite ubiquitous concept of sequential hermaphrodites. Clownfish change sex BECAUSE they change the type of gamete they’re currently producing. And those definitions play out in many other fields of biology – regardless of whether other “biologists” and “philosophers” have yet “read the memo”.
> “... but then you need to distinguish between how biologists classify organisms as ‘male’ or ‘female’ and what ‘male’ and ‘female’ sex is. “
Clear as day; you might try reading the definitions I’ve linked to above. Biologically speaking, to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. Too many people don’t like those definitions because they’ve turned the sexes into “immutable identities”, into empty signifiers of tribal membership. Instead of accepting them as labels for transitory reproductive abilities.
> “Mass of electrons is constant in physics and it is immutable “
If an electron can be “annihilated” in a collision with a positron then it seems questionable to say the mass or the electron is “immutable”. If the mass disappears then the electron no longer exists. Hardly “immutable”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron
I think that you misrepresent what Paul Griffiths and what is said in the Wiley Online Library bioassay.
There are no “essential” properties in biology in Plato understanding. Plato believed that in the existence of the realm of ideas which contain those essential properties and we only discover them using our inaccurate senses.
Biology is science, it is a pragmatic project whose goal is to allow us to navigate through a world which is in itself not categorized at all. Cats are not defined by any essence of “catness” which is essential to them being cats. They are categorized using quite straightforward methods rooted in sexual reproduction, methods which don't work for non sexually reproducing animals.
Sex can be defined in many ways - some are more useful than others. Yes, it is true that there are anisogamous species. Yes, it is true that in those species we can easily identify two morphologically distinguished gamete types which fuse as part of the reproductive cycle. And yes, that means that there must be some source of this gametes, organisms which can be identified as producers of those. Further, those organisms must have anatomical structures which are used for this production - this is also true. But this means that sex must be defined as “having such structures functional” - no it doesn’t. There are more steps in this reasoning chain - if there are organisms with such structures, they also must have developed in some way. So development pathways associated with those structures must also exist - and this is an extensive definition of sex - much more useful definition.
And your source explicitly confirm existence of those definition and their validity:
“Another reason for the wide-spread misconception about the biological sex is the notion that it is a condition, while in reality it may be a life-history stage.”
“it may be” - yes, in species in which it is easier to speak about sex in such a way (i.e. sequential hermaphrodites)
“What sex are worker bees? They are sterile workers whose genome was designed by natural selection to terminate ovary development on receipt of a signal from the queen bee. They share much of the biology of fertile female bees – but if someone wants to know ‘Are worker bees really female?’, they’re asking a question that biology simply can’t answer.”
Here it is clear that Paul Griffiths is not “essentialist” (only religious philosophers are “essentialist”). If he would believe that there is only one valid definition of sex (strict definition) then he would answer “no” to this question. “Worker bees are not really female”. But he acknowledges that there is no answer to such a question in biology.
“Workers and soldiers are both ‘female’ in an extended sense, but not in the full-blown sense that queen ants are female. There is a human imperative to give everything a sex, as mentioned above, but biology doesn’t share it.”
This is direct acknowledgement of the existence of “extended definition of sex”. And yes, obviously there is a difference between extended definition of sex and strict definition of sex. But both of those definitions are valid and part of the same reasoning chain.
People like Colin Wright intentionally use extended definitions of sex, because strict definition is useless in context of discussions which take place. If you say that there is only a strict definition of sex in biology and the biologist doesn’t know if boys are “male” or “female” then it is patently obvious that biological definition of sex is completely useless in a social context. This means that we need a social definition of sex (like “man have penis and woman have vagina”) and then of course you will end up with some definition which allows sex change very easily.
> “If an electron can be “annihilated” in a collision with a positron then it seems questionable to say the mass or the electron is “immutable”. If the mass disappears then the electron no longer exists. Hardly “immutable””
Nothing is immutable in a strict scientific sense (even only because you don’t have a way to verify if it is really immutable). Destroyed electron is not an electron any longer - it doesn’t have any “essential” or “accidental” properties. Question is if the “mass” of an electron changes as long as it is an electron? And if the “mass” of an electron is an “essential” property of an electron? Answer for the first question is: not as far as we know (so it is immutable). Answer for the second question is: not as far as the electron is defined.
> “I think that you misrepresent what Paul Griffiths and what is said in the Wiley Online Library bioassay.”
Possibly – it’s a complex issue. I’ve sent Griffiths a couple of emails which he has kindly responded to , and a salient point of his is this:
PG: “It is, indeed, all about the various different things we call ‘definitions’ and the roles of these various things in science and in practical life. That’s such a complex topic that it is not surprising that so many people – philosophers included – make such a mess of it.”
But he has also emphasized, many times, that “life-history stage” concept, and his Aeon article (linked to above) isn’t pulling any punches: “Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other.”
Something that constitutes an outright heresy to many people, including various “feminists”, “biologists”, and “philosophers”. They clearly have emotional commitments to people being either male or female – and from birth to death – which simply does not comport with foundational principles and insights of mainstream biology.
But he has also linked me to a PhilPapers article which asks, “Are sexes natural kinds?”:
https://philpapers.org/rec/KHAASN
That is, are they “groupings that reflect the structure of the natural world rather than the interests and actions of human beings”? Your “social definition” is clearly the latter – a world of difference from the former.
> “There are no ‘essential’ properties in biology in Plato understanding.”
Yes, I quite agree with you – too much of philosophy is still stuck in the “footnotes to Plato”. The problem is that, as the Wikipedia article on “Essentialism” emphasizes, “Essentialism has been controversial from its beginning”. Moot exactly where Plato and Company went off the rails, but some reason to argue that it’s because they lost sight of the difference between the criteria for category membership, and the names for the categories which they’ve “reified”. For example, there’s no “essence” to “teenager”, but the “essence” of the category “teenager” is “being 13 to 19”.
> “Sex can be defined in many ways - some are more useful than others.”
And quite agree with you there too. But there are a great many more solid reasons for the biological definitions than there are for the “social category” ones. Society may well want to create ones for a “social context”, but then it ain’t biology; a fraud to claim otherwise. But that may be fine – unless those peddling those definitions try to corrupt the biological ones. Which is largely what is happening and which is the general problem I’ve discussed in my open letter to Cell. But largely the theme of Griffiths' Aeon article.
> “ ‘it may be’ [that sexes are life-history stages] – yes, in species in which it is easier to speak about sex in such a way (i.e. sequential hermaphrodites)”
The thing is that – as Griffiths quotes evolutionary biologist, and transwoman, Joan Roughgarden saying in his PhilPapers article – “.... 'Male' and 'female' are biological categories, and the criteria for classifying an organism as male or female have to work with worms to whales, with red seaweed to redwood trees."
That is biology’s claim to fame and fortune, i.e., its “universalizing” of foundational definitions – the defining criteria apply to ALL anisogamous species, no exceptions. Roughgarden emphasizes the same point in “her” “Evolution’s Rainbow”:
JR: “To a biologist, ‘male’ means making small gametes, and ‘female’ means making large gametes. Period! By definition, the smaller of the two gametes is called a sperm, and the larger an egg. Beyond gamete size, biologists don’t recognize any other universal difference between male and female.”
https://teoriaevolutiva.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/joan_roughgarden_evolutions_rainbow_diversitybookos-org1.pdf
Part and parcel of the whole concept of natural kinds. The sexes are, by definition, on-going processes, a working mechanism that is ubiquitous across literally millions of species. There may well be more fundamental aspects to the concepts of male and female – maybe there are two versions of a single protein, cis and trans versions?, that are characteristic of, or are present in millions of species – but the biological definitions at least circumscribe them.
> “... then it is patently obvious that biological definition of sex is completely useless in a social context.”
The biological definitions weren’t “designed” for that purpose. Trying to shoehorn the foot of “social justice” into the glass slipper of biology – so to speak – just cripples the former and shatters the latter beyond much use at all:
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1000,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fedeae1d8-c6ae-49ce-985b-276df78a08b4_1024x1024.jpeg
> “This means that we need a social definition of sex (like “man have penis and woman have vagina”) and then of course you will end up with some definition which allows sex change very easily.”
So you’ll have a “social definition” for the kids in their social studies classes and an entirely different one for their biology classes? “From contradictions, anything follows”.
So should children be taught that they will have a sex one day when they become reproductively mature? What sex will they be they will ask. Do we have a celebration day, call it sexday, when we can verify that they are producing gametes? When females start menopause, do we have a day of mourning for having lost their sex as they no longer produce gametes?
How should a supplier of mice and rats for scientific research determine the sex of members of a litter so they can can be segregated and thus supplied to researchers requiring specific sex animals for their research?
How does a breeder of horses know to pick pairs ro mate? How do they know what they should do with a newborn horse?
Do you see how tedious your arguments are? They be fine for a night of sitting around over a bottle of scotch. But they provide nothing in terms of operational value.