There is a certain strand of skeptic who think having read a book or two on critical thinking makes them an expert on everything. But if you want to go down the biology route, I still need to hear an argument on why a person's chromosomes and/or genitals should be the things that determine "real" sex, rather than whatever happens in the brain that makes people uncomfortable to identify with a particular gender - it's not like your brain is any less a biological object than your gonads. Or are we going back to Cartesian dualism where your soul is entirely separate from your body? That doesn't strike me as particularly consistent with much of the skeptic anti-religion stance, but whatevs.Fishnut wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 9:24 amIt's not even a reliance on biology, it's reliance on an oversimplified version of biology. As with so many things, sex and gender are abmctt, yet somehow we get people who really should know better confidently announcing that men are XY and women are XX and that's all there is to it. And even if that were true, so what? Trans people exist. You can't logic them out of existence, and why would you even want to?El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 8:44 amSame thing as was the excuse for sexism and racism and homophobia - prejudice, fear, othering, and a press which is more than happy to pander to all of that. Within much of the Gen X/boomer-age "sceptical" community, also a reliance on biology as a supposedly scientific basis for discrimination.
Anyway, what I also find fascinating is that the "feminist" argument against trans people almost always ends up in some type of gender essentialism, i.e. that there really is some feminine or masculine essence that you cannot with the best will in the world divorce yourself from. That plays right into the hands of the Christian Right who use that argument to make sure women are kept in the kitchen and men in the office, because you cannot change your essence after all - emancipation was all a big mistake because men and women will always be just that. And indeed these unholy alliances are being made right now and very forcefully. The anti-trans feminists are being played like a f.cking fiddle and they seem to be ok with this.