SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" Conversion Therapy is Unconstitutional

[smac97]

2 hours ago, california boy said:

Would you agree that not all people view sex as binary and not as clear cut as you want it to be?

Yes, I acknowledge that this view exists.  I've discussed it many times on this board.  I've never challenged its existence, but rather its coherence and factual accuracy.  

2 hours ago, california boy said:

Who is correct on what that definition of sex is?  Could it be that there is no right or wrong answer, just differences in opinion on what the definition of what a woman is and what a man is may differ with different people's life experiences?  It is way more likely that a true blue Mormon would narrowly define sex as you have and a person with a more liberal background would have a more broad definition.  Who's right and who's wrong?  Given completely different  point of views, I would say there are no hard answers to who is right.  As proof of this truth, I offer you 21 pages of disagreement.  Neither side is willing to change their opinion because language is fluid.  Each side feels like they have a right to control that definition when in fact, no one has that power.

Disagreement about a fact is not evidence that there is no fact.

People argued for centuries about the shape of the earth and the causes of disease. The length of the argument did not make both sides right. It meant at least one side was wrong, or they were talking about different things. Twenty-one pages here prove that we are dug in. They do not prove that sex is a spectrum.

Language is fluid, sure.  But sex is not.  You can use “woman” for an adult human female, or for anyone who claims the word. Those are two definitions. Only one of them names a reproductive class that exists whether or not we like the vocabulary. People with differing backgrounds and perspectives can and do disagree about whether "woman" should be defined in a way that includes men.  That is sociology of which sentence people will say. It is not a finding that both sentences are equally true of the body.

“No one has the power to control the definition” is true of English in the street. It is false as a claim about biology, law and other important contexts. Biologists did not invent two gamete types by committee. Midwives did not invent male and female by “life experience.” We can fight over which word to put on a form, but we cannot vote ovaries into being a "social construct."

So who is right? If the question is “which meaning will win in HR and media,” that is politics, and you are right that no single poster owns the language. If the question is “how many sexes are there, and is a male a woman,” that is not a lifestyle preference. You are certainly free to use “woman” to refer to men socially.  I will not agree that the existence of two opinions makes the two definitions equally valid descriptions of reality.

The useful split is still the one we already have. Perhaps we should say which definition we are each using, than then argue the policy. I think we should not treat a stalemate about words as proof that the underlying distinction is optional.

I think it is beyond dispute that sex-segregated spaces have, until fairly recently, segregated by sex, not by subjective "self-identity."  Radically re-defining "woman" to include men within it reminds me of Abraham Lincoln.  

Lincoln asked: “How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?”  He answered: “Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.”  Variants of this story sometimes attribute the quote to a calf's tail instead of a dog's tail.  The lesson means that words alone cannot alter reality.

If someone asks "How many subcategories of 'woman' are there?", the answer, I think would be: "There are no subcategories.  There's just "woman."  Fabricating neologisms like "cis woman" and "trans woman" to as to facilitate the re-definition of "woman" to include men, doesn't make these men women.  Words alone cannot alter reality.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

54 minutes ago, Calm said:

In certain contexts I believe it is important for language to be very consistent (science, legal, and medical), but even these areas can allow for variation as long as definitions are given.

There may be other cases where language needs to be more rigid, but I love the fluidness of language.  Makes writing and speaking much more fun.  Currently I am trying to see every now and then if I can stump AI by using reasonable, but not typical and often as far as I am aware novel phrasing (though it’s likely that someone somewhere has created ‘new’ words in the same fashion or created a ‘new’ idiom using much the same wording).  Something another human would get even if it took a second.  Pretty impressed with its predictive ability, but then with the sheer mass of variety of human language data it has to pull from makes it less surprising that it’s capable of matching my snide remarks with some of its own. 

This video makes some good points about "preferred pronouns," particularly the guy at the 1:56 mark:

Quote

Host: Andrew, there you are.  It's a matter of courtesy this, and sensitivity, isn't it?

Andrew: Courtesy's all very well, and you're describing encouraging people to use certain words.  My problem is when words are policed.  When language becomes policed.  That is my problem.  Those sorts of things, 'humankind' or 'mankind,' I mean, those are sort of interchangeable now, they're synonymous anyway.  We're talking about when people actively - and it's a minority of activists, it really is a minority - seek to have people disciplined, or sacked, because they refuse to use language that they they are imposing.  That's not the evolution of language, that's the imposition of language, and I think that's problematic.

Personal pronouns, "trans women," "cisgender" and so on are not, in my view, the evolution of language, but rather the ideologically-driven imposition of it.  And the imposition has worked to some extent, but not perfectly.  

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

"Woman" is, in terms of biological sex taxonomy, a category that ends, with no subcategories underneath it.  

 

I asked AI if this was accurate:

Quote

Mostly, but the wording is more categorical than the biology supports.

If by woman you mean the biological-sex category adult human female, then yes: “woman” is not normally a biological taxonomy with biological subcategories beneath it. It is an age/sex term:

• female → biological sex category
• woman → adult human female
• girl → juvenile human female

That usage is found in ordinary dictionaries and in some contemporary scientific/governmental definitions. Merriam-Webster, for example, defines woman primarily as “an adult female person,” while the U.S. HHS definition explicitly gives “woman” = “an adult human female.”

But “a category that ends, with no subcategories underneath it” is not really a statement about biological taxonomy. There can certainly be subgroups of women based on other biological characteristics—postmenopausal women, pregnant women, women with Turner syndrome, women with PCOS, etc.—without those being subcategories of biological sex.

There’s also an important terminology issue: contemporary scientific sources don’t all use woman as a purely biological classification. The 2025 National Academies/NIH report explicitly distinguishes female from woman and uses woman as a gender/social category that can include people regardless of biological sex.

So if the intended argument is “In a strictly biological-sex framework, woman is the terminal category corresponding to adult human females, rather than a hierarchy containing different kinds of women as biological sexes,” that’s substantially accurate.

I’d phrase it more precisely as:

“In a biological-sex classification, ‘woman’ denotes an adult human female; it is not itself a biological sex with further sex categories beneath it.”

That avoids claiming that women can’t be subdivided for other biological, medical, demographic, or social purposes.

I like precision, so I agree with its conclusion: 

“In a biological-sex classification, ‘woman’ denotes an adult human female; it is not itself a biological sex with further sex categories beneath it.

That avoids claiming that women can’t be subdivided for other biological, medical, demographic, or social purposes.”

[smac97]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

I asked AI if this was accurate:

Quote

But “a category that ends, with no subcategories underneath it” is not really a statement about biological taxonomy. There can certainly be subgroups of women based on other biological characteristics—postmenopausal women, pregnant women, women with Turner syndrome, women with PCOS, etc.—without those being subcategories of biological sex.

2 hours ago, Calm said:

I like precision, so I agree with its conclusion: 

“In a biological-sex classification, ‘woman’ denotes an adult human female; it is not itself a biological sex with further sex categories beneath it.

That avoids claiming that women can’t be subdivided for other biological, medical, demographic, or social purposes.”

That is a fair tightening, and I can take most of it.

I am not saying women cannot be grouped for medicine or statistics—pregnant, postmenopausal, Turner, PCOS. Those are subgroups of women, not additional sexes. That was the point: there is not a spectrum of biological sexes under “woman.” There is one sex class (female) and an age term (adult → woman).

I also agree that some current institutional documents use “woman” as a social/identity label and “female” as the sex term. The National Academies report does that on purpose. That is a choice of wording, not a finding that the sexed meaning of woman has been withdrawn from English or from biology.

So I will use your sentence:

In a biological-sex classification, “woman” denotes an adult human female; it is not itself a biological sex with further sex categories beneath it.

If someone then uses “woman” for anyone who subjectively "identifies" as one, they have left that classification. We can argue whether that second use is useful. We should not act as if it is the same use.

Neither "woman" nor "female" should be severed from their biological basis so as to add "man" or "male" into one or both of them.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited Friday at 11:38 PM by smac97

[Calm]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Neither "woman" nor "female" should be severed from their biological basis so as to add "man" or "male" into one or both of them.

So this is what is debatable in the greater conversation, imo.   

I have not been persuaded yet that there are no cases where severance with biology should occur nor that there are cases where it should, though I am pretty solid that in the so callled ‘edge cases’ (I say so called because I have doubts about if they should be labeled as edge or not) where trans men are visually indistinguishable from biological men, they should not be required to use female spaces.  In fact, I think they should be restricted in the same way biological males are…not because I see them as a greater safety risk, but because I believe there are a significant number of women who would be emotionally harmed by being forced to share vulnerable spaces with them, much more so imo than some women might be harmed by the anticipation that some biological male they have no clue is male could be sharing said space with them.  If studies show the latter harm is greater than the former harm, I could change my opinion, but I know my own reaction to having someone who looks male walk into those spaces and other women have shared similar feelings and I have never heard a woman in real life and very few online worry about being exposed to someone who looks female unless you look at body scans or genetic tests.

I am very concerned about issues of biological women’s rights for privacy and safety, including perceived safety…which is why I see requiring an individual who looks like a biological male to use women’s restrooms foolish.  Then there are rights in the workplace and education.  I find the unintended results of Title IX where there are now less available career slots for women as coaches in sports due to men moving in to compete for them once pay was required to be competitive to boys/men’s sports rather appalling, for example.  I believe biological males, especially those who went through puberty, should be restricted from participating in sports where that biology gives them a significant advantage or creates potential for harm.  Exactly where that point lies for each sport should be scientifically determined with the best science provides, imo, while respecting everyone involved (but adults choose to participate in sports so if not overly intrusive and it’s actually necessary such as blood testing, some intrusive testing could be required imo.

Edited yesterday at 01:41 AM by Calm

[smac97]

45 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

Neither "woman" nor "female" should be severed from their biological basis so as to add "man" or "male" into one or both of them.

So this is what is debatable in the greater conversation, imo. 

Most things are debatable.  My question is whether reasonable minds can disagree about it.

If "woman" is redefined to include men, and vice versa, then the terms lose their utility.  We don't redefine "North" to include "South," or "right" to include "left," or "light" to include "darkness."  We don't redefine words so that their definitions include their antonyms, except for "man" and "woman?" 

I have to ask why.  Why do we privilege a person's subjective feeling of "identity" as to sex, but not as to age or species or height.  The privilege is, I think, purely a product of long-term strategies and pressure tactics.  And boy, it sure seems to be succeeding with a lot of people.  But it's also not holding up well.  I've repeatedly analogized the effort to The Emperor's New Clothes, and I think that may be happening more.

45 minutes ago, Calm said:

I have not been persuaded yet by either side as I am very concerned about issues of biological women’s rights for privacy and safety, including perceived safety…which is why I see requiring an individual who looks like a biological male to use women’s restrooms foolish.

For people with some forms of DSD, I think you are correct.  Case-by-case exceptions may be appropriate.

But we're not really talking about these folks.  instead, we are talking about any male who simply declares "I 'identify' as a woman" to be immediately treated like he is a woman.  Men in women's bathrooms, changing rooms, sports, prisons.

If you can present a limiting principle that allows "trans women" (that is, men who subjectively "identify" as women, which identity is self-designated and not up for discussion or debate) to enter into women's spaces while excluding other men, I would really like to see it.  Your benchmark for entry seems to be "{a woman} who looks like {a man}," and vice versa.  How would that be legislated?  What wording?  What does "looks like" look like when reduced to statutory language?  Who gets to determine the metrics of who goes in and who is excluded?  And what about men who "identify" as women but have done little or nothing to "look like" them?  Do they become second-class, sit-in-the-back-of-the-bus set of folks compared to those who do pass this "looks like" test?

Public policy arguments fairly often hinge on the details, and so far nobody except CB has made any effort to formulate a proposal with details (and CB's proposal is, I think, a guaranteed non-starter).  

I'm reminded of a scene from The Hunt for Red October, in which Jack Ryan (played by Alec Baldwin) is a CIA agent trying to figure out how to communicate with a Soviet captain who is defecting with the USSR's newest ballistic sub.  Jack is transported to an aircraft carrier, where he speaks with the captain who grills him on the details of his plan.

Here's the clip:

The dialogue:

• Executive Officer: That's the craziest notion I've ever heard.  A serving line officer?  An entire ballistic missile submarine?  They can't all want to defect.  Even if it's only the officers, it's extremely difficult to believe.
• Captain: What's his plan?
• Jack: His plan?
• Captain: Russians don't take a dump, son, without a plan.  Senior captains don't start something this dangerous without having thought the matter through.  
• XO: What's he going to do, sail into New York, pop the hatch, and say here I am?
• Jack: It might be just that simple, yes.
• XO: Well, things may appear simple in the cubicle at CIA, but in the middle of the Atlantic, with Soviet warships bearing down on us, they get more complex.
• Captain: And I don't think your notion of a few days inspection's going to wash either.  In order to be of any value, you'd have to tear it apart.  The metallurgy would take a couple of months.  
• Jack: Then we'd have to keep it.  
• Captain: then what will you do with the crew?  Ones that don't defect will go back and say we got the boat. Or do you plan to eliminate them?
• Jack: We're not at war, sir.
• Captain: So you have to get them off the boat in such a way that they think we don't have it, and they'll report that we don't have it to their bosses.  Otherwise, this whole business is just academic, right?
• Jack: Yes, sir.  I think I see your point.

See, in this thread I feel like I am doing what the captain was doing: asking legitimate questions about the particulars, the real-world ramifications, limiting principles, and so on.  And those questions have been almost entirely ignored, with regular doses of "Bigot!" from the "squarely on the side of empirical reality" guy and his compatriots:

• Your denial of their lived experience is your bigotry.
• This is what makes you a bigot. 
• I can’t help but wonder whether the real problem is them and involves something that rhymes with spigotry.

These are just from the last few pages of this one thread.  

So, what do you propose we do with "an individual who looks like a biological male" and does not want "to use women’s restrooms," and vice versa?  I assume you want to accommodate their preference, right?  How would that work? 

Quote

Then there are rights in the workplace and education.  I find the unintended results of Title IX where there are now less available career slots for women as coaches in sports due to men moving in to compete for them once pay was required to be competitive to boys/men’s sports rather appalling, for example.

Yes, unintended consequences of a law.  That can happen.  That's why I have been asking for limiting principles, etc.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited yesterday at 02:13 AM by smac97

[Calm]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

If "woman" is redefined to include men, and vice versa, then the terms lose their utility. 

But if what is included is not in the biological category but a different category, then while they may be biological males, they might not qualify as male for that category. A trivial analogy…. In my youth, no biologically male babies would be put in pink (except perhaps if the parents had no choice such as laundry day or too poor to buy a separate set for the new baby and family and friends weren’t around to pass on their previously used baby clothing as was the tradition in my family). Any baby in pink could very well end up being seen as a girlby those not familiar with them.  My daughter wore her brother’s hand me downs as a baby and on some occasions was mistaken for a boy and treated as such by strangers, mostly occured when shopping (both kids were very cute, happy babies from what was said and they got attention).

Now most would point out that the perception doesn’t matter, she was a female whether perceived as male….but if biology is severed, said in a collection of baby portraits where the photographer is showing his collection by splitting into boys and girls…her photo would have been included in the boys group.  And why not, since it worked as an example of what the photographer intended to present boys as.  The term boy and girl were useful for the photographer no matter what the biology is.

To me labeling trans women who visually pass as women works for the use of bathrooms because it’s practical in terms of maximizing the perception of safety in a restroom for women as well as allows trans women to be safer due to less harassment when they use restrooms because they will be perceived by the men in a restroom as women, even if this creates a messy area where some cases will be perceived as female by some and male by others.  Life is messy in many areas, I think it can be addressed adequately for the vast majority of cases with a little extra work that could be covered by a fee.  I have already discussed possible practical approaches, I don’t see the need to repeat myself.  While it would be subjective, it would be the subjectiveness of the community making the decision, not the individual desiring the label.  Such is a common practice for many things where community perception trumps individual perception…such as who is a lawyer and who isn’t.  (In California in 2024, apparently over 900 cases were opened against individuals attempting this.)

To me, insisting that biology is the only relevant variable in determining who uses women’s restrooms is what causes a loss of utility for the label in this case as it no longer functions as a way to exclude those who trigger defensiveness and fear in most women due to being perceived as a man.

Quote

But we're not really talking about these folks.  instead, we are talking about any male who simply declares "I 'identify' as a woman" to be immediately treated like he is a woman.  

No, I have never been talking about any male who declares this.  I don’t think others besides you have been either, though they can correct me.  I have been talking about those who are perceived as male and those perceived as females by others.

Edited yesterday at 04:50 AM by Calm

[The Nehor]

9 hours ago, smac97 said:

People argued for centuries about the shape of the earth and the causes of disease. The length of the argument did not make both sides right. It meant at least one side was wrong, or they were talking about different things. Twenty-one pages here prove that we are dug in. They do not prove that sex is a spectrum.

The existence of people who don’t fit into the binary from birth and that extensive studies of activity in the brains of transgender people showing their brain activity often does match that of the gender they self-identify do show that gender is a spectrum. You just ignore that though.

9 hours ago, smac97 said:

I think it is beyond dispute that sex-segregated spaces have, until fairly recently, segregated by sex, not by subjective "self-identity."

And most segregated spaces were historically and are still currently designed to keep women (and minorities) away from power so maybe don’t hold them up as some wonderful thing that is working as intended? Unless you think they are working as intended in which case……yikes.

9 hours ago, smac97 said:

If someone asks "How many subcategories of 'woman' are there?", the answer, I think would be: "There are no subcategories.  There's just "woman." 

That is something a transgender ally would say. Whoops.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

If you can present a limiting principle that allows "trans women" (that is, men who subjectively "identify" as women, which identity is self-designated and not up for discussion or debate) to enter into women's spaces while excluding other men, I would really like to see it.  Your benchmark for entry seems to be "{a woman} who looks like {a man}," and vice versa.  How would that be legislated?  What wording?  What does "looks like" look like when reduced to statutory language?  Who gets to determine the metrics of who goes in and who is excluded?  And what about men who "identify" as women but have done little or nothing to "look like" them?  Do they become second-class, sit-in-the-back-of-the-bus set of folks compared to those who do pass this "looks like" test?

Public policy arguments fairly often hinge on the details, and so far nobody except CB has made any effort to formulate a proposal with details (and CB's proposal is, I think, a guaranteed non-starter).  

The dialogue:

• Executive Officer: That's the craziest notion I've ever heard.  A serving line officer?  An entire ballistic missile submarine?  They can't all want to defect.  Even if it's only the officers, it's extremely difficult to believe.
• Captain: What's his plan?
• Jack: His plan?
• Captain: Russians don't take a dump, son, without a plan.  Senior captains don't start something this dangerous without having thought the matter through.  
• XO: What's he going to do, sail into New York, pop the hatch, and say here I am?
• Jack: It might be just that simple, yes.
• XO: Well, things may appear simple in the cubicle at CIA, but in the middle of the Atlantic, with Soviet warships bearing down on us, they get more complex.
• Captain: And I don't think your notion of a few days inspection's going to wash either.  In order to be of any value, you'd have to tear it apart.  The metallurgy would take a couple of months.  
• Jack: Then we'd have to keep it.  
• Captain: then what will you do with the crew?  Ones that don't defect will go back and say we got the boat. Or do you plan to eliminate them?
• Jack: We're not at war, sir.
• Captain: So you have to get them off the boat in such a way that they think we don't have it, and they'll report that we don't have it to their bosses.  Otherwise, this whole business is just academic, right?
• Jack: Yes, sir.  I think I see your point.

See, in this thread I feel like I am doing what the captain was doing: asking legitimate questions about the particulars, the real-world ramifications, limiting principles, and so on.  And those questions have been almost entirely ignored, with regular doses of "Bigot!" from the "squarely on the side of empirical reality" guy and his compatriots:

• Your denial of their lived experience is your bigotry.
• This is what makes you a bigot. 
• I can’t help but wonder whether the real problem is them and involves something that rhymes with spigotry.

These are just from the last few pages of this one thread.  

So, what do you propose we do with "an individual who looks like a biological male" and does not want "to use women’s restrooms," and vice versa?  I assume you want to accommodate their preference, right?  How would that work? 

That you are comparing in ‘on the ground’ military operation to transgender people getting rights as somehow equivalent is ridiculous. We don’t need to have every detail of how things will work figured out before we can do anything. This ‘just asking questions’ schtick is as old as institutional bigotry and is one of its primary defenders.

If we free the slaves what will keep them from raping all the white women?

If we let black people have civil rights what will keep them from persecuting white people or becoming communists and allying with the Soviets?

If we stop persecuting gay people what will keep them from converting your children into being gay? And AIDS!!!!!! That proves they are evil.

If we allow black people to join the military it will destroy cohesion. If you can’t explain how we will avoid destroying all discipline in the ranks we shouldn’t let them in. Oh, and the same with gay people. If we let them in all the gay recruits will prey on the straight ones. Oh, and letting women in will destroy discipline as well.

If we let women have jobs that have historically been open only to men what will keep them from wanting even more rights? If we let them go to the cities to work what will keep them all from becoming hookers?

Now it is that if we let transgender transition cis men will pretend to be transgender in order to prey on women. So transgender women cannot have equality because cis men will use their equality to be predatory? That is just disgusting. It is telling that it admits that transgender people aren’t the actual problem. Just like all the talk about grooming and abuse by transgender people is something done more by cis men as well but we can’t try to change society at all so we will just let the cis men be predatory and have a moral panic about another group that doesn’t require actually challenging the powerful because we are moral cowards or something.

Le sigh.

[smac97]

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

That you are comparing in ‘on the ground’ military operation to transgender people getting rights as somehow equivalent is ridiculous.

I think there are some similarities.  The Navy captain is asking Jack some pretty pertinent questions, and Jack is at a loss.  He hadn't really thought through the real-world ramifications of his idea.

I think we are seeing something similar in this thread.

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

We don’t need to have every detail of how things will work figured out before we can do anything.

I think the big moving parts need to identified and addressed.  Jack Ryan hadn't really thought about what to do with the sub, how long it would take to analyze, what to do with the non-defecting crew, and so on.

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

This ‘just asking questions’ schtick is as old as institutional bigotry and is one of its primary defenders.

I'm not pretending to be neutral in this area.  I oppose men in women's bathrooms and other spaces.

So I'm asking questions, but not just asking questions.  And those questions aren't getting answered, and are instead met with "Bigot!"

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Now it is that if we let transgender transition cis men will pretend to be transgender in order to prey on women.

Some will, yes.  But there really isn't a "pretend to be transgender" option, since the "identity" is purely subjective.

Meanwhile, there are also privacy concerns for women and girls, and for sports, fairness concerns.

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

So transgender women

That is to say, biological men.

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

cannot have equality

Sure they can.  Sex-segregated spaces exclude all men, including those who purport to "identify" as women.

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

because cis men will use their equality to be predatory?

Predators will predate more, yes.  But again, privacy and fairness and other concerns are in play as well.

Interesting how in all this discussion there is precious little commentary on the impact on women and girls, the persons for whom sex-segregated spaces were created.  Instead, almost the entire focus is on men who want to enter into women-only spaces.

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

That is just disgusting.

I think you are attacking a straw man.

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

It is telling that it admits that transgender people aren’t the actual problem.

The "problem" is that some men want to enter into women's spaces.  

53 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Just like all the talk about grooming and abuse by transgender people is something done more by cis men as well but we can’t try to change society at all so we will just let the cis men be predatory and have a moral panic about another group that doesn’t require actually challenging the powerful because we are moral cowards or something.

I think the sexualization and grooming of children is deplorable, regardless of who is doing it.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

The existence of people who don’t fit into the binary from birth

There are no such people.  There are only two sexes.

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

and that extensive studies of activity in the brains of transgender people showing their brain activity often does match that of the gender they self-identify do show that gender is a spectrum.

"Gender is a spectrum" if we are speaking of "gender" as something other than a synonym for biological sex.

If we are speaking of "gender" as a synonym for biological sex, then it is not a spectrum.

Equivocation and obfuscation are both frequent and fundamental in discussion about trans ideology.  That the proponents of this ideology must so frequently resort to these logical fallacies is, to me, one of the more clear indicators about just how incoherent and incongruent with reality the ideology is.

Also, I would like to see some sources to substantiate the "brain scan" thing, as it seems more like an urban legend or wishful thinking than something that really has happened.  

Distributions in brain activity would seem to heavily overlap.  I don't think we look look at one brain and read off sex the way we read gonads. Machine-learning can beat chance from many weak features; that is still a statistical sex difference, not a third sex or a slider.

And even if some circuits correlate with dysphoria or identity, that would be a possible correlate of a psychological condition, not proof that sex is a "spectrum" or that "identity" is sex. Height is on a spectrum; that does not make “adult” a spectrum of sexes. 

My sense is that yes, there is some literature about this topic, but it is not “extensive proof of matching brains.” It does not justify the “gender is a spectrum” claim as a biological conclusion. Sex remains a reproductive binary.  Brain sex differences are overlapping averages.

I found this 2023 study interesting: Accurate sex prediction of cisgender and transgender individuals without brain size bias.

The question examined was whether a computer could tell male from female brains from MRI scans without cheating on total brain size (TIV), and also whether "transgender" people’s brains then look like their identity or their sex.  Men’s brains are larger on average, so a lazy model just learns that “bigger = male.” That looks like a sex difference and will mis-sort anyone whose size is in the middle—including many trans people.

The study's conclusion: Once brain size is handled, the pattern that predicts sex still works for transgender as well as cisgender brains. They found no evidence that "sex" and "gender identity" interact in a way that would make the classifier fail on trans people.

Put in simple terms: the model is still reading natal sex, not "identity."

And this 2025 study: Brain Sex: Differences That Do Not Differentiate

From the intro:

Quote

The use of neuroimaging to study transgender individuals has generated both clinical interest and societal attention. Identifying a “transgender brain” is seen by some as evidence of an enduring, innate gender identity. This appeals both to those who subscribe to the notion of a biologically determined gender identity and to clinicians charged with identifying the best treatment pathways for young people with gender-related distress.
...
Neuroimaging may present as an objective lens, but the interpretation of imaging data is shaped by a series of complex human decisions, making it highly susceptible to bias. Brain imaging studies are particularly vulnerable to misinterpretation in the highly polarized field of gender medicine, where those on all sides of the debate exhort others to follow the science.

A summary of the conclusion: Differences that do not differentiate cannot carry the claim that gender identity is brain sex, or that sex itself is a spectrum.

It looks like the affirming "studies" and articles and such are not carrying forward very well.  I am open to more information on this, though.

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

You just ignore that though.

You haven't given me anything to ignore.  Just an assertion.

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

And most segregated spaces were historically and are still currently designed to keep women (and minorities) away from power so maybe don’t hold them up as some wonderful thing that is working as intended?

I question both the premise of the question and its relevance.

I think many women and girls want sex segregated spaces. 

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

He hadn't really thought through the real-world ramifications of his idea.

The real life ramifications of requiring all biological women to use the same facilities no matter what they present as is that real biological women will not be able to tell when real people who present as real men walk into their space whether or not they have a right to be there (because they are actually trans men who are biologically female) or do not (because they are not trans, but actually men who present as male deciding to invade female spaces, sometimes for reasonable reasons such as helping a daughter use the facility and feel safe ).

I am not interested at this point until dealing with that reality is explained in detail how that will be dealt with rather than being dismissed as not important enough for whatever reason, something besides what is being thrown out there again, which likely will end up imposing on women and again forcing them to deal with laws others make “for them” without actual consideration for what women actually want…which from what I have seen is they want sex separated spaces (that’s me), but a majority of women lean towards gender identity inclusive (me: if they look like women, then for their safety and mine, please come in; if not, show me how your plan is going to make me and other women feel safer because not seen it so far.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/09/28/3-public-split-over-bathroom-use-by-transgender-people/

Unfortunately most surveys appear to just use questions about gender assigned at birth or gender identity and not actual gender presentation, which is what is going to matter more in real life where it’s faces and bodies that get the once over, not ids or birth certificates vs the theoretical, where this reality moot even be mentioned, just the reality of those who do not in physical appearance pass as the gender they identify as.
 

If they can make laws excluding any males from using women’s restrooms, why can’t they make laws excluding men from holding coaching positions in women’s sports.  (Of course that would cut into the benefits of a typical white male  with 1/3 to over 1/2 of women’s teams are likely coached by white males, probably around 5200 head coach jobs alone).  After all, there’s pretty solid documentation that having male coaches—whose aggressive behavior is more often seen as acceptable where women coaches doing the same is generally interpreted as abusive, out of control—put the girls and women at greater risk for grooming and sexual abuse if you want to address an actual case of such and not just theoretical.

Quote

The U.S. Center for SafeSport:SafeSport manages abuse cases for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movements. Its Centralized Disciplinary Database (CDD) holds records on 2,545 individuals sanctioned or restricted from sports participation. More than one-third (over 950 individuals) are listed as "Permanently Ineligible", a large majority of whom are male coaches or staff members penalised for sexual misconduct involving athletes, including minors.

https://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/what-parents-should-know-sexual-abuse-youth-sports-aau-safesport
 

https://uscenterforsafesport.org/impact-report/

Edited yesterday at 07:28 AM by Calm

[Calm]

12 hours ago, smac97 said:

But there really isn't a "pretend to be transgender" option, since the "identity" is purely subjective.

Wouldn’t ‘they don’t believe they are transgender, but tell people they are’ be that option?

Just like pretending to be a doctor means someone doesn’t believe they are a doctor but tell people they are?  Or if you want something purely subjective, they don’t believe they are shy, don’t feel shy, but tell people they are and act in ways they think shy people act….that’s pretending to be shy.  And being shy can fen become an identity or part of one’s identity.  It certainly was for me for a good chunk of my life, more important than being female as it felt Ike it had a much greater impact on what I could an couldn’t do.

Edited yesterday at 06:41 PM by Calm

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I think there are some similarities.  The Navy captain is asking Jack some pretty pertinent questions, and Jack is at a loss.  He hadn't really thought through the real-world ramifications of his idea.

I think we are seeing something similar in this thread.

I think the big moving parts need to identified and addressed.  Jack Ryan hadn't really thought about what to do with the sub, how long it would take to analyze, what to do with the non-defecting crew, and so on.

I'm not pretending to be neutral in this area.  I oppose men in women's bathrooms and other spaces.

So I'm asking questions, but not just asking questions.  And those questions aren't getting answered, and are instead met with "Bigot!"

Some will, yes.  But there really isn't a "pretend to be transgender" option, since the "identity" is purely subjective.

Meanwhile, there are also privacy concerns for women and girls, and for sports, fairness concerns.

That is to say, biological men.

Sure they can.  Sex-segregated spaces exclude all men, including those who purport to "identify" as women.

Predators will predate more, yes.  But again, privacy and fairness and other concerns are in play as well.

Interesting how in all this discussion there is precious little commentary on the impact on women and girls, the persons for whom sex-segregated spaces were created.  Instead, almost the entire focus is on men who want to enter into women-only spaces.

I think you are attacking a straw man.

The "problem" is that some men want to enter into women's spaces.  

I think the sexualization and grooming of children is deplorable, regardless of who is doing it.

Thanks,

-Smac

And you didn’t answer any of the core idea of what I said and instead just broke what I said up into small pieces and repeated pat phrases after them.

Also no, sex-segregated spaces were created by men for men long before women got any meaningful spaces for themselves. Also I am personally tired of the people who support restricting the rights of women in general  pretending they care about women’s spaces and women’s sports. They don’t unless it serves as a bludgeon against someone else they don’t like. Same with the mostly mythical LGB mythos. While their side is gutting adoption rights for gay couples they want to pretend they are helping the LGBTQ community defend itself from an interloper when they want to hack away at the rights of everyone in the community.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

There are no such people.  There are only two sexes.

I could explain the existence of intersex people to you for what? The tenth time? Maybe more? Why bother?

Go ahead and stick your head in the sand and pretend that religious dogma and reality somehow match up perfectly but you should give up arguing about it if you are just going to selectively edit reality or suggest some people don’t matter because there are relatively few of them or whatever.

Oh, and about the brain imaging. I wasn’t claiming there is a hard and strict dichotomy. I was arguing that it showed a spectrum, the very thing you deny exists. The studies show that *checks notes* there is a spectrum and transgender people lean more towards their self-identified gender in terms of brain function than cisgender people assigned the same gender at birth. I don’t see how saying there is a spectrum which you do to refute me suggests you are right about there being a strict binary. PICK A LANE!

[Calm]

10 hours ago, The Nehor said:

sex-segregated spaces were created by men for men long before women got any meaningful spaces for themselves.

In many cases to protect men from having to endure the presence of women…except servers, courtesans or outright prostitutes and probably cleaners.

Gentlemen’s clubs, for example.  Pubs and bars.  Ladies rooms at some of said establishments popped up in late 19 century.  Iow, traditionally speaking women were part of the service, not the ones being served, kept safe (more often the reverse).

All male gyms date back to Ancient Greece.  Women only gyms (independent of schools) I believe early 1900s.

Fraternal organizations.  Need I say more than the name?

Barbershops another ancient tradition where female version showed up in modern times.  Same with public restrooms as mentioned by webbles earlier.

Prior to 19th century “sex segregated” typically meant “no women…’respectable’ at least…allowed”

I would describe truly sex segregated spaces (spaces available for both, but each designated for one sex and still not always in equal numbers, not just including one sex and excluding the other) as a hundred and fiftyish year old tradition.  About the same length of time as the flush toilet.  Potty parity didn’t start to occur in the US until 1989 though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potty_parity

Title IX has been around 17 years longer that equal toilet rights for women…and what those rights mean are still being defined…varies by number of fixtures available, floor space, stalls, wait times, etc.  Then there were the race segregated public restrooms only ended in 1964.  Acting like restroom laws or policy has been set in porcelain forever with its fine traditions proven by the test of time….nah, that’s just ignorance, which is likely pretty common.  The history of the Crapper (named for a plumbing company that is still in existence apparently) is all I remember being taught on the subject or anything related in school…and inaccurately at that, probably in history where mortality rates and such started going down due to inventions and public policy using them.

Seems to me we haven’t even moved out of the testing stage yet such things, so adjusting here and there based on information properly gathered about practical realities (and not just anecdotal or even speculative ‘evidence’) seems like a wise idea, imo.

Edited yesterday at 06:42 PM by Calm

[smac97]

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I could explain the existence of intersex people to you for what? The tenth time? Maybe more? Why bother?

I have repeatedly acknowledged that there are persons with DSDs, but they do not represent a third sex.

DSD talk in these debates is usually a motte-and-bailey fallacy.

The bailey (what the argument is actually about) is people whose sex is not in doubt: a male who subjectively "identifies" as a woman (and vice versa), and who want the law, sport, prisons, medicine, and language to treat them as if they are the opposite sex.

The motte (the easy position to retreat to when challenged on the above) is what you are attempting here: “Sex is complicated—look at intersex / DSDs.” DSDs are real medical conditions in which sex development is atypical. They are rare. They are not a third sex. They are not “gender identity.” Almost none of the policy fights are about how to treat a newborn with ambiguous genitalia.

Those two groups are not the same population. A man with gender dysphoria does not have CAH or CAIS. Pointing to a DSD does not help decide whether males belong in women’s sports. Such references are intended to make the binary look fuzzier than it is, then smuggle the "subjective self identity" claim made by persons whose sex is unequivocal back in as if it were the same fact.

We can have a serious conversation about clinical care for DSDs. You can have a serious conversation about sex, identity, and single-sex spaces. Mixing them amounts to the motte-and-bailey fallacy: defend identity rules by gesturing at medical anomalies, then, when the anomaly is granted, return to “trans women are women.” If the topic is identity in an unambiguously sexed body, I think we should say that. I think we should leave people with DSDs out of it unless the policy is actually about them.

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Go ahead and stick your head in the sand and pretend that religious dogma

I really haven't quoted religious sources in this thread.

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

and reality somehow match up perfectly

Overwhelmingly, my religious faith is quite compatible with my understanding of reality.

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

but you should give up arguing about it if you are just going to selectively edit reality

I don't think I have done that.

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

or suggest some people don’t matter because there are relatively few of them or whatever.

I have not done that either.

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Oh, and about the brain imaging. I wasn’t claiming there is a hard and strict dichotomy. I was arguing that it showed a spectrum, the very thing you deny exists.

A spectrum of biological sex?  Brain scans have "showed" this?  I'm not sure that is accurate.

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The studies show that *checks notes* there is a spectrum

I sure would like to see "studies" which "show ... there is a spectrum {of biological sex}."

I respectfully reject that claim.  There is a sexual binary: male and female. That is it. There is no third sex and no sexless kind of human. Every person is male, female, or (in vanishingly rare DSDs) a disordered mix of those two developmental pathways. Surface uncertainty is not a third category. Modern testing resolves almost all of those cases to one pathway. The handful that stay mixed are still not a third sex.

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

and transgender people lean more towards their self-identified gender in terms of brain function than cisgender people assigned the same gender at birth.

I'm not persuaded that this is an accurate statement.

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I don’t see how saying there is a spectrum which you do to refute me suggests you are right about there being a strict binary. PICK A LANE!

I did pick a lane. You are running two sentences together.

My lane: Sex is a binary. Male and female. Two reproductive classes. Not a spectrum of sexes.

The lane I am critiquing, but not driving in: Traits associated with sex (hormones, height, genital development) can vary in degree. Variation around two sexes is not a third sex and not “sex is a spectrum.” Height varies. That does not make “adult” a spectrum of sexes.

If I have granted “spectrum” at all, it was for those traits, not for sex. That is the same distinction as adult/child vs age. I am not switching lanes. I am refusing to let “traits vary” mean “there are not two sexes.”

So: binary for sex. Continua for some measurements. Those are not the same claim. The “pick a lane” line only works if you treat them as the same word. I do not.

Although we, as per usual, strongly disagree, I do appreciate your generally measured responses and comments.  I think we communicate more meaningfully when we both attempt to go that way.  I will work to improve myself.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited yesterday at 08:32 PM by smac97

[smac97]

8 hours ago, The Nehor said:

And you didn’t answer any of the core idea of what I said and instead just broke what I said up into small pieces and repeated pat phrases after them.

I was attempting to respond to the substance of your comments.

8 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Also no, sex-segregated spaces were created by men for men long before women got any meaningful spaces for themselves. Also I am personally tired of the people who support restricting the rights of women in general  pretending they care about women’s spaces and women’s sports. They don’t unless it serves as a bludgeon against someone else they don’t like. Same with the mostly mythical LGB mythos. While their side is gutting adoption rights for gay couples they want to pretend they are helping the LGBTQ community defend itself from an interloper when they want to hack away at the rights of everyone in the community.

Well, there's a bit to unpack here.  Two different fights are being tied together, i.e., if I care about women’s spaces I must also own every bad actor you associate with that camp. I don’t.

Spaces. Male-only clubs and boardrooms are not the same thing as women’s bathrooms, shelters, changing rooms, prisons, and sports. Those latter categories were built—often by women, and by reformers who thought sexed bodies matter—because undressing, sleeping, and competing with the other sex is not a neutral arrangement. That some men had private clubs first does not decide who belongs in locker room or a rape-crisis shelter. In my view, reciting history of the exclusion of women from men’s institutions/spaces is not an argument that women’s institutions/spaces should include males.

Motives. Some people use “think of the women” as a slogan and do not care about women in any other context. Granted. That does not make the sex-based rule false. A hypocrite can still point at a real conflict: males in female sport and female prisons. I can oppose that without signing up for a program on gay adoption, or for restricting women’s legal rights. I propose that we judge the rule, rather than impose some sort of purity test on anyone who states it.

LGB. Same-sex attraction is attraction to sex. That is not a mythos. It is why “lesbian” meant female and “gay man” meant male. In contrast, "gender identity" as an override of sex is a later claim, and it collides with that definition. You can support gay people and still say sexed categories are not bigotry. Those are not the same “community” with one set of interests. Treating dissent on identity as an attack on gay people is the blend that does not really work.

If the charge is “your coalition is inconsistent,” say which coalition and which policy. If the charge is that sex-based spaces have no legitimate purpose, that is the argument. Motives and adjacent culture-war items do not settle it.

Thanks,

-Smac

[The Nehor]

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

I have repeatedly acknowledged that there are persons with DSDs, but they do not represent a third sex.

So suddenly they have to represent a third sex for them to show a spectrum. Straw man. Silly. Facile. Dumb argument.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

DSD talk in these debates is usually a motte-and-bailey fallacy.

The bailey (what the argument is actually about) is people whose sex is not in doubt: a male who subjectively "identifies" as a woman (and vice versa), and who want the law, sport, prisons, medicine, and language to treat them as if they are the opposite sex.

The motte (the easy position to retreat to when challenged on the above) is what you are attempting here: “Sex is complicated—look at intersex / DSDs.” DSDs are real medical conditions in which sex development is atypical. They are rare. They are not a third sex. They are not “gender identity.” Almost none of the policy fights are about how to treat a newborn with ambiguous genitalia.

Those two groups are not the same population.

They actually often are. The Church Handbook even acknowledges this. You’re reaching. You want a strict binary. You are shown exceptions to that strict binary. You say that those more obvious exceptions aren’t always the same people as those wanting to shift along the spectrum in defiance of the binary.

This is projection. You insist that there is a strict binary and then retreat to these kinds of breezy arguments to try to invalidate the obvious exceptions without actually dealing with them.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

A man with gender dysphoria does not have CAH or CAIS.

Some do.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

Pointing to a DSD does not help decide whether males belong in women’s sports.

Which is something sporting leagues can figure out. It is not some massive conundrum that is threatening to uproot society unless we have a moral panic over it.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

Such references are intended to make the binary look fuzzier than it is, then smuggle the "subjective self identity" claim made by persons whose sex is unequivocal back in as if it were the same fact.

They make the binary look fuzzy because they objectively show that the binary is fuzzy. That if there is a God that God obviously isn’t nearly as obsessed with correlating humans into that strict binary as you want Him to be.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

A spectrum of biological sex?  Brain scans have "showed" this?  I'm not sure that is accurate.

Maybe you should look into the data behind things instead of posting propaganda articles.

Here is Dan McClellan talking a bit about this with references along with dealing with other pieces of transphobic nonsense.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

I sure would like to see "studies" which "show ... there is a spectrum {of biological sex}."

Intersex people prove this. There are lots of studies about them. You are being deliberately dense.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

I respectfully reject that claim.  There is a sexual binary: male and female. That is it. There is no third sex and no sexless kind of human. Every person is male, female, or (in vanishingly rare DSDs) a disordered mix of those two developmental pathways.

There are only two sexes and I can prove it because there are males and females and others that don’t fit neatly into either category.

You do realize how ridiculous that sounds right?

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

Surface uncertainty is not a third category. Modern testing resolves almost all of those cases to one pathway. The handful that stay mixed are still not a third sex.

Argument by assertion.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

Although we, as per usual, strongly disagree, I do appreciate your generally measured responses and comments.  I think we communicate more meaningfully when we both attempt to go that way.  I will work to improve myself.

This is not a mutual feeling. I find your facile rhetoric insulting and dangerous to the lives and wellbeing of people I care about. I hope you will follow the advice Dan gives at the end of the above video.

[Calm]

19 hours ago, smac97 said:

Also, I would like to see some sources to substantiate the "brain scan

Here’s two to get you started.  Pretty easy to find, though the science is developing still of course…they need more and larger studies that control for various variables, imo, but it’s something that shouldn’t be dismissed outright.  MRI research studies are expensive, so it is understandable why this isn’t something immediately determined.   

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm
 

Quote

New brain imaging research reveals that transgender adolescents show brain activity patterns more similar to their experienced gender than their assigned sex at birth. Using MRI scans and tests involving pheromones and memory exercises, scientists found that these teens’ brains responded in ways that aligned with the gender they identify with. The findings suggest that the roots of gender identity may appear early in brain development, offering hope for earlier and more supportive diagnosis and care for young people with gender dysphoria.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8955456/

Quote

The brains of transgender women ranged between cisgender men and cisgender women (albeit still closer to cisgender men), and the differences to both cisgender men and to cisgender women were significant (p = 0.016 and p < 0.001, respectively). These findings add support to the notion that the underlying brain anatomy in transgender people is shifted away from their biological sex towards their gender identity.

 

Edited 19 hours ago by Calm

[smac97]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

So suddenly they have to represent a third sex for them to show a spectrum. Straw man. Silly. Facile. Dumb argument.

I did not say people with DSDs “have to represent a third sex.” In fact, I said the opposite: they don’t, and treating them as proof of a sex spectrum is the move I reject.

Two different claims get mixed:

• A) Some people are born with atypical sex development. True. They are still male, female, or a disordered mix of those two pathways—not a third sex.
• B) Therefore sex is a spectrum, or “male/female is overly simplistic,” so identity can sit anywhere on that smear. That is the inference I called a motte-and-bailey when it is used in trans arguments. The motte is “look, DSDs exist.” The bailey is “so a typical male who identifies as a woman is just another point on the spectrum.”

If you are only defending A, we agree. If you think A does the work of B, that is the argument—not a straw man of patients. People with DSDs did not ask to be the exhibit. Leave them out of the identity fight unless the policy is actually about their care.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

DSD talk in these debates is usually a motte-and-bailey fallacy.

The bailey (what the argument is actually about) is people whose sex is not in doubt: a male who subjectively "identifies" as a woman (and vice versa), and who want the law, sport, prisons, medicine, and language to treat them as if they are the opposite sex.

The motte (the easy position to retreat to when challenged on the above) is what you are attempting here: “Sex is complicated—look at intersex / DSDs.” DSDs are real medical conditions in which sex development is atypical. They are rare. They are not a third sex. They are not “gender identity.” Almost none of the policy fights are about how to treat a newborn with ambiguous genitalia.

Those two groups are not the same population.

They actually often are.

There is overlap, yes.  But the groups are quite distinct from each other.  The members of one group have DSDs, and the members of the other group have gender dysphoria.  There are some people from the first group who overlap with the second, but the first group is numerically much smaller, so the actual number of overlapping persons would, I think, be fairly small.  Happy to consider any source you have about this.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The Church Handbook even acknowledges this.

I don't think it does.

Quote

38.6.23

Individuals Who Identify as Transgender

Gender is an essential characteristic in Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness (see Genesis 1:27).

Right at the outset, the Handbook quotes Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

No reference to a third sex or a spectrum.

Quote

The intended meaning of gender in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” is biological sex at birth. (For those whose biological sex is not clear at birth, see 38.7.7.)

38.7.7 is a different heading: people whose sex at birth is not clear. That is the DSD/ambiguous-development case. It tells leaders to use compassion and to take questions to the First Presidency. It does not say those members are the same population as males and females with typical anatomy who identify as the opposite sex.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

You’re reaching. You want a strict binary.

Well, no.  The binary is not something I "want."  It is something I acknowledge.  2+2=4 is correct because that is how math works, not because I "want" a particular answer.

But even if I grant the characterization, I would say I want a binary because that is what the reproductive classes are. Showing a rare developmental disorder is not an exception that refutes the classes. It is the motte again: when the subject is identity in a clearly sexed body, DSDs are a different file. The Handbook keeps those files apart. So should we.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

You are shown exceptions to that strict binary.

I don't think this has happened.

And again, I think you are only bringing these folks up as a motte and bailey tactic.  

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

You say that those more obvious exceptions aren’t always the same people as those wanting to shift along the spectrum in defiance of the binary.

Some with a DSD also have dysphoria. I acknowledge the overlap between the two separate groups ("overlap" in that there are persons who have both a DSD and gender dysphoria).  This does not make “look, intersex exists” an answer to whether an unambiguously male person is a woman. Exceptions in development are not a license to treat typical sex as optional, and they are not “shifting along a spectrum.” They are medical anomalies in a two-sex system.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

This is projection. You insist that there is a strict binary and then retreat to these kinds of breezy arguments to try to invalidate the obvious exceptions without actually dealing with them.

Again, this is all motte-and-bailey stuff.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

A man with gender dysphoria does not have CAH or CAIS.

Some do.

I concede the point.  I overstated the distinction between the two separate groups, as there are some individuals who overlap (who have, for example, CAH or CAIS and gender dysphoria).

The vast majority of people with GD, however, are unambiguously male or female.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

Pointing to a DSD does not help decide whether males belong in women’s sports.

Which is something sporting leagues can figure out. It is not some massive conundrum that is threatening to uproot society unless we have a moral panic over it.

I agree the leagues are the right place to set the rule (though legislative participation is likely going to be also necessary). Many of them have already set it: women’s categories are for females. That is not a mystery waiting on a DSD seminar. There is no symmetric rush of trans men into elite men’s events, because the performance gap runs one way.

Even the WNBA (!!!) appears to be refusing to allow men to participate.  

“Massive conundrum” and “uproot society” are your phrases, not mine. I said a narrower thing: pointing at DSDs does not tell you whether a male belongs on a women’s team. If you think that question is small, fine—then don’t inflate my sentence into a panic. If you think it is small, you should also not need DSDs as a shield when the category is being rewritten.

Again, leagues can figure it out. Several have: sex is the line. That is the opposite of a moral panic. It is the point of having a women’s division.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

They make the binary look fuzzy because they objectively show that the binary is fuzzy. That if there is a God that God obviously isn’t nearly as obsessed with correlating humans into that strict binary as you want Him to be.

Atypical development does not make the classes fuzzy. It makes some bodies within the two classes harder to sort. That is the difference.

If a factory builds two distinct models of a widget and a few units come off the line with mixed parts, you do not conclude the company makes a "spectrum" of models. You conclude the line glitched. So it is with DSDs, which are are disorders of the male or female pathway. They are not a divine hint that sex was meant to be a smear, and they are not the same fact as a typical male saying he is a woman.

And again, people with DSDs are only referenced in this discussions as part of a motte-and-bailey fallacy.  We all know that these discussions are really about people with gender dysphoria.

As for God, I am not claiming the Lord is “obsessed” with your wording. I am claiming he made male and female (Genesis 1:27), and that the Church treats biological sex at birth as the meaning of "gender" in the Family Proclamation.  Not subjective self-identity, and not a DSD exhibit. Rare medical anomalies do not rewrite that, and they do not smuggle self-ID into the same box. If your point is only “creation includes suffering and variation,” well, amen to that. If your point is “therefore the binary is a human fetish,” that does not follow from either the biology or the doctrine.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

A spectrum of biological sex?  Brain scans have "showed" this?  I'm not sure that is accurate.

Maybe you should look into the data behind things instead of posting propaganda articles.

I have looked at the data. That is why I do not say that brain scans show a spectrum of biological sex.

What the scans show is more modest. Average male and female brains differ on some measures, with large overlap. Some studies of transgender people find a few regions or task responses shifted toward the identified sex; reviews still find most structure tracking natal sex, especially before hormones. A 2023 classifier that stripped out brain-size bias still sorted male vs female at high accuracy in transgender people too. 

None of that is a "spectrum" or a third sex or a slider of sexes. Sex is a reproductive class. Brains are not a second set of gonads.

If you have a specific paper that you think shows sex itself is a spectrum, I would like to read it.  Could you post a link?  Otherwise, “look at the data” is not a finding. The data I have seen does not do the work you are assigning it.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Here is Dan McClellan talking a bit about this with references along with dealing with other pieces of transphobic nonsense.

I hold Dan in fairly high regard as to matters within his niche expertise and province (biblical stuff).  That said, it's not like he's some sort of polymath.  Putting aside his training and scholarship about the Bible, Dan is just another guy, so his personal opinions and politics only get the weight and influence I choose to lend them.  And having personally interacted with Dan, and having watched him intermingle his neomarxist sociopolitical views into topics well outside his area of expertise, I'm not really inclined to grant Dan much credibility.

That said, I watched the video.  I can grant the part that matters for kindness and still reject what I see as the leap.

First, the feeling is real. People with gender dysphoria often describe themselves as a mind in the wrong body. Distress, body dissatisfaction, and wanting the body to look like the identified sex are documented. Nobody serious should say they are “making it up.” Phantom-limb pain is real pain. That does not mean the missing hand is still there as a legal or biological fact.

Second, the hypothetical is not the same fact. Destiny’s story is an actual brain transplant: Rob’s brain, with Rob’s memories and male development, is put into a female body. That would be a genuine mismatch of one person’s nervous system with another person’s organism. Gender dysphoria is not that. No one has swapped a “female brain” into a male. Instead, what we have is a male or female body plus a persistent self-model that does not match it and is incongruent with reality. Treating the report as if it were a transplant is the move. Dan says the thought experiment “closely mirrors how people talk.” Talk is not ontology.

Third, cognitive science of the self does not settle sex. Selves are constructed, extended, sometimes misaligned with the visible body. Fine. The same literature explains eating disorders, body-integrity dysphoria, and optical illusions. The checker-shadow clip actually cuts against your position, because it shows that perception can be both experienced and yet still wrong in a systematic way. The two shades of gray are the same, and an individual's misperception of that does not mean they are different.  It just means that people can genuinely misperceive things.  The mind can generate a powerful error. The question is whether policy and medicine should affirm that there are actually two shades of gray (because, in Dan's and your view, perception trumps reality), or do we treat the distress and misperceptions arising from gender dysphoria, and do so in ways that do not involve denying reality and rewriting sex.

Fourth, phantom limb cuts the other way. Ramachandran did not conclude the clenched fist actually existed and that we must legally recognize a second hand. He used a mirror to update the map. If the analogy is serious, it supports changing the representation or reducing pain—not declaring the natal body a clerical mistake.

Dan's earnestness is, in a way, admirable.  He's quite passionate: "This is an experiment that people have a sense of gender identity, that they experience as real because that is what their mind is generating.  That is not in alignment with their birth-assigned sex.  That creates that incongruence that is sometimes described as feeling like you're in the wrong body."

This is all well and good.  Not even in dispute.  Virtually axiomatic, really.  

What Dan is apparently trying to do, though, is act as if this genuine experience - which is a misperception of and departure from reality - should be treated as if it is reflective of reality.  There is, I think, no other mental health disorder that receives this kind of irrational deference and acceptance and endorsement and celebration. For example, we do not treat the 15 year anorexic girl that weighs 85 pounds like she is fat even though she truly has a 'sense' and 'perception' that she is overweight.  We do not endorse her incongruent-with-reality perception.

So why do we privilege the phenomenon regarding incongruent-with-reality perception and "identity" of sex, but not false perceptions as to body weight or age or species or height?  The privilege is, I think, purely a product of long-term strategies and pressure tactics.  And boy, it sure seems to be succeeding with a lot of people.  But it's also not holding up well.  I've repeatedly analogized the effort to The Emperor's New Clothes, and I think that may be happening more.

Fifth, the papers do not show what the closer needs. “Own-body processing aligns with gender identity” and similar Amsterdam/clinic studies are the same small, mixed, often post-social-transition or hormone-confounded literature we already went over. They do not show a female brain in a male. Reviews still find most structure tracking natal sex.  Size-controlled classifiers still read sex. An encyclopedia entry on body image is not a finding that "sex" is "identity."

Sixth, the moral ending is not evidence. The neomarxist political screed in the video is yet another reason to not really take Dan's say-so as influential or reasoned.  “Harmful, hateful, people die, only trying to exist” skips the dispute: whether the right response to incongruence is to treat the person as the opposite sex in law and sport. We can want people alive and cared for and still say a male is not a woman. Those are not the same sentence.

If Dan has a study that identifies sex as identity rather than as reproductive class, that is the paper to present to the world.  I would sure like to read it.  A list of body-image citations plus a gratuitous ad hominem insult is not that paper.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

I sure would like to see "studies" which "show ... there is a spectrum {of biological sex}."

Intersex people prove this. There are lots of studies about them. You are being deliberately dense.

Well, no.  AFAICS, this is just wishful thinking.  

DSD studies document atypical development. They do not document extra sexes.

What these papers measure is things like CAH, CAIS, Klinefelter, Turner, ovotesticular DSD: chromosomes, gonads, or genitals that did not follow the usual script. That is a medical literature. It is not a finding that sex is a slider with many stops.  Every single DSD is a disorder of the two-sex system.  None of them is a third sex.  There is no third gamete in that stack of studies.

“Lots of studies about them” is both true and beside the point. Lots of studies about polydactyly do not prove that a human's number of fingers is a "spectrum" of hand-kinds.  Variation and injury inside a two-class system are not a spectrum of classes.

If you have a paper that identifies a third reproductive sex in humans (not a DSD, not a hormone curve, not an identity), I hope you will cite it and present a link to it.  As it is, “look at intersex” is the motte-and-bailey fallacy again. 

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

I respectfully reject that claim.  There is a sexual binary: male and female. That is it. There is no third sex and no sexless kind of human. Every person is male, female, or (in vanishingly rare DSDs) a disordered mix of those two developmental pathways.

There are only two sexes and I can prove it because there are males and females and others that don’t fit neatly into either category.

You do realize how ridiculous that sounds right?

It only sounds ridiculous if you hear a third sex in the third clause (re: DSDs). That is not what I am saying.

Male and female are the two classes.  “Disordered mix of those two pathways” is a description of a broken instance of the same system—not a third class, not “neither,” and not “other” as a sex.

Let's examine two human hands, left and right. A person born with a malformed blend of left- and right-sided structures on one limb has not revealed a third kind of hand. They have a rare error in a two-sided plan.

“Don’t fit neatly” is about our paperwork and first glance, not about a new reproductive type. No third gamete appears in that sentence. Your attempt at ridicule works by swapping “hard to sort” for “extra sex.” I did not make that swap. If the claim you want to mock is “there are three sexes,” find someone who said it. I said there are two, and a handful of disordered mixes of those two. That is not a punchline. It is the same binary with the medical footnote attached.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

Surface uncertainty is not a third category. Modern testing resolves almost all of those cases to one pathway. The handful that stay mixed are still not a third sex.

Argument by assertion.

Well, I assume you are aware of my fairly extensive prior posting history about this.

See, e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

I have posted links to quite a few articles over the years, so the "argument by assertion" critique doesn't really hold.  A sampling of articles/studies/sources which have influenced (and are generally compatible with) my views:

• The New Evolution Deniers (Colin Wright, Quillette)
• Sex Is Not a Spectrum (Reality’s Last Stand)
• The Dangerous Denial of Sex (Reality’s Last Stand / Wright, Hilton, et al.)
• A Biologist Explains Why Sex Is Binary (Wall Street Journal)
• Race Is a Spectrum, Sex Is Pretty Damn Binary (Areo)
• Once Again: Why Sex Is Binary (Jerry Coyne)
• A Defense of the Binary in Human Sex (Coyne)
• Nature Conflates Sex and Gender (Coyne)
• Evolution societies’ misleading statement about sex (Coyne)
• How Common Is Intersex? A Response to Anne Fausto-Sterling (Leonard Sax)
• Intersex: What It Is and Is Not (CMDA)
• Intersex: What It Is and Is Not (Moral Revolution)
• ISNA: What’s the difference between being transgender or transsexual and having an intersex condition?
• BioEssays paper on sex (Wiley; binary/developmental-pathway line)
• PMC article on sex/DSD framing
• Danish / Dutch AIS prevalence studies · 2001 Dutch AIS · 2016 Danish 46,XY females
• UCSF: Disorders of Sex Development (clinical, not identity)
• BMJ rapid responses to Alpert et al. (Gender Dysphoria Alliance, Phillips, Fisken, Curtis, Dahlen, etc.)
• BMJ replies to article seeking to remove biological sex as a medical classification
• FAIR: Does intersex/GD/trans invalidate eternal male/female gender?
• FAIR: Mormonism and transgenderism
• General Handbook 38 (Church policies, including sex-at-birth rules)
• National Review: Rachel McKinnon / women’s sport
• National Review: Scottish rapist and gender-law reforms
• Woman’s Place UK (sex-based rights / sport and spaces)

I have also addressed articles/studies/sources which disagree with my views:

• Disorders of sex development: a new definition and classification (Genetics in Medicine / Nature, 2007) — “sex is just as complicated…”
• Sex redefined (Claire Ainsworth, Nature)
• Sex Redefined: The Idea of 2 Sexes Is Overly Simplistic (Scientific American reprint)
• Visualizing Sex as a Spectrum (Scientific American blog)
• Rethinking sex-assigned-at-birth questions (Alpert et al., BMJ)
• A Conversation with Anne Fausto-Sterling (New York Times)
• How sexually dimorphic are we? (Fausto-Sterling et al., Journal of Sex Research)
• Is Sex Binary? Let’s Look at the Biology (The Logic of Science — argues against a strict binary)
• Sex in humans may not be binary, but it’s surely bimodal (Coyne quoting/engaging the “bimodal” line)
• ScienceVet thread on sex as a complex/non-strict binary
• Lia Thomas: “I belong on the women’s team” (Daily Beast)
• NPR transcript you linked (identity-affirming news frame)
• ISNA frequency FAQ (uses the broad ~1.7% intersex figure)
• Nonbinary Wiki: Third gender
• Germany “third gender” law
• California SB 201 (intersex surgery / identity-adjacent statute)

Again, I would welcome any articles/studies/sources you feel I should consider.

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

Although we, as per usual, strongly disagree, I do appreciate your generally measured responses and comments.  I think we communicate more meaningfully when we both attempt to go that way.  I will work to improve myself.

This is not a mutual feeling. I find your facile rhetoric insulting and dangerous to the lives and wellbeing of people I care about. I hope you will follow the advice Dan gives at the end of the above video.

I am sorry you experience our interactions that way. I do not intend insult, and I do not wish harm on anyone you care about.

I have been working over the last several months to improve my online communications, largely following Steven Collis's "Habits of a Peacemaker."  So far my efforts have been far from perfect.  I will work to improve.

That said, I will not take Dan’s closing advice. “Stop talking” is not a reply to arguments that disagree with his - or your - sociopolitical and other views and opinions.

I can keep the temperature down and still say what I think is true: sex is a binary, dysphoria is real, and those are not the same fact. If that itself is what you find "dangerous," I think we'll have to live with that.  I will try to stay measured. I hope you will too. I will not pretend the disagreement is hatred so that the only moral option is silence.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited 18 hours ago by smac97

[smac97]

52 minutes ago, Calm said:

Here’s two to get you started.  Pretty easy to find, though the science is developing still of course…they need more and larger studies that control for various variables, imo, but it’s something that shouldn’t be dismissed outright.  MRI research studies are expensive, so it is understandable why this isn’t something immediately determined.   

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8955456/

Thank you. I had already looked at both. They do not show that “brain scans prove a female brain in a male,” which I think is the wishful thinking / urban-legend version on display in this thread.

The ScienceDaily article from 2018 is not a journal paper. It is a conference write-up of Julie Bakker’s ECE talk. The headline, that “transgender brains are more like their desired gender from an early age,” goes beyond, I think, the abstract. Structure was already hedged as “more similar, but not identical, to those typical of the desired gender of GD boys and girls.” 

The second link is a real paper and better than the press release. Kurth and colleagues scanned 24 men, 24 women, and 24 "trans women" who had not taken hormones. A computer model scored each brain on a male-to-female scale (men averaging 1, women averaging 0). The trans women’s average score was 0.75, which is a bit less typically male than the men, but still much closer to the men than to the women. The sample size was small. The authors also acknowledge that sexual orientation might be mixing in the result, and that bigger studies are needed.  

These findings are compatible with “some average features sit between,” which is what I have been saying.  I think these findings are not compatible with “the brain matches the identified sex” or “sex is a spectrum.” A 0.75 on a 0–1 male–female axis shows that "trans women" are still on the male side of the overlap, which overlap we already know exists in every large brain-sex study.

I found this article worthwhile:

Accurate sex prediction of cisgender and transgender individuals without brain size bias (Scientific Reports (2023)).

These guys trained a computer to guess sex from MRI scans. A lazy model just uses brain size (men’s brains are larger on average). They built models that do not cheat that way.

Those "debiased" models still guessed male vs female correctly about 90–93% of the time, both for non-trans men and women and for transgender people. Accuracy was similar in both groups. In other words, once you ignore head size, the scan still tracks natal sex, not the subjective "identified" sex.  It did have some limits: the trans samples were small, and the study classifies group patterns, not “this one brain is female.”

I am not dismissing MRI studies. I am declining to go along with the slogan the scans are asked to carry. These two sources are why. If the next paper shows a pre-hormone sample where trans women are indistinguishable from cis women on a size-controlled classifier, that would move the needle. These two do not.

Thank you for sharing these articles.

-Smac

Edited 18 hours ago by smac97

[webbles]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Those "debiased" models still guessed male vs female correctly about 90–93% of the time, both for non-trans men and women and for transgender people. Accuracy was similar in both groups. In other words, once you ignore head size, the scan still tracks natal sex, not the subjective "identified" sex.  It did have some limits: the trans samples were small, and the study classifies group patterns, not “this one brain is female.”

Just want to point out that the 7-10% gap is large enough to be able to include many transgender people.  If there were non-trans men/women that were incorrectly identified, it would be interesting to compare their self-identity to trans men/women.  Is there something that the 7-10% gap that shows up in self-identity?

[smac97]

11 minutes ago, webbles said:

Just want to point out that the 7-10% gap is large enough to be able to include many transgender people.  If there were non-trans men/women that were incorrectly identified, it would be interesting to compare their self-identity to trans men/women.  Is there something that the 7-10% gap that shows up in self-identity?

I think the 7–10% is model error on natal sex, not a percentage we can characterize as “these people are trans.”

If transgender people’s brains tracked identified sex, the model would have failed on them when scored against natal sex. It did not. Accuracy for trans people was in the same ~90–93% band as for everyone else. That means most trans scans were still called male if the person was male, female if female. The misses are the same overlap you get with any male/female brain classifier: size-controlled features still go across the two groups.

Here's the quote I have in mind:

Quote

The application of the ATM model to sample A displayed a high overall sex classification accuracy of 91.30% (91.84% for cisgender and 90.01% for transgender individuals). This model also performed accurately on sample B with an overall accuracy of 93.10% (92.68% for cisgender and 93.48% for transgender individuals, details in Table 1 and S3). In both samples, the ATM model yielded sex congruent prediction probabilities for all four groups (Fig. 4i, k, m, o).
...
This gender congruent trend was not observed for TW (CM vs. TW: Sample A: t = 0.31, p = 0.7577, Cohen´s d = 0.08; Sample B: t = − 2.02, p = 0.0510, Cohen´s d = − 0.68). 

After they stopped the model from using brain size, they asked: "Do trans people’s scores drift toward the 'identified' sex?"

For trans men there was a weak wiggle in that direction in one sample (not statistically significant).

For trans women, that drift did not show up.

Also, 7-10% of adults are not transgender. I don't think we can place “many trans people” in that gap and treat the gap as identity. The study did not take the cis people it got wrong and ask whether they had a trans identity. That would be a different paper.

The study showed that if they strip out head size, the scan still follows sex, including in the trans sample. The leftover 7–10% is not a third sex, and it is not a head-count of people whose "identity" is their sex. It is ordinary classifier error plus overlap between male and female brains.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Analytics]

On 9/5/2026 at 1:02 AM, smac97 said:

Interesting how in all this discussion there is precious little commentary on the impact on women and girls, the persons for whom sex-segregated spaces were created.  Instead, almost the entire focus is on men who want to enter into women-only spaces....

Are you sure the real problem is you aren’t listening?

Let me address this another way. I worked really hard to create an unbiased prompt that asks AI to address this issue. The prompt says to ignore the wellbeing of transgender individuals and focus only on the wellbeing of cisgender women and girls. I then fed the prompt to Grok, Claude, and ChatGPT.

All three models gave the same answer: if the objective is to minimize the expected harm to (cisgender) women and girls, then people should be free to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity.

Prompt:
 

Quote

Yes. I would make the objective function explicit and remove any balancing of harms to other groups except where those effects indirectly change outcomes for cisgender women and girls.
Consider two competing policies governing access to multi-user public restrooms:
Policy A: People may use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity.
Policy B: People must use the restroom corresponding to the sex recorded on their original birth certificate.
Evaluate these policies using one criterion only: which policy minimizes aggregate harm to cisgender women and girls.
Do not assume in advance that either policy is safer or more protective. Base the analysis on the best available empirical evidence.
Consider:
* How often cisgender women and girls would encounter transgender people in public restrooms under each policy.
* How often they would know or reasonably suspect that another restroom user is transgender.
* The incidence and risk of assault, voyeurism, harassment, exposure, intimidation, or other threats to privacy and physical safety under each policy.
* Psychological discomfort, fear, embarrassment, perceived loss of privacy, or avoidance of public restrooms.
* Whether either policy changes opportunities for predatory men who are not transgender to enter women’s restrooms.
* The effect of requiring transgender men, including those who appear conventionally male, to use women’s restrooms.
* The possibility that cisgender women and girls whose appearance does not conform to gender stereotypes could be questioned, confronted, reported, or removed from women’s restrooms.
* Any other reasonably foreseeable positive or negative consequences for cisgender women and girls.
Distinguish carefully among:
1. harms demonstrated by empirical evidence;
2. plausible risks for which evidence is limited;
3. hypothetical or speculative harms.
Weight harms by both frequency and severity. Do not treat isolated anecdotes as evidence of population-level risk unless broader evidence supports them, but do not dismiss legitimate privacy or safety concerns merely because severe incidents are uncommon.
The welfare of transgender people is not an independent objective in this analysis. Consider effects on transgender people only when those effects have consequences for the safety, privacy, dignity, comfort, or other interests of cisgender women and girls.
Finally, identify the restroom policy that the available evidence suggests would minimize total expected harm to cisgender women and girls. Do not limit the recommendation to Policy A or Policy B if a different policy—such as gender-identity access combined with strong conduct rules, improved privacy barriers, additional single-user facilities, or another approach—would better achieve that objective.
Confine the analysis to public restrooms, not sports, prisons, locker rooms, shelters, or changing facilities unless evidence from another setting is directly relevant and clearly identified as such.
Keep the response to approximately 300 words or fewer. Use neutral language, quantify risks where credible data permit, identify important uncertainties, and distinguish empirical findings from assumptions or value judgments.

Grok's full answer:

Quote

Empirical studies of jurisdictions with gender-identity restroom access (Policy A) find no increase in reported assaults, sex crimes, or voyeurism in restrooms relative to matched areas without such policies. Incidents of safety or privacy violations in these spaces are rare overall, and stranger violent victimization rates show no rise after nondiscrimination laws.

Transgender people comprise a small fraction of the population, so encounters under either policy are infrequent. Under Policy B, male-appearing transgender men would be required to use women’s facilities, which can produce visible mismatches and potential confrontation or discomfort for cisgender women. Under Policy A, detection of transgender status is often low for those who pass, limiting awareness-based effects.

Documented cases of predatory cisgender men exploiting identity claims exist but remain isolated; available data do not show they become more common under Policy A. Psychological discomfort, fear, or restroom avoidance among some cisgender women is a plausible but less quantified harm under Policy A; severe physical risks lack supporting population-level evidence.

Policy B may heighten risks of questioning or removal of gender-nonconforming cisgender women. No credible evidence indicates either policy systematically elevates aggregate physical harm to cisgender women and girls beyond baseline levels already present in public restrooms.

The evidence indicates Policy A produces lower or comparable total expected harm. Enhanced physical privacy features (full-height stalls, better surveillance of entrances) or expanded single-user options would further reduce residual discomfort under either rule and merit priority regardless of access criterion.

 

I agree with ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok on this: your preferred solution--requiring people to use the restroom that corresponds to their biological sex rather than their gender expression--harms women and girls.

I then did a follow-up question: which group does your preferred solution harm more: transgender women and girls, or cisgender women and girls? The answer here was obvious: your policy harms both groups, but harms transgender women and girls much more.