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 1 hour ago by smac97