"What exactly is this Gay Pride hoping to achieve anyway in metropolises where being able to call yourself gay is already a minor fashion statement? Why not quit while they are ahead; like a 500% over-representation in the creative and media industries and in the ‘opinion-forming’ classes generally. Being a ‘gay couple’ is absolutely your fast-track route to getting yourselves on any show on British tv. There are places in the hippest parts of London and New York where angst filled teenagers bury their faces in their pillows crying “why couldn’t I have been gay, like all my friends are?” Ok maybe not that often......" https://www.takimag.com/article/straight-talk/
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Yes, we have in the past decade finally gained the same civil rights as cisgender heterosexual people in a few liberal western democracies, and yes there are now same-sex couples appearing on TV who are living "normal" lives instead of tragically dying from AIDS, being tragically beaten to death or tragically contemplating suicide - the only way we were allowed to be portrayed in the media until recently.
However, it's still not comfortable at best, nor safe at worst just to walk down 99% of the streets holding a same-sex partner's hand, or to show the same PDA as straights take for granted in most of these liberal democratic countries. And no matter how much better a candidate veteran Buttigieg may be than his Democrat peers, the chances of his being elected POTUS are slim at best, because he is gay.
There has moreover been a vast and highly successful disinformation campaign circulated by vested religious interests against trans people, to whom you represent far greater a threat than they could ever present to you. I know a few trans people at work, both as colleagues and as friends. They get on with their lives and leave me to get on with mine. They wouldn't hurt a fly.
I am not without empathy with what you are saying....and I am aware that many homosexuals loath and are embarrassed by the ridiculous 'Pride' politicisation of their sexuality. But you should surely also empathise with how people are sick to the back teeth of having various sexual dysphorias metaphorically rammed down their throats by 'Pride-type' politico activism. And incensed by the ease with which this minority activism manages to march its way through each and every civil institution. Yes of course the small minority of homosexuals and transgender people should be free to live their lives in peace. But their activist self-styled 'representatives' drunk on their absurd and gratuitous 'Pride' in their sexuality should remember that male/female sexual attraction is the norm, always has been and always will be. Lots of people are abnormal in all sorts of ways and that is absolutely fine (as long as it doesn't lead to violence or oppression). But when those people start expecting that everyone else has to agree to a reinvention of reality in order that those people do not have to confront their particular abnormality....then that is a kind of hubris. And it is extremely annoying.
The so-called "LGBT+ Community" is no less diverse than the heterosexual cisgender majority, so no-one speaks for all of us, as you point out.
Trans rights have reignited the question of what degree of diversity society will tolerate, principally because they have been misrepresented as grotesque caricatures. Are there grotesque caricatures in existence? Certainly. But if we want to go down that path, let me point you to that notorious 'example to us all' heterosexual married couple with kids, Fred and Rose West:
Likewise, the vast majority of child abuse - sexual, psychological and physical is perpetrated by heterosexuals, usually a family member, but it is a false syllogism to suggest that all heterosexuals abuse their children. Yet comparably absurd false syllogisms are ubiquitous when it comes to portrayals of LGBT+ people.
Being of this or that sexuality doesn't make you quintessentially good. Only your moral behaviour and good citizenship can do that.
You are replying to things in your own head and not to anything I've actually said. I have said nothing about sexual abuse and who is/is not most guilty of it. And I have said nothing about 'good' vs 'bad' sexuality....only about normal vs abnormal sexuality.
There is a kind abuse that I have talked about....a political flaw in our Western liberalism that allows minority activism to not just have a voice (fine) but to hijack our entire political system (not fine).
My child abuse reference was to illustrate the absurdity of attributing the misdeeds of a minority of a disliked class such as LGBT+ people to the majority of the disliked class.
'Normal' means being the same as everyone else. But not everyone wants to be a carbon copy of you, nor of me, nor I of you.
'Abnormality' is a sneer pejorative. Genius and left-handedness aren't 'normal' either, but in the latter example, the pejorative 'sinister' is Latin for 'left-handed':
while left-handedness is about as common/uncommon as homosexuality. Every century has its own disliked minority, be they left-handed, black or gay, and they survive solely because of having allies in the majority.
Abnormality is neither a sneer nor a pejorative....it is just a word with a useful meaning. You can have abnormal weather for instance or an abnormal allergic reaction. The reclassifying of it as a perjorative is just one of many instances of 'progressive' thought policing. I have tried hard to be fair to your comments but, truth is, you seem so fired up with your sense of injustice that this is a dialogue of the deaf....and so I am done. All the best anyway.
People have a nasty habit of thinking that the polar opposite of a thing is a solution to the thing. But this kind of overcorrrection is no more helpful than when one steers into an oncoming vehicle at 70 mph to avoid hitting a deer.
Pride is an overcorrection. And very few of us who argue against it are claiming that hitting the deer is a good thing.
Like parents who take pride in their families, 'Pride' in the LGBT+ Rights context is not 'Conceit', it is simply the counter to 'Shame', an opprobrium inflicted without justification upon LGBT+ people as a disliked class ever since the dawn of recorded history.
Fair enough— and I think more parents should be ashamed of their children. Know when to stop, friends, and it is before you slap the “proud parent of an honor student” sticker on your car. We differ on this, Derek, but I would absolutely treasure and love my child or friend or sibling no matter his sexuality and I respect your point of view about Pride.
Why do you think I "have it coming"? Do you realise how many of us there are, and what a fire hazard this will cause? Moreover, the fire will never be put out because our parents are heterosexuals. What age would you start burning us? 13 years old, when most people start realising their sexuality?
People like you who talk of extermination have apparently never done the elementary arithmetic, to show how unachievable this is. Exit polls from the last 3 US Census 2004, 2008 and 2012 showed 4% identifying as openly gay. Add a conservative 1% for those in the closet and apply the resulting 5% to the current 8 billion global population and that leaves 400 million homosexuals to kill *right now*, and that's not counting the considerable number of bisexuals.
World War II "only" managed to kill 50 million people in 6 years, with all the world's ordnance, so it will take you 8x6 = 48 years in a global holocaust to murder the current LGBT+ population, during which time hundreds of millions more will be born as I was, to heterosexual parents. The only way to prevent homosexuals from being born therefore is to kill all heterosexual parents.
Good luck persuading the population at large to accept any of this. Not every heterosexual parent wants their LGBT+ child put to death, nor do they want to be executed themselves. If your religion tells you it’s wrong for a gay person to form a relationship with another gay person, let the god of your religion take care of it. People who do not belong to your religion should not be forced to follow the rules of your religion. And FYI, most religions don’t execute gay people.
Unless you don't regard yourself as a "normal person", then as a so-called normal person, you are aligning yourself with your so-called "moslems", and when you see me in flames, will be among those who say "Good riddance, he had it coming". I am not putting words in your mouth - merely quoting directly from your OP. Most "normal" people would call police to report a homicide in progress. Sorry if you're not one of them.
LoL. Though the important thing is not to scare the horses, amirite? 😉
But nice analogy between sex and gender -- some further progress in your education ... 😉🙂 You, and your other "faithful readers", might enjoy my article on the multidimensional gender spectrum:
All the best people have been Liking it -- not too late to get in on the ground floor ... 😉🙂
But I can sympathize with your comments about Starmer and Blair -- both of them seem to subscribe to Kindergarten Cop definitions for the sexes: boys have penises and girls have vaginas. Neither apparently have a clue that the "essence" of those categories at least has something to do with reproductive abilities -- past, present, or future ... 😉🙂
It's a no-brainer that the penis + vagina machinery is essential for human reproduction. Without that, mammals would die out. And that is why, like animals, heterosexual humans couples have sex once for each child they plan to have; e.g. if you want 4 children, you have sex four times and then zip it - all other sex is pointless since it will only result in more children than you both wanted. If you're over 50, or either spouse is infertile, then no children will issue anyway, and so sexual intercourse is pointless and should therefore cease entirely. This means an infertile person should be celibate for life because they can't make babies.
If that sounds absurd to you, consider that is exactly what you're actually arguing for. Otherwise, you have to acknowledge there is more to sex than mere reproduction. Sex for reproduction is a purely animal function, whereas sex for love is a purely human behaviour. Sex between adult humans involves courtship, romance, erotic enjoyment and emotional engagement. Married heterosexual couples will have sex thousands of times during their 50 years together. Do they really intend to make thousands of babies? Is their every sexual act intended to breed another baby?
Since recreational use of sex merely for mutual pleasuring is not intended to reproduce, the genders of the respective parties becomes irrelevant. This perforce includes infertile couples, couples over 50 and same-sex couples.
It is entirely pointless forcing a gay man to marry a heterosexual woman he has no sexual, emotional or romantic interest in; and what heterosexual woman in her right mind would agree to be married to a gay man who didn't love her, when she could have a straight man who does?
Of course "there is more to sex than mere reproduction." I'm certainly not trying to be "more Catholic than the Pope".
But my point is that there IS a difference between having A sex, and HAVING sex. And the Oxford Dictionary agrees with me:
OED: "1) mass noun (chiefly with reference to people) sexual activity, including specifically sexual intercourse.
2) Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions."
And they're likewise quite clear on what it takes to qualify as members of those categories -- i.e., having functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless:
OED: "male, adjective: Of or denoting the sex that produces gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring."
OED: "female, adjective: Of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes."
Though you might note that even Rudolph, more or less coherently, differentiates between sex and gender -- they're two entirely different kettles of fish. Sex is, as noted, actually having "reproductive function" -- because of being able to produce either large or small gametes -- while gender is, at best, hardly more than a synonym for sets of personality traits, behaviours, roles, and expressions that show some difference in prevalence by sex.
Sex is a dimorphic spectrum, but if you assert that gender is something that doesn't exist at all, or that sex is binary and fixed, then the following questions should be easy for you to answer:
1. What biological sex is a person who looks female externally but who has XY chromosomes? Look up Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome/ These people are usually raised as female, and very often nobody knows that they have XY chromosomes until puberty or later.
2. What biological sex is a person who looks male externally but who has XX chromosomes? Look up Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia.
5. What biological sex is a person who has both XX and XY cells scattered throughout their body? Look up genetic mosaicism – people who are formed from the fusion of two embryos in the uterus: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559193/
6. What biological sex is a person who has both male and female parts? Look up Intersex.
Sex is, most certainly, NOT a spectrum -- BY DEFINITION. I rather doubt you read any of the dictionaries -- popular and biological -- that I linked to. Try this for size:
Though the author, "biologist" Colin Wright, is something of a fraud, grifter, political opportunist, and scientific illiterate himself since the definitions he's peddling are hardly better than folk biology.
To answer your questions -- though the answers are implicit in those definitions which you might want to try thinking about:
1) "... looks female externally but who has XY chromosomes?" They're typically infertile, incapable of producing either sperm or ova -- ergo, sexless;
2) "... looks male externally but who has XX chromosomes? ..." Ditto; see 1); sexless
3) ".... a person who is XO" If they produce neither sperm nor ova then they are, ipso facto, sexless;
4) "... sex is a person who is XXY?" Some apparently are capable of producing gametes in which case they're of the related sex. If they produce neither then they're sexless.
5) "... person who has both XX and XY cells ..." Mosaics. If they produce gametes then they're of the corresponding sex. Otherwise they're sexless.
6) "... a person who has both male and female parts?" WHICH parts? The ONLY ones that are relevant are functional ovaries or functional testicles. They're of the corresponding sex if they have those gonads in working order, otherwise they're sexless.
Too many people seem to "think" that everyone has to have a sex, that it's some kind of participation trophy, part of their "immutable essence" -- and damned be those who say otherwise. Since you speak the lingo and have some handle on the relevant literature, you might actually try reading these articles by Paul Griffiths -- Aussie professor, retired, philosopher of science, co-author of Genetics and Philosophy:
From the Abstract of the latter, "What are biological sexes?"
PG: "The chromosomal and phenotypic ‘definitions’ of biological sex that are contested in philosophical discussions of sex are actually operational definitions which track gametic sex more or less effectively in some species or group of species. Neither ‘definition’ can be stated for species in general except by defining them in terms of gametic sex. .... Finally, the fact that a species has only two biological sexes does not imply that every member of the species is either male, female or hermaphroditic, or that the sex of every individual organism is clear and determinate. The idea of biological sex is critical for understanding the diversity of life, but ill-suited to the job of determining the social or legal status of human beings as men or women."
That -- corrupting the biology to "determine the social or legal status of humans" -- is largely the problem. Far too many are trying to shoehorn the foot of social justice into the glass slipper of biology -- so to speak. Just cripples the former and shatters the latter beyond much use at all:
Thank you for the interesting links from good sources - it'll take a while to digest them all, however I don't find dictionaries useful for scientific depth.
FYI an intersex person ('hermaphrodite' in old parlance) has the genitalia of both male and female, i.e. a penis AND a vagina. What 'biological sex' are they? Are they defined as a Man or as a Woman? Do they have any say in the matter?
To the other XXY, XO et al examples I gave, someone whom you demean as "sexless" is nevertheless a human being, and if they're "sexless" according to you, then they're neither male nor female - so right there you have an instance of gender diversity.
There is all sorts of genital apparatus floating about in the various examples I adduced above, and your quote from Griffiths sums it up well, viz. "the fact that a species has only two biological sexes does not imply that every member of the species is either male, female or hermaphroditic, or that the sex of every individual organism is clear and determinate. The idea of biological sex is critical for understanding the diversity of life, but ill-suited to the job of determining the social or legal status of human beings as men or women."
Thus, notwithstanding the clear imperatives of reproduction, not everyone can be "shoehorned" into being clearly male or clearly female.
Moreover there is no benefit to anyone in "deciding to be transgender" with all the furore that connotes in their respective families, friendships and collegial relationships. The degree of ostracism and violence endured by such people by and of themselves suggests that if they could just go ahead and decide not to be transgender, that would be the easiest decision of their lives.
Before realizing their gender isn’t what they were assigned at birth, while still manifesting as a male, because they manifest ‘feminine’ characteristics, a trans person gets told, “You’re not a real man”; but then, when they finally transition, they’re told, “You’re not a real woman”. People are not all the same. I don’t want to be you, and I am certain you don’t want to be me either. Kindness and compassion are nowhere to be found in discussions concerning transgender people, who find themselves being talked ABOUT, rather than talked WITH.
I can cite dozens more from leading professional bodies of comparable credibility, but the APA is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with more than 157,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students as its members.
De nada -- share the wealth, praise the lord and pass the ammunition. Or popcorn as the case may be. 🙂
Though kind of think you -- and far too many others -- are missing the point with dictionaries. They are not, as you've suggested, designed for "scientific depth" -- that comes from journal articles. They are generally "designed" to specify "necessary and sufficient conditions for category membership. See Wikipedia's article on extensional and intensional definitions:
Wikipedia: "An intensional definition gives meaning to a term by specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for when the term should be used. In the case of nouns, this is equivalent to specifying the properties that an object needs to have in order to be counted as a referent of the term."
The biological definitions specify that an organism "needs to have the properties" "produces large gametes" or "produces small gametes" "to be counted as a referent of the terms" "female" or "male", respectively. That is it -- that is ALL that "male" and "female" mean to any biologist worth their salt.
> "FYI an intersex person ... has the genitalia of both male and female. What 'biological sex' are they? Are they defined as a Man or as a Woman? Do they have any say in the matter?"
No, they don't. Does someone have any say in the matter of whether they're a teenager or not? Does someone of 45 get to "self-identify" as a teenager? Maybe they have an "inner essence" of "teenager"? 🙄 If they're between 13 & 19 then they qualify and if they're not then they don't. SAME thing with male and female -- if a person can produce gametes then they have a sex and if they can't then they don't.
> "... someone whom you demean as 'sexless' is nevertheless a human being ..."
🙄 Where have I said they weren't human? It's your misinterpretation of "sexless" to say the term is "demeaning". You might just as well say it is "demeaning" to say that an atheist is "religionless". Or that someone who's just had their 20th birthday is "teenager-less". All of those terms just denote particular properties -- i.e., absence of functional gonads, no belief in "sky daddies", and ages outside of 13 to 19 -- that aren't essential to qualify as "human".
> "so right there you have an instance of gender diversity."
You're conflating sex and gender -- they're entirely different kettles of fish. Causes no end of "cognitive distortions". You might actually try reading that APA article you linked as they're more or less clear on the difference:
APA: "Sex is assigned at birth, refers to one’s biological status as either male or female, and is associated primarily with physical attributes such as chromosomes, hormone prevalence, and external and internal anatomy. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women."
Though technically speaking, we generally don't acquire a sex until the onset of puberty -- when our gonads go "on line" and start cranking out "product" -- and we can have our sex category membership cards "revoked" thereafter for one reason or another.
> "I can cite dozens more from leading professional bodies of comparable credibility ..."
So what? Whatever definitions they're peddling are most certainly not those endorsed and utilized by reputable mainstream biologists and biological journals. They can come up with their own idiosyncratic definitions for the sexes if they want but then it ain't biology. An outright fraud to claim otherwise.
Somewhat apropos of which, an article by Marco Del Giudice, lately of the University of New Mexico now of Trieste, on "Ideological Bias in the Psychology of Sex and Gender", a chapter in a Springer book, "Political bias in psychology: Nature, scope, and solutions". Of particular note is this:
Del Giudice: "On a deeper level, the ‘patchwork’ definition of sex used in the social sciences is purely descriptive and lacks a functional rationale. This contrasts sharply with how the sexes are defined in biology. From a biological standpoint, what distinguishes the males and females of a species is the size of their gametes: males produce [present tense] small gametes (e.g., sperm), females produce [present tense] large gametes." (My emphasis.)
That's the problem: "the 'patchwork' definition of sex used in social 'sciences' ..." is an absolute bloody joke, biologically speaking at least. They're welcome to do so, but then what they're peddling is most certainly not biology -- which is what too many of them are claiming, that it is biology. A bunch of frauds, scientific illiterates, and outright clowns.
But if the "social 'sciences' 🙄" are going to create their own definitions then why can't everyone else? The more the merrier? Why can't they say, as some particularly demented transloonie nutcases do, that being a female is just a matter of best three out of five? 🙄
"Change your genitalia, change your sex! Act now! Offer ends soon!" 🙄 That's the proximate cause, or one of them, that leads to the butchering of autistic and dysphoric children, to castrating them, to turning them into sexless eunuchs. Bunch of so-called "doctors" deserve to lose their licenses, if not be strung up by their nuts and left to twist in the wind -- figuratively speaking, of course ...
But they've been aided and abetted by too many, often by them ignoring, or being clueless about, the difference between sex and gender, by conflating two entirely different kettles of fish.
"When I’ve finished writing this I’m off to vote in the UK general election. It might seem like a small issue, but I definitely can’t vote for a party led by a guy who doesn’t appear to know what a woman is."
And sadly, here in the U.S., those are our only options this year. Thanks, Iowa.
"Jihad"? Who is being flung off tall buildings, beheaded, drowned, burned alive or stoned to death by the LGBT+ lobby? Name even one, and I'll come back with thousands of such acts by ISIS (and others in Africa, Russia and in the Middle East) against LGBT+ people and 'infidels'. 'Necklacing' is a very popular pastime carried out by the friendly locals against LGBT+ people in Africa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing
You can easily find videos online of gay people being 'necklaced' in this manner to entertain yourself with, while the role of the police is crowd control, not to stop the extrajudicial killing.
Have you had a bad experience with an LGBT+ person and decided that everyone else is the same? Most LGBT+ people are good citizens, just as are most cisgender heterosexual people. Can you point to similar acts being carried out by gay people against straight people in statistically significant numbers? Links to reliable sources will do.
FYI Ukrainians do not want to be ruled by Russia again after a century of brutal occupation, in case that wasn't abundantly obvious to you. Fortunately, the majority are not in agreement with you, and wish to see Ukraine regain its internationally recognised borders.
It seems you just don't want other people to have nice things.
You mention you saw a guy kneeling in a kids' paddling pool performing oral sex on another guy who then urinated in the kneeling guy’s mouth, in public. That's against the law - a serious crime in all Western democracies, and certainly in every other country on Earth. I have participated in Pride parades in New Zealand, Australia and Scotland every year since 1973, and I have never seen someone performing sex in front of kids. If I did, I would call the police, and I have no doubt someone would have done in the instance you mentioned (without citing your source).
As for gender, before realizing their gender isn’t what they were assigned at birth, while still manifesting as a male, because they manifest ‘feminine’ characteristics, a trans person gets told, “You’re not a real man”; but then, when they finally transition, they’re told, “You’re not a real woman”. People are not all the same. I don’t want to be you, and I am certain you don’t want to be me either.
Gender is a dimorphic spectrum, but if you assert that gender is something that doesn't exist at all, or that gender is binary and fixed, then the following questions should be easy for you to answer:
1. What gender is a person who looks female externally but who has XY chromosomes? Look up Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome/ These people are usually raised as female, and very often nobody knows that they have XY chromosomes until puberty or later.
2. What gender is a person who looks male externally but who has XX chromosomes? Look up Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia.
5. What gender is a person who has both XX and XY cells scattered throughout their body? Look up genetic mosaicism – people who are formed from the fusion of two embryos in the uterus: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559193/
6. What gender is a person who has both male and female parts? Look up Intersex.
There are countries around the world that have successfully introduced legal recognition for non-binary identities, and so we now have a responsibility as an international community to enable them to live their lives safely and as their authentic selves instead of being forced to pick a binary gender.
"What exactly is this Gay Pride hoping to achieve anyway in metropolises where being able to call yourself gay is already a minor fashion statement? Why not quit while they are ahead; like a 500% over-representation in the creative and media industries and in the ‘opinion-forming’ classes generally. Being a ‘gay couple’ is absolutely your fast-track route to getting yourselves on any show on British tv. There are places in the hippest parts of London and New York where angst filled teenagers bury their faces in their pillows crying “why couldn’t I have been gay, like all my friends are?” Ok maybe not that often......" https://www.takimag.com/article/straight-talk/
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Yes, we have in the past decade finally gained the same civil rights as cisgender heterosexual people in a few liberal western democracies, and yes there are now same-sex couples appearing on TV who are living "normal" lives instead of tragically dying from AIDS, being tragically beaten to death or tragically contemplating suicide - the only way we were allowed to be portrayed in the media until recently.
However, it's still not comfortable at best, nor safe at worst just to walk down 99% of the streets holding a same-sex partner's hand, or to show the same PDA as straights take for granted in most of these liberal democratic countries. And no matter how much better a candidate veteran Buttigieg may be than his Democrat peers, the chances of his being elected POTUS are slim at best, because he is gay.
There has moreover been a vast and highly successful disinformation campaign circulated by vested religious interests against trans people, to whom you represent far greater a threat than they could ever present to you. I know a few trans people at work, both as colleagues and as friends. They get on with their lives and leave me to get on with mine. They wouldn't hurt a fly.
I am not without empathy with what you are saying....and I am aware that many homosexuals loath and are embarrassed by the ridiculous 'Pride' politicisation of their sexuality. But you should surely also empathise with how people are sick to the back teeth of having various sexual dysphorias metaphorically rammed down their throats by 'Pride-type' politico activism. And incensed by the ease with which this minority activism manages to march its way through each and every civil institution. Yes of course the small minority of homosexuals and transgender people should be free to live their lives in peace. But their activist self-styled 'representatives' drunk on their absurd and gratuitous 'Pride' in their sexuality should remember that male/female sexual attraction is the norm, always has been and always will be. Lots of people are abnormal in all sorts of ways and that is absolutely fine (as long as it doesn't lead to violence or oppression). But when those people start expecting that everyone else has to agree to a reinvention of reality in order that those people do not have to confront their particular abnormality....then that is a kind of hubris. And it is extremely annoying.
The so-called "LGBT+ Community" is no less diverse than the heterosexual cisgender majority, so no-one speaks for all of us, as you point out.
Trans rights have reignited the question of what degree of diversity society will tolerate, principally because they have been misrepresented as grotesque caricatures. Are there grotesque caricatures in existence? Certainly. But if we want to go down that path, let me point you to that notorious 'example to us all' heterosexual married couple with kids, Fred and Rose West:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_West
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_West
Or Bonnie and Clyde.
Likewise, the vast majority of child abuse - sexual, psychological and physical is perpetrated by heterosexuals, usually a family member, but it is a false syllogism to suggest that all heterosexuals abuse their children. Yet comparably absurd false syllogisms are ubiquitous when it comes to portrayals of LGBT+ people.
Being of this or that sexuality doesn't make you quintessentially good. Only your moral behaviour and good citizenship can do that.
You are replying to things in your own head and not to anything I've actually said. I have said nothing about sexual abuse and who is/is not most guilty of it. And I have said nothing about 'good' vs 'bad' sexuality....only about normal vs abnormal sexuality.
There is a kind abuse that I have talked about....a political flaw in our Western liberalism that allows minority activism to not just have a voice (fine) but to hijack our entire political system (not fine).
My child abuse reference was to illustrate the absurdity of attributing the misdeeds of a minority of a disliked class such as LGBT+ people to the majority of the disliked class.
'Normal' means being the same as everyone else. But not everyone wants to be a carbon copy of you, nor of me, nor I of you.
'Abnormality' is a sneer pejorative. Genius and left-handedness aren't 'normal' either, but in the latter example, the pejorative 'sinister' is Latin for 'left-handed':
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sinister
while left-handedness is about as common/uncommon as homosexuality. Every century has its own disliked minority, be they left-handed, black or gay, and they survive solely because of having allies in the majority.
Abnormality is neither a sneer nor a pejorative....it is just a word with a useful meaning. You can have abnormal weather for instance or an abnormal allergic reaction. The reclassifying of it as a perjorative is just one of many instances of 'progressive' thought policing. I have tried hard to be fair to your comments but, truth is, you seem so fired up with your sense of injustice that this is a dialogue of the deaf....and so I am done. All the best anyway.
People have a nasty habit of thinking that the polar opposite of a thing is a solution to the thing. But this kind of overcorrrection is no more helpful than when one steers into an oncoming vehicle at 70 mph to avoid hitting a deer.
Pride is an overcorrection. And very few of us who argue against it are claiming that hitting the deer is a good thing.
The enemy of your enemy is NOT NECESSARILY your friend.
Like parents who take pride in their families, 'Pride' in the LGBT+ Rights context is not 'Conceit', it is simply the counter to 'Shame', an opprobrium inflicted without justification upon LGBT+ people as a disliked class ever since the dawn of recorded history.
Fair enough— and I think more parents should be ashamed of their children. Know when to stop, friends, and it is before you slap the “proud parent of an honor student” sticker on your car. We differ on this, Derek, but I would absolutely treasure and love my child or friend or sibling no matter his sexuality and I respect your point of view about Pride.
Well, I'll say this:
If and when moslems starts rounding up faggots for burning, most normal people will just say "Good riddance, they had it coming".
Why do you think I "have it coming"? Do you realise how many of us there are, and what a fire hazard this will cause? Moreover, the fire will never be put out because our parents are heterosexuals. What age would you start burning us? 13 years old, when most people start realising their sexuality?
People like you who talk of extermination have apparently never done the elementary arithmetic, to show how unachievable this is. Exit polls from the last 3 US Census 2004, 2008 and 2012 showed 4% identifying as openly gay. Add a conservative 1% for those in the closet and apply the resulting 5% to the current 8 billion global population and that leaves 400 million homosexuals to kill *right now*, and that's not counting the considerable number of bisexuals.
World War II "only" managed to kill 50 million people in 6 years, with all the world's ordnance, so it will take you 8x6 = 48 years in a global holocaust to murder the current LGBT+ population, during which time hundreds of millions more will be born as I was, to heterosexual parents. The only way to prevent homosexuals from being born therefore is to kill all heterosexual parents.
Good luck persuading the population at large to accept any of this. Not every heterosexual parent wants their LGBT+ child put to death, nor do they want to be executed themselves. If your religion tells you it’s wrong for a gay person to form a relationship with another gay person, let the god of your religion take care of it. People who do not belong to your religion should not be forced to follow the rules of your religion. And FYI, most religions don’t execute gay people.
Perhaps you should learn to read, since you are responding to something else than what I wrote.
Did you not write what I am copying below?
'If and when moslems starts rounding up faggots for burning, most normal people will just say "Good riddance, they had it coming".'
If not, have you been hacked?
Yep, but that's not what you responded to.
What I did was state a fact.
What you did was go on a diatribe and fling unfounded accusations towards me.
Learn to read what is actually written, not what meaning you choose to infer.
Unless you don't regard yourself as a "normal person", then as a so-called normal person, you are aligning yourself with your so-called "moslems", and when you see me in flames, will be among those who say "Good riddance, he had it coming". I am not putting words in your mouth - merely quoting directly from your OP. Most "normal" people would call police to report a homicide in progress. Sorry if you're not one of them.
> ".. the LGBWTF crew."
LoL. Though the important thing is not to scare the horses, amirite? 😉
But nice analogy between sex and gender -- some further progress in your education ... 😉🙂 You, and your other "faithful readers", might enjoy my article on the multidimensional gender spectrum:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/a-multi-dimensional-gender-spectrum
All the best people have been Liking it -- not too late to get in on the ground floor ... 😉🙂
But I can sympathize with your comments about Starmer and Blair -- both of them seem to subscribe to Kindergarten Cop definitions for the sexes: boys have penises and girls have vaginas. Neither apparently have a clue that the "essence" of those categories at least has something to do with reproductive abilities -- past, present, or future ... 😉🙂
Gawd help us all; let us pray ... 😉🙂
It's a no-brainer that the penis + vagina machinery is essential for human reproduction. Without that, mammals would die out. And that is why, like animals, heterosexual humans couples have sex once for each child they plan to have; e.g. if you want 4 children, you have sex four times and then zip it - all other sex is pointless since it will only result in more children than you both wanted. If you're over 50, or either spouse is infertile, then no children will issue anyway, and so sexual intercourse is pointless and should therefore cease entirely. This means an infertile person should be celibate for life because they can't make babies.
If that sounds absurd to you, consider that is exactly what you're actually arguing for. Otherwise, you have to acknowledge there is more to sex than mere reproduction. Sex for reproduction is a purely animal function, whereas sex for love is a purely human behaviour. Sex between adult humans involves courtship, romance, erotic enjoyment and emotional engagement. Married heterosexual couples will have sex thousands of times during their 50 years together. Do they really intend to make thousands of babies? Is their every sexual act intended to breed another baby?
Since recreational use of sex merely for mutual pleasuring is not intended to reproduce, the genders of the respective parties becomes irrelevant. This perforce includes infertile couples, couples over 50 and same-sex couples.
It is entirely pointless forcing a gay man to marry a heterosexual woman he has no sexual, emotional or romantic interest in; and what heterosexual woman in her right mind would agree to be married to a gay man who didn't love her, when she could have a straight man who does?
Of course "there is more to sex than mere reproduction." I'm certainly not trying to be "more Catholic than the Pope".
But my point is that there IS a difference between having A sex, and HAVING sex. And the Oxford Dictionary agrees with me:
OED: "1) mass noun (chiefly with reference to people) sexual activity, including specifically sexual intercourse.
2) Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions."
https://web.archive.org/web/20190326191905/https:/en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sex
And they're likewise quite clear on what it takes to qualify as members of those categories -- i.e., having functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless:
OED: "male, adjective: Of or denoting the sex that produces gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring."
https://web.archive.org/web/20190608135422/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/male
OED: "female, adjective: Of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes."
https://web.archive.org/web/20181020204521/https:/en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/female
Those ARE the standard definitions in both popular dictionaries and in reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990 (see the Glossary)
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3063-1
https://twitter.com/pwkilleen/status/1039879009407037441 (Oxford Dictionary of Biology)
Though you might note that even Rudolph, more or less coherently, differentiates between sex and gender -- they're two entirely different kettles of fish. Sex is, as noted, actually having "reproductive function" -- because of being able to produce either large or small gametes -- while gender is, at best, hardly more than a synonym for sets of personality traits, behaviours, roles, and expressions that show some difference in prevalence by sex.
Sex is a dimorphic spectrum, but if you assert that gender is something that doesn't exist at all, or that sex is binary and fixed, then the following questions should be easy for you to answer:
1. What biological sex is a person who looks female externally but who has XY chromosomes? Look up Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome/ These people are usually raised as female, and very often nobody knows that they have XY chromosomes until puberty or later.
2. What biological sex is a person who looks male externally but who has XX chromosomes? Look up Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia.
3. What biological sex is a person who is XO? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9967/#:~:text=A%20person%20with%20five%20X,ovarian%20follicles%20cannot%20be%20maintained.
4. What biological sex is a person who is XXY?
5. What biological sex is a person who has both XX and XY cells scattered throughout their body? Look up genetic mosaicism – people who are formed from the fusion of two embryos in the uterus: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559193/
6. What biological sex is a person who has both male and female parts? Look up Intersex.
Sex is, most certainly, NOT a spectrum -- BY DEFINITION. I rather doubt you read any of the dictionaries -- popular and biological -- that I linked to. Try this for size:
"Sex Is Not a Spectrum: Claims that ‘sex is a spectrum’ rely on fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of biological sex.": https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/sex-is-not-a-spectrum
Though the author, "biologist" Colin Wright, is something of a fraud, grifter, political opportunist, and scientific illiterate himself since the definitions he's peddling are hardly better than folk biology.
To answer your questions -- though the answers are implicit in those definitions which you might want to try thinking about:
1) "... looks female externally but who has XY chromosomes?" They're typically infertile, incapable of producing either sperm or ova -- ergo, sexless;
2) "... looks male externally but who has XX chromosomes? ..." Ditto; see 1); sexless
3) ".... a person who is XO" If they produce neither sperm nor ova then they are, ipso facto, sexless;
4) "... sex is a person who is XXY?" Some apparently are capable of producing gametes in which case they're of the related sex. If they produce neither then they're sexless.
5) "... person who has both XX and XY cells ..." Mosaics. If they produce gametes then they're of the corresponding sex. Otherwise they're sexless.
6) "... a person who has both male and female parts?" WHICH parts? The ONLY ones that are relevant are functional ovaries or functional testicles. They're of the corresponding sex if they have those gonads in working order, otherwise they're sexless.
Too many people seem to "think" that everyone has to have a sex, that it's some kind of participation trophy, part of their "immutable essence" -- and damned be those who say otherwise. Since you speak the lingo and have some handle on the relevant literature, you might actually try reading these articles by Paul Griffiths -- Aussie professor, retired, philosopher of science, co-author of Genetics and Philosophy:
https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity
https://philarchive.org/rec/GRIWAB-2
From the Abstract of the latter, "What are biological sexes?"
PG: "The chromosomal and phenotypic ‘definitions’ of biological sex that are contested in philosophical discussions of sex are actually operational definitions which track gametic sex more or less effectively in some species or group of species. Neither ‘definition’ can be stated for species in general except by defining them in terms of gametic sex. .... Finally, the fact that a species has only two biological sexes does not imply that every member of the species is either male, female or hermaphroditic, or that the sex of every individual organism is clear and determinate. The idea of biological sex is critical for understanding the diversity of life, but ill-suited to the job of determining the social or legal status of human beings as men or women."
That -- corrupting the biology to "determine the social or legal status of humans" -- is largely the problem. Far too many are trying to shoehorn the foot of social justice into the glass slipper of biology -- so to speak. Just cripples the former and shatters the latter beyond much use at all:
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1000,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fedeae1d8-c6ae-49ce-985b-276df78a08b4_1024x1024.jpeg
Thank you for the interesting links from good sources - it'll take a while to digest them all, however I don't find dictionaries useful for scientific depth.
FYI an intersex person ('hermaphrodite' in old parlance) has the genitalia of both male and female, i.e. a penis AND a vagina. What 'biological sex' are they? Are they defined as a Man or as a Woman? Do they have any say in the matter?
To the other XXY, XO et al examples I gave, someone whom you demean as "sexless" is nevertheless a human being, and if they're "sexless" according to you, then they're neither male nor female - so right there you have an instance of gender diversity.
There is all sorts of genital apparatus floating about in the various examples I adduced above, and your quote from Griffiths sums it up well, viz. "the fact that a species has only two biological sexes does not imply that every member of the species is either male, female or hermaphroditic, or that the sex of every individual organism is clear and determinate. The idea of biological sex is critical for understanding the diversity of life, but ill-suited to the job of determining the social or legal status of human beings as men or women."
Thus, notwithstanding the clear imperatives of reproduction, not everyone can be "shoehorned" into being clearly male or clearly female.
Moreover there is no benefit to anyone in "deciding to be transgender" with all the furore that connotes in their respective families, friendships and collegial relationships. The degree of ostracism and violence endured by such people by and of themselves suggests that if they could just go ahead and decide not to be transgender, that would be the easiest decision of their lives.
Before realizing their gender isn’t what they were assigned at birth, while still manifesting as a male, because they manifest ‘feminine’ characteristics, a trans person gets told, “You’re not a real man”; but then, when they finally transition, they’re told, “You’re not a real woman”. People are not all the same. I don’t want to be you, and I am certain you don’t want to be me either. Kindness and compassion are nowhere to be found in discussions concerning transgender people, who find themselves being talked ABOUT, rather than talked WITH.
Since we're in the process of sharing links - here is one from the American Psychological Association: https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbtq/transgender-people-gender-identity-gender-expression
I can cite dozens more from leading professional bodies of comparable credibility, but the APA is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with more than 157,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students as its members.
De nada -- share the wealth, praise the lord and pass the ammunition. Or popcorn as the case may be. 🙂
Though kind of think you -- and far too many others -- are missing the point with dictionaries. They are not, as you've suggested, designed for "scientific depth" -- that comes from journal articles. They are generally "designed" to specify "necessary and sufficient conditions for category membership. See Wikipedia's article on extensional and intensional definitions:
Wikipedia: "An intensional definition gives meaning to a term by specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for when the term should be used. In the case of nouns, this is equivalent to specifying the properties that an object needs to have in order to be counted as a referent of the term."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensional_and_intensional_definitions
The biological definitions specify that an organism "needs to have the properties" "produces large gametes" or "produces small gametes" "to be counted as a referent of the terms" "female" or "male", respectively. That is it -- that is ALL that "male" and "female" mean to any biologist worth their salt.
> "FYI an intersex person ... has the genitalia of both male and female. What 'biological sex' are they? Are they defined as a Man or as a Woman? Do they have any say in the matter?"
No, they don't. Does someone have any say in the matter of whether they're a teenager or not? Does someone of 45 get to "self-identify" as a teenager? Maybe they have an "inner essence" of "teenager"? 🙄 If they're between 13 & 19 then they qualify and if they're not then they don't. SAME thing with male and female -- if a person can produce gametes then they have a sex and if they can't then they don't.
> "... someone whom you demean as 'sexless' is nevertheless a human being ..."
🙄 Where have I said they weren't human? It's your misinterpretation of "sexless" to say the term is "demeaning". You might just as well say it is "demeaning" to say that an atheist is "religionless". Or that someone who's just had their 20th birthday is "teenager-less". All of those terms just denote particular properties -- i.e., absence of functional gonads, no belief in "sky daddies", and ages outside of 13 to 19 -- that aren't essential to qualify as "human".
> "so right there you have an instance of gender diversity."
You're conflating sex and gender -- they're entirely different kettles of fish. Causes no end of "cognitive distortions". You might actually try reading that APA article you linked as they're more or less clear on the difference:
APA: "Sex is assigned at birth, refers to one’s biological status as either male or female, and is associated primarily with physical attributes such as chromosomes, hormone prevalence, and external and internal anatomy. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women."
Though technically speaking, we generally don't acquire a sex until the onset of puberty -- when our gonads go "on line" and start cranking out "product" -- and we can have our sex category membership cards "revoked" thereafter for one reason or another.
> "I can cite dozens more from leading professional bodies of comparable credibility ..."
So what? Whatever definitions they're peddling are most certainly not those endorsed and utilized by reputable mainstream biologists and biological journals. They can come up with their own idiosyncratic definitions for the sexes if they want but then it ain't biology. An outright fraud to claim otherwise.
Somewhat apropos of which, an article by Marco Del Giudice, lately of the University of New Mexico now of Trieste, on "Ideological Bias in the Psychology of Sex and Gender", a chapter in a Springer book, "Political bias in psychology: Nature, scope, and solutions". Of particular note is this:
Del Giudice: "On a deeper level, the ‘patchwork’ definition of sex used in the social sciences is purely descriptive and lacks a functional rationale. This contrasts sharply with how the sexes are defined in biology. From a biological standpoint, what distinguishes the males and females of a species is the size of their gametes: males produce [present tense] small gametes (e.g., sperm), females produce [present tense] large gametes." (My emphasis.)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346447193_Ideological_Bias_in_the_Psychology_of_Sex_and_Gender
That's the problem: "the 'patchwork' definition of sex used in social 'sciences' ..." is an absolute bloody joke, biologically speaking at least. They're welcome to do so, but then what they're peddling is most certainly not biology -- which is what too many of them are claiming, that it is biology. A bunch of frauds, scientific illiterates, and outright clowns.
But if the "social 'sciences' 🙄" are going to create their own definitions then why can't everyone else? The more the merrier? Why can't they say, as some particularly demented transloonie nutcases do, that being a female is just a matter of best three out of five? 🙄
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Riley_Dennis#On_biological_sex
"Change your genitalia, change your sex! Act now! Offer ends soon!" 🙄 That's the proximate cause, or one of them, that leads to the butchering of autistic and dysphoric children, to castrating them, to turning them into sexless eunuchs. Bunch of so-called "doctors" deserve to lose their licenses, if not be strung up by their nuts and left to twist in the wind -- figuratively speaking, of course ...
But they've been aided and abetted by too many, often by them ignoring, or being clueless about, the difference between sex and gender, by conflating two entirely different kettles of fish.
"When I’ve finished writing this I’m off to vote in the UK general election. It might seem like a small issue, but I definitely can’t vote for a party led by a guy who doesn’t appear to know what a woman is."
And sadly, here in the U.S., those are our only options this year. Thanks, Iowa.
And that is more important to you than letting Russia take Ukraine?
At this point...? Kinda, yeah.
Besides, anyone who's incapable of standing up to the Rainbow Jihad won't even rate as a speed bump to someone like Putin.
"Jihad"? Who is being flung off tall buildings, beheaded, drowned, burned alive or stoned to death by the LGBT+ lobby? Name even one, and I'll come back with thousands of such acts by ISIS (and others in Africa, Russia and in the Middle East) against LGBT+ people and 'infidels'. 'Necklacing' is a very popular pastime carried out by the friendly locals against LGBT+ people in Africa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing
You can easily find videos online of gay people being 'necklaced' in this manner to entertain yourself with, while the role of the police is crowd control, not to stop the extrajudicial killing.
Have you had a bad experience with an LGBT+ person and decided that everyone else is the same? Most LGBT+ people are good citizens, just as are most cisgender heterosexual people. Can you point to similar acts being carried out by gay people against straight people in statistically significant numbers? Links to reliable sources will do.
FYI Ukrainians do not want to be ruled by Russia again after a century of brutal occupation, in case that wasn't abundantly obvious to you. Fortunately, the majority are not in agreement with you, and wish to see Ukraine regain its internationally recognised borders.
It seems you just don't want other people to have nice things.
You mention you saw a guy kneeling in a kids' paddling pool performing oral sex on another guy who then urinated in the kneeling guy’s mouth, in public. That's against the law - a serious crime in all Western democracies, and certainly in every other country on Earth. I have participated in Pride parades in New Zealand, Australia and Scotland every year since 1973, and I have never seen someone performing sex in front of kids. If I did, I would call the police, and I have no doubt someone would have done in the instance you mentioned (without citing your source).
As for gender, before realizing their gender isn’t what they were assigned at birth, while still manifesting as a male, because they manifest ‘feminine’ characteristics, a trans person gets told, “You’re not a real man”; but then, when they finally transition, they’re told, “You’re not a real woman”. People are not all the same. I don’t want to be you, and I am certain you don’t want to be me either.
Gender is a dimorphic spectrum, but if you assert that gender is something that doesn't exist at all, or that gender is binary and fixed, then the following questions should be easy for you to answer:
1. What gender is a person who looks female externally but who has XY chromosomes? Look up Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome/ These people are usually raised as female, and very often nobody knows that they have XY chromosomes until puberty or later.
2. What gender is a person who looks male externally but who has XX chromosomes? Look up Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia.
3. What gender is a person who is XO? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9967/#:~:text=A%20person%20with%20five%20X,ovarian%20follicles%20cannot%20be%20maintained.
4. What gender is a person who is XXY?
5. What gender is a person who has both XX and XY cells scattered throughout their body? Look up genetic mosaicism – people who are formed from the fusion of two embryos in the uterus: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559193/
6. What gender is a person who has both male and female parts? Look up Intersex.
There are countries around the world that have successfully introduced legal recognition for non-binary identities, and so we now have a responsibility as an international community to enable them to live their lives safely and as their authentic selves instead of being forced to pick a binary gender.