by zz3 | 2025-11-03 19:17:35+00:00
I think you're still missing several key points. Biological sex is more than just gametes. This isn't some weird, niche theory, this is just basic biology. Even if it were just gametes, there are still several intersex conditions. The data is not inherently binary, we measure models by their outputs. This is a common misunderstanding from those not very familiar with how models are used in science and math.

> You comment "let's hypothesize that human sex is [always] determined by [XX or XY] chromosomes" and make the argument from this that conditions like Klinefelter syndrome and SRY-negative XY chromosomes disprove that hypothesis. Yes it does, but the hypothesis was flawed in the first place. There is no "human sex" that is different to "sex". More precisely, what you are actually talking about here are the mechanisms of sex determination and sex differentiation in humans. Analyses of DSDs have been very useful in gaining a deeper understanding of these, just as analyses of rare pathologies in other systems do.

I'm literally talking about human sexual phenotype. That's it. Phenotype does not always match genotype, that's the whole point. Do you understand the difference between genotype and phenotype, because that's half the point of what I've been discussing. You've also missed my entire point about how we measure models in science and what a model is. That whole demonstration was to show you how we actually test models in science.

> Claiming "sex is a spectrum" adds no utility here. It conflates development with definition, and is used for rhetorical ends rather than advancing scientific knowledge. As our conversation has shown, there's not even any consistent understanding of what this spectrum might look like or where individuals should be placed on such a spectrum

I'm not claiming anything. Human sexual phenotype is not binary, as demonstrated through a binary model with proof by contradiction. This is how we evaluate models. Even if we assume a binary model, as I've mentioned, it doesn't actually matter much since there isn't a huge difference between the two genders for most sports. There are measurable differences for others, but that has nothing to do with gamete size and everything to do with different levels of hormones like testosterone, estrogen et cetera, not gametes. Once again, there is significant overlap between the two sexes to start with.

> Going back to sports, the available evidence does not show that male athletes weakened through testosterone suppression are equivalent to female athletes. It is not possible to unbuild the body of a human male and rebuild it as female.

I'm honestly baffled by this statement. No one is "rebuilding" anyone or anything. I'm not actually sure what you mean by this, but this just further demonstrates that we've moved very far away from anything like science. This just sounds like a strange straw man. If you can't even acknowledge that genotype can be different from phenotype, then there's no point in further discussion, this just seems silly.

> Going back to sports...

Men and women have a lot more overlaps than differences. This has been demonstrated. It was actually surprising to me when I first learned about it. We literally do see plenty of transmen in the Olympics, so I'm not quite sure where you're getting this from. Yes, there are differences too, but again, it has nothing to do with actual gametes and mostly it has to do with testosterone and possibly different forms of estrogen etc. What you're calling "sex characteristics."

Here are a few papers: Sex differences and athletic performance. Where do trans individuals fit into sports and athletics based on current research? https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10641525/

Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislators https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577?ref=goodoil.news

Transwomen might still be a little faster than ciswomen at least a year after hormone therapy, but most of the other metrics were within normal variation after 1-2 years hormone therapy.