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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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I actually think the Wikipedia page on women walks a fair line on the topic. The very first sentence uses "adult female human" as its core definition, and the second paragraph starts:

Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and fertile women are capable of pregnancy and giving birth from puberty until menopause.

I don't view the use of the word "typically" here the way you do. I think it is an appropriate amount of nuance for a reference work, since it makes room for discussion of intersex women. Now, I acknowledge that there's various decisions about how and when to include references to atypical examples in an encyclopedia, but I maintain that including mention of intersex women somewhere in the article about women is appropriate. Given the article's sections:

  • Etymology
  • Terminology
  • Biology
  • Sexuality and gender
  • Health
  • Femininity
  • History
  • Culture and gender roles
  • Clothing, fashion and dress codes
  • Fertility and family life
  • Education
  • Government and politics
  • Science, literature and art
  • Gender symbol

I could see the argument for keeping discussion of intersex women to the biology section, and creating a subsection for trans women under Culture and gender roles or something. But I don't really think that the Wikipedia article on the whole screams "captured by trans activists" to me.

But I don't really think that the Wikipedia article on the whole screams "captured by trans activists" to me.

Does it whisper?

Does it wink?

Is it, in fact, captured, silently or with thunderous pronouncement?

The whole point of Reliable Sources is that they provide plausible deniability to smuggle your assumptions into the article, then engage in bureaucratic warfare to keep it that way.

Doesn't mean that ROGD isn't true, just that it is considered fringe.

Considered fringe by who, and whose sources?

I don't think ROGD is fringe at all, and I don't trust Wikipedia when they say it is. I think it's an obvious explanation for some very baffling behavior, but that explanation isn't allowed on Wikipedia.

Gonna have to disagree with you. While you're correct that the article is right to acknowledge the existence of intersex women, the language around trans women screams ideological capture to me, such as the use of the phrase "assigned male at birth". Sex is not "assigned". A male baby born in an unsupervised natural birth in which the mother (excuse me, "birthing person") dies in childbirth without ever laying eyes on her child remains male, in spite of the fact that no sex was ever "assigned" to him by anyone. Humans are not subject to Schrödinger's chromosomes, both male and female until directly observed, and it takes a remarkable level of Butlerian solipsism to even consider the possibility.

This demonstrates the motte-and-bailey fallacy at the heart of the trans movement. They insist that they're not trying to collapse the distinction between male and female people, of course they recognise that sex exists, they're just arguing that something called gender identity also exists. But if that's the case, why are they so keen to insist that males are not "male" but simply "assigned male at birth"? Is "this baby is male" not a factually and uncontroversially true statement about a baby born with a penis, Y chromosome etc.? Why are you trying to water this definition down by using language that implies a mistake was made somewhere?

such as the use of the phrase "assigned male at birth"

I believe that was originally a term used for intersex people; the transgender activists appropriated it.