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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29720 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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The religious acceptance thing isn't as clear cut as you think. Christians for instance have a long history with intersex people.

...Emperor Justinian's Digest of Roman law incorporated the statement of Ulpian, "The question has been asked:—according to which sex are hermaphrodites to be treated? but I should say on the whole that they ought to be treated as having the sex which predominates in them."

...The theologians of the School of Salamanca consider the case of a predominantly male hermaphrodite who has been ordained to the priesthood, licitly or illicitly, in whom the female sex has begun to predominate on account of ageing. They say "by reason of the changed sex" this person could no longer validly consecrate the Eucharist; the priestly character would remain in the soul, but would now be in the soul of a person not capable of exercising orders, just as a priest who has died can no longer consecrate the Eucharist. Considering the case of a woman who, "nature itself breaking out," is spontaneously transformed into a man, which they say Pliny the Elder testifies is not only possible but has in fact happened, the Salmanticenses say this man could be validly ordained, but unless the matter can be hidden, it cannot be done on account of the astonishment and scandal to those who would see someone they had known as a woman ministering at the altar.

So there is some discussion where someone who can perform the male role in sex can be a priest, even if they haven't always been able to perform the male role in intercourse.

However, that's a natural development of an intersex person's body. It's interesting that they talk about "nature itself breaking out." I don't think Christians will ever encourage someone to artificially change their sex, or believe that artificial changes are sufficient to actually change sex.

The reason for this is the steelmanned definition of sex. A woman is a member of the species homo sapien who, if her body develops in a healthy manner, will be able to conceive and bear children between adolescence and menopause. In this definition I do not even go into chromosomes, someone with a Y chromosome can also sometimes become pregnant without medical intervention. The definition also acknowledges that women may not always be able to conceive, there are many reasons for a women to be infertile. These are either due to a natural cycle of fertility/infertility, or due to some sort of disease.

This published gender philosopher provides a very good explanation of what people mean when they say female or male, and how that relates to woman/man. Quoting the most relevant part:

In all these very mundane statements in biology - the heart pumps blood, the kidneys filter waste - there's an implicit 'when functioning properly' qualifier in the statement.. And the same thing goes for biological sex. To say that a male produces sperm isn't to say that producing sperm is actually necessary to be a male. It just says that "when functioning properly" at least in the adult form, at some level of maturation, we are going to get sperm production.

A woman is someone who, if she cannot become pregnant during any part of her lifecycle, has a medical problem. Her inability to become pregnant needs an explanation. A man's inability to become pregnant needs no explanation.

A woman is someone who, if she cannot become pregnant during any part of her lifecycle, has a medical problem.

And then the left responds: "Yes, she has a medical problem! The problem is that she received the wrong parts!"

But when functioning properly, outside of her wishes, would her body be producing ova or sperm?

I don’t think theological speculation as to the treatment of people with rare birth defects is a helpful compendium to Christian views on sex and gender more broadly.

I think looking at edge cases are helpful when trying to determine underlying principles. The very rare birth defect category shows us what questions Christians were asking, what details were being considered and weighed, how these details were applied.

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