This is INSANE! Here’s the essence of the matter perfectly stated: “Now Scotland would have everyone believe that when a man says he is a woman, he is a woman. If you disagree and have the boldness of J.K. Rowling to call out the lie, then the government will force you under threat of criminal penalty to change your mind. Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act is a not very subtle form of big brother censorship, a tremendous diminution of free speech, and a century of protections built for women.” So Scotland is going to throw out arrest warrants for anyone they feel deserves it based on a lie.
In the US, the Equality Act would allow any man to declare himself to be a woman and then immediately enter any women's single-sex space, place, competition, event, whatever, at will. It would be a violation of federal law to ask him to leave.
EVERY Democrat in Congress is on record as supporting the Equality Act.
Biden once again called for its immediate passage in his recent SOTU address.
A vote for Biden is a vote for the Equality Act. However, you may feel the pain of the current dilemma as I do: I cannot, in good conscience, vote for either Trump or Biden.
It’s too important to stop Trump. If I have to swallow some version of the Equally Act and then work to create appropriate regulatory carve-outs to protect women’s intimate spaces and sports then I’ll take that option.
I don’t care if some men want to live as women. That’s mostly fine. But “live as” is not the same as being a woman. Trans women are not women in my personal view. They are men “living as” women which I’m happy for them to do up to the point when it starts harming crucial interests of biological women.
Then WHY ARE YOU VOTING FOR BIDEN????? Do your research. "GENDER AFFIRMING CARE" is an Orwellian term. I did not VOTE for men in my locker room. I did not vote for debit cards to migrants overrunning NYC. This is TYRANNY. The Democratic Party has run off the rails. Voting for them is a betrayal of the word democracy. DO. NOT. VOTE. FOR. THIS. CORRUPT. PARTY. And I say: PARTY.
Also Biden???? Why the F would you vote for that demented, child sniffing old fossil and his tranny lobin’ wife and his thick as a brick vp. The democrats are finished what an historic DH..Show
While he hasn’t thus far spoken out against the trans lobby, consider RFK JR. Don’t buy the “anti-vax” smear; it’s a straw man. Obama made transing people part of the Affordable Care Act, and it’s Democrats who’ve decided it’s “hate speech” to call this out and again— was it ever on the ballot to invite men with clear fetishes into women’s spaces? There was one at the Korean spa the other day; masquerading as a woman, clearly a man, not undressing like everyone else but WATCHING us undress. The university where I teach imposed PROMOTING transgender ideology on our syllabi and we were told not to remove it (I tried). Biden touted trans on Easter — they are in bed with Big Pharma and profiting from telling people they are sick. RFK is not down with this. Just by appearance alone, who’s robust, alert? Not DIVISIVE? And don’t get me started in Democrat blatant racism! I used to vote Dem but like millions others no more!
Well “Democrats” is a large category and there are many who are undoubtedly misguided. You change this with argument, education and lobbying. That’s how you change policy. Recommend Helen Joyce’s book to as many people as you can. We have to get people to wise up. One key reason why this foolishness has taken root is that it has been deliberately kept out of formal political and decision processes. ORGANIZE! MOBILIZE! Get off Substack and get into your legislators’ offices!
The people to blame for this mess are the feminists. They are the ones who created the Oppression Olympics (aka intersectionality) where you win by being the biggest loser. Real men are appalled by this insanity but we have been silenced by the feminists and other radicals.
Trust me when I say that men are waiting impatiently for women to rise up and put a stop to these creeps entering their spaces and sports. Only you can do it. When men speak up we are told to mind our own business.
How on earth the mentally ill minority hijacked society will take some years to divine.
@YourUnclePedro Nomsense! Women claiming their rights to equality have been stirring up sex based power relations. Aggrieved men (and women) are now borrowing women’s language in an effort to shore up the status quo—no, harden it and punish dissenters.
It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out. As the former footballer, Ally McCoist pointed out today -- 48,000 going to the Celtic Rangers match on Saturday will most likely be engaging in a Hate Crime (Celtic/Rangers is notoriously sectarian).He believes the law is unworkable.
It definitely appears to have been weaponized , just as many feminists warned it would be.
This is crazy! A woman can't be themselves let alone have to protect themselves because these so-called " Gworls" wannabe us, but want to take advantage of us. Can we say castration? Now, the biological woman mainly in the prison system would need some kind of defense mechanism because these "Gworls" are taking advantage of us. Ladies, we gotta stop these pedophile, murderous he-shes from taking us out!
So don't call a trans woman a man, or He when referring to them. Simply state, "this person who calls themself a woman, and has a dick" ...then continue your quote of or reference to them. Doesn't break the law.
If they feel insulted then it very well may be against the law. According to the wording of the law the Guardian has stated that “The prosecution need only prove that a remark was “likely” rather than “intended” to offend. A crime could be committed if “a reasonable person would consider it threatening, abusive or insulting”.”
Which is exactly what makes it totalitarian. The essence of tyranny is requiring subjects to act at their peril, always at risk that the "organs" as the security services were known in Russia will find some pretext for an arrest or worse. What is not permitted is forbidden. It might even still be forbidden. (Maybe someone knowledgeable in Russian vernacular can inform us whether the expression "the organs" is a rude double entendre in russian. It certainly is in English.)
Yes, precisely. The First Minister of Scotland refused to say whether "misgendering" (which of course actually means correctly stating a person's immutable sex) was a "hate crime" or not, saying it would be up to the Police to decide. But on what basis are the Police supposed to decide? The law should be clear. But it very deliberately isn't.
Scotland is now the world's first transgenderist totalitarian state. Will there be others? Canada and Ireland are likely next. The US is teetering on the brink. If Biden is reelected, he will overturn the democratically elected legislatures in 25 states (so far) and destroy single-sex sports in schools (K-12, college) by administrative fiat. That's what he means when he tells us that he will "save democracy".
How about referring to them as "drag queens"? Others can play language games with this nonsense, too. "Queens" are "women", right? So no violation of law.
Wouldn’t it be ideal if the limited resources of Scottish policing were left to police actual crimes and not put in the impossible position of becoming Orwellian thought police. Thank goodness for JK Rowling, her courage and tenacity in always fighting for freedom of speech and the ludicrous position of trans activists is admirable. However she is one of few willing to use her public profile to fight the good fight.
Humza Yusef is a Muslim man isn’t he? What the F business does he have agreeing with laws that call Transexual Men MEN. What about making a law that all trans gender “Women” (MEN) have to wear Burkas at least they wouldn’t be misgendered!
I know who should be in stocks there in Scotland and it ain't women ...
But Rowling needs a remedial course in basic biology herself for this howler of hers: "the immutability of biological sex". Though she's unlikely to be alone in that class. But by standard biological definitions -- those promulgated in reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries all across the land -- to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless.
Probably thousands of anisogamous species change sex all the time -- hardly "immutable". And more than a few more or less reputable biologists -- like Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers, along with Wolfgang Goymann, Henrik Brumm, and Peter Kappeler at the Wiley Online Library -- argue, with some justification, that many humans are neither male nor female:
Technically, none of us acquire a sex until the onset of puberty.
But Rowling and her ilk are not a great deal better in peddling folk-biology -- hardly better than the Kindergarten Cop definitions -- than that erstwhile reputable biological journal Cell which asks, "Is ‘sex’ a useful category?”:
Wow. Pretty sure Rowling was talking about humans. Not many other mammals showing up to the doctor’s office asking for puberty blockers, opposite sex hormones or genital surgery. No other mammals deciding that they “feel” like a sex different from what their body naturally expresses and asking for all kinds of accommodations and acceptance from the other mammals.
So what? The standard biological definitions apply equally to all anisogamous species, including the human one. That's the problem with Rowling's claim -- she's saying they don't.
You might look at what they actually say -- this old archive of Oxford is more or less what those standard biological definitions say:
"male: Of or denoting the sex that produces gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring"
You see anything there about different species, how there's some "special" dispensations for humans?
No doubt that transgenderism is a serious problem -- I think that most transactivists and gender ideologues are crazier than shithouse rats. But I don't think the problem will be resolved by bastardizing and corrupting the definitions which are foundational to all of biology -- a science that seems the best bet for turning the transloonie tide.
To the contrary, I’ve read 4 books about this subject and countless articles on both sides. The fact that most people won’t read or understand this issue as deeply as you do isn’t a reason, in my opinion, to condemn those working to restore sanity. Your arguments, if I understand you, point out how deeply the scientific community is implicated in the ideology’s takeover.
"how deeply the scientific community is implicated in the ideology’s takeover"
Amen to that.
Though not really "condemning" Rowling in particular. Just that the general view that "sex is immutable" obscures the issue of what it takes to qualify as male and female in the first place. Pretty much what the Cell article is trying to do, though they're doing so with far less justification.
But, in passing, you might also have some interest in several of my "variations on a theme". In particular, various Statistics Departments -- including, I'm sad to say, Canada's own -- being "implicated" in that "takeover":
What is your point? Can human beings change sex? That is what Rowling is talking about and her voice and reach are incredibly valuable in exposing this ideology. I really don’t understand your problem with her comment.
No, of course they can't. But the question is, "Why can't they?"
You can't answer that question UNTIL you SAY what it MEANS to have a sex in the first place, what it takes to qualify as members of the sex categories. IF one goes with the Kindergarten Cop definitions -- which is about the extent of most people's understanding of the concept -- THEN of course people can change sex -- "Change your genitalia, change your sex! Act now! Offer ends soon!" 🙄
Rowling is to be commended for challenging the transloonie nutcases, the whole great steaming pile of transgender ideology. But with that "immutable" statement she's part of the problem. The sexes are NOT "identities", much less "immutable"🙄 ones based on some "mythic essences". They're just transitory states -- like "teenager" -- based on reproductive abilities.
Don't think you're spending much time or thought in reading what I've posted. As a pathologist and professor you might want to consider the question that Cell magazine -- an erstwhile reputable biological journal -- asked, "Is ‘sex’ a useful category?”: 🙄
A major "front" with the transloonie nutcases is due to their attempt to bastardize and corrupt the biological definitions. The folk-biology of Rowling and company really isn't much of a bulwark -- more a part of the problem in fact.
"Folk-biology"? you mean the biological definition accepted throughout history until, oh, about 15 minutes ago? Don;t know your sex until puberty I believe you said in your post...that's rubbish. Get your head out of the ivory tower esoteria and acknowledge reality.
🙄 LoL. Do show us all the historical definitions for the sexes ...
Gametes weren't discovered until the late 1800s so I doubt you'll find any reference to them before then ...
All that we had was folk-biology: "boys have penises and girls have vaginas. Like folk-cosmology: Earth is center of the universe and flat. Like folk-geology: the Earth is 6000 years old. Like folk-ethology: Jehovah make humans special. GMAFB.
Science moves along, generally speaking. The problem is too many refuse to keep up, too many still stuck in the Dark Ages.
Of course not, not at all. I figure most of the transloonies are crazier than shithouse rats. Sad they've taken too many of our legal, educational, and scientific institutions over the cliff with them.
But I'm hardly "playing stupid games with definitions". You might actually try Googling "male definition":
"Definitions: from Oxford Languages
male /māl/ adjective:
of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring."
Those ARE pretty much THE standard biological definitions.
If we can't agree on what words mean then we're screwed, blued, and tattooed. And the only definitions that hold any water are the biological ones, not the folk-biology claptrap that Rowling is peddling.
You might reflect on what philosopher Will Durant had to say about a quip from Voltaire:
Durant: 'If you wish to converse with me,' said Voltaire, 'define your terms.' How many a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms! This is the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul of it, that every important term in serious discourse shall be subjected to strictest scrutiny and definition. It is difficult, and ruthlessly tests the mind; but once done it is half of any task."
Thank you for this interesting article written by a young queer apologist subverting the discipline of STS that I used to work and teach in and love with a passion. My how far it has strayed down a path of lost causes. Like all pomo theoreticians this person wields relativism to dissolve the materiality of existence into a nonsense. I look forward to engaging with such extreme views to refute them.
👍🙂 Though a whole lotta that "subverting" goin' on these days. ICYMI, Helens Dale and Joyce argued or suggested, more or less reasonably, that transgenderism is a "civilization threatening/ending movement":
Of particular note there is a reference to a book by Joanna Williams on "The Corrosive Impact of Transgender Ideology" -- her "Transgender" probably being somewhat more accurate than my "Gender". While I can't say I've more than skimmed her article, it seems she makes a pretty solid case for that argument:
But I'd kind of wondered about that STS in the Cell article -- seems like it is a useful field of study. Or was until the acolytes of Judith Butler got their dirty ideological mitts on it:
This is INSANE! Here’s the essence of the matter perfectly stated: “Now Scotland would have everyone believe that when a man says he is a woman, he is a woman. If you disagree and have the boldness of J.K. Rowling to call out the lie, then the government will force you under threat of criminal penalty to change your mind. Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act is a not very subtle form of big brother censorship, a tremendous diminution of free speech, and a century of protections built for women.” So Scotland is going to throw out arrest warrants for anyone they feel deserves it based on a lie.
In the US, the Equality Act would allow any man to declare himself to be a woman and then immediately enter any women's single-sex space, place, competition, event, whatever, at will. It would be a violation of federal law to ask him to leave.
EVERY Democrat in Congress is on record as supporting the Equality Act.
Biden once again called for its immediate passage in his recent SOTU address.
I’m a Democrat who will vote for Biden but I’m also opposed to this policy. It’s INSANE!
A vote for Biden is a vote for the Equality Act. However, you may feel the pain of the current dilemma as I do: I cannot, in good conscience, vote for either Trump or Biden.
I’m in that same dilemma…and I would bet there are many like us ! We are between a rock and a hard place!
It’s too important to stop Trump. If I have to swallow some version of the Equally Act and then work to create appropriate regulatory carve-outs to protect women’s intimate spaces and sports then I’ll take that option.
I don’t care if some men want to live as women. That’s mostly fine. But “live as” is not the same as being a woman. Trans women are not women in my personal view. They are men “living as” women which I’m happy for them to do up to the point when it starts harming crucial interests of biological women.
"transwomen" -- compound word like "crayfish" which ain't ...
Just male transvestites if they still have their nuts attached and sexless eunuchs if they don't.
So how do you oppose the policy? Do we get to vote on the policy? Or do we get the policy along with Biden?
Then WHY ARE YOU VOTING FOR BIDEN????? Do your research. "GENDER AFFIRMING CARE" is an Orwellian term. I did not VOTE for men in my locker room. I did not vote for debit cards to migrants overrunning NYC. This is TYRANNY. The Democratic Party has run off the rails. Voting for them is a betrayal of the word democracy. DO. NOT. VOTE. FOR. THIS. CORRUPT. PARTY. And I say: PARTY.
Vote for Biden and oppose the policy. That’s obvious. So obvious that I’m worried you may be a Russian plant so I’m done here.
Also Biden???? Why the F would you vote for that demented, child sniffing old fossil and his tranny lobin’ wife and his thick as a brick vp. The democrats are finished what an historic DH..Show
And that’s why I won’t vote for Biden! Among other reasons, like his supplying Israel weapons to murdered Palestinians.
Helen Joyce’s book “Trans” was a revelation. This is all very deeply bizarre.
I will vote for Biden. There is no other sane choice. I will also oppose this policy which is INSANE.
WRONG. INSANE. DO YOUR RESEARCH.
Who else do I vote for?
While he hasn’t thus far spoken out against the trans lobby, consider RFK JR. Don’t buy the “anti-vax” smear; it’s a straw man. Obama made transing people part of the Affordable Care Act, and it’s Democrats who’ve decided it’s “hate speech” to call this out and again— was it ever on the ballot to invite men with clear fetishes into women’s spaces? There was one at the Korean spa the other day; masquerading as a woman, clearly a man, not undressing like everyone else but WATCHING us undress. The university where I teach imposed PROMOTING transgender ideology on our syllabi and we were told not to remove it (I tried). Biden touted trans on Easter — they are in bed with Big Pharma and profiting from telling people they are sick. RFK is not down with this. Just by appearance alone, who’s robust, alert? Not DIVISIVE? And don’t get me started in Democrat blatant racism! I used to vote Dem but like millions others no more!
Well “Democrats” is a large category and there are many who are undoubtedly misguided. You change this with argument, education and lobbying. That’s how you change policy. Recommend Helen Joyce’s book to as many people as you can. We have to get people to wise up. One key reason why this foolishness has taken root is that it has been deliberately kept out of formal political and decision processes. ORGANIZE! MOBILIZE! Get off Substack and get into your legislators’ offices!
Again it’s the patriarchy. I don’t even believe in the patriarchy but now I do. The patriarchy of perverted men
The people to blame for this mess are the feminists. They are the ones who created the Oppression Olympics (aka intersectionality) where you win by being the biggest loser. Real men are appalled by this insanity but we have been silenced by the feminists and other radicals.
Trust me when I say that men are waiting impatiently for women to rise up and put a stop to these creeps entering their spaces and sports. Only you can do it. When men speak up we are told to mind our own business.
How on earth the mentally ill minority hijacked society will take some years to divine.
@YourUnclePedro Nomsense! Women claiming their rights to equality have been stirring up sex based power relations. Aggrieved men (and women) are now borrowing women’s language in an effort to shore up the status quo—no, harden it and punish dissenters.
I always thought the Scots were a practical, pragmatic tribe. It appears I am wrong.
Look at the name of the first minister who brought thsi bill to pass. Pretty sure not an ancestral Scot.
There's also Sunak and the islamacist rodent mayor of London.
I noticed that.
The Police Scotland have decided no action -- no word on the non crime hate incident thing.
But JKR has tweeted this: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1775190408110264673
If they go after any woman for simply calling a man a man, I'll repeat that woman's words and they can charge us both at once.
A bloody heroine...
Thanks for the great reporting. There's much to lament, not least your sidelined vacation plans!
It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out. As the former footballer, Ally McCoist pointed out today -- 48,000 going to the Celtic Rangers match on Saturday will most likely be engaging in a Hate Crime (Celtic/Rangers is notoriously sectarian).He believes the law is unworkable.
It definitely appears to have been weaponized , just as many feminists warned it would be.
good, and scary point.
This is crazy! A woman can't be themselves let alone have to protect themselves because these so-called " Gworls" wannabe us, but want to take advantage of us. Can we say castration? Now, the biological woman mainly in the prison system would need some kind of defense mechanism because these "Gworls" are taking advantage of us. Ladies, we gotta stop these pedophile, murderous he-shes from taking us out!
Gerald and Trisha, you make a great investigative team. Thanks.
The world's first transgenderist totalitarian regime has now been established.
So don't call a trans woman a man, or He when referring to them. Simply state, "this person who calls themself a woman, and has a dick" ...then continue your quote of or reference to them. Doesn't break the law.
If they feel insulted then it very well may be against the law. According to the wording of the law the Guardian has stated that “The prosecution need only prove that a remark was “likely” rather than “intended” to offend. A crime could be committed if “a reasonable person would consider it threatening, abusive or insulting”.”
Maybe it does. It's up to the Scottish police to decide what is and is not "hate speech".
Which is exactly what makes it totalitarian. The essence of tyranny is requiring subjects to act at their peril, always at risk that the "organs" as the security services were known in Russia will find some pretext for an arrest or worse. What is not permitted is forbidden. It might even still be forbidden. (Maybe someone knowledgeable in Russian vernacular can inform us whether the expression "the organs" is a rude double entendre in russian. It certainly is in English.)
Yes, precisely. The First Minister of Scotland refused to say whether "misgendering" (which of course actually means correctly stating a person's immutable sex) was a "hate crime" or not, saying it would be up to the Police to decide. But on what basis are the Police supposed to decide? The law should be clear. But it very deliberately isn't.
Scotland is now the world's first transgenderist totalitarian state. Will there be others? Canada and Ireland are likely next. The US is teetering on the brink. If Biden is reelected, he will overturn the democratically elected legislatures in 25 states (so far) and destroy single-sex sports in schools (K-12, college) by administrative fiat. That's what he means when he tells us that he will "save democracy".
How about referring to them as "drag queens"? Others can play language games with this nonsense, too. "Queens" are "women", right? So no violation of law.
Wouldn’t it be ideal if the limited resources of Scottish policing were left to police actual crimes and not put in the impossible position of becoming Orwellian thought police. Thank goodness for JK Rowling, her courage and tenacity in always fighting for freedom of speech and the ludicrous position of trans activists is admirable. However she is one of few willing to use her public profile to fight the good fight.
Humza Yusef is a Muslim man isn’t he? What the F business does he have agreeing with laws that call Transexual Men MEN. What about making a law that all trans gender “Women” (MEN) have to wear Burkas at least they wouldn’t be misgendered!
I can hardly wait until Scotland once again apologizes to women .... Some people are slow learners:
"Nicola Sturgeon apologizes to people [mostly if not entirely women] accused of witchcraft"
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-60667533
I know who should be in stocks there in Scotland and it ain't women ...
But Rowling needs a remedial course in basic biology herself for this howler of hers: "the immutability of biological sex". Though she's unlikely to be alone in that class. But by standard biological definitions -- those promulgated in reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries all across the land -- to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless.
Probably thousands of anisogamous species change sex all the time -- hardly "immutable". And more than a few more or less reputable biologists -- like Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers, along with Wolfgang Goymann, Henrik Brumm, and Peter Kappeler at the Wiley Online Library -- argue, with some justification, that many humans are neither male nor female:
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/06/04/sf-chronicle-sex-and-gender-are-not-binaries/#comment-2048737
https://twitter.com/pzmyers/status/1466458067491598342
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202200173?af=R
Technically, none of us acquire a sex until the onset of puberty.
But Rowling and her ilk are not a great deal better in peddling folk-biology -- hardly better than the Kindergarten Cop definitions -- than that erstwhile reputable biological journal Cell which asks, "Is ‘sex’ a useful category?”:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/is-sex-a-useful-category
The whole point of the biological definitions is that they HAVE TO work for ALL anisogamous species, including the human one -- no exceptions.
Wow. Pretty sure Rowling was talking about humans. Not many other mammals showing up to the doctor’s office asking for puberty blockers, opposite sex hormones or genital surgery. No other mammals deciding that they “feel” like a sex different from what their body naturally expresses and asking for all kinds of accommodations and acceptance from the other mammals.
So what? The standard biological definitions apply equally to all anisogamous species, including the human one. That's the problem with Rowling's claim -- she's saying they don't.
You might look at what they actually say -- this old archive of Oxford is more or less what those standard biological definitions say:
"male: 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
You see anything there about different species, how there's some "special" dispensations for humans?
No doubt that transgenderism is a serious problem -- I think that most transactivists and gender ideologues are crazier than shithouse rats. But I don't think the problem will be resolved by bastardizing and corrupting the definitions which are foundational to all of biology -- a science that seems the best bet for turning the transloonie tide.
To the contrary, I’ve read 4 books about this subject and countless articles on both sides. The fact that most people won’t read or understand this issue as deeply as you do isn’t a reason, in my opinion, to condemn those working to restore sanity. Your arguments, if I understand you, point out how deeply the scientific community is implicated in the ideology’s takeover.
"how deeply the scientific community is implicated in the ideology’s takeover"
Amen to that.
Though not really "condemning" Rowling in particular. Just that the general view that "sex is immutable" obscures the issue of what it takes to qualify as male and female in the first place. Pretty much what the Cell article is trying to do, though they're doing so with far less justification.
But, in passing, you might also have some interest in several of my "variations on a theme". In particular, various Statistics Departments -- including, I'm sad to say, Canada's own -- being "implicated" in that "takeover":
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/statistics-departments-corrupted
What is your point? Can human beings change sex? That is what Rowling is talking about and her voice and reach are incredibly valuable in exposing this ideology. I really don’t understand your problem with her comment.
No, of course they can't. But the question is, "Why can't they?"
You can't answer that question UNTIL you SAY what it MEANS to have a sex in the first place, what it takes to qualify as members of the sex categories. IF one goes with the Kindergarten Cop definitions -- which is about the extent of most people's understanding of the concept -- THEN of course people can change sex -- "Change your genitalia, change your sex! Act now! Offer ends soon!" 🙄
Rowling is to be commended for challenging the transloonie nutcases, the whole great steaming pile of transgender ideology. But with that "immutable" statement she's part of the problem. The sexes are NOT "identities", much less "immutable"🙄 ones based on some "mythic essences". They're just transitory states -- like "teenager" -- based on reproductive abilities.
Don't think you're spending much time or thought in reading what I've posted. As a pathologist and professor you might want to consider the question that Cell magazine -- an erstwhile reputable biological journal -- asked, "Is ‘sex’ a useful category?”: 🙄
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00122-3#%20
How far the "mighty" have fallen. The rot that transgenderism has wrought -- so to speak.
Again, my open letter to them and the clueless and quite demented author of it:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/is-sex-a-useful-category
Good Lord, dude. you are so lost in the esoterics. get a clue.
Hardly "esoterics". You might actually try reading my post and the Cell article to see what they're up to:
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00122-3#%20
A major "front" with the transloonie nutcases is due to their attempt to bastardize and corrupt the biological definitions. The folk-biology of Rowling and company really isn't much of a bulwark -- more a part of the problem in fact.
"Folk-biology"? you mean the biological definition accepted throughout history until, oh, about 15 minutes ago? Don;t know your sex until puberty I believe you said in your post...that's rubbish. Get your head out of the ivory tower esoteria and acknowledge reality.
Don't feed the trolls.
🙄 "Troll" seems to be the latest variation in playing the race card ...
https://twitter.com/adamcarolla/status/1421138069026074628
“A tool of the intellectually weak and lazy when they cannot counter a logical argument or factual data”.
🙄 LoL. Do show us all the historical definitions for the sexes ...
Gametes weren't discovered until the late 1800s so I doubt you'll find any reference to them before then ...
All that we had was folk-biology: "boys have penises and girls have vaginas. Like folk-cosmology: Earth is center of the universe and flat. Like folk-geology: the Earth is 6000 years old. Like folk-ethology: Jehovah make humans special. GMAFB.
Science moves along, generally speaking. The problem is too many refuse to keep up, too many still stuck in the Dark Ages.
Dear Lord, are you one of them too? Are you gender fluid and non-binary? I ask because you are guilty of playing stupid games with definitions.
Of course not, not at all. I figure most of the transloonies are crazier than shithouse rats. Sad they've taken too many of our legal, educational, and scientific institutions over the cliff with them.
But I'm hardly "playing stupid games with definitions". You might actually try Googling "male definition":
"Definitions: from Oxford Languages
male /māl/ adjective:
of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring."
Those ARE pretty much THE standard biological definitions.
If we can't agree on what words mean then we're screwed, blued, and tattooed. And the only definitions that hold any water are the biological ones, not the folk-biology claptrap that Rowling is peddling.
You might reflect on what philosopher Will Durant had to say about a quip from Voltaire:
Durant: 'If you wish to converse with me,' said Voltaire, 'define your terms.' How many a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms! This is the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul of it, that every important term in serious discourse shall be subjected to strictest scrutiny and definition. It is difficult, and ruthlessly tests the mind; but once done it is half of any task."
https://quotefancy.com/quote/3001527/Will-Durant-If-you-wish-to-converse-with-me-said-Voltaire-define-your-terms-How-many-a
Thank you for this interesting article written by a young queer apologist subverting the discipline of STS that I used to work and teach in and love with a passion. My how far it has strayed down a path of lost causes. Like all pomo theoreticians this person wields relativism to dissolve the materiality of existence into a nonsense. I look forward to engaging with such extreme views to refute them.
👍🙂 Though a whole lotta that "subverting" goin' on these days. ICYMI, Helens Dale and Joyce argued or suggested, more or less reasonably, that transgenderism is a "civilization threatening/ending movement":
https://lawliberty.org/podcast/when-does-sex-matter/
In the same vein, you might also have some interest in my "Statistics Departments Corrupted by Gender Ideology:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/statistics-departments-corrupted
Of particular note there is a reference to a book by Joanna Williams on "The Corrosive Impact of Transgender Ideology" -- her "Transgender" probably being somewhat more accurate than my "Gender". While I can't say I've more than skimmed her article, it seems she makes a pretty solid case for that argument:
https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/2454-A-The-Corrosive-Impact-of-TI-ppi-110-WEB.pdf
But I'd kind of wondered about that STS in the Cell article -- seems like it is a useful field of study. Or was until the acolytes of Judith Butler got their dirty ideological mitts on it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_studies