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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29323 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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I just came across a word that I feel could be very useful in the trans debate: signalment. Specifically, I'm inspired by the way the term is used in verterinary medicine.

Signalment is a complete description of the patient including species, breed, age and date of birth, sex and reproductive status, whether the animal is neutered or intact.

I feel like this term captures an important point I've seen brought up in a few contexts - that a person's status as transgender might matter to their doctor, and their sexual partners, but it doesn't matter much to their social interactions in ~90% of cases. "Signalment" seems to capture the idea of "medically necessary information needed by a physician to narrow down their search space and provide quality care." Just as it might be important to know that dalmations are more prone to bladder stones than other breeds, it might be important to know that a patient is "Female, with a hysterectomy, and on testosterone for the last 3 years" because that might provide unique medical information that could be useful to the proper treatment of a patient.

I think it also bypasses some of the issues people take with terms like "biological sex" or "gametic sex."

Instead of saying, "Your biological sex is still male though", to a transwoman, you could instead say, "Your sex signalment is 'male, orchiectomy, testosterone blockers and estrogen for 5 years.'"

Then we could have the following distinction:

  • Signalment: All the medically relevant information about a patient.

  • Courtesy title (honorific), personal pronouns and gender identity: All of the social information that will make interacting with the patient easier.

So a patient might be Miss Tiffany Lewis [she/her, woman], with a sex signalment of "male, orchiectomy, testosterone blockers and estrogen for 5 years."

On one hand, I recognize this as following the long standing rationalist-ish tradition of finding some obscure idea and going "Wow! If more people knew that it could change everything!". It's cute, I suppose there's a reason the quokka meme strikes a chord. On the other hand, I'm getting too old for this, can we just skip to the part where the idea blows up in our faces in extremely predictable ways, becomes an elaborate but empty ritual, or is overused to the point it loses all meaning?

Instead of saying, "Your biological sex is still male though", to a transwoman, you could instead say, "Your sex signalment is 'male, orchiectomy, testosterone blockers and estrogen for 5 years.'"

Does this actually help anyone? The latter literally contains the former, so why would someone upset at hearing "Your biological sex is still male though", feel better about hearing "Your biological sex is still male though" + a list of medical procedures they went through?

In 2017 there was a "No, Trans Women Are NOT 'Biologically Male'" article with supporting video:

“Yes, trans women are women, but they’re still biologically male.”

Ever thought or said something like this? You might even have good intentions by stating what you think is a simple fact – after all, gender is a social construct, while sex is biological, right?

Actually, this “simple fact” of trans women being “biologically male” is inaccurate – and this misrepresentation of the truth is being used to justify some pretty hateful things.

So if you really want the facts, and to follow through on your good intentions by being a good ally, check out Riley J. Dennis’ explanation of why trans women are not biologically male.

Unfortunately, the video (even on Youtube) has been marked private and you can't see it unless you've been invited, so I guess we will never know the stunning knock-down arguments by the non-binary trans lesbian Riley J. Dennis as to why "Biological sex is a social construct". Maybe it was just too powerful for our puny brains and had to be kept secret for only the initiated who could safely watch it. We might perhaps get a clue from this quote:

For example, if someone was assigned male at birth, but took puberty blockers and hormones and had a vaginoplasty, they would have “female” hormones, secondary sex characters, and genitals. So, three of their five ways of determining sex would be “female”... That means three-fifths of the sex criteria point to female, and only one-fifth points to male – and if you believe that sex is an unchanging biological fact, that couldn’t be possible. But it is.

In a 2017 video called "No, Trans Women Are NOT ‘Biologically Male’", Dennis broke down the concept of biological sex and referred to it as a social construct, albeit in a different way from gender. She asserted that what we call "biological sex" is not a clear dichotomy and simply represents a combination of numerous biological markers — secondary sex characteristics, gonads, chromosomes, genitals and hormones — several of which can be changed medically as a result of transitioning. This similarly caused controversy; among her critics on this issue was biologist Jerry Coyne. Dennis' basic argument, however, has been supported by more recent research in the Scientific American, alongside a conceptualization of biological sex as a continuum rather than a binary.

So the suggested "signalment" of "your sex is male" is misrepresentation used to justify hate. Got it? The "orchiectomy, testosterone blockers and estrogen for 5 years" means that Tiffany James now has female hormones, and does not possess male gonads, so she is female and saying she is male sex is wrong since modern medicine has successfully altered her biology for two of the five sex criteria (and if she's on oestrogen and testosterone blockers, presumably altered the secondary sex characteristics as well so that's three out of five).

(For those of us unrepentant sinners who don't consider a vaginoplasty to be the same thing as cis female genitals, well I guess we'll just have to burn in the hall of shame for bad thinkers).

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