it is delightful to watch you use a concept, harmonal levels, which you agree are critical to gender and which have been experimentally measured to vary along a continuum for both men and women (with much overlap), and then assert that gender is binary.

I would think by now you would see the inherent contradiction in using a concept which has been shown to have a continuum to justify a binary approach. Fascinating.

Report comment to moderator

This is not minimal data. This is the elephant you are ignoring.

You must separate varying sexual preference, which is emotional and psychological but nonetheless very real, from the obvious and immutable male and female state that divides humanity, excepting disability and artificial alteration.

Report comment to moderator

Sexual preference exists on a continuum, I submit bisexual behavior as proof. Sexual preference is mutable, I submit gays becoming straight and vice versa as proof. Male and female do not exist on a continuum, I submit fertility as proof. Male and female fertility is not mutable, there is no case of it ever happening.

Report comment to moderator

but of course when you say:

“Concerning rigid binary structures – gays often maintain and the CA decision is based on the premise that homosexuals and straights are a rigid binary structure, gays can not become straight.”

you are misrepresenting the argument.

There are two separate issues which you seem to have confounded:

1) is gender along a continuum

2) once gender is established how mutable is it

The presence of a continuum does not imply that gender is mutable, and your syllogism is in serious error here.

Report comment to moderator

when you say:

“Hormonal differences are the primary biological mechanism that make men and women different, during gestation, puberty, etc. This fact supports the bifurcation of male and female. All you have proven is that they both develop.”

and I agree but note that both men and women have varying levels of both malre and female harmone.

If harmones are the primary difference AND both sets of harmones occur in both sexes in varying amounts THEN it suggests, but does not prove, that gender may occur along a continuum.

Report comment to moderator

no you do not appear to be reading my material.

I am not attempting to prove anything since I have little to no data.

What I am I believe doing is providing enough of a case to suggest that we don’t know enough to be able to determine whether, and we use many words here, gender/sex/sexual orientation/sexuality is along a continuum or is binary.

We have some minimum data which suggests both options.

Report comment to moderator

I do see the confusing of male and female – the “man” who was pregnant, the denial that there is a difference. But I think I generally agree with you. My point is that attraction is malleable but male and female are not, excepting of course cases of tragic disability.

Report comment to moderator

Are there two teams, or just a bunch of humans with preferences that they may or may not act upon?

I can tell you how male and female are defined. And this can be scientifically verified.

Report comment to moderator

I never said menstruation makes one female. I said the experience of menstruation is limited to the female and that this is another example of the inherent differences between the men and the women. It is indeed a black and white difference.

SteveG -

You would have to define what you mean by gay – if you mean attracted to men, certainly I could be. Can anyone say for certain where their emotions will attempt to lead them in the future? I could be attracted to women other than my wife. I could be attracted to a door knob. I don’t know, my attractions do not make me who I am.

Persuaded under the right circumstances – I don’t know about persuaded, that implies a logical argument. Men have adopted homosexual behavior under certain circumstances, such as when no women are around. But none of us act on every sexual thought that occurs to us. That is why we are not all rapists. It is something known as self-control. I have not felt the desire that I suppose homosexuals feel for their own sex, but I have felt strong desires that I have not acted on. And I am not “persuaded” by arguments based on what amounts to a rationale for gender confusion.

The fact is that homosexuals do become straight, and vice versa. There is a demonstrable continuum in the bisexual community. There is no comparable continuum between male and female, there is only delusion.

Report comment to moderator

Report comment to moderator