Simple question. If you were tasked to provide a clear, unambiguous, as concise as possible dictionary definition for a “man” and a “woman” — what would it be? In the dictionary I see “An adult male human being” and “An adult female human being”, for man and woman, respectively. But if we accept those definitions, what is a “male human being” and what is a “female human being”? I realize the question may seem so obvious to some as to be entirely ridiculous to create a thread for it, but humor me. I’m curious how much agreement or disagreement there would be in the responses.
i cant define it, but i know it when i see it. but even then, its not cut-and-dry. sometimes you have people who are women, but look like a dude... sometimes you have people who are men who look like a lady...
Man is born with a penis. Woman is born with a vagina. Man should have a Y chromosome (there are XY women who have androgen insensitivity syndrome), a Woman will not. There are intersex people (born with ambiguous genitals) who are a lot harder to classify. But 99+% of people will not be intersex or AIS.
I concur with @Astrodome and @Ubiquitin …however I can’t resist trans female Blair White so now I’m confused
So folks who say it’s determined by XY vs XX chromosomes — there are people who have extra sex chromosomes (e.g., XXY, XXX). So is it that if you have a Y chromosome you’re male, otherwise female? But then you have rare cases of people with Y chromosome who still present as “women”, develop ovaries and can even get pregnant with a donated egg. So I don’t think it’s as simple as just look at the sex chromosomes.
So does that mean that in the rare cases of people born with ambiguous genitalia you have to fall back to some other criteria, or do we just say at that point that the person is neither male or female?
P and V. I am in the minority and may catch flak, but the current trend is a phase. Meaning that trans people will always exist, but many people just want freedom of expression and this is how they're choosing to display that. If that makes sense. Basically, I think there are a lot of fake trans people. Much like lipstick, college lesbians 10-20 years ago.
I don't, at least not so definitively that someone could set rules by my decision. Indeterminate genitals and chromosome quandaries are already covered here, so I'd just say I'll take someones word for it. Exceptions for someone I suspect is a predator trying to be sent to a female prison or some such... I'd have problems with that, but I've never encountered it in real life. What to do with transgender/intergender athletes? I dunno. The utilitarian in me says they should not be allowed to compete in "female" sports, male sports are fair game. It would hurt some people, but less than if every womens sport was dominated by dudes in a dress making bank. I don't see any good answers out there, and I'm not looking forward to genital police vetting children for little league or gymnastics.
Man and woman are not the same as male and female. If someone that is born a male wants to claim she is a woman, so be it - but she isn’t a female.
