It's an issue of fact vs expression/perception. There was a moment in time when you started breathing outside of your mother's womb. There is usually a witness and time is a one-way metric.

Gender expression is a different, more complex matter. There has always been "grey" areas from an anatomy perspective and I think there is consensus that other factors affect this as well. Race, depending on context, is even more complex. Is it about nationality? Geography? Skin color? Religion?

Most things about people don't fit in neat boxes. Age is not one of those things.

It's probably more accurate to describe transitioning as redefining what it means to be a woman, not simply asking people to deny one's physiology or to "play along with a delusion". Before, it was simply being born a certain way. Today, it's shifting to mean acting a certain way combined with medical intervention. If we could redefine marriage to accomidate gay couples, I don't see why we can't redefine womanhood to accomidate transgender people, although it's fair to debate if that's necessarily the best option so long as good-faith is maintained and we recognise transgender people's struggles as legitimate.

Intellectual coherency on transgender issues will be rare because so much of it is agenda-driven on many sides, even conflicting within the same side. In a way it's starting to resemble the ferocious debate on climate change. Classifying it one way or the other has grave implications for the loser(s) and it becomes easier to "stretch" your claim when the spectre of that is raised. It's still important to keep in mind that the phenomena underlying the debate is objectively demonstrable: sex-based differentiation in the brain has been observed in ordinary men versus men who transition to women. It's also important to keep in mind that a simple philosophical argument highlights the inconsistency in saying that a man who wants a certain body is diseased for wanting the same things that would cause distress if they were absent in a woman.

It remains unseen if redefining womanhood will be a sustainable solution for trans' individuals integration and equality, but the fact that it is considered is reassuring that we have the right priorities as a culture oriented toward the individual, toward secularism, and toward liberty. However, we must be willing to admit what is working and what isn't working. Aspects of transition, such as hormone therapy, clearly work. Other aspects of transition, such as ignoring sex differentiation to the disadvantage of others in sports, may not be working so well. Honesty combined with good-faith and individual, secular values will be important here.

(Disclaimer: I am transgender and I consider myself to be more in a third-category best described as "different from most men")

Really? The idea of age being a publicly known and verifiable fact is completely specific to highly developed Western cultures. Many places in the world attach no importance to date/time of birth and do not record it.

The Netherlands, the country in question, is a highly developed western culture.

Whatever adjudication process that exists in a culture that doesn’t care about date of birth would probably reach a different judgement.

Whoah, I thought time was relative. What happened to time dilation?

> There has always been "grey" areas from an anatomy perspective

Yes, extremely rare ones. It's not clear to me what the existence of the occasional XXY individual, etc., has to do with the idea that gender is just a social construct.

> It's not clear to me what the existence of the occasional XXY individual, etc., has to do with the idea that gender is just a social construct.

It doesn't, but it does have to do (potentially) with the argument.

One side says "Gender is male/female, scientific fact, and can be examined in DNA". They are outright rejecting the idea of gender being a social construct.

The other side COULD try to argue that gender is a social construct by virtue of all the social variables and treatments that are involved, but that doesn't actually set up gender as a social construct - those can all be social issues ATTACHED to a non-social construct, just as young/old are the social constructs attached to chronological age. To convince the other side, you need to separate gender as a concept from the genes. If the "static binary" group cannot imagine a gender identity separate from the genes, they might understand someone XXY having one of those binary options. They may even understand one XXY person being "male" and another being "female". Even if they argue that there is still a rigorous "male" and "female" option that is based on the expression of the genes, they are accepting that we are making some definition of "male" and "female" that is from a collection of criteria. The "decision" of what is in those collections of criteria are more clearly socially influenced.

So: Society decides what defines "male" and "female" traits (based on "traditional" traits exhibited by chromosome-based sex) => society is defining male and female for the unusual genetic mixes => male/female is based on behavior => male/female isn't solely decided by chromosomes => having only strict male/female definitions is not the only set of definitions available.

At least, that's how I understand the argument. And I have some anecdotal evidence for it - My first exposure to transgender/intersex/etc was in college with a video made by a group of people who WERE unusual genotype or extreme phenotype differences. Listening to someone talking about how they felt like a "boy" but their penis was removed shortly after birth, forcing them to be in a world that treated them as a "girl" gave me a perspective I could identify with (and was horrifying - it also gave me my first real moment of empathy to consider how day-to-day life is different for a woman. Realizing that I (cis-straight male) thought the idea of being treated as female was actually scary caused me to rethink some assumptions...and I was raised to be socially liberal. The idea that there was a penis to be removed made me instinctively agree that this person could be male in a way that is hard to match.

That said, I don't think the non-XX/XY phenotype argument is the most persuasive available, or at least not for everyone. I do think it's a valid approach, even if such visible phenotype differences are rare.

i think the important difference with age is that there are hard legal implications that go along with it, that SHOULDN'T exist over the dimensions of sex and race. The one that flies out at me is retirement or senior benefits. There may be some options only available to people of color, or women, but not as widespread as the implications of age. If this passed, could I become 65 and start withdrawing my 401k penalty-free?

> i think the important difference with age is that there are hard legal implications that go along with it, that SHOULDN'T exist over the dimensions of sex and race

There are many incentives for women. Think about tax cuts for starting a company, etc. etc. Do you want to remove those incentives?

> If this passed, could I become 65 and start withdrawing my 401k penalty-free?

Well, women (at least in Italy or Europe I guess) can retire earlier than men. So, can a 60-year old become a woman and retire, while as a man he would have to work until he's 65?

You haven't thought this through.

> Well, women (at least in Italy or Europe I guess) can retire earlier than men.

I'm from the US and haven't heard of this before. Is there a widespread rationale for this? As a whole, women live longer, so equating "retired years" doesn't seem plausible.

In the US, you get (easy) access to 401k and IRA at 59.5 years old, and social security can't be claimed until 62. Gender doesn't matter.

I think this wikipedia article is some proof that there is widespread adoption at least.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_age

As for the UK: the Womens retirement age used to be 60, but it has been steadily rising for some time, until at one point it was brought to parity for eligibility for state pensions. (a move that was marred with protest by those wishing for "equality"? somehow)

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/10/thousan...

There is a gender difference in many countries worldwide - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_age , with women often getting to retire 5 years earlier. The differences used to be more common, now many countries have equalized the retirement age where it used to be different, and many of those where there currently is a difference are phasing it out.

I'd seriously consider putting on a believable show for 5 years earlier retirement...

The fact is that these differences im sex exist (and increasing). I would happily change my official gender to be able to be a board member (now that California is limiting it). But if I needed, I would maybe change my official gender just to be able to fall into the gender quota and get a job.

What material benefits does a pensioner have by identifying as a younger person? They would lose entitlement to pensions and benefits and social security in most European countries.

Affirmative action is a big benefit. I'm a white male at the moment, but I could get a real leg up if I were transgender and/or transracial.

Because words have meaning and none of those things are arbitrary.

Why, is gender arbitrary? There are albino blacks, blonde latinos, etc.

It's my (extremely outside) understanding that the concepts of physical/genetic/choose-something-objective gender are not what people mean in these conversations - nor are they referring to the subjective identity of what kinds of people one feels sexually attracted to. They are referring to a third thing, also subjective, best described as "what gender you feel like", which is very much like how old or young you feel, except much more closely related to one's identity (I "feel" young, which is great, but I also "feel" male, which is more than great - it's critically important to my self identity). So, both of these things (age and gender) have subjective and objectives measures - the difference is that "years old", which term the law uses, is patently objective both legally and linguistically, whereas on the other hand "male/female/etc", which terms the law also uses, is less objective linguistically (as described above), and therefore there is at least one basis on which you could argue for a legal change of gender - a basis that does not exist for a change-of-age argument.

I've always wondered how someone knows how a man feels or how a woman feels. All I know is how I feel. How am I to determine that the way I feel is the way everyone who identifies as women feel, or the way everyone who identifies as men feel? Certainly there's a continuum where rarely do two individuals feel exactly the same.

As much as anything, this comes down to societal gender roles and a desire not to conform with the ones you've been assigned. In a different culture, it could simply come down to "piss off and I'll do what I want", but we live in a time and place where labels very much matter to people, and they want to be able to pick labels that mean what they would like.

Because it's socially popular for it to be, so the goalposts will be moved wherever they need to be for it to be true.

This is pretty dismissive and simplistic. You should read my sibling post to yours and give your opinion.

It's entirely possible to be accepting and understanding of individuals, while still disagreeing with the larger social groups and movements they are a part of. In fact, pretty much everyone does that in some way or another every single day.

The thing I take issue with is the knee-jerk reaction of certain people to shut down any conversation that suggests traditional roles and definitions were and still are valid.

Yes it's simplistic. It was a one line statement. Is it dismissive? Maybe. But it also has a grain of truth to it, which is what bothers people.

Sure there are, and all of those things are determined by biology, not choice. That said, this is a topic that could go off the rails and sideways very quickly...