Rishi Sunak wades into debate over trans people, declaring no one can change sex - eviltoast

All the news on his speech seems to be about HS2 but I think that this is important too.

  • Nakedmole@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Your definitions of sex and gender are not in universal use

    Interesting! What definitions are in universal use?

    I think my definitions of sex and gender and the definitions of the Council of Europe seem pretty congruent though:

    Sex refers to “the different biological and physiological characteristics of males and females, such as reproductive organs, chromosomes, hormones, etc.”

    Gender refers to "the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed

    source

    and they are not the definitions used by Sunak

    Good point, I assume that he (as the conservative-populist he is) probably meant to say gender when he said sex and that he wanted to imply that people can not change gender (which is obviously false because gender is a social construct and not an inherent biological quality).

    All that does not change the fact that the statement “people can not change their sex” itself is a correct one though. As far as I understand logic, if somebody says something correct while meaning something incorrect, that does not change the true statement into a false one.

    • FlowVoid@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      What definitions are in universal use?

      No definition is in universal use.

      meant to say gender when he said sex

      He meant to say exactly what he said, and it was incorrect. He was not using your definition of sex. He was using it in the same sense as “I had a sex change operation”.

      Or “Now I want to change the sex on my birth certificate”. Do you also chime in to inform people it’s wrong to do that?