"You constantly confuse sex and identity."
We must be speaking past each other, because the distinction could not be clearer in my mind.
"Part of my point is that trans women are women because their brains are BIOLOGICALLY female. And it is not only provable, it is being proven through research every day without the need of dissecting brains."
This is an interesting but irrelevant observation, if you're talking about sex. Sex is determined by being born with the organs to produce one or the other gamete. (This does not rule out the possibility that other physiologic systems might be ambiguous or even contradictory, as in the examples you provide of the nervous system and genetics.)
"Presumably your comment refers to research beginning at Harvard in the early 90s..."
It does not.
"Not surprisingly those of trans individuals light up in a way which matches the gender they identify with not their sex assigned at birth."
I'm not surprised either. I'm aware of these studies as pertains to gay individuals; in that case, the research also showed that they reacted to sexual stimuli differently.
"As to your arguments about skeletal structure what you are describing are the archetypical differences."
Well, they are also anatomical differences. Your next paragraph actually discusses the measurement of anatomical features. You can't measure an archetype. :-)
"As with everything related to sex and gender, many differences exist along a spectrum."
Of course. I expect that if we were to examine the pelvic regions of Dalila Muhammad, Sydney McLaughlin, and Alyson Felix, we'd find that all three have femur/pelvis articulation angles and pelvic shapes which vary slightly towards a more "male" configuration when compared to the female norm. But you seem well aware of these differences, no need to beat a dead horse.
"I could go on. There are no absolute categories when it comes to skeletal structure except maybe at the outer limits of binary characteristics considered typically male or female, encompassing a relatively small part of the population. Most of us are a mix."
Of course not, but what we can say is the AVERAGE (or median, if you're a stickler for statistical accuracy) of any skeletal metric of a person born male is going to be substantially and noticeably different from one born female. And in only a very very VERY few rare cases will an experienced anatomist be unable to determine sex just by eyeballing the skeleton.
"The basic problem I have with the original article and your passionate response to my comment is the soft bigotry which seems to underly your arguments."
Well, an accusation of "soft bigotry" (to the extent that that actually exists, which is questionable) is often the start of an argument to which the comeback is "you're being paranoid." :-) I suggest we not go there. :-)
"You are essentially saying, I totally affirm the right of trans people to exist but they are not men nor women so we should create their own dedicated spaces in which to live and thrive."
Not at all. With the exception of athletics, where it seems to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to chemically degrade male performance sufficiently to create fair competition, I see no reason why transpeople shouldn't be treated sociologically and legally as any other individual would be treated. And since I said almost exactly that in my prior post, I have to accuse you of not reading what I actually wrote, and instead jumping to a conclusion without evidence. Your accusation that I am subtly proposing some sort of trans apartheid state is unfounded and without merit.
