How do we handle the science of sex/gender

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I’m sorry to say this, but I’m honestly upset- I have a degenerative genetic disease, and I’m certainly a daughter of God. I’m not a flaw or a genetic hiccup. I’m a daughter of God. Please don’t call us a mistake.

You’re saying that people with genetic mutations are worth less because God simply made us a “flaw”.

To be clear : I’m not a flaw. I’m a daughter of God and His creation.
 
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I never said you were worth less, just that a anomalies aren’t new genders. I never said God made you that way, God made our immortal souls but our physical bodies are products of the fall that corrupted our nature. We live in a fallen and imperfect world and that manifests itself in many ways. I apologize for causing offense, it was not my intention.
 
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Yes there are people who, unfortunately, are born without a clear sex. This is a disorder, not “another sex/gender”. As for “God made them” - that’s a complicated concept. The reality of the human condition is that sickness, disease and disorder exist. God didn’t “make” people with diseases and disorders - unfortunately those things exist, and God can bring good out of those evils, according to His will.
 
I know a number of non-binary people so to help myself understand their personal crosses a bit better, I attended a few discussions/talks run by the LGBT+ community.

One of the clearest, yet concise metrics I got out of it is the genderbread person which I’m attaching to this post.

The community argues that gender is a combination of identity and expression, sex is your physical attributes, while attraction is split between romantic attraction and physical attraction.

For the most of us, all these things “line up” but there are people out there with these attributes are completely mixed. Regardless the Church should just react as it always does, and keep its doors open for all for comfort and guidance so everyone can grow in Christ.

All this stuff doesn’t matter in the long run. How we are with God does. So long as everyone is faithful, keeps God in their heart, it’s not the clergy or laity’s business the gender someone is attracted to or the gender identity or expression of that person.(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
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HomeschoolDad:
I didn’t say that such a person would be a “third sex”.
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Correct.

But the OP made the claim that scientists have “discovered” more than two sexes, and it was towards that individual and others who might be reading to clear this up🙂
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I would reiterate the fact that taxonomic science is fuzzy and subjective, and if taxonomists developed a consensus that there were more than two biological sexes, then that is what “science” would follow.

taxonomy: Greek taxo (order, arrangement) - nomy (naming). Just as there is more than one name for a cougar, the categorization and classification of things such as sex is based on a desire to put things into neat compartments. But nature does not fit neatly into compartments. If you only knew of the mess created in the taxonomy of species.

I agree with the majority that the popular taxonomy of “two sexes” is the most useful for humans and very painful to change. But it’s simply not based on an immutable law of physics. We’re getting into philosophical territory. We might be on the brink of another Galileo moment in history.

Is it de fide and infallible that, outside of male and female, there is no other? Is the Church married to this proposition as she was married to the Sun revolving around the Earth?
 
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sealabeag said:
Yes there are people who, unfortunately, are born without a clear sex. This is a disorder, not “another sex/gender”. As for “God made them” - that’s a complicated concept. The reality of the human condition is that sickness, disease and disorder exist. God didn’t “make” people with diseases and disorders - unfortunately those things exist, and God can bring good out of those evils, according to His will.
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I’d like to come back from “Muteland” long enough to thank you for making this point.
Anesti33 said:
I agree with the majority that the popular taxonomy of “two sexes” is the most useful for humans and very painful to change. But it’s simply not based on an immutable law of physics. We’re getting into philosophical territory. We might be on the brink of another Galileo moment in history.

Is it de fide and infallible that, outside of male and female, there is no other? Is the Church married to this proposition as she was married to the Sun revolving around the Earth?
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I’ve wondered the very same thing.

(And in case anyone’s wondering, no, I don’t suffer from this disorder, and I don’t know anyone who does either, though I have known women who were of a certain age, yet unaccountably single — not obviously lesbian, very attractive, would have no problem finding a husband, but seemed to have an aversion to men and courtship. As I’m sure some would not hesitate to remind me, it’s none of my business, if they wanted me to know that about them, they’d share it with me. I’m sorry, people, I grew up in a culture — not a Catholic one — where everyone either marries, or people wonder why not, and that’s always just stuck with me. I know I’m probably just being narrow-minded, but sometimes, you just can’t get past your raising.)
 
I think the line between disorder/pathology and legitimate variation is pretty fine, and subjective as well.

Some sexual abnormalities impair normal function. Some don’t.

Some autistic people think it’s a super power. Many Deaf people refuse to speak of disability.

Conventional science has ideas about these things. Conventional science is changing constantly.

There are immutable things about the world such as laws of physics and the operations of biology and chemistry. Science discovers new things about them all the time, and recalibrates how we describe them. There is so much in the interpretation that is subjective. Science is not as fixed and certain as we make it out to be.
 
Anesti33 said:
Many Deaf people refuse to speak of disability.
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Yes, and those deaf people are wrong.

I know this sounds mean. But no. There are consequences down that line of thinking.

I’ve actually heard some of these ‘deaf culture’ positivity people who have taken it so far past just affirming the fulfilling life you can still live with deafness (which is obviously a great and healthy thing to affirm), to saying that they would genetically modify their children to be deaf if the option became available.

Children have a right to not be deliberately crippled by activists trying to make a point about “Nothing’s a disability, really!” and I’m not joking about having heard ‘deaf culture’ activists say they’d do this, and this being a road it seems some people may go down tomorrow if that we forgets to keep our sanity about the distinction between a maximally healthy human body and one that has been affected by a condition that constitutes a cross to be born, not intentionally pushed on someone as ‘an equally excellent condition of health’.
 
It is a psychological and philosophical question. Where does it intersect with Church teaching? What if there were a vast and science-based movement to make people voluntarily Deaf? What doctrines would prevent it?

Let’s explore another analogy: climate change. Humans are overwhelmingly (Laudato si’) volunteering to change their behavior and discontinue actions which are deemed harmful to the planet. This includes many behaviors which were previously judged as helpful, beneficial, or neutral, and condoned by the Church authorities. The Holy Father practically taught that the use of air conditioning is a mortal sin! (I kid.) So as science changes, the Church adapts to science. We have Galileo moments every couple of hundred years. It’s just growing pains.
 
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Anesti33 said:
It is a psychological and philosophical question. Where does it intersect with Church teaching? What if there were a vast and science-based movement to make people voluntarily Deaf? What doctrines would prevent it?
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I believe Catholic teaching prohibits us from physical mutilation that acts against a bodily function, without proportionately grave reason (e.g. amputating a gangrenous limb before it kills the whole body). I don’t have any documents or CCC citation in front of me right now but I’m sure I’ve heard it discussed, e.g. on CA.

I can’t imagine a proportionately grave reason to voluntarily deafen oneself. If a serial killer threatens to kill you unless you do, I guess?

What on earth would be a “science-based” reason to deliberately deafen oneself?
 
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Well, correct me if I’m wrong? It was commonly understood that geocentrism was Church teaching, and then it was gradually worked out that this wasn’t the purview of the Church and so rather than adopt a de fide heliocentrism, a dichotomy was obtained and a wall of separation that says the Church is competent for faith and morals only.
 
Yeah the Galileo incident is often used as a stick to bash the Church with, but it is often misunderstood. There’s a lot of good articles on it, I think a few here on CA too. But basically the primary issue the Church had wasn’t with Galileo’s theory per say (although it did contradict the commonly held geocentrism of that time), but with the fact that Galileo couldn’t actually prove his theory. And in the end his particular theory was wrong. The Church actually treated Galileo well, considering the times - he was arrogant and disrespectful towards the Pope himself.
 
Let me turn that on its head. What if those who say there are two biological sexes are turned into this earth and this life, the traditions of men that we know, and they are trying to ignore what God is telling us through biological variations that don’t line up with the party line or the existing worldview?
 
We know they aren’t because Sacred Scripture and the Church have affirmed it.

Besides that: Look at the people who are pushing it, and look at their fruits.
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No, we’re not going to do an ad hominem attack on the transgenda here.

Sacred Scripture clearly affirms geocentrism. The Church Fathers accept geocentrism. Yet Sacred Scripture is silent about hermaphroditism. Nowhere does the Bible say “there is no third sex, nor can they exist.” It is silent on autism.

There is a deal about a man blind from birth, so I’ll give you the thing about disability, although I’d have to say that the allegorical value about that man not accepting the Faith is stronger than the literal meaning we take away.

If I had a nickel for every time someone crowed “the Bible isn’t a science book!” and then they turn around and use the Bible as their primary source for the existence of two sexes only. That’s hypocritism.
 
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To acknowledge that there are basically two different sexes and that they are different is necessary.

Take for example drug researchers who are testing brand new drugs and interactions with humans.

Chances are how females react to drugs will be different to how males react to drugs.

A lot of scientific studies on human physiology will have to take sexual differences into account.
 
Anesti33 said:
I agree with the majority that the popular taxonomy of “two sexes” is the most useful for humans and very painful to change. But it’s simply not based on an immutable law of physics. We’re getting into philosophical territory. We might be on the brink of another Galileo moment in history.
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Please tell us what “third” cell is required to create new life.
 
It’s alright. I like you too.

I think the main Church teaching we can bring to bear on this thread is sexual complementarity. I think we can agree that the unitive/procreative aspects of the marital embrace are de fide, infallibly defined. Tab P in slot V. The Church says this is how God intends the human race to behave, because God has ordained, through biological processes, that human reproduction occur in a certain way. Since all things in Heaven and Earth are subject to the faith and morals of the Church, science is duty-bound to follow this teaching on complementarity. Science that denies or subverts or perverts such teachings, e.g. IVF, “gender affirmation surgery”, etc., is to be condemned always and everywhere.

I think we can agree on these points, yes?
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
Please tell us what “third” cell is required to create new life.
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Parthenogenesis is not unheard of, I mean, right? . . .

Sometimes two sperms fertilize the same egg. The second one isn’t required, but it gets in.

I could sit here all day naming exceptions that prove the rule. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Scarlett, than are dreamt of in your science.
 
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No, you’re trying to claim that there are more than two sexes.

Parthenogenesis would be an ovum developing spontaneously (female).

Two sperm (male) penetrating one egg (female) has proved nothing.

Both scenarios are medical oddities of sexual reproduction, however…

Where is this “third” or “extra” sex the OP was claiming?

I’m trying to get clarity here.
Which is important because too many activists are out there using slippery language to say “more than two sexes”.
 
What is God trying to tell us by genetic disorder resulting in abnormal sex characteristics? That disease and sickness exist? We already know that.
 
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