> I mean, no? Not really? There's a whole history of people who do not have a definite sex
Phenotypical sex characteristics do not define sex, and developmental disorders tied to one's sex do not somehow refute one's sex. This talk of "appearances" is exactly the kind of confusion I've been trying to argue against. Biology has a more rigourous definition for sex to avoid exactly these confusions. I do acknowledge that even some biologists have fallen into this trap lately, to our detriment.
The tl;dr of it is "the bimodal sex distribution model is really bad at a lot of the things we use it for, including predicting results to prescribed medication, or questions about who can give birth". There's some links to actual papers included in the gallery, if you want to follow this up further.
> I do acknowledge that even some biologists have fallen into this trap lately, to our detriment.
From 'knowing people in the field of biology', I can say rather clearly that it's less "some biologists are mistaken/foolish" and more "the majority of biologists who are up to date have decided to revise their beliefs about sex in line with current research".
Phenotypical sex characteristics do not define sex, and developmental disorders tied to one's sex do not somehow refute one's sex. This talk of "appearances" is exactly the kind of confusion I've been trying to argue against. Biology has a more rigourous definition for sex to avoid exactly these confusions. I do acknowledge that even some biologists have fallen into this trap lately, to our detriment.