all 9 comments

[–]MyLongestJourney 40 insightful - 4 fun40 insightful - 3 fun41 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

A man is an adult human male.Even if he loses his genitals,his maleness is encoded in his DNA.If I clone a man,I can produce other men.If I clone a "transman" I can only produce women.

A penis is a complex organ and not a flap of arm or thigh flesh rolled up and stitched in place.

I can not believe I have to explain those things in present day with all the information available in the net.

PS.Apologies for butting in,me being a woman and all.I am a Biologist and I just can not stand the TRA sophistry regarding biological sex.

[–]davids877 15 insightful - 9 fun15 insightful - 8 fun16 insightful - 9 fun -  (0 children)

Noooooo.... the truth.... it burns.....

[–][deleted] 34 insightful - 5 fun34 insightful - 4 fun35 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

And if a man is something with a penis, then imagine that a man removes all of his genitals in surgery, why will he still remain a man after surgery?

I mean, this is trivially easy to dismiss. A man is not just 'something with a penis'.

[–]notdelusional 29 insightful - 3 fun29 insightful - 2 fun30 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

This is a joke, right? Females don’t have a prostate. Precum is produced by the Cowper’s gland, also a thing females do not have. And nerve hookups for “sensation”? These srs clinics are great at marketing non-specific outcomes. Jesus Christ.

[–]motionlessoracle 24 insightful - 2 fun24 insightful - 1 fun25 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

And if a man is something with a penis, then imagine that a man removes all of his genitals in surgery, why will he still remain a man after surgery?

A man isn't merely "something with a penis". I realize that QT tends to phrase GC arguments as simplistic, in order to convince you that they are the only purveyors of nuance, but there are many signs of maleness that are not a penis and/or testicles. Delete the penis/testicles and there are still bushy eyebrows, sloped forehead, adam's apple, facial hair, broad shoulders, large hands/feet, tall stature, etc. Surgically alter all of those, and there is still, at the end of it, a set of XY chromosomes easily checked by a blood test. Those will never change absent intense genetic modification. And even if those were to change, many males have obvious behaviors and mannerisms that originate in the way they were raised and the years spent being perceived as male and stewing in the chemicals a male body creates.

A male can appear feminine, and this may help him cope with life, but he cannot become female. We can revisit this when it's possible to change chromosomes, as it will become a more nuanced question, but right now it's far too easy to tell. It's so easy to tell that 23andMe now gives you results based on your self-reported sex so that dysphoric trans women don't have to be confronted with an XY.

https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015843628-I-m-Transgender-Will-This-Impact-My-DNA-Test-Kit-Experience-

[–]MezozoicGay 7 insightful - 5 fun7 insightful - 4 fun8 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

We can revisit this when it's possible to change chromosomes

So TRA should aim on cyberpunk future where sex can be changed on go with simple replacement of body, or will mean nothing as you can just change your whole body with mechanical parts. And for this they need to push science forward, and not backwards!

[–]FlippyKing 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

So, if x is y depends on on how you define y, not x. That is not the same thing as saying x is the same as y, if "same" is taken to mean for some specific set of purposes-- but that would be speaking conversationally or at least imprecisely.

To ask this question, if a surgical imitation of a penis is a penis, is to ignore the obvious differences we all know to be true. The first difference is that one is created just as part of how a human is born and the other is not. Surgeons do not make penises. Is a cow made by a carpenter a cow? No. Carpenters do not make cows. Differences with regard to how it functions and if certain uses of it can or can't risk getting a woman pregnant are in fact differences. No amount of "but what ifs" about some stupid future of trans-humanism where a corporation can let a very rich, and very obviously spoiled, and even more obviously neglected, female child produce sperm changes the differences now or ever. The question, and any question like this, is either gaslighting, or asked by someone who is either choosing to be stupid, or too young to get it.

[–]lairacunda 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I bet you can understand why a cheap Calvin Klein knock-off is not the real thing. This shouldn't be that difficult for you.

[–]mbr 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A man is a human being with an expressed SRY gene, usually to be found on the Y chromosome. That covers literally all men, regardless of internal or external characteristics. With exceedingly few exceptions, men are born with a penis, which is part of a set of internal and external organs (primary and secondary sexual characteristics) which are part of sexual differentiation present in all mammals. The purpose of these characteristics is to allow for the procreation of the species. It is true that some men are born unable to actually procreate: that is called a defect.

The penis is used for a few different things. Urination is one of them. Ejaculation is another. These depend heavily on being connected to that set of external and internal organs, such as testes, prostate, cowpers gland, and so on and so forth. It's a complex system.

A phalloplasty is a surgical process through which an external appendage is created that is intended to appear like a penis. Given that it is not connected to the set of internal and external organs described previously, it is not capable of many of the normal functions of a penis. The absence of testes, cowper's gland, prostate, etc. means that is will never expel ejaculate, for example. It really only externally mimics a penis. It is not capable of normal erection, for example. One can, in some cases, be artificially created, but the absence of corpora cavernosa means that one cannot ever naturally occur.

What a phalloplasty creates is more appropriately termed a pseudopenis. It mimics the appearance of a penis, without being able to perform the functions thereof.

All of this, of course, in addition to the fact that no amount of phalloplasties -- or even the transplant of an actual penis, which I suspect will happen at some point -- can make up for the only thing that truly makes a man: that SRY gene.