I’m actually thinking of people who have neither sets, working or not, but you’ve got me thinking: if a non-functional set would still count in the case of it being the only one (I.e. someone infertile but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary) I’m not sure why it wouldn’t when it’s beside a working one. If it’s binary, surely they either count or they don’t?
That falls into the “organized around” bit. They won’t have any other structures necessary for supporting the bit of tissue, and their body won’t be trying to create those structures. As a loose analogy, think of it like transplanting an ovary into a human male. You haven’t changed his sex, you’ve merely created a man with an ovary grafted onto him. His body is still organized around production of sperm.
In the case of someone that’s infertile, if you fixed the issue that was causing their infertility, they would produce the normal gametes that their body is organized around producing. They wouldn’t then magically start producing both gametes or gametes from the other sex.
You’d have to point to a particular case for a good answer. Nobody is simply born live and healthy and simply lacks any plumbing. You’d have to get into nonviable embryos or the like to get something with truly undefinable sex.
These are the same individuals that would be ignored by science unless it’s a study specifically on these people. And if they happen to be the subject of study, the resulting paper would be defining the vocabulary they use.
I’m actually thinking of people who have neither sets, working or not, but you’ve got me thinking: if a non-functional set would still count in the case of it being the only one (I.e. someone infertile but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary) I’m not sure why it wouldn’t when it’s beside a working one. If it’s binary, surely they either count or they don’t?
That falls into the “organized around” bit. They won’t have any other structures necessary for supporting the bit of tissue, and their body won’t be trying to create those structures. As a loose analogy, think of it like transplanting an ovary into a human male. You haven’t changed his sex, you’ve merely created a man with an ovary grafted onto him. His body is still organized around production of sperm.
In the case of someone that’s infertile, if you fixed the issue that was causing their infertility, they would produce the normal gametes that their body is organized around producing. They wouldn’t then magically start producing both gametes or gametes from the other sex.
Fair enough. So somebody with no plumbing at all would just be undefined in terms of sex then?
You’d have to point to a particular case for a good answer. Nobody is simply born live and healthy and simply lacks any plumbing. You’d have to get into nonviable embryos or the like to get something with truly undefinable sex.
Don’t have a particular case, just curious how this definition works. I appreciate the answers.
These are the same individuals that would be ignored by science unless it’s a study specifically on these people. And if they happen to be the subject of study, the resulting paper would be defining the vocabulary they use.