> In this overall sexist environment, we now have an ideology that essentially denies sex. Or rather, we have a proliferation of activists who claim that humans can change sex by changing their physical appearance. When these activists are confronted with reality – that sex is determined at fertilisation by the presence or absence of the Y chromosome (because both human males and females have an X but only males have a Y) and this cannot be changed using any known medical intervention – they declare genetic sex and sex chromosomes “irrelevant”.

Intentionally conflating sex with gender misses the forest for the trees. Gender correlates with sex but the relationship isn’t deterministic. Even among cisgendered people there is a wide variety of gender expression, variations in hormone levels, individual characteristics, cultural norms, and so on. Cisgendered people also change their particular expression of their gender over time.

But, back to the point, even if there were some medical intervention that did chromosome-level transition (à la _Time Enough for Love_, perhaps), it’s not as if anti-trans ideologues would allow for it and consent to recognizing such a person as their new chromosomal sex. Therefore, this isn’t the real objection.

I do give the author one kudos for recognizing the existence of intersex persons, even if they immediately abandon the notion and revert to sex binarism in what follows.

> anyone who tries to evoke principles of safeguarding immediately gets monstered as some kind of “bigot” who is “spreading moral panic”.

If you're ignorant enough to claim that's what's going on, you're not fit to talk about anything with any authority, because you've just proven you're an idiot.

Same people that say stuff like that, say things like "why is it 'this person' can say 'thing' but 'that person' can't"? The ones who can say 'thing' are the ones that don't have a history of pushing a bat shit narrative and advocating for government control on such matters.

Everyone knows what's technically correct, that words have stricter definitions when practicing science. That's not the part that makes you bigoted.

So, Let's talk about bigotry and moral panic - accurately. I typed everything before this paragraph after reading only the quoted line, before getting to the part I knew was coming, and would be the ultimate message. And, of course, the final paragraph can be accurately considered bigoted moral panic. Once you've established that as your agenda, no matter how much 'authority' you think you have on the subject, you're not getting invited to the rational discussions, which people are having, just without you.