Or a TWEF (Trans-Womn Exclusionary Feminist) so it doesn’t gave a free pass to those who are exclusionary towards trans womyn, if they come from other branches of feminism, or if they support including trans men because shared girlhood.
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Well… while I realize that we are speaking in an informal forum here, not putting our [thing of value] where our [organ of action] is (so to speak), but I think the sentiment expressed makes you anti choice. I can sympathize and respect the anti-/non-gender identity/philosophy/preference, but when you veer into everyone must play this way that’s where I veer away from “Yeah! F* gender!” and towards “F* you!”.
The absolute categoricals (the imperative of gender binary, the imperative of cis/trans binary, the imperative of gender/non-gender binary, or any other categorization) can get stuffed. There’s too much that won’t fit into any particularly articulated gender system (rather than being pushed by the arbitraries into a position of “well it’s all meaningless” or “throw away all categories”, I tend to move towards “they’re all meaningful” and “deploy categories while they are useful, and trade them in when they are not”).
This. This this this. It’s a trialectic. 
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You place a lot of ontological primacy on biology. For example, meet maize, Felis, cattus, Report on the typhus epidemic in upper Silesia and The Condition of the Working Class in England, our ecological brilliance at farming pathogens, social epidemiology, and, indeed the fact that literally every single individual you have ever met (including yourself) literally physically embodies in their biology the social conditions of their life time to date.
Also, the sexual biology doesn’t actually fall into the binary: the biological sex binary itself is a social construct, and therefore reasonable and useful until it is not. :).
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Or a friend of Cathy Brennan and/or Elizabeth Hungerford.
I think Sheila Jeffreys has also commented about having more allies on the right than on the left. I think Lierre Keith is an exception in that she’s one of the few anti-trans feminists with more allies on the left than on the right.
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That’s rooted at a different level, though. War in the modern sense is largely tribalism writ large in the form of Nationalism and Imperialism and Capitalism.
Saying something like, “Yeah, I guess it doesn’t actually matter who people are intimate with” is a lot less demanding of people than saying something like, “Yeah, I guess the concepts of ‘Nations’, and of competition, and of disproportionate and unfair distribution of the planet’s limited resources is ultimately destructive and harmful to the human race as a whole”.
It’s all a matter of scale and scope. Letting homosexuals marry and letting them be open about their sexuality doesn’t really cost much culturally - people don’t really sacrifice much to allow it. But asking people to sacrifice the things that breed warfare is huge.
As broken and damaging as Nationalism and Imperialism and Capitalism are, people rely on them not only for basic stability of their way of life, but also as factors of personal and societal identity. Many people define their worth based on the wealth they personally hold and the status they possess within their culture. These factors are just colossal compared to acceptance for homosexuals.
Which is why that is the point where my social optimism breaks down. You explanation is very good, but I generally stick with the idea that it is much easier to abstract a group than an individual. Someone might have a “different” friend, yet still hate the group they belong to. My father has Jewish friends, but still mutters thing about the Jewish conspiracy, and how grand it would have been if Germany won. Ditto with everyone else who isn’t white, hetero, or completely normal in a Midwestern working class sense.
A Jewish guy you work with is a fellow human, but Jews are an abstract concept weighted with personal and cultural baggage.
So 99.9% of the time, yeah? 
Yes, there are other possible chromosomal options, but they’re extraordinarily rare, and additionally a great many people born with irregular chromosomes never express any symptoms whatsoever. It really comes down to the hormones a fetus is exposed to as it develops, as to whether their phenotypical sex matches their genetic sex - even people with normal chromosomes can develop features opposite to their genetic sex if they have the corresponding hormone levels to produce them.
Biological sex may not be a perfect binary, but it’s still just about as close a binary as a coin toss is. Yes, occasionally you’ll land a coin on the edge, but no one honestly treats that rarity as making a coin toss non-binary to any meaningful degree.
By the same token, given that sexual reproduction within essentially all creatures follows the overwhelming binary of two sexes, typically with phenotypical expressions of sexual dimorphism making sensory differentiation of the sexes readily possible, no one is honestly going to treat the fact that there are occasionally other chromosomal or hormonal options that crop up as making biological sex non-binary to any meaningful degree.
Yes, biologically intersex individuals face certain challenges that stem from cultural inflexibility regarding their falling outside the near-perfect binary of biological sex, but that to suggest that the sexual binary itself is entirely cultural is demonstrably incorrect.
Or put more succinctly: biological sex is binary, just not perfectly so, and any cultural difficulties stem more from our usage of biological sex as a basis for behavior via gender than anything else.
Nope. Not simply talking chromosomes (although your stats there are a bit off, too). First of all, chromosomal configuration is not the the definition of biological sex, it is (rightly) a definition. Second, pick any sexually-denotated biological phenomenon (in any species, but let’s stick to human) and start looking at individuals: the first thing you are going to find is variation. That’s biology: messy variation. Third, none of the biological phenomena you pick will be definitive for all purposes of describing binary sex. Because “binary sex” is a socially constructed human concept.
I am not even trying to say “but intersex!” here (although, certainly intersex folks are examples).
That said: talking about sex in the binary is really useful. Until it isn’t. 
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First, as far as I’m aware, my numbers are in fact accurate for what I was describing - if anything, they’re on the conservative side.
Second, I addressed the fact that chromosomes are not the only factor in my commentary on hormones and phenotypical expression.
Third, biological sex is binary via whichever definition you choose to employ.
Chromosomally in humans, there are two sex chromosomes - X and Y - that in ordinary conditions develop into one of two possible genetic outcomes. Phenotypically in humans, there are two basic sex organ structures - the genitals or gonads - that in ordinary conditions develop as one of two phenotypical outcomes. In terms of basic reproduction itself, the formation of a new life form is inherently binary in that it is the result of the fusion of two separate gametes.
Can you have variations within this binary structure? Yes - it’s an imperfect binary. But the variations still arise from what is essentially a binary system.
In the case of chromosomal differences, you have extra copies of one or both of only two possible chromosomes - there are X and Y chromosomes, but no Z. In the case of sex organ differences, there are only two possible organs that can develop - you can have male, female, or both male and female genitalia, but there isn’t a mysterious third kind of genitalia possible. In the case of gametes themselves, the same binary nature applies - there are eggs and sperm, but nothing else. Even hormones themselves follow this pattern, via testosterone and estrogen.
How is this anything other than a binary system? Everything is built on a system of pairs.
Except that everyone has and needs both testosterone and estrogen [and progesterone, and aldosterone, and…] and the levels vary [bimodal, not binary], and the sensitivities vary…
Hormone levels and body types definitely do not fit any binary.
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They most certainly do. For any given ratio of hormone balance, you get a given form of development. With one balance of hormones, you get development of “masculine” phenotype features. With another balance of hormones, you get development of “feminine” phenotype features.
It operates in a predictable, modelable manner in which there are only two possible extremes of outcome that can develop - even if those outcomes aren’t entirely mutually exclusive. There is no mix of hormones that produces features that are neither “masculine” nor “feminine”.
The hormones themselves obviously aren’t binary, in that there are more than two different hormones involved, but the results of their interactions are binary, in that there is no third possible option that is not some combination of the first two.
Yeah, there is, actually. Just because most people fit into one of two sex categories doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions here ant there.
You’re linking the same article I linked to in an earlier post. 
You also seem to be misunderstanding it, as being intersex doesn’t mean you lack “masculine” or “feminine” features - it means you either have phenotypical features opposite of those typical for your genetic sex, or you have some degree of both sets of features, creating varying degrees of indiscernability or androgyny.
To have features that are neither “masculine” nor “feminine” would require there to be a third category of features which are somehow measurably distinct from “masculine” and “feminine” in the same way that they are distinct from each other. No such features have been observed.
Well, if you code all sexual features into two categories, you’re going to find them in two categories, and you’re not going to observe one outside those two categories.
Also, it’s easy to see that not all intersex characteristics are the same, and you can’t put the various combinations into a single line between two poles. High levels of multiple sex hormones, as with some cases of congenital adrenal hyperplasia, have different effects than low levels of all sex hormones.
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They most certainly do not. Estrogens (of which there are many) and testosterone exist within males and females at changing levels throughout the hour, day, month, and lifespan from conception forward. There are between-individual variations within and between each of these time scales. The variations are on the scales of orders of magnitude: there’s no hormonal recipe book for sex. There’s simply the messy reality of what you get.
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No. One sometimes has to use multiple definitions, and therefore we are out of binary land. Also, certain aspects of biological sex are manifestly not binary (and in important ways): some medications interact with sex hormones to increase likelihood of thrombosis and death. But sex hormones are not binary because there’s a bunch of them, everyone’s more or less got most of them, everyone has them at different levels (and at different levels across different time), and so hormonal sex is on a continuum.
On the other hand I do agree that it can often be very useful to treat biological sex as binary. But not always. And the not always does not simply refer to intersex individuals, but to you and me, and indeed, everyone.
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There are true neuter individuals: they are very rare, but they do exist.
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The middle point of a spectrum is not distinct from the spectrum.
No, not middle: they have neither male nor female traits (not intersex). Their sex is, to use your earlier nomenclature, Z.
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