On my goodness, it's so predictable, but the response was to castigate me for not supporting sex-work (gee buddy, I'll just go unlearn it increases human trafficking and only gives a veneer of safety) in addition to men trampling on women's rights and sex-based protections. Also, isn't it interesting they think "ideology" is offensive and therefore want to sling it back with "TERF ideology", which is merely a lack of adherence to their ideology. I suppose my set of ideas and ideals consist of "reality is real" and "we should not pretend reality is not real". I call it: the reality ideology. I think everyone should subscribe to it ;)
My response (to his response to my review, featuring the usual name-calling and self-righteousness and the "it's not what you said, it's how you said it in bad faith because you don't support my ideology" ):
"I "suddenly" logged on to book a trial since the timing wasn't right last time, but thought I'd read your policies first. It's great you took an interest in not only what I did on your website (yes, that *is* also my banking password*) but all of my online writing, including an article on how legalising prostitution increases human trafficking and gives only a veneer of safety to abuse. It is fine if you consider your organisation a social club for those who believe in dismantling sex-based rights and protections and promoting sex work, but you should probably rename it.
You brought up gender identity and sex-work totally unprompted, you have a political axe to grind. I, as a prospective student, have a culture to evaluate.
"TERF" is used 99.9% of the time for female critics only, usually in a manner inciting sexual violence to the extent that there is a compilation on the website terfisaslur.
The way you talk to people in the capacity of company director is more damning than my review. And you don't need to engage with me in "good faith" to know that excluding sex from a long list of anti-discrimination policy is indicative of a sexist culture. (Interesting Catch-22: anyone who brings up the omission of a legally protected characteristic must be ignored for the very fact of bringing it up.) But, if you are keen to surround yourself with the sort of people who only support those with a Y chromosome and women who service men, calling people names and telling them to "rack off" in your signature is the correct approach. Keep going :)"
"Psychology for World Domination" -- can I pre-order that? 😉🙂
But "your TERF-y Substack"? Someone there actually said that? Hope you have, expect you have, certified copies as they/he/it/whatever deserves to swing for it -- figuratively speaking, of course ...
Regardless, you've made a pretty solid and quite damning case for that "sentence". Particularly liked this bit right out of the chute:
AV: "sex and gender identity are distinct concepts, one cannot substitute one for the other."
Amen to that -- pretty much the crux of the whole transgender clusterfuck, an egregious bait-and-switch. Though a great many people seem congenitally incapable of defining what they mean by both of those terms, "gender" and "gender identity" in particular. Probably a major reason for that sad state of affairs.
But apropos of which, you might have some interest in a post -- "The Problems with Gender Identity" -- by Lisa Selin Davis on the Substack of evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, and several of my comments there in particular:
I see you're not currently subscribed there, though Wright is now offering 7-day free trials if you were interested.
But Davis has had some solid observations on the topic -- there and on her own Substack -- although I think she's muddying the waters somewhat herself. Substantially more illuminating is a comment, which I've quoted there, by "Hippiesq", the mother of a dysphoric teenage daughter:
Hippiesq: "If 'gender identity' were just the degree and specificity of feminine and masculine qualities, it might have some real usefulness in terms of being able to discuss differing personality traits - and maybe that was the origin of the term."
Amen to that. But "gender" and "gender identity" just boils down into synonyms for personalities and personality types, for "sexually dimorphic" behaviours and roles of one sort or another. Of course, as you put it, they're "distinct concepts". Even if a great many "gender ideologues" try to move heaven and earth convincing everyone of the contrary.
Why it is rank insanity to claim that some dick-swinging dude with a few feminine traits should be entitled to play in women's sports. We might just as well create separate sports leagues for introverts and extroverts, for all of the myriads of other personality types.
"France Is Bacon", indeed. 😉🙂 Apropos of which, a favourite quote of his: "Therefore shoddy and inept uses of words lays siege to the intellect in wondrous ways".
I just find it sad he felt the needed to check what my views were to determine how poorly he could get away with treating me (give 'em enough rope, their echo chambers are giving them the wrong impression of public sentiment). He also doesn't seem to understand that a prospective student, or any member of the public, can write a negative review based on a response he wrote from the company email signed off as the company director regarding company culture.
Yes, the trick lies in saying they are separate concepts in order to claim to be the opposite/neither sex and thereafter never, ever making a distinction but rather demanding sex is never mentioned or else always substituted with "the sex they wish they were" i.e. gender identity.
Fomenting confusion and ridiculous word games including co-opt words for sex is all they have, but I'm not going to pretend to not share a sex with trans-identified women, nor am I going to pretend to have a gender identity so that a man can share in it. (I do have a wealth identity as a billionaire though, but the bank refuses my loan applications. Alas.)
Sometimes gender/gender identity is the socialisation they did not receive but are aping, sometimes it's their personality vis-à-vis stereotypes... always it's the thing they aren't and what they want us to pretend they are.
Also, you've reminded me, there is a study where they test this, they give a personality inventory to trans-identified people to see if they align with the opposite sex's trend (in no way making them the opposite sex). I don't remember reading the results, but it would be curious to seek it out.
In my experience, trans-identified men act like the most vile of misogynistic men and do not remind me of women in the least. Similarly, I knew an autistic gay girl who for a time insisted she was a boy (then non-binary, now a "girl" as an adult, a thankfully non-mutilated adult free to live as her authentic self unencumbered by medical issues) and she acted, well, like how all the other teen girls I've known despite being her unique self. It all seems very put on in response to unhappiness with their sexed body or the social expectations applied to said body.
" We might just as well create separate sports leagues for introverts and extroverts, for all of the myriads of other personality types." My money would be on the extroverts. The introverts would forfeit to do something more bookish and solitary ;) Yes, feelings and personality appraisals do not play sports, people with sexes bodies do, and they have sex-based differences in every system of the human body, including cardiovascular and musculoskeletal regardless of adventures in wrong-sex hormone abuse.
I'll check it out. Difficult time to be a biologist, isn't it? I'm not sure how much clearer "The Y chromosome is sex deterministic in mammals" can get.
LoL. I know the feeling ... 😉🙂 But the related "identify as" has to be one of the more cretinous "ideas" to have come down the pike in some time. Though part and parcel of transgenderism.
But even more cretinous when one takes a close look at what that phrase actually means:
"identify as; phrasal verb
identify as something
to recognize or decide that you belong to a particular category"
One can't reasonably say one "belongs to a particular category" unless one can pay the membership dues for it. For example, someone 35 years old can't say -- reasonably -- that they "identify as a teenager". Apart from that rather pretentious phrasing -- who ever says they "identify as an accountant"? -- they clearly don't meet the membership requirements -- i.e., being 13 to 19.
AV: "... trans-identified men act like the most vile of misogynistic men ..."
Indeed. A rather thuggish if not psychotic bunch. Quite "pleased" to see your linking of that "Terf Is a Slur" page -- kind of knocked me back on my heels when I first saw it. Had tweeted any number of links to it myself -- before being defenestrated there for running afoul of the "Tranish Inquisition". But a whole bunch of people, politicians in particular, should have their noses rubbed in it.
AV: "My money would be on the extroverts. ..."
🙂 Yeah -- something out of Monty Python's "Ministry of Silly Walks".
AV: "Difficult time to be a biologist, isn't it?"
Indeed. Though many so-called biologists hardly deserve the title as many of them have contributed to the whole transgender clusterfuck because of their self-serving biases and cluelessness. But in some ways, the nature of the beast -- "he who pays the piper" and all that. Maybe more important, as a fairly credible virologist has quite reasonably argued, is that many "biologists" are ignorant of important principles undergirding their discipline:
"... revealed that the field [of virology] has been plagued by an uninterrupted series of conflicting views, heated disagreements and acrimonious controversies that may seem to some to be out of place in a scientific debate. The reason, of course, is that the subject of virus taxonomy and nomenclature lies at the interface between virological science and areas of philosophy such as logic, ontology and epistemology which unfortunately are rarely taught in university curricula followed by science students ...."
But something along the same line from your neck of the woods -- I gather you're in Australia? Something from New Zealand's Statistics Department:
NZS: "Sex reassignment occurs where a person has undergone the necessary treatment to permanently change their sex. If a person's sex is indeterminate at birth, sex assignment occurs when they undergo treatment to become male or female."
Such corruption and bastardization of science -- and by organizations that should know better -- seriously chaps my hide:
"Identify as" was their crowbar, they have no further use for it, now they just "are" what they patently are NOT. Agreed, they "identity with" not "as". An affinity doesn't grant you group membership in a group defined by sex. Also, identity literally means the facts of your being.
I have all the cultural trappings of a billionaire, and the costume, and yet the bank STILL reject my loan application. I also FEEL like one. Musk feels like a billionaire and so do I; we share a wealth identity.
In Australia (in my jurisdiction), you and one friend have to write a letter about your feelings. Then you get to replace your sex with a legal fiction. You can do this every 12 months even though gender identity is supposedly immutable. So immutable, in fact, that you can be sentenced to prison or steeply fined if you attempt to convince them to embrace who they are. Self-id has no limiting principle so you can't even contain the problem.
Yes, some people think their job title means they can dribble drivel out of their slack jawed mouths and their identity magically renders it true. Or, it must be true because it was repeated to them often by those responsible for their education even though there's nothing to substantiate it.
"If a person's sex is indeterminate at birth, sex assignment occurs when they undergo treatment to become male or female." If your genitals are ambiguous, your sex is determined through a blood test. If you are mutilated to look like the opposite sex, you are the only people "assigned female / male at birth" but that's a euphemism for medical malpractice. People with DSDs are just another category to exploit for trans-privilege activists.
Yeah. Hard to imagine a more idiotic "idea". Children of 12 who "self-identify as 35" can buy booze and cigarettes and guns. 🙄 Whoever "thought" up that idea, or whoever put it on the law books should be hung, drawn, and quartered -- figuratively speaking, of course ...
"sex assignment occurs when they undergo treatment to become male or female."
The "problem" is generally that the "hoi polloi" are scientifically illiterate, being charitable. Largely why there are some 4 sets of definitions for the sexes in play: the Kindergarten Cop version -- boys have penises and girls have vaginas; one folk-biology version -- men are XY & women are XX; a slightly more tenable folk-biology version -- men have testicles (functional or not), & women have ovaries (functional or not); and the standard biological definitions -- men have functional testicles, & women have functional ovaries, those with neither being sexless.
Only the latter -- the standard biological definitions -- have any credibility or applicability across literally millions of species:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
It's not booze they want to pretend children are old enough to consent to, if you catch my drift. Trans-activists want sex to be a set of qualities so that a man with a certain hormone level, for instance, can pretend he has become less male or more female. Or a man can be said to be as female as a woman with a hysterectomy (if it so pleases him.)
Your body is either structured around the production of large or small gametes, notwithstanding your lack of sexual function owing to abnormal development. I keep telling these dullards DSDs are sex-specific indicating sex as male or female, but it doesn't even make a dent in their putty brains. (Alternatively, they have pudding brains which have dribbled out of their ears so my efforts are equally futile.)
Some rather twisted psychology in the whole phenomenon.
"Your body is either structured around the production of large or small gametes ..."
Sure. But, by the standard biological definitions, it's not the "structure" that is the "necessary and sufficient condition" for sex category membership. It's the presence of either of two distinct processes -- the current production of gametes of either of two types -- that qualify as those conditions. Why I argue, on some evidence and with some credible support, that some third of us, at any one time, are neither male nor female.
Apropos of which, and on the basis of a quick skim of your post on the "Fractals of Consciousness", you in particular might like this oldish post in Psychology Today on "Terf Wars: What Is Biological Sex?":
"No one has the essence of maleness or femaleness, for one simple reason: Since the 17th century, what science has been showing, in every single field, is that the folk notion of an 'essence' is not reflected in reality. There are no essences in nature. For the last three hundred years or so, the advance of science has been in lockstep with the insight that is what really exists are processes, not essences."
On my goodness, it's so predictable, but the response was to castigate me for not supporting sex-work (gee buddy, I'll just go unlearn it increases human trafficking and only gives a veneer of safety) in addition to men trampling on women's rights and sex-based protections. Also, isn't it interesting they think "ideology" is offensive and therefore want to sling it back with "TERF ideology", which is merely a lack of adherence to their ideology. I suppose my set of ideas and ideals consist of "reality is real" and "we should not pretend reality is not real". I call it: the reality ideology. I think everyone should subscribe to it ;)
My response (to his response to my review, featuring the usual name-calling and self-righteousness and the "it's not what you said, it's how you said it in bad faith because you don't support my ideology" ):
"I "suddenly" logged on to book a trial since the timing wasn't right last time, but thought I'd read your policies first. It's great you took an interest in not only what I did on your website (yes, that *is* also my banking password*) but all of my online writing, including an article on how legalising prostitution increases human trafficking and gives only a veneer of safety to abuse. It is fine if you consider your organisation a social club for those who believe in dismantling sex-based rights and protections and promoting sex work, but you should probably rename it.
You brought up gender identity and sex-work totally unprompted, you have a political axe to grind. I, as a prospective student, have a culture to evaluate.
"TERF" is used 99.9% of the time for female critics only, usually in a manner inciting sexual violence to the extent that there is a compilation on the website terfisaslur.
The way you talk to people in the capacity of company director is more damning than my review. And you don't need to engage with me in "good faith" to know that excluding sex from a long list of anti-discrimination policy is indicative of a sexist culture. (Interesting Catch-22: anyone who brings up the omission of a legally protected characteristic must be ignored for the very fact of bringing it up.) But, if you are keen to surround yourself with the sort of people who only support those with a Y chromosome and women who service men, calling people names and telling them to "rack off" in your signature is the correct approach. Keep going :)"
*I mean, obviously not, just making fun.
"Psychology for World Domination" -- can I pre-order that? 😉🙂
But "your TERF-y Substack"? Someone there actually said that? Hope you have, expect you have, certified copies as they/he/it/whatever deserves to swing for it -- figuratively speaking, of course ...
Regardless, you've made a pretty solid and quite damning case for that "sentence". Particularly liked this bit right out of the chute:
AV: "sex and gender identity are distinct concepts, one cannot substitute one for the other."
Amen to that -- pretty much the crux of the whole transgender clusterfuck, an egregious bait-and-switch. Though a great many people seem congenitally incapable of defining what they mean by both of those terms, "gender" and "gender identity" in particular. Probably a major reason for that sad state of affairs.
But apropos of which, you might have some interest in a post -- "The Problems with Gender Identity" -- by Lisa Selin Davis on the Substack of evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, and several of my comments there in particular:
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-problems-with-gender-identity/comment/40409053
I see you're not currently subscribed there, though Wright is now offering 7-day free trials if you were interested.
But Davis has had some solid observations on the topic -- there and on her own Substack -- although I think she's muddying the waters somewhat herself. Substantially more illuminating is a comment, which I've quoted there, by "Hippiesq", the mother of a dysphoric teenage daughter:
Hippiesq: "If 'gender identity' were just the degree and specificity of feminine and masculine qualities, it might have some real usefulness in terms of being able to discuss differing personality traits - and maybe that was the origin of the term."
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/is-nothing-sacred-looking-into-the/comment/21199572
Amen to that. But "gender" and "gender identity" just boils down into synonyms for personalities and personality types, for "sexually dimorphic" behaviours and roles of one sort or another. Of course, as you put it, they're "distinct concepts". Even if a great many "gender ideologues" try to move heaven and earth convincing everyone of the contrary.
Why it is rank insanity to claim that some dick-swinging dude with a few feminine traits should be entitled to play in women's sports. We might just as well create separate sports leagues for introverts and extroverts, for all of the myriads of other personality types.
"France Is Bacon", indeed. 😉🙂 Apropos of which, a favourite quote of his: "Therefore shoddy and inept uses of words lays siege to the intellect in wondrous ways".
I just find it sad he felt the needed to check what my views were to determine how poorly he could get away with treating me (give 'em enough rope, their echo chambers are giving them the wrong impression of public sentiment). He also doesn't seem to understand that a prospective student, or any member of the public, can write a negative review based on a response he wrote from the company email signed off as the company director regarding company culture.
Yes, the trick lies in saying they are separate concepts in order to claim to be the opposite/neither sex and thereafter never, ever making a distinction but rather demanding sex is never mentioned or else always substituted with "the sex they wish they were" i.e. gender identity.
Fomenting confusion and ridiculous word games including co-opt words for sex is all they have, but I'm not going to pretend to not share a sex with trans-identified women, nor am I going to pretend to have a gender identity so that a man can share in it. (I do have a wealth identity as a billionaire though, but the bank refuses my loan applications. Alas.)
Sometimes gender/gender identity is the socialisation they did not receive but are aping, sometimes it's their personality vis-à-vis stereotypes... always it's the thing they aren't and what they want us to pretend they are.
Also, you've reminded me, there is a study where they test this, they give a personality inventory to trans-identified people to see if they align with the opposite sex's trend (in no way making them the opposite sex). I don't remember reading the results, but it would be curious to seek it out.
In my experience, trans-identified men act like the most vile of misogynistic men and do not remind me of women in the least. Similarly, I knew an autistic gay girl who for a time insisted she was a boy (then non-binary, now a "girl" as an adult, a thankfully non-mutilated adult free to live as her authentic self unencumbered by medical issues) and she acted, well, like how all the other teen girls I've known despite being her unique self. It all seems very put on in response to unhappiness with their sexed body or the social expectations applied to said body.
" We might just as well create separate sports leagues for introverts and extroverts, for all of the myriads of other personality types." My money would be on the extroverts. The introverts would forfeit to do something more bookish and solitary ;) Yes, feelings and personality appraisals do not play sports, people with sexes bodies do, and they have sex-based differences in every system of the human body, including cardiovascular and musculoskeletal regardless of adventures in wrong-sex hormone abuse.
I'll check it out. Difficult time to be a biologist, isn't it? I'm not sure how much clearer "The Y chromosome is sex deterministic in mammals" can get.
That is a very good quote.
AV: "their echo chambers are giving them the wrong impression of public sentiment ..."
Some changes in the wind on that score. ICYMI, some encouraging news from my neck of the woods:
https://www.thedistancemag.com/p/calgary-says-no-to-gender-ideology
AV: "I do have a wealth identity ...."
LoL. I know the feeling ... 😉🙂 But the related "identify as" has to be one of the more cretinous "ideas" to have come down the pike in some time. Though part and parcel of transgenderism.
But even more cretinous when one takes a close look at what that phrase actually means:
"identify as; phrasal verb
identify as something
to recognize or decide that you belong to a particular category"
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/identify-as
One can't reasonably say one "belongs to a particular category" unless one can pay the membership dues for it. For example, someone 35 years old can't say -- reasonably -- that they "identify as a teenager". Apart from that rather pretentious phrasing -- who ever says they "identify as an accountant"? -- they clearly don't meet the membership requirements -- i.e., being 13 to 19.
AV: "... trans-identified men act like the most vile of misogynistic men ..."
Indeed. A rather thuggish if not psychotic bunch. Quite "pleased" to see your linking of that "Terf Is a Slur" page -- kind of knocked me back on my heels when I first saw it. Had tweeted any number of links to it myself -- before being defenestrated there for running afoul of the "Tranish Inquisition". But a whole bunch of people, politicians in particular, should have their noses rubbed in it.
AV: "My money would be on the extroverts. ..."
🙂 Yeah -- something out of Monty Python's "Ministry of Silly Walks".
AV: "Difficult time to be a biologist, isn't it?"
Indeed. Though many so-called biologists hardly deserve the title as many of them have contributed to the whole transgender clusterfuck because of their self-serving biases and cluelessness. But in some ways, the nature of the beast -- "he who pays the piper" and all that. Maybe more important, as a fairly credible virologist has quite reasonably argued, is that many "biologists" are ignorant of important principles undergirding their discipline:
"... revealed that the field [of virology] has been plagued by an uninterrupted series of conflicting views, heated disagreements and acrimonious controversies that may seem to some to be out of place in a scientific debate. The reason, of course, is that the subject of virus taxonomy and nomenclature lies at the interface between virological science and areas of philosophy such as logic, ontology and epistemology which unfortunately are rarely taught in university curricula followed by science students ...."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309889266_Classes_taxa_and_categories_in_hierarchical_virus_classification_a_review_of_current_debates_on_definitions_and_names_of_virus_species
But something along the same line from your neck of the woods -- I gather you're in Australia? Something from New Zealand's Statistics Department:
NZS: "Sex reassignment occurs where a person has undergone the necessary treatment to permanently change their sex. If a person's sex is indeterminate at birth, sex assignment occurs when they undergo treatment to become male or female."
Such corruption and bastardization of science -- and by organizations that should know better -- seriously chaps my hide:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/statistics-departments-corrupted
"Identify as" was their crowbar, they have no further use for it, now they just "are" what they patently are NOT. Agreed, they "identity with" not "as". An affinity doesn't grant you group membership in a group defined by sex. Also, identity literally means the facts of your being.
I have all the cultural trappings of a billionaire, and the costume, and yet the bank STILL reject my loan application. I also FEEL like one. Musk feels like a billionaire and so do I; we share a wealth identity.
In Australia (in my jurisdiction), you and one friend have to write a letter about your feelings. Then you get to replace your sex with a legal fiction. You can do this every 12 months even though gender identity is supposedly immutable. So immutable, in fact, that you can be sentenced to prison or steeply fined if you attempt to convince them to embrace who they are. Self-id has no limiting principle so you can't even contain the problem.
Yes, some people think their job title means they can dribble drivel out of their slack jawed mouths and their identity magically renders it true. Or, it must be true because it was repeated to them often by those responsible for their education even though there's nothing to substantiate it.
"If a person's sex is indeterminate at birth, sex assignment occurs when they undergo treatment to become male or female." If your genitals are ambiguous, your sex is determined through a blood test. If you are mutilated to look like the opposite sex, you are the only people "assigned female / male at birth" but that's a euphemism for medical malpractice. People with DSDs are just another category to exploit for trans-privilege activists.
"Self-id has no limiting principle ..."
Yeah. Hard to imagine a more idiotic "idea". Children of 12 who "self-identify as 35" can buy booze and cigarettes and guns. 🙄 Whoever "thought" up that idea, or whoever put it on the law books should be hung, drawn, and quartered -- figuratively speaking, of course ...
"sex assignment occurs when they undergo treatment to become male or female."
The "problem" is generally that the "hoi polloi" are scientifically illiterate, being charitable. Largely why there are some 4 sets of definitions for the sexes in play: the Kindergarten Cop version -- boys have penises and girls have vaginas; one folk-biology version -- men are XY & women are XX; a slightly more tenable folk-biology version -- men have testicles (functional or not), & women have ovaries (functional or not); and the standard biological definitions -- men have functional testicles, & women have functional ovaries, those with neither being sexless.
Only the latter -- the standard biological definitions -- have any credibility or applicability across literally millions of species:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
"Gamete competition, gamete limitation, and the evolution of the two sexes" https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990
It's not booze they want to pretend children are old enough to consent to, if you catch my drift. Trans-activists want sex to be a set of qualities so that a man with a certain hormone level, for instance, can pretend he has become less male or more female. Or a man can be said to be as female as a woman with a hysterectomy (if it so pleases him.)
Your body is either structured around the production of large or small gametes, notwithstanding your lack of sexual function owing to abnormal development. I keep telling these dullards DSDs are sex-specific indicating sex as male or female, but it doesn't even make a dent in their putty brains. (Alternatively, they have pudding brains which have dribbled out of their ears so my efforts are equally futile.)
"... if you catch my drift."
Some rather twisted psychology in the whole phenomenon.
"Your body is either structured around the production of large or small gametes ..."
Sure. But, by the standard biological definitions, it's not the "structure" that is the "necessary and sufficient condition" for sex category membership. It's the presence of either of two distinct processes -- the current production of gametes of either of two types -- that qualify as those conditions. Why I argue, on some evidence and with some credible support, that some third of us, at any one time, are neither male nor female.
Apropos of which, and on the basis of a quick skim of your post on the "Fractals of Consciousness", you in particular might like this oldish post in Psychology Today on "Terf Wars: What Is Biological Sex?":
"No one has the essence of maleness or femaleness, for one simple reason: Since the 17th century, what science has been showing, in every single field, is that the folk notion of an 'essence' is not reflected in reality. There are no essences in nature. For the last three hundred years or so, the advance of science has been in lockstep with the insight that is what really exists are processes, not essences."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hive-mind/202003/terf-wars-what-is-biological-sex
The "essential" processes in the definitions for the sexes are the production of gametes -- present tense.