TheMuffinMan

“centred around” is a subjective projection rather than statement of a fact in cases where gamete production genuinely does not occur. For this person, her gonads never developed into either testes or ovaries, so by this definition she would be of neither sex. I’m OK with that, but it does undermine your point about the strict binary.

My question to you is why does this matter, in the context of accessing bathrooms and changing rooms? Do you think inspecting reproductive anatomy is a proportionate measure?

More broadly speaking, what is the point of recording the ‘biological sex’ of a person who, through transition, has changed their physiology and endocrine profile to that associated with the opposite, and no longer has their natal reproductive anatomy? Who would this benefit?

…nope. Her body can’t produce either. And she has a uterus and fallopian tubes.

Gotcha. Their point is kind of right though; sex is less of a strict binary category and more 2 clusters we (people) created that allow us to more easily classify specimens based on strongly correlated traits. Both clusters have some overlap, and no trait on its own completely determines the cluster.

E.g. I knew a case of this woman who grew up her whole life never knowing she has XY chromosomes, because she had seemingly typical female sex characteristics. It was only when she and her husband where struggling to conceive and they went to a fertility clinic, that that fact came to light. “Biological male” might be the cluster you’d want to put her under, but she lacks many of the features of that cluster, so in that case the binary classification is a little weak.

Of course most people/animals are not intersex (or transitioned), but the point is that the biological sex binary is kind of a shorthand / way of making life easier to classify most of the population, but it’s not perfect or tidy.

The easiest way to stay accurate is to just narrow down to the specific relevant trait (“person with facial hair”, “person with androgenetic alopecia”, etc.) depending on what specifically is measured/being talked about. But being that precise can come at the expense of being less clear/accessible to the layman, which is why we use biological sex as a concept.

I’m not the person you asked, but ‘assigned sex’ is fine. The common one is ‘assigned gender at birth’.

I’m not entirely sure what point you’re making, when sex reassignment surgery exists.

Not all trans people get it, sure, but many trans men have dicks and many trans women have vaginas. These usually align cosmetically but will have functional differences to their cis counterparts. Where would you crudely sort such people?

There’s also genital nullification surgery (think Barbie doll - nothing at all).

I’m done living in this shithole.

Not that I ever would, but if I went into the women’s they’d (rightly) tell me to fuck off or report me to staff.

Happy to help 😅

FWIW, I’m bi and find other bald(ing) men who embrace it attractive :)

I just wish other people were less demeaning about it; rude comments about bald men (mostly from women unfortunately) were the biggest barrier to acceptance for me.

Just putting it out there, because I have been silenced every time I have tried to talk about my negative experiences with minoxidil:

I was on a 10% topical formulation (so 2x the strength of regular Regaine/Rogaine) and the stuff destroyed my skin on a permanent basis. About a month or 2 in I started noticing lines and wrinkles where I previously had none, my eyes were really puffy, and I started to look like the ‘after’ photo in those PSAs about doing drugs. I had to come off the stuff and take collagen supplements daily to even slightly reverse that. I’m not back to baseline and likely never will be; that shit aged me by about 8 years in the span of 6 months. It was honestly much worse than hair loss itself.

Before I came off it, when I told the ““clinic”” that prescribed me what I was experiencing, they said it was placebo. Meanwhile, other hair loss sufferers online told me that I was making it up because I was jealous of other men’s gains (???)

I am by no means saying this will necessarily happen if you take minox, but it wasn’t even a reported side effect on the leaflet (where it lists common/uncommon/rare/very rare side effects), and I was genuinely trying to get it on there so people could be aware that this is a risk.

I would be super cautious of oral administration. When I was on the topical, it was only in contact with my scalp and any part of my body that would touch my pillow while sleeping I guess. Can’t imagine what it would have done going through the digestive system instead.

Sincerely, fuck the hair restoration industry and the way it preys on desperate people.

Sorry that this isn’t necessarily super on-topic (or uplifting), but seeing/hearing about minoxidil brings up a really bad experience.