The Judges Must Have Forgotten to Check Her Nether Regions....

[MajGenl.Meade]

genitalia also is a big determinant

He wrote, modestly. Now all we need to figure out is what the 'RR' signifies.

[Big RR]

Well BP, if you are insistent on believing nature is purely binary, I guess I cannot change your mind, but your belief doesn't make that so. And neither does calling a contrary belief "stupid" or "ignorant". Face it, this thread tends to center on two things being gender determinative--the apparearance of the genitalia at birth and the XX or XY phenotype; science (maybe "stupid ignorant" science?) has shown us that this is not the end of the inquiry, but if you choose to end the inquiry there (or the Miss Teen ... pageant chooses to), not much anyone can do other than so long as you are upfron about it.

Meade--where do you see modesty? Trump has to be modest about genitalia--I don't.

[Sue U]

I went out to dinner Saturday night and for the first time ate barramundi. It was really, really good, so I went to the Fount of Knowledge to read up on it. I'll just leave this here for no reason in particular:

At the start of the monsoon, males migrate downriver to meet females, which lay very large numbers of eggs (several millions each). The adults do not guard the eggs or the fry, which require brackish water to develop. The species is sequentially hermaphroditic, with most individuals maturing as males and becoming female after at least one spawning season; most of the larger specimens are therefore female. Fish held in captivity sometimes demonstrate features atypical of fish in the wild; they change sex at a smaller size, exhibit a higher proportion of protogyny and some males do not undergo sexual inversion.

[wesw]

he she or it

[BoSoxGal]

I went out to dinner Saturday night and for the first time ate barramundi. It was really, really good, so I went to the Fount of Knowledge to read up on it. I'll just leave this here for no reason in particular:

At the start of the monsoon, males migrate downriver to meet females, which lay very large numbers of eggs (several millions each). The adults do not guard the eggs or the fry, which require brackish water to develop. The species is sequentially hermaphroditic, with most individuals maturing as males and becoming female after at least one spawning season; most of the larger specimens are therefore female. Fish held in captivity sometimes demonstrate features atypical of fish in the wild; they change sex at a smaller size, exhibit a higher proportion of protogyny and some males do not undergo sexual inversion.

But, but - THE BIBLE!

[ex-khobar Andy]

Many moons ago I was an oceanography post graduate student in Southampton, England. We had a research aquarium. The queen came to the university to open some new building or whatever and she was shown our aquarium as part of the visit. (I wasn't there - this was a year or two before my time.). One tank was devoted to the slipper limpet, a sea snail common on both sides of the Atlantic. Its scientific name is crepidula fornicata and the tank was of course so labeled. Her Majesty wanted to know why it was called that. I heard the story first hand from the poor PhD student who was guiding her through the aquarium.

"Well Ma'am - they are so called because they all begin life as males. They all pile on top of the females, and when they decide that there are too many males and not enough females, some of them change gender. So that they can carry on having sex was much as they like."

You will be pleased to know that HM was pleased with the explanation (accurate, BTW) and inquired no further.

[Sue U]

But, but - THE BIBLE!

All I said was, "That piece of barramundi was good enough for Jehovah!"

[MajGenl.Meade]

But, but - THE BIBLE!

Not a valid objection. The Bible claims (rightly or wrongly) that this is a fallen world, corrupted and distorted. So, this scientificky thing conforms very well to the word. Innit?

[Big RR]

Not certain understand Meade; how are baruamundis fallen, corrupted, or distorted?

[BoSoxGal]

Not certain understand Meade; how are baruamundis fallen, corrupted, or distorted?

Because they are clearly somewhere on the LGBTQIA+++ spectrum, DUH.

[Big RR]

True, but if you accept the genesis account, god made all of creation and pronounced it good; I guess some may claim man strayed from the "good" plan--but not the barramundis (unless they had some sort of free will I am unfamiliar with, otherwise they do what they are created to do and are "good").

[ex-khobar Andy]

We evolved from fish. Fish are adept at changing their sex due to conditions, community needs etc. Some fish species change from M to F during their lives, some from F to M, and some go back and forth as the need arises. Most fish farming requires careful management of sex ratios by judicious application of hormones. You don't really want reproduction taking place in your pond: you want to put the neonates all in on day 1 and harvest them on day 250 (typical for tilapia) or month 36 (salmon) when they are all the same size. So breeding in the tank is a major constraint on fish farm productivity.

It seems to me that if we evolved from fish that crawled out of the ocean a few hundred million years ago, sexual ambiguity - i.e., more than just the simple binary we take for granted - is innate.

[Sue U]

It seems to me that if we evolved from fish that crawled out of the ocean a few hundred million years ago, sexual ambiguity - i.e., more than just the simple binary we take for granted - is innate.

That's essentially my point. Biological science doesn't mandate a permanent or exclusive sexual identity, and where any particular species (or individual) finds itself on our grand evolutionary journey is rather a matter of chance. The most important thing is to know where your towel is.

[Big RR]

The most important thing is to know where your towel is

[Sue U]

Oh thank dog at least someone is noticing the jokes.

[MajGenl.Meade]

True, but if you accept the genesis account, god made all of creation and pronounced it good; I guess some may claim man strayed from the "good" plan--but not the barramundis (unless they had some sort of free will I am unfamiliar with, otherwise they do what they are created to do and are "good").

Whether it is accepted or not, the fall took everything with it. God cursed the ground itself. The point is not whether or not that's correct. The point is that when the teaching is that all is corrupt (the earth groans etc), it's not valid to say that Bible opposes the fact of some fish changing their gender. The science confirms the Bible rather than the other way around

[Joe Guy]

We evolved from fish. Fish are adept at changing their sex due to conditions, community needs etc....

When I was very young I used to think of evolution as a fairly simple process. Humans evolved from fish, crawled onto land and eventually went swinging through trees and one day a modern day human happened (Imagine the shock of that mother ape).

It's quite obvious that we're still evolving. Gay, transgender and all those queer things that so many people are worried about are just part of the evolution process. Some humans, being the progressive species that we are, attempt to speed up evolution. It's only natural.

It may be that the rare hermaphrodite that most of us have never met is actually ahead of us on the evolution scale.

[Big RR]

True, but if you accept the genesis account, god made all of creation and pronounced it good; I guess some may claim man strayed from the "good" plan--but not the barramundis (unless they had some sort of free will I am unfamiliar with, otherwise they do what they are created to do and are "good").

Whether it is accepted or not, the fall took everything with it. God cursed the ground itself. The point is not whether or not that's correct. The point is that when the teaching is that all is corrupt (the earth groans etc), it's not valid to say that Bible opposes the fact of some fish changing their gender. The science confirms the Bible rather than the other way around

Meade--cursing the ground is/was not intended to be an abandonment of creation, more a statement to Adam that creation would not bend to what he and Eve wanted. Gone were the days of paradise, now they would have to work to extract what they could from creation to survive. The "Fall" did not corrupt the remainder of creation, only mankind--at least that's what I see of the allegory presented in Genesis.

[Big RR]

True, but if you accept the genesis account, god made all of creation and pronounced it good; I guess some may claim man strayed from the "good" plan--but not the barramundis (unless they had some sort of free will I am unfamiliar with, otherwise they do what they are created to do and are "good").

Whether it is accepted or not, the fall took everything with it. God cursed the ground itself. The point is not whether or not that's correct. The point is that when the teaching is that all is corrupt (the earth groans etc), it's not valid to say that Bible opposes the fact of some fish changing their gender. The science confirms the Bible rather than the other way around

Meade--cursing the ground is/was not intended to be an abandonment of creation, more a statement to Adam that creation would not bend to what he and Eve wanted. Gone were the days of paradise, now they would have to work to extract what they could from creation to survive. The "Fall" did not corrupt the remainder of creation, only mankind and its relation to it--at least that's what I see of the allegory presented in Genesis.

[Burning Petard]

We evovled from fish? I thought we evolved from star dust. That is why I celebrate the Eucharist with a Hoagy. In honor of St Carmichael.

Yess Big RR, I believe in the universal binary condition. All Humanity can be divided into two types: those who believe it is all binary and those who do not.

snailgate.