Groups Are Defined By A Collection Of Criteria - Tumblr Posts
Not to mention that exceptions don't negate the use of a term in common language! Can you imagine if this argument was applied to every single group of taxonomic rank which contained indivuals of exceptional traits?
To demonstrate this, let's look at somethjng simple, like house cats. Now, how would you describe a house cat to someone who had never seen one? Chances are you would say they are small, fur-covered animals, around 7 to 25 pounds. They have 2 pointy ears and great hearing, whiskers to help with balance, a lean body, four legs, four paws, and a tail. Their front paws have five toes, while their back paws have four toes, and all their toes have claws which they use to help grip certain terrains and to catch small prey like mice and birds. A cat's tail is used to to provide balance, especially when jumping between two points, because it acts as a counterweight, allowing them to land on their feet.
I feel like that description sums up the basic housecat. Now let's look at some exceptions to this group.
A gene variation in cats results in somewhat common issue called polydactyly. Chances are, you have met a cat like this: they have extra toes! Now, by these ridiculous rules of renaming groups to be 'all inclusive', this can no longer be called a cat, I guess, since it doesn't meet every single criteria from our description. So what shall we call the whole group of cats with and without polydactyly? Pointy-ear-tail-havers? Small-furballs-who-meow?
Remember what I said about tails helping with balance? Well what about cats who are either born tail-less or with a tail problem? What about cats who break or lose part of their tail, or have to have part of it removed for a medical reason? I had a cat growing up who lost part of his tail, and later I adopted a cat who's tail is permanently bent to one side. So I suppose in this case, we can't use Pointy-ear-tail-havers, because it wouldn't include cats who are missing tails.
What about hairless cats? Cats who are missing a leg? Cats who are deaf? Hell, you could even make an argument that cats who are spayed and neutered don't meet all the criteria put forth to describe a cat. But all of these exceptions don't negate that any of these cats still meet the majority of the characteristics that let our brains know, "this is a cat". A cat with polydactyly likely still has four legs, a tail, fur, and whiskers. A cat missing a tail still has fur, four legs and paws, whiskers, and great hearing. A cat without fur still has four legs and paws, a tail, whiskers, and weighs around 7 to 25 pounds.
Do people see how ridiculous it is yet? To say that women who have had a hysterectomy, or a mastectomy, are not women? The point is that they meet the majority of the defining criteria! A woman who had a hysterectomy still has a vagina, a clitoris (filled with ~8,000 sensitive nerve endings- double the amount of a penis), breasts, ovaries (unless it was a complete hysterectomy, which are less common), exclusively X chromosomes, the ability to contract ovarian cancer, a higher risk for autoimmune disorders, and need I go on?
Trans women do not meet the majority of the criteria to be female, if they even manage to meet any.
