It's A Quote

[Belacqua]

Suppose you have two people in a room, and both of them say they are a woman. But one of them is lying -- he's really a man.

What scientific test can you apply to determine which one is lying?

The answer is whatever scientific tests we consider to be valid for determining who is lying.

The same challenge applies to two people claiming they are autistic, or introverts, or lovers of art.

Also, gender is defined so that it need not always align with biological sex, and this is an appropriate working definition due to what has been both observed and reported more than enough times. So it's a fact that gender does not always align with biological sex, just as genitalia does not always align with biological sex, just as chromosomes do not always align with biological sex.

Right. So Dawkins is old-fashioned and he thinks that gender is determined in the old-fashioned way: genitalia, chromosomes, pelvis shape, etc. 

Paleo rejects this. However, he agrees with Dawkins in thinking that there MUST be a scientific test we can use to answer the question. 

I think you'll agree that "whatever scientific tests we consider to be valid" is not a very specific answer. Do such tests exist now? Are they something we imagine will exist in the future? What do you suggest?

I am more skeptical. I suspect that there is no objective scientific way to determine gender.

Suppose you have a committee of scientists who publish the definitive test for determining gender. Then a patient goes in, they do the tests, and the committee says "You're a man." But the patient says "No, I don't care what the tests say, I know I'm a woman." Do we then say that person is mistaken? Or do we believe what the individual says about him/herself?

Since this is supposed to be a quotes thread, I'll add this:

Beyond the bright cartoons
Are darker spaces where
Small cloudy nests of stars
Seem to float on the air.

These have no proper names:
Men out alone at night
Never look up at them
For guidance or delight,

For such evasive dust
Can make so little clear:
Much less is known than not,
More far than near.

— Philip Larkin