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“How does the IC deny Christ’s humanity, K?”

The argument is that the IC denies the humanity of Panagia, making her a demi goddess of sorts. If Christ’s mother was not fully human, then He has no fully human nature. It is also argued that if Panagia was indeed preserved from conception from any sin, then she is not worthy of emulation as she was a sort of holy automaton. As I said, it really all stems from the problem posed by Christ being born of a woman if that woman was “stained” with Original Sin. Because The Church in the East never accepted Blessed Augustine’s understanding of ancestral sin, the problem of a less than perfect, ab initio, mother for God never arises.

Interesting, and not something I’ve been exposed to before. However, both Adam and Eve were created without original sin - were they not fully human? And the BVM, although preserved from the sin of Adam, made the affirmative choice to refrain from sin throughout her life, succeeding where Eve (also without original sin) failed. Hmm, something to ponder, anyway...

[Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary] denies the humanity of Panagia, making her a demi goddess of sorts

Humans were made perfect and in the glory of the Resurrection they become prefect again. That is the Orthodox anthropology.

The Catholic Church's position on Mary's sin is more complex and nuanced than some are assuming, it seems to me. See John A. Hardon, Jr., The Catholic Catechism.

The doctrone of the Immaculate Conception is synthesized in the statement:

"The Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by a singular priviledge and grace of the omnipotent God, in consideration of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind, was preserved from all stain of original sin."

It affirms:
(1) this immunity was a special grace from God,
(2) through the foreseen merits of Christ,
(3) Mary was exempt from original sin contracted by the rest of mankind, and
(4) the exemption took place at the first moment of her conception in the womb of her mother.

Exemption from original sin must have been an extraordinary grace because other human beings, except Christ, are conceived with sin on their souls. However, this does not mean that Mary was necessarily exempt from the universal necessity or need of being subject to sin, i.e., "the debt of original sin," where two kinds of debt are to be distinguished. The remote debt (necessity) simply means membership in the human race, derived by ordinary propagation from sexual intercourse. Christ, other than Mary, did not incur this necessity. Mary did, and therefore had to be redeemed. The proximate debt involves inclusion in the willful act by which Adam, as representative of mankind, sinned and thereby implicated human nature in his fall. As stated, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception certainly includes the Blessed Virgin in the remote debt, and probably also in the proximate necessity of contracting original sin, which would have infected Mary's soul had she not been miraculously preserved.

Christ's redemptive merits operated on his mother by anticipation. This preredemption is commonly taught to have consisted in the infusion of sanctifying grace into her soul at the moment of its creation, which was simultaneous with infusion into her body.

Excemption from original sin carried with it two corollary consequences: From the time of her conception, Mary was also free from all motions of concupiscence, and also (on attaining the use of reason) free from every personal sin during the whole of her life.

Like her divine Son, Mary was subject to the ordinary limitations of human nature, except those that involve moral defect. She was therefore free from the effect of inherited sin, which is the unreasoning drive of the appetites (sensual and spiritual), which are irrational precisely because they anticipate the dictate of reason and tend to perdure in spite of reason and free will telling a person that the urge in question is wrong. True, there is no actual sin in concupiscence unless a person consents to an inclination that he knows is morally bad. Nevertheless, concupiscence is incompatible with Mary's fullness of grace, even without consent, it implies excitation to commit acts that are materially against God's will.

If we ask how Mary could gain merit if she was not subject to concupiscence, the answer is the same as with Christ. Certainly the inner drive is an occasion for merit, but not an indispensable condition. Mary acquired merit not by struggling interiorly against a native irrationality, but by her love of God and a host of other virtues. She always had the option of choosing among various good actions; between action and inaction; and among numerous ways of perfoming acts of virtue--all of which are free choices and meritorious before God.

Long before Pius IX, the Council of Trent said that Mary "by a special privilege of God" was exempt from all sin, even venial ones, during her whole life. Like the Immaculate Conception, which is presupposes, Mary's personal sinlessness follows from the Church's constant belief in her spotless puirity and is founded on her dignity as the Mother of God. Some writers of the East, including Chrysostom, held that Mary was sometimes guilty of such minor defects as vanity, as when she urged Jesus to work the miracle of changing water into wine at Cana. They were misled by the notion of woman as inferior to man, and quite incapable of rising above the petty faults of human nature. Yet even they did not charge her with formal sin.

Was the Blessed Virgin free from stain because she did not offend God, or because she was impeccable and incapable of sin? The latter is common teaching in Catholic Tradition, while distinguishing it from the impeccability enjoyed by Christ. His may be called absolute and derived from the union of human human nature with the divinity. He could not sin because he was God, and God is infinitely holy. Mary could not sin by reason of an inherent quality, which some place midway between the state of souls in the beatific vision and that of our first parents before the fall.

Concretely this quality may be identified with perseverance in grace as regards grave sin, and confirmation in grace for lesser sins. In either case, however, her incapacity for sin differed radically from that of Christ. Where his was based on the fact that he is a divine person, hers was an added prerogative. It was absolutely necessary that he could not sin, since God is sinless. It was a free gift of God's mercy that Mary could not sin, but only because she was protected by divine favor.