This is a very clear, rigorously constructed article. Thank you! I do think that part of the problem with this ongoing controversy is the inherent complexities of biology, the nuances of which many people (including many popular science writers) don't fully understand. Hence, I appreciated your more nuanced definition of sex as including the phrase "...defined by the type of gamete they can or *would* produce." Even the issue of animals whose development is determined by epigenetic factors is nuanced. Some of these animals may not have heteromorphic sex chromosomes but, nonetheless, they have identifiable genes whose gene products initiate one of two distinct developmental pathways (like the croc') ...and the biological set-up differs across reptile groups (i.e., it would be incorrect to say that "reptiles" don't have sex chromosomes). Without understanding these complexities, it's easy to cherry pick a fact here or there to support one's point of view, no matter how outlandish it is. And, as I've noted in the past, sometimes there are ambiguities in biology that are the products of that complexity, the imprecision of the language that we use to describe it, and/or our evolving knowledge of how organisms work. But, of course, that doesn't mean that everything is ambiguous. (Homo sapiens sex is binary.) Thank you again for a great article. Sincerely, Frederick
My response to this Zeminick person is this: we are not mannequins. We are human minds housed in human bodies, evolved through binary sex reproduction. (perhaps this definition is the best, as we don't have to go into male and female gametes) As usual, he's exhibiting that arrogant, self-involved, narcissistic "superiority" of the woke class. The spectrum he sees in his head is exactly in his imagination. For a deep analysis of the neurological dopamine reward cycle that crossdressing men interpret as proof of their "female brain" watch the link below, at my youtube channel, Trans Widow Ute Heggen. The effect of brassiere and falsies in the area at the vagus nerve (sternum) is not unlike the special education strategy of the weighted vest, a child-sized garment with pockets for small weights, for calming children with ADD or ADHD. The brain's plasticity tells us that much of behavior is learned. As well, the characteristic glancing from side to side which male crossdressers often engage in, happens to mimic Eye Movement Desensitizing and Reprocessing (EDMR), a therapy for PTSD, also resets the vagus nerve, which extends from the brain into the gut. The excitement of make-up and the sensory stimulation of special clothing for the adventure mimic the excitement of drama productions and Halloween from childhood experiences. It becomes a stimulating ritual, with components of sexual signaling, ie, more dopamine. The PhD's who diagnose in the initial appointment apparently have to be schooled by an observant retired Kindergarten teacher, with a mere MSED, and an un-captured brain.
"A scientist searches for patterns in the natural world to understand it in light of more fundamental truths. In stark contrast, the objective of these activists is simply to sow confusion while asserting that truth is always elusive and relativistic."
This is very insightful and well said!
These two objectives correspond to what communication scientists have called "informative" versus "directive" communication. The latter term includes manipulations and exercises of power. I have observed that woke activists head for global relativity statements when they can't defend their truth claims.
Great article, Colin, as usual! How can I be in touch with you? I am finalizing a formal demand to a school district to stop teaching biological inaccuracies and otherwise engaging in miseducation in the promotion of Gender Identity Ideology. I would love to check in with you about the support document...which will be available for people taking on schools across the U.S. For more on me, this schools work, see: https://caroldansereau.substack.com/p/the-anti-science-disaster-of-gender Carol, caroldansereau@substack.com
One thing never discussed in this "large vs small gametes define sex" thing is that there are 3 systems/complexes. They are 1) large/small gametes 2) chromosomal XX vs XY 3) external sex characteristics. The 3 systems are completely consistent about 99.99% of the time. XX-large gamete-breast&vagina vs XY-small gamete-penis.
So what is the issue? That there are a small number of individuals who are inconsistent. Males with DVD - like Caster Semenya or Mboma - have female external genitalia but XY-small gametes. Intersex cases have ambiguous genitalia but specific chromosomes. Only a very small number of cases (Kleinfelter syndrome) have XXY chromosomes.
This is such an amazing article. Perfectly succinct, clear, scientifically-accurate and most importantly it's the total opposite of Zemenick's piece: written with an intention to clarify matters to the reader, not to further confuse & frustrate the entire issue for political goals.
Thank you for taking the time & care to write such an important scientific article clarifying this pseudoscientific issue that baselessly questions core facts of biology. It's too dangerous to leave unchecked & unchallenged.
Of course, you are completely correct in your assessment that sex is binary. Whether your body is actually producing gametes or not (either there are no gametes because a male is not yet producing them, or a woman has stopped producing them, or the testes or ovaries have been removed, or there are anomalies that make the ovaries or testes unable to produce the gametes), you are biologically male or female by design. Even if there are an extraordinarily small number of people for whom this test (which gametes are or would be produced) is unclear, that doesn't change the fact that there are only 2 sexes, with no half-way point between them. However, I wanted to make a further comment, which is that this argument about sex being on a spectrum does NOT justify the concurrent argument that some people were born in the wrong body, and does NOT justify medical interventions on young people to change the appearance of their body to that of the opposite sex. Assuming arguendo that sex was on a spectrum, frankly, that would only weaken the argument for pushing puberty blockers and synthetic hormones and surgeries on young people who feel ill at ease with their bodies. If my confused daughter, for example, was simply more on the male side of the sex spectrum because she thinks she is male (but of course she wouldn't be "male" since she has so many female qualities that she would be somewhere else on the spectrum than the extreme male end), why then would this mean that she has to chemically and surgically alter her appearance to that of a male? Why wuold anyone have to move their appearance on this spectrum even if they feel male-ish or female-ish? Presumably, if sex is naturally on a spectrum, it is natural for some males to feel feminine or females to feel male, and those feelings would not require any medical interventions whatsoever. The whole strategy by these activists of sowing confusion only does exactly that. It does not in any way justify medical interventions on young people. Frankly, it doesn't even justify males participating in female sports, invading female prisons, rape crisis centers or battered women centers. Instead, scarily, it is an argument for removing these divisions altogether. After all, if we can't know who is male or female, why have any divisions based on maleness or femaleness. If sex is a spectrum, we might as well make every bathroom, changing room, sport, etc. unisex, and allow males into every vulnerable female space. Of course, that would be horribly wrong, but it should be clear that those arguing for a "spectrum" of sex cannot argue that SOME men belong in women's spaces. They must argue that all men and women are just people and we can never divide them up on the basis of sex. Likewise, we would never have a need for "sex re-assignment surgeries" since there would be no sex assignment to begin with. These activists should be careful what they wish for. Nobody wants what they are arguing for, including them!
"However, let us remember that political trends, while captivating, are transient in nature, whereas truth endures forever despite its unpopularity at times."
I would be careful assuming this, when throughout human history and continuing to today, most humans believe in some form of delusion called religion. These completely fantastical beliefs have proven not be so transient after all. The truth, or scientific truth at least, hasn't been a guiding principle for (parts of) humanity for more than a few hundred years at best. And when we look at biological reality, well Darwin's On the Origin of Species is only 164 years old. We see how easily belief, whether that's religious or ideological, can overrule science even in advanced Western society.
My estimation is that, now that the gender-genie is out of the bottle, it's going to be hard to impossible to get it back in, no matter how many rational facts we bring to bear against it.
Something that I never see mentioned in these discussions of "gender" versus "biological sex" is that some of "gender" is rooted in biological sex differences. "Masculinity" and "femininity" cannot be assumed to be "socially constructed" in their entirety. Physical aggression, for example, is more characteristic of male humans than female humans across the life cycle. This has been observed cross-culturally and is particularly salient in statistics on violent crimes, the perpetrators of which are overwhelmingly young males. The spikes in violent crimes tend to follow the spikes in testosterone levels in adolescence and young adulthood, and violent criminals often become less so after age 35.
Female humans are as aggressive as males, but their behavior is more verbal and social. They form alliances against other girls, excluding them from social groups, making them feel like they don't belong, and running smear campaigns. The aggressive behaviors observed among young social media users are predominantly social aggression of the feminine type.
Aberrations of sexual behavior are much more prevalent in males, and transvestic fetishism is exclusively a male pattern of behavior (i.e., cross dressing accompanied by sexual arousal and masturbation). The classic transgender patients (prior to the current contagion-based cohort) were mostly males, and many of them had previous histories of transvestic fetishism.There are many other behaviors that do not appear as hard wired as the above examples, but they may also involve biologically based sex differences as well as social conditioning.
The question of "What is due to nature and what is due to nurture?" with regard to differences in male and female human behavior has been raised relentlessly for 60 years or more without being fully answered. At this point, however, the claim that "gender expression" is entirely an outcome of "social construction" or conditioning is not supported by science.
I appreciate this article. Have you considered creating a version that parents could use to teach their children? For instance, a homeschool unit study aimed at 4th-6th grade or so, putting human reproduction in the context of all species with male and female versions producing sperm and eggs, including diagrams of all sex-linked characteristics. "Science Mom" does a good job of producing materials for this target demographic. So many kids these days seem to get confused in the middle school years.
The tragedy is that anyone rtakes any time at all to deal with the narcissists in the "everyone can be a woman" cult.
It is increasingly evident that this gender crap is really just another way to keep the peasants occupied and arguing while they steal the family silver.
I linked to your great article in a response to a post on Medium, then got my comment banned for this spurious set of reasons:
Hateful content
We do not allow content that constitutes or promotes violence, harassment, or hatred against people based on characteristics like race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, disability, disease, age, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity.
We do not allow posts or accounts that glorify, celebrate, downplay, or trivialize violence, suffering, abuse, or deaths of individuals or groups. This includes the use of scientific or pseudoscientific claims or misleading statistics to pathologize, dehumanize, or disempower others. We do not allow calls for intolerance, exclusion, or segregation based on protected characteristics, nor do we allow the glorification of groups which do any of the above.
We do not allow hateful text, images, symbols, or other content, including in your username, profile, or bio.
It is now suspended.
We do not allow content that may undermine the dignity and rights of transgender and/or non-binary individuals. This may include misgendering, dead-naming, claims that transgender individuals are not their gender identity (“trans women are men”), or erroneous claims based on disinformation or pseudoscience.
Colin, please keep up the good work in fighting the spread of lies and misinformation masquerading as science and equality.
This is such a helpful quote for me as a non scientist. Ambiguity does not define a new sex.
“Sexual ambiguity does not undermine the sex binary because an intersex condition does not lead to anatomy that can or would produce a third type of sex cell..”
Your argument is a misunderstanding of linguistics, which is why you need to argue so much. What you actually prove is simply this tautology:
"When considering the fertilization of egg by sperm for reproduction, there are only two things, correlating to two sexes: the one that contributes the egg and the one that contributes the sperm."
This doesn’t take you anywhere near to showing that "biological sex is binary." The latter is a substantively different proposition. And on that proposition, you have, despite all your fervor and flair, the lesser part of the argument.
You in effect half-realize this fact, when you say your argument is just a matter of “what biologists mean when they refer to sex as “binary”” -- or at least, what some biologists say and mean. But what you mean by it, even if it were what all biologists mean by it (and it isn’t), isn’t the same thing as “what it means”.
It is as if you forget that “sex” is a word in English, and every other historical language, not a word belonging to modern biology alone.
Same thing when you say it’s about sex “from a biologist’s perspective”. Even if that doesn’t mean all biologists, just those who agree with you; still, there are three pretty big mistakes here:
1. A perspective is just that: a perspective on a thing, not the thing itself. It is a dangerously totalitarian attitude, to insist that your own perspective is the only one that matters.
2. You actually mean a biological perspective on reproduction, not on sex.
3. Biology uses sex for other purposes in addition to reproduction. It uses it to produce attachment -- families, offspring-rearing, intra-species sympathy. It’s not just a matter of uniting sperm with egg.
Evolutionary biology learned the value of the affectional function of sex long ago. This is something I thought you gays were professionally knowledgeable about: sex is not just for reproduction, it’s also for social bonding, and evolution figured that out long ago and incorporated it into the biology and workings of sex. It is a theological dogma, not scientific biological sexology, to suppose that biological sex is sorely about the fertilization of eggs; as if none of that other stuff involved in carrying through on next generations and species matters at all biologically, or affects the way sex has evolved.
This goes a step farther. Among us species that have the benefit of language, sexual affections and reproduction generate that strange thing called “hope for the future”. It makes us interested in the program of conceptualizing and pursuing evolutionary progress on the meta levels, and in new programs of research into system theory and emergence, no less than we are interested in the program of progress in the more reductionist researches of the physical sciences. If emergent systems of knowledge ultimately save the universe from entropy, the meta levels will have proved even more important than the reductive ones. We’re left with an open question of whether a reductionist perspective will prove ultimately the less valid of the two, compared to emergence; a question that I would have dismissed half a century ago when I was a young reductionist, a bit too proud of thinking I was bursting the bubbles of everyone else’s illusions, but that I have learned to take seriously today. Reductionism is at this point an unproven hypothesis, one of two directions of research, both of them valid and progressing. That is true, even when we separate reductionism from the misleadingly narrow form you are giving it.
And what about that tautology -- that sperm and egg are just a twosome and therefore sex “in that definition of the word” is just binary?
Even that tautology is more limited than you seem to think. It doesn’t mean very much of what people seem to think it means. Some fallacies in how it’s usually understood:
1. It does not mean that sex is immutable. That would be a false statement. In some species there is a transition with age from one to the other sex.
2. Sex will become more mutable among humans in the future. It is already more mutable, thanks to modern medical technologies, than binarists are willing to admit. The evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein, in the midst of his own pro-binary polemics about gametes as the definition of biological sex -- polemics that are just as insistently argumentative as your own, but sometimes seem to me of better quality -- concedes that he can see the path by which biotechnology, given a few more generations, will be able to create productive ovaries in men and productive testes in women, and so transition humans in their gametes as well as in other things. Those “other things” of course will include genes by then; gene therapy is already a thing and advancing fast. Weinstein outlined a path for doing this with the gametes. There will be other paths found with time.
3. Add a few more generations past that, and it would be surprising if we don’t see both sets of gametes in a single person. And both working. And used, sometimes for self-fertilization, sometimes with partners.
4. In fact, already the two gametes are not entirely mutually exclusive in a single person. Debra Soh, in her own pro-binary argument -- which is far more empirically-based than either yours or Bret's, and is motivated by clearer recognition that there is more than one single valid public concern involved here; but unfortunately she too falls into misleading unidirectional polemics at times -- admits that there are some cases of people with both sets of gametes. She puts the number at 1 in 20,000. That’s a lot of people worldwide (even if she actually means only 1 in 20,000 intersex people; and she’s not defining intersex super-narrowly like you, nor super-broadly). Given 8 billion people, it comes to a number in the thousands. Thousands means they are not singular freak instances of genetic mutation, without general significance; rather, they are one of the many normal abnormalities of genetic and epigenetic combination and variation. It would be absurd to think that the progress of biology will never be able to give this normal abnormality a more normal level of functionality.
5. The trend toward transhuman modifications of biology will inevitably continue, as long as the species survives. And it will accelerate. There will be third and fourth kinds of gametes; maybe three-party reproductive ones, then four-party, then flexibly multi-party; and maybe inter-gametes too. So much for your polemic about there being no third sex because there’s no third gamete. It was from the start a falsely reductive definition of a third sex, because it’s based on the false premise that “sex” means nothing but gametes. But even on that false premise, it is only a matter of time before it is falsified in another way, by a proliferation of gamete types. You can argue that the species may not be given the time to make it there, but that’s an irrelevant argument, logically and scientifically.
This means, plain and simple: the strictly tautological version of the “strict binary” doctrine turns into a falsehood, as soon as it is thought of as extending even an inch beyond the pure tautology of saying that a sperm is not an egg.
Why does it seem like it’s just too hard for you guys to make a simply true statement, like “Sex is mostly binary biologically, at least thus far in history, but with lesser elements of a spectrum; elements that will grow with medical technology, although as yet medical science hasn’t advanced enough to get us more than a fraction of the way past that”?
Why must you instead insist on false slogan-style statements, like “Biological sex is strictly binary”?
What is it so hard for you to say, truthfully, that “we biologists, for our own convenience for certain purposes of certain scientific analyses we make, define “sex” as if it meant simply such-and-such. And it’s a useful way to define it for those purposes. It illuminates some things.”?
Why instead say, falsely, that “the way we define it for our particular specialized jargon purposes is what sex means, period. Therefore sex is binary, since we are “the science”, and the rest of you, who see all those other aspects of it, should just shut up.”?
Why indeed?
One could imagine it’s just a matter of false professional pride. But I think there’s something bigger going on here.
I’d guess that you’re so full of factional fervor, and you all get so triggered by your anger at the misleading polemics on the other side, that you get lost in your own polemics. And in the process, you forget about the minor matter of truthfulness and objectivity on your own side.
What I see on both sides I see is this: people who are sure the other side is just a pack of liars and idiots, "The Big Lie" no less, and that the other side is doing terrible harm. And so they believe that anything they can say argumentatively to hit at the other side must be "The Truth". They tell themselves they’re “speaking truth to power”, no matter how far from true their statements may be empirically, logically. or linguistically.
This is a very clear, rigorously constructed article. Thank you! I do think that part of the problem with this ongoing controversy is the inherent complexities of biology, the nuances of which many people (including many popular science writers) don't fully understand. Hence, I appreciated your more nuanced definition of sex as including the phrase "...defined by the type of gamete they can or *would* produce." Even the issue of animals whose development is determined by epigenetic factors is nuanced. Some of these animals may not have heteromorphic sex chromosomes but, nonetheless, they have identifiable genes whose gene products initiate one of two distinct developmental pathways (like the croc') ...and the biological set-up differs across reptile groups (i.e., it would be incorrect to say that "reptiles" don't have sex chromosomes). Without understanding these complexities, it's easy to cherry pick a fact here or there to support one's point of view, no matter how outlandish it is. And, as I've noted in the past, sometimes there are ambiguities in biology that are the products of that complexity, the imprecision of the language that we use to describe it, and/or our evolving knowledge of how organisms work. But, of course, that doesn't mean that everything is ambiguous. (Homo sapiens sex is binary.) Thank you again for a great article. Sincerely, Frederick
My response to this Zeminick person is this: we are not mannequins. We are human minds housed in human bodies, evolved through binary sex reproduction. (perhaps this definition is the best, as we don't have to go into male and female gametes) As usual, he's exhibiting that arrogant, self-involved, narcissistic "superiority" of the woke class. The spectrum he sees in his head is exactly in his imagination. For a deep analysis of the neurological dopamine reward cycle that crossdressing men interpret as proof of their "female brain" watch the link below, at my youtube channel, Trans Widow Ute Heggen. The effect of brassiere and falsies in the area at the vagus nerve (sternum) is not unlike the special education strategy of the weighted vest, a child-sized garment with pockets for small weights, for calming children with ADD or ADHD. The brain's plasticity tells us that much of behavior is learned. As well, the characteristic glancing from side to side which male crossdressers often engage in, happens to mimic Eye Movement Desensitizing and Reprocessing (EDMR), a therapy for PTSD, also resets the vagus nerve, which extends from the brain into the gut. The excitement of make-up and the sensory stimulation of special clothing for the adventure mimic the excitement of drama productions and Halloween from childhood experiences. It becomes a stimulating ritual, with components of sexual signaling, ie, more dopamine. The PhD's who diagnose in the initial appointment apparently have to be schooled by an observant retired Kindergarten teacher, with a mere MSED, and an un-captured brain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vF3Epdesl0&t=1s
"A scientist searches for patterns in the natural world to understand it in light of more fundamental truths. In stark contrast, the objective of these activists is simply to sow confusion while asserting that truth is always elusive and relativistic."
This is very insightful and well said!
These two objectives correspond to what communication scientists have called "informative" versus "directive" communication. The latter term includes manipulations and exercises of power. I have observed that woke activists head for global relativity statements when they can't defend their truth claims.
I am deeply grateful for your work. Just upgraded to paid. Thank you for holding the line. I'm with you. So many are with you.
Great article, Colin, as usual! How can I be in touch with you? I am finalizing a formal demand to a school district to stop teaching biological inaccuracies and otherwise engaging in miseducation in the promotion of Gender Identity Ideology. I would love to check in with you about the support document...which will be available for people taking on schools across the U.S. For more on me, this schools work, see: https://caroldansereau.substack.com/p/the-anti-science-disaster-of-gender Carol, caroldansereau@substack.com
One thing never discussed in this "large vs small gametes define sex" thing is that there are 3 systems/complexes. They are 1) large/small gametes 2) chromosomal XX vs XY 3) external sex characteristics. The 3 systems are completely consistent about 99.99% of the time. XX-large gamete-breast&vagina vs XY-small gamete-penis.
So what is the issue? That there are a small number of individuals who are inconsistent. Males with DVD - like Caster Semenya or Mboma - have female external genitalia but XY-small gametes. Intersex cases have ambiguous genitalia but specific chromosomes. Only a very small number of cases (Kleinfelter syndrome) have XXY chromosomes.
This is such an amazing article. Perfectly succinct, clear, scientifically-accurate and most importantly it's the total opposite of Zemenick's piece: written with an intention to clarify matters to the reader, not to further confuse & frustrate the entire issue for political goals.
Thank you for taking the time & care to write such an important scientific article clarifying this pseudoscientific issue that baselessly questions core facts of biology. It's too dangerous to leave unchecked & unchallenged.
Of course, you are completely correct in your assessment that sex is binary. Whether your body is actually producing gametes or not (either there are no gametes because a male is not yet producing them, or a woman has stopped producing them, or the testes or ovaries have been removed, or there are anomalies that make the ovaries or testes unable to produce the gametes), you are biologically male or female by design. Even if there are an extraordinarily small number of people for whom this test (which gametes are or would be produced) is unclear, that doesn't change the fact that there are only 2 sexes, with no half-way point between them. However, I wanted to make a further comment, which is that this argument about sex being on a spectrum does NOT justify the concurrent argument that some people were born in the wrong body, and does NOT justify medical interventions on young people to change the appearance of their body to that of the opposite sex. Assuming arguendo that sex was on a spectrum, frankly, that would only weaken the argument for pushing puberty blockers and synthetic hormones and surgeries on young people who feel ill at ease with their bodies. If my confused daughter, for example, was simply more on the male side of the sex spectrum because she thinks she is male (but of course she wouldn't be "male" since she has so many female qualities that she would be somewhere else on the spectrum than the extreme male end), why then would this mean that she has to chemically and surgically alter her appearance to that of a male? Why wuold anyone have to move their appearance on this spectrum even if they feel male-ish or female-ish? Presumably, if sex is naturally on a spectrum, it is natural for some males to feel feminine or females to feel male, and those feelings would not require any medical interventions whatsoever. The whole strategy by these activists of sowing confusion only does exactly that. It does not in any way justify medical interventions on young people. Frankly, it doesn't even justify males participating in female sports, invading female prisons, rape crisis centers or battered women centers. Instead, scarily, it is an argument for removing these divisions altogether. After all, if we can't know who is male or female, why have any divisions based on maleness or femaleness. If sex is a spectrum, we might as well make every bathroom, changing room, sport, etc. unisex, and allow males into every vulnerable female space. Of course, that would be horribly wrong, but it should be clear that those arguing for a "spectrum" of sex cannot argue that SOME men belong in women's spaces. They must argue that all men and women are just people and we can never divide them up on the basis of sex. Likewise, we would never have a need for "sex re-assignment surgeries" since there would be no sex assignment to begin with. These activists should be careful what they wish for. Nobody wants what they are arguing for, including them!
"However, let us remember that political trends, while captivating, are transient in nature, whereas truth endures forever despite its unpopularity at times."
I would be careful assuming this, when throughout human history and continuing to today, most humans believe in some form of delusion called religion. These completely fantastical beliefs have proven not be so transient after all. The truth, or scientific truth at least, hasn't been a guiding principle for (parts of) humanity for more than a few hundred years at best. And when we look at biological reality, well Darwin's On the Origin of Species is only 164 years old. We see how easily belief, whether that's religious or ideological, can overrule science even in advanced Western society.
My estimation is that, now that the gender-genie is out of the bottle, it's going to be hard to impossible to get it back in, no matter how many rational facts we bring to bear against it.
Something that I never see mentioned in these discussions of "gender" versus "biological sex" is that some of "gender" is rooted in biological sex differences. "Masculinity" and "femininity" cannot be assumed to be "socially constructed" in their entirety. Physical aggression, for example, is more characteristic of male humans than female humans across the life cycle. This has been observed cross-culturally and is particularly salient in statistics on violent crimes, the perpetrators of which are overwhelmingly young males. The spikes in violent crimes tend to follow the spikes in testosterone levels in adolescence and young adulthood, and violent criminals often become less so after age 35.
Female humans are as aggressive as males, but their behavior is more verbal and social. They form alliances against other girls, excluding them from social groups, making them feel like they don't belong, and running smear campaigns. The aggressive behaviors observed among young social media users are predominantly social aggression of the feminine type.
Aberrations of sexual behavior are much more prevalent in males, and transvestic fetishism is exclusively a male pattern of behavior (i.e., cross dressing accompanied by sexual arousal and masturbation). The classic transgender patients (prior to the current contagion-based cohort) were mostly males, and many of them had previous histories of transvestic fetishism.There are many other behaviors that do not appear as hard wired as the above examples, but they may also involve biologically based sex differences as well as social conditioning.
The question of "What is due to nature and what is due to nurture?" with regard to differences in male and female human behavior has been raised relentlessly for 60 years or more without being fully answered. At this point, however, the claim that "gender expression" is entirely an outcome of "social construction" or conditioning is not supported by science.
I appreciate this article. Have you considered creating a version that parents could use to teach their children? For instance, a homeschool unit study aimed at 4th-6th grade or so, putting human reproduction in the context of all species with male and female versions producing sperm and eggs, including diagrams of all sex-linked characteristics. "Science Mom" does a good job of producing materials for this target demographic. So many kids these days seem to get confused in the middle school years.
The tragedy is that anyone rtakes any time at all to deal with the narcissists in the "everyone can be a woman" cult.
It is increasingly evident that this gender crap is really just another way to keep the peasants occupied and arguing while they steal the family silver.
I linked to your great article in a response to a post on Medium, then got my comment banned for this spurious set of reasons:
Hateful content
We do not allow content that constitutes or promotes violence, harassment, or hatred against people based on characteristics like race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, disability, disease, age, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity.
We do not allow posts or accounts that glorify, celebrate, downplay, or trivialize violence, suffering, abuse, or deaths of individuals or groups. This includes the use of scientific or pseudoscientific claims or misleading statistics to pathologize, dehumanize, or disempower others. We do not allow calls for intolerance, exclusion, or segregation based on protected characteristics, nor do we allow the glorification of groups which do any of the above.
We do not allow hateful text, images, symbols, or other content, including in your username, profile, or bio.
It is now suspended.
We do not allow content that may undermine the dignity and rights of transgender and/or non-binary individuals. This may include misgendering, dead-naming, claims that transgender individuals are not their gender identity (“trans women are men”), or erroneous claims based on disinformation or pseudoscience.
Colin, please keep up the good work in fighting the spread of lies and misinformation masquerading as science and equality.
This is such a helpful quote for me as a non scientist. Ambiguity does not define a new sex.
“Sexual ambiguity does not undermine the sex binary because an intersex condition does not lead to anatomy that can or would produce a third type of sex cell..”
Your argument is a misunderstanding of linguistics, which is why you need to argue so much. What you actually prove is simply this tautology:
"When considering the fertilization of egg by sperm for reproduction, there are only two things, correlating to two sexes: the one that contributes the egg and the one that contributes the sperm."
This doesn’t take you anywhere near to showing that "biological sex is binary." The latter is a substantively different proposition. And on that proposition, you have, despite all your fervor and flair, the lesser part of the argument.
You in effect half-realize this fact, when you say your argument is just a matter of “what biologists mean when they refer to sex as “binary”” -- or at least, what some biologists say and mean. But what you mean by it, even if it were what all biologists mean by it (and it isn’t), isn’t the same thing as “what it means”.
It is as if you forget that “sex” is a word in English, and every other historical language, not a word belonging to modern biology alone.
Same thing when you say it’s about sex “from a biologist’s perspective”. Even if that doesn’t mean all biologists, just those who agree with you; still, there are three pretty big mistakes here:
1. A perspective is just that: a perspective on a thing, not the thing itself. It is a dangerously totalitarian attitude, to insist that your own perspective is the only one that matters.
2. You actually mean a biological perspective on reproduction, not on sex.
3. Biology uses sex for other purposes in addition to reproduction. It uses it to produce attachment -- families, offspring-rearing, intra-species sympathy. It’s not just a matter of uniting sperm with egg.
Evolutionary biology learned the value of the affectional function of sex long ago. This is something I thought you gays were professionally knowledgeable about: sex is not just for reproduction, it’s also for social bonding, and evolution figured that out long ago and incorporated it into the biology and workings of sex. It is a theological dogma, not scientific biological sexology, to suppose that biological sex is sorely about the fertilization of eggs; as if none of that other stuff involved in carrying through on next generations and species matters at all biologically, or affects the way sex has evolved.
This goes a step farther. Among us species that have the benefit of language, sexual affections and reproduction generate that strange thing called “hope for the future”. It makes us interested in the program of conceptualizing and pursuing evolutionary progress on the meta levels, and in new programs of research into system theory and emergence, no less than we are interested in the program of progress in the more reductionist researches of the physical sciences. If emergent systems of knowledge ultimately save the universe from entropy, the meta levels will have proved even more important than the reductive ones. We’re left with an open question of whether a reductionist perspective will prove ultimately the less valid of the two, compared to emergence; a question that I would have dismissed half a century ago when I was a young reductionist, a bit too proud of thinking I was bursting the bubbles of everyone else’s illusions, but that I have learned to take seriously today. Reductionism is at this point an unproven hypothesis, one of two directions of research, both of them valid and progressing. That is true, even when we separate reductionism from the misleadingly narrow form you are giving it.
And what about that tautology -- that sperm and egg are just a twosome and therefore sex “in that definition of the word” is just binary?
Even that tautology is more limited than you seem to think. It doesn’t mean very much of what people seem to think it means. Some fallacies in how it’s usually understood:
1. It does not mean that sex is immutable. That would be a false statement. In some species there is a transition with age from one to the other sex.
2. Sex will become more mutable among humans in the future. It is already more mutable, thanks to modern medical technologies, than binarists are willing to admit. The evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein, in the midst of his own pro-binary polemics about gametes as the definition of biological sex -- polemics that are just as insistently argumentative as your own, but sometimes seem to me of better quality -- concedes that he can see the path by which biotechnology, given a few more generations, will be able to create productive ovaries in men and productive testes in women, and so transition humans in their gametes as well as in other things. Those “other things” of course will include genes by then; gene therapy is already a thing and advancing fast. Weinstein outlined a path for doing this with the gametes. There will be other paths found with time.
3. Add a few more generations past that, and it would be surprising if we don’t see both sets of gametes in a single person. And both working. And used, sometimes for self-fertilization, sometimes with partners.
4. In fact, already the two gametes are not entirely mutually exclusive in a single person. Debra Soh, in her own pro-binary argument -- which is far more empirically-based than either yours or Bret's, and is motivated by clearer recognition that there is more than one single valid public concern involved here; but unfortunately she too falls into misleading unidirectional polemics at times -- admits that there are some cases of people with both sets of gametes. She puts the number at 1 in 20,000. That’s a lot of people worldwide (even if she actually means only 1 in 20,000 intersex people; and she’s not defining intersex super-narrowly like you, nor super-broadly). Given 8 billion people, it comes to a number in the thousands. Thousands means they are not singular freak instances of genetic mutation, without general significance; rather, they are one of the many normal abnormalities of genetic and epigenetic combination and variation. It would be absurd to think that the progress of biology will never be able to give this normal abnormality a more normal level of functionality.
5. The trend toward transhuman modifications of biology will inevitably continue, as long as the species survives. And it will accelerate. There will be third and fourth kinds of gametes; maybe three-party reproductive ones, then four-party, then flexibly multi-party; and maybe inter-gametes too. So much for your polemic about there being no third sex because there’s no third gamete. It was from the start a falsely reductive definition of a third sex, because it’s based on the false premise that “sex” means nothing but gametes. But even on that false premise, it is only a matter of time before it is falsified in another way, by a proliferation of gamete types. You can argue that the species may not be given the time to make it there, but that’s an irrelevant argument, logically and scientifically.
This means, plain and simple: the strictly tautological version of the “strict binary” doctrine turns into a falsehood, as soon as it is thought of as extending even an inch beyond the pure tautology of saying that a sperm is not an egg.
Why does it seem like it’s just too hard for you guys to make a simply true statement, like “Sex is mostly binary biologically, at least thus far in history, but with lesser elements of a spectrum; elements that will grow with medical technology, although as yet medical science hasn’t advanced enough to get us more than a fraction of the way past that”?
Why must you instead insist on false slogan-style statements, like “Biological sex is strictly binary”?
What is it so hard for you to say, truthfully, that “we biologists, for our own convenience for certain purposes of certain scientific analyses we make, define “sex” as if it meant simply such-and-such. And it’s a useful way to define it for those purposes. It illuminates some things.”?
Why instead say, falsely, that “the way we define it for our particular specialized jargon purposes is what sex means, period. Therefore sex is binary, since we are “the science”, and the rest of you, who see all those other aspects of it, should just shut up.”?
Why indeed?
One could imagine it’s just a matter of false professional pride. But I think there’s something bigger going on here.
I’d guess that you’re so full of factional fervor, and you all get so triggered by your anger at the misleading polemics on the other side, that you get lost in your own polemics. And in the process, you forget about the minor matter of truthfulness and objectivity on your own side.
What I see on both sides I see is this: people who are sure the other side is just a pack of liars and idiots, "The Big Lie" no less, and that the other side is doing terrible harm. And so they believe that anything they can say argumentatively to hit at the other side must be "The Truth". They tell themselves they’re “speaking truth to power”, no matter how far from true their statements may be empirically, logically. or linguistically.
You must be Tired of Explaining Reality to Fools.