I know it's important to set the record straight, as it were; even so, I got to admire your fortitude in dealing with the fabulists and the deluded in responding to these kinds of misconceived "gotchas." Thanks, Colin.
Colin I don’t know how you stay sane while dealing with these over-credentialed, barely-literate sophists. They just want to bury you an in avalanche of phantasmagorical bullshit and hope you get exhausted and give up. Please don’t.
Thanks Colin. I have noted in these debates what a shocker it would be for biologists to find out that they have been wrong about the sex binary for decades and centuries. Wouldn't you think that if someone really came up with such a startling discovery that there would be a massive recognition of such a finding, as well as a Nobel prize for sure?
There must be something especially foul in the air because the other day, on another Substack, a "PhD" with the kind of cutsey name that suggests "he" became a "she" responded to one of my TERFy comments with a ridiculous rant about intersex and the research of guess who? Anne Fausto-Sterling! Then Dr. Cutsey hurled the F-bomb at me. If only I'd had this article back then, I would have provided the link to this commenter and topped it all off with the Bronx cheer.
Apr 18, 2023·edited Apr 18, 2023Liked by Colin Wright
I become a paid subscriber specifically for content like this. This is the kind of thing most people instinctively know (like how gender norms =/= sex), but can't articulate elegantly due to not being up to our eyeballs in biological research. Seeing researchers deliberately conflate the two reminds me of this line I read from Seth Dillon.
These researchers appear to be uncomfortable that the mammal world at-large very easily falls into sex binary for stated reasons, but they dislike that reality because it makes them uncomfortable. They then proceed to deliberately conflate form with function to confuse the topic, or to dismiss the binary, as some kind of "own". They know it's two separate types of categorization, but choose to fuse them knowing they're mostly incompatible concepts as they relate to human biology/sexuality.
"Reality is uncomfortable for people who dislike reality" was the tweet I read, and it perfectly encapsulates this sentiment.
Yes, I see. The source of my amusement is in the obvious fact that every human walking this planet has an unbroken lineage composed of biological males & females and no individuals in between or orthogonal to those categories. And that there are biologists that claim the contrary.
It’s admittedly been a while since I read Fausto-Sterling, but I don’t recall the “five sexes” part seeming any more obviously “tongue-in-cheek” than the rest of the book. Her defense comes perilously close to admitting that a lot of academics are just taking the piss when they put this stuff out there.
Woke activists love to support their claims by asserting that "evidence is mounting" for whatever they want to believe. Sometimes the mountain consists of only one so-called study, or as in this case, ten or more. No matter what the number, woke investigators seldom if ever offer an analysis of the quality of the research included in their literature reviews, unless the data or conclusions do not support their ideology. In those instances, they direct the reader to "frame" the results of other peoples' research in such a manner as to support their ideological claims.
The review selected spotted hyenas, elephants, and the tammar wallaby because *of* they challenged a widely held assumption that “secretion of androgen and anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) by the fetal testes during critical stages of development accounts for the full range of sexually dimorphic urogenital traits observed at birth.”
I know it's important to set the record straight, as it were; even so, I got to admire your fortitude in dealing with the fabulists and the deluded in responding to these kinds of misconceived "gotchas." Thanks, Colin.
Your rebuttal is an actual “fabulous takedown,” lol. Bless you, Colin.
Colin I don’t know how you stay sane while dealing with these over-credentialed, barely-literate sophists. They just want to bury you an in avalanche of phantasmagorical bullshit and hope you get exhausted and give up. Please don’t.
Great article by the way, spot on as always.
Excellent analysis and rebuttals to the Leftist gender nonsense. Thank you.
Thanks Colin. I have noted in these debates what a shocker it would be for biologists to find out that they have been wrong about the sex binary for decades and centuries. Wouldn't you think that if someone really came up with such a startling discovery that there would be a massive recognition of such a finding, as well as a Nobel prize for sure?
There must be something especially foul in the air because the other day, on another Substack, a "PhD" with the kind of cutsey name that suggests "he" became a "she" responded to one of my TERFy comments with a ridiculous rant about intersex and the research of guess who? Anne Fausto-Sterling! Then Dr. Cutsey hurled the F-bomb at me. If only I'd had this article back then, I would have provided the link to this commenter and topped it all off with the Bronx cheer.
Great article. Trans activists aren’t concerned with facts but we are and very much appreciate you writing these articles.
So sad that this is even necessary.
Why do some academics indulge in such nonsense?
I become a paid subscriber specifically for content like this. This is the kind of thing most people instinctively know (like how gender norms =/= sex), but can't articulate elegantly due to not being up to our eyeballs in biological research. Seeing researchers deliberately conflate the two reminds me of this line I read from Seth Dillon.
These researchers appear to be uncomfortable that the mammal world at-large very easily falls into sex binary for stated reasons, but they dislike that reality because it makes them uncomfortable. They then proceed to deliberately conflate form with function to confuse the topic, or to dismiss the binary, as some kind of "own". They know it's two separate types of categorization, but choose to fuse them knowing they're mostly incompatible concepts as they relate to human biology/sexuality.
"Reality is uncomfortable for people who dislike reality" was the tweet I read, and it perfectly encapsulates this sentiment.
Your work is critical pushback on ideological distortions. Thank you
Yes, I see. The source of my amusement is in the obvious fact that every human walking this planet has an unbroken lineage composed of biological males & females and no individuals in between or orthogonal to those categories. And that there are biologists that claim the contrary.
It’s admittedly been a while since I read Fausto-Sterling, but I don’t recall the “five sexes” part seeming any more obviously “tongue-in-cheek” than the rest of the book. Her defense comes perilously close to admitting that a lot of academics are just taking the piss when they put this stuff out there.
Edit needed (have I gotten carried away?)
This is a very confused paper by Anne Fausto-Sterling that proposed the idea that sex, which it never *define*,...
Woke activists love to support their claims by asserting that "evidence is mounting" for whatever they want to believe. Sometimes the mountain consists of only one so-called study, or as in this case, ten or more. No matter what the number, woke investigators seldom if ever offer an analysis of the quality of the research included in their literature reviews, unless the data or conclusions do not support their ideology. In those instances, they direct the reader to "frame" the results of other peoples' research in such a manner as to support their ideological claims.
Edit needed:
The review selected spotted hyenas, elephants, and the tammar wallaby because *of* they challenged a widely held assumption that “secretion of androgen and anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) by the fetal testes during critical stages of development accounts for the full range of sexually dimorphic urogenital traits observed at birth.”