But that’s obviously the people trying to redefine sex to not be using the gametes.
Look y’all I know nothing about biology but I’ve heard enough definitions of sex to know that there isn’t a clear consensus on one, binary or not. I do know that if you want to wellactually a binary definition into this you might be part of the problem. (Unless, that is, it’s interesting enough and you phrase it differently idk.)
If, as you falsely claim, sex is determined by rather than defined by chromosomes, and that you can split it in a binary way based on a body being “organised around” gamete size, then by your own logic, you should find it very easy indeed to completely disentangle this pictogram showing which side is male and which is female, splitting neatly into large gametes on one size and small ones on that other, and with primary and then secondary characteristics following neatly underneath and no crossed lines. That’s what your trump-dictated theory claims. Draw it, if it’s that simple. I’ll wait.
There isn’t any “detangling” like you’re thinking, because you misunderstand the chart. For example, multiple conditions can lead to infertility. That doesn’t mean the conditions can’t be distinguished from each other, that just means the chart is kind of confusing.
At any rate, these conditions have a clear sex. For example, “Klinefelter syndrome (KS), also known as 47,XXY, is a chromosome anomaly where a male has an extra X chromosome”. The term mixed gonadal dysgenesis isn’t very specific, but sex can still be determined in each case, e.g. Turner syndrome.
Are there any examples from the chart you think disprove the sex binary?
The chart describes various variations in sex chromosomes and other factors and how they result in different primary and secondary sexual characteristics
The chart has many criss-crossing lines; it’s very tangled.
You claim that there are exactly two sexes and that it is simply “organised around” producing small gametes vs “organised around” producing small gametes
Therefore you should be able to split this chart into your two binary separate sides, your “organised around” producing small gametes side and your “organised around” producing large gametes side, and definitely the primary and surely the secondary sexual characteristics too should be part of that “organisation”
Whether or not you believe in my understanding of the chart, yours is surely deep and sound, and you can surely demonstrate your far superior understanding and the overwhelming explanatory clarity of your simple definition by untangling this chart into your binary male and female halves with all the criss-crossing lines (that everyone else in the thread keeps bringing up and you keep dismissing peicemeal) now neatly packaged into the two “organised around” binary sides, with all this (according to you) unnecessary tangling gone
Of course I believe no such chart exists and that your “sex is binary, just use trump’s size-of-gametes definition” is a bunch of oversimplified crap that’s of no use in either science or life, but you believe in all that shit and peddle it anywhere you think someone trans might be having a good day, so you ought to be able to do it if you’re right and sex really is as simply binary as you claim
Feel free to admit that it’s actually a bit more complicated than that. OH WAIT, NO, YOU CAN’T DO THAT, IT WOULD MEAN YOU’RE WASTING YOUR LIFE ARGUING A USELESS PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC DEFINITION JUST TO FUCK WITH TRANS PEOPLE BECAUSE FOR SOME INSANE LOGIC EVEN MORE SCREWY THAN YOUR DEBATING STYLE YOU THINK TRANS PEOPLE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH SHIT TO DEAL WITH.
My apologies, I didn’t think I needed to spell it out this simply. I gave one example of how people with that condition are unambiguously sexed, and asked if you were confused on the others.
There’s no getting around the fact that it’s a bad chart, but somebody conveniently has already made better ones. I’ll copy them here, in order that they appear in the colored line in the chart. Here’s the first one that explains what each box means:
(Mixed gondal dysgenesis, as discussed above, this isn’t a single condition, it’s an umbrella term)
Note the sex listed on each chart. None of them are unambiguous. Before you start inevitably complaining about the chart, why did you trust the first chart? Simply because it agreed with you?
Stop and consider before you respond: do you have any substantial critiques of these charts? Or are you just going to find some irrelevant detail and obsess about that? That’s called trolling, and you certainly wouldn’t want to do that, right? You’ll respond in good faith, yes?
Love how you have me ten charts with plenty of overlap and claim that they’re all separate but when you look even superficially, you find that they overlap a lot like the original chart!
You claim there are two binary sexes then give me TEN and the male and female ones overlap!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! You can’t even tell the difference between two sexes and ten!
Of course you can’t complete the task. It’s impossible.
If you like, try again. Two sexes. One chart. No criss-crossing. No sneaky putting the same thing on both the male and female sides of the chart, because it’s binary, isn’t it? Simply split it by what size of gametes the body is “organised around” producing! Your very own (oh, no, sorry, trump’s) definition!
That’s an attempt to redefine sex. Which is all well and good and part of the scientific process. It’s not going to be adopted in the field of biology though, because then talking about sex across the animal kingdom becomes incoherent. Why There Are Exactly Two Sexes addresses that paper directly:
Traits are labeled “male-typical” or “female-typical” only because they correlate with organisms already identified as male or female—an identification that, in anisogamous species, is made ultimately by reference to gametes. Once that reference is removed, the typology loses its interpretive footing.
Why do you think this paper is more correct than the other?
This paper seems to be locked on a single definition and says everything else is wrong because it does not follow this definition.
Personally, I find it very intellectually unsatisfying because you can have a individual with male gametes but with a female phenotype, and this definition says, this individual’s sex is without a doubt 100% male.
It seems the main benefit is not questioning a historical definition, which fits well with conservative opinions. There’s clear evidence on many other subjects that this can slow down or block science (ex: tobacco, climate).
Well no. You’re free to read the paper’s citations. The field of biology has always used this definition of sex, and that paper cites this definition from 1888. Somebody also helpfully set up a project for scientists to sign that affirms the same view:
EDIT: I didn’t think I needed to spell this out so directly, but Project Nettie was set up by Dr. Emma Hilton, who has a PhD in Developmental Biology, collecting signatures on a statement affirming the sex binary from other scientists with relevant credentials. You can go look for yourself, and here’s the description from the link:
Project Nettie is an online and regularly updated record of scientists, medics and those in related disciplines who, by signing their support for the Project Nettie statement (below), assert the material reality of biological sex and reject attempts to reframe it as a malleable social construct.
That it’s published on wordpress doesn’t matter, that was likely just a convenient place to publish. What matters is what the statement says, and who’s signing onto it. I didn’t think that needed to be said, but, some people 🫠
If they felt the need to write such a paper so recently, and the reviewers felt the need to accept it, then the issue is clearly more complex than you are presenting. Otherwise if it is truly that obvious the paper would be worthless.
I’ll let a professor emeritus, author of several popular books, etc etc respond (i.e. you should listen to him). From his commentary on the paper:
It’s important to recognize that the recent reframing of the two sexes as needing revision did not result from any new discoveries about biology […] It is not transphobic to recognize the two sexes that biologists have known for decades, but, unfortunately, we are dealing with ideologues who are largely impervious to both facts and reason,
There is no complexity here. It’s settled science. A few ideologues are trying to do something silly, and people outside of academia are taking that out of context. This paper was written to clarify that to lay people.
That’s an opinion piece from an anthropologist that doesn’t cite any sources. A priori, if you’re unsure, listen to the well-respected biologist talking about his field over a gender studies professor writing an opinion outside of her expertise.
But credentials aren’t everything, so let’s examine on its own merits. First off, it’s largely based on the work of Anne Fausto-Sterling, who is deeply unserious and has admitted to publishing bullshit and backtracking by calling it tongue-in-cheek and ironic:
It’s mostly about higher-level things like how sex is relevant to sports, though it’s kind of a confused mishmash overall. It doesn’t cite any sources, and doesn’t really say anything, but here’s a few relevant quotes:
If gonads were understood as the essence of sex, women who were phenotypically female but who had testes were men. This seemed illogical, so scientists proposed yet other traits
She doesn’t cite anything for this, but she’s incorrect. If you’re phenotypically female but produce sperm, then you’re male. There’s nothing illogical about it. People with CAIS are male. Scientists aren’t proposing anything of the sort.
Science does not drive these policies; the desire to exclude does. This intentional gerrymandering of sex opportunistically uses the idea of “biological sex”—which lends a veneer of science and thus rationality to any definition—to remove certain individuals from a category based on intolerance.
This is her gender studies woo showing through. She’s starting with a narrative and working backwards to shove reality into it, no matter how hard she has to twist it.
If reproduction is the interest, what matters is whether one produces sperm or eggs, whether one has a uterus, a vaginal opening, and so on.
In the end she acknowledges the binary, though she won’t outright say it.
To sum up, it’s just bluster about the social aspects of sex. If there’s something specific you want to talk about that you think is actually stating a viewpoint at odds with actual biologists, quotes would be helpful.
The author of that paper has a PhD in evolutionary biology and is well-qualified to talk about it, but also provides plenty of citations in the paper. His point is simply that trying to redefine sex in that way leads to a circular definition that isn’t useful.
To that point, what does “male gametes but with a female phenotype” mean? What does female mean? How can you define it without reference to gametes?
I’m not sure what you mean by “what to do”. If someone has an XXY genotype, their sex is determined by the gametes their body is organized around producing, like everyone else.
but what about ovotesticular people? if they can produce both gametes what determines their sex? based on what gamete they were “supposed” to produce? but how do you determine what they’re “supposed” to produce? chromosomes? phenotypes? a combination of all of these? but then we’re back at square one where gametes may be binary but sex isn’t?
Some species are hermaphroditic, but humans aren’t. Nobody’s body is organized around the production of both gametes. Ovotesticular doesn’t mean what you’re thinking. I’ll copy from my other comment
The closest you’ll find in humans is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovotestis, but that’s not “fully functioning gonads of both types, producing healthy gametes of both types”. It’s “maybe a functioning gonad of one type, with a bit of non-functional tissue of the other type”. Their sex can still be determined, even if it’s not readily apparent.
but even then people who can’t produce either can’t be simply classified into what they were “supposed” to produce without involving karyotypes or other sex characteristics, which the paper you linked explicitly argues can’t be used for sex definition:
Here I synthesize evolutionary and developmental evidence to demonstrate that sex is binary (i.e., there are only two sexes) in all anisogamous species and that males and females are defined universally by the type of gamete they have the biological function to produce—not by karyotypes, secondary sexual characteristics, or other correlates
so for someone with complete gonadal dysgenesis:
they produce no gametes
their sex is defined by… which gamete they have the “function to produce”
we determine this function by… looking at their chromosomes (XY = male function, XX = female function) or other correlates
but then this is circular:
if sex is defined by gamete function
and gamete function can only be identified via determination mechanisms in non-gamete-producing cases
then determination mechanisms are also doing the definitional work
and I feel your lacking-an-arm comment doesn’t really apply here as humans aren’t solely defined by how many arms we have - the analogy would only work if:
sex were defined like humanity - as a cluster of traits with gametes being just one feature
but the paper explicitly rejects that (arguing the monothethic model is the only true one when the polythetic clearly covers more cases)
but I think the bigger question this whole biological definition/determinism sidesteps is the one that seems close to heart of the very-same intersex people linked in that Wikipedia page:
Paradigms for care are still based on socio-cultural factors including expectations of “normality” and evidence in support of surgeries remains lacking.
“Nearly every parent” in the study reported pressure for their children to undergo surgery, and many reported misinformation.
The report calls for a ban on “surgical procedures that seek to alter the gonads, genitals, or internal sex organs of children with atypical sex characteristics too young to participate in the decision when those procedures both carry a meaningful risk of harm and can be safely deferred.”
when these things affect human beings we can’t try to wash our hands by clinging to models that seem to give us simple answers - if we insist on monothethic definitions that don’t recognize the complexity of sexual development - we end up forcing ambiguous cases into boxes and providing intellectual cover to deny people agency over their own bodies.
Organised around producing here means ‘should produce even if it never did’? You linked a list of disorders yourself, some of them do not allow a body to produce any form of gamete in severe cases
You can read that as “Would produce, if not for a developmental issue”. Their body is trying to produce a certain type of gamete and failing.
A rough analogy is, if a person is born without a hand, we say they’re missing a hand. We don’t throw our hands in the air and say “Whelp, could be anything. Maybe it’s a foot, or a wing, or a spider. There’s just no way of knowing”
Even in the case of missing gonads, their body is still trying to build them and failing. It’s not trying to build nothing
I now see better, but I still don’t understand how are we supposed to determine the sex in edge cases where it’s failing to produce both equally and has both, you mentioned the condition yourself, even though you say that it’s not failing equally that’s a possibility still. I mean, if we can’t determine sex at all maybe the definition is too abstract?
Isn’t gamete also only one aspect of what constitutes the sex? What do you do of the sexual phenotype for example? See this article about a multimodal modelisation of sex. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.26.525769v1.full.pdf
But that’s obviously the people trying to redefine sex to not be using the gametes.
Look y’all I know nothing about biology but I’ve heard enough definitions of sex to know that there isn’t a clear consensus on one, binary or not. I do know that if you want to wellactually a binary definition into this you might be part of the problem. (Unless, that is, it’s interesting enough and you phrase it differently idk.)
It’s not binary. Anyone not accepting this needs to stop talking about biology because it is clearly not rheir field
That’s demonstrating the variation within the sex binary. You’re confusing how sex is determined with how sex is defined.
If, as you falsely claim, sex is determined by rather than defined by chromosomes, and that you can split it in a binary way based on a body being “organised around” gamete size, then by your own logic, you should find it very easy indeed to completely disentangle this pictogram showing which side is male and which is female, splitting neatly into large gametes on one size and small ones on that other, and with primary and then secondary characteristics following neatly underneath and no crossed lines. That’s what your trump-dictated theory claims. Draw it, if it’s that simple. I’ll wait.
There isn’t any “detangling” like you’re thinking, because you misunderstand the chart. For example, multiple conditions can lead to infertility. That doesn’t mean the conditions can’t be distinguished from each other, that just means the chart is kind of confusing.
At any rate, these conditions have a clear sex. For example, “Klinefelter syndrome (KS), also known as 47,XXY, is a chromosome anomaly where a male has an extra X chromosome”. The term mixed gonadal dysgenesis isn’t very specific, but sex can still be determined in each case, e.g. Turner syndrome.
Are there any examples from the chart you think disprove the sex binary?
My apologies, I didn’t think I needed to spell it out this simply. I gave one example of how people with that condition are unambiguously sexed, and asked if you were confused on the others.
There’s no getting around the fact that it’s a bad chart, but somebody conveniently has already made better ones. I’ll copy them here, in order that they appear in the colored line in the chart. Here’s the first one that explains what each box means:
(Mixed gondal dysgenesis, as discussed above, this isn’t a single condition, it’s an umbrella term)
Note the sex listed on each chart. None of them are unambiguous. Before you start inevitably complaining about the chart, why did you trust the first chart? Simply because it agreed with you?
Stop and consider before you respond: do you have any substantial critiques of these charts? Or are you just going to find some irrelevant detail and obsess about that? That’s called trolling, and you certainly wouldn’t want to do that, right? You’ll respond in good faith, yes?
Love how you have me ten charts with plenty of overlap and claim that they’re all separate but when you look even superficially, you find that they overlap a lot like the original chart!
You claim there are two binary sexes then give me TEN and the male and female ones overlap!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! You can’t even tell the difference between two sexes and ten!
Of course you can’t complete the task. It’s impossible.
If you like, try again. Two sexes. One chart. No criss-crossing. No sneaky putting the same thing on both the male and female sides of the chart, because it’s binary, isn’t it? Simply split it by what size of gametes the body is “organised around” producing! Your very own (oh, no, sorry, trump’s) definition!
Consider some of those people are trying to do that for rational reasons and check the article as an example of such reasons.
I think I agree with you and my irony just got lost. But again, I don’t know enough to be sure.
All I’m sure about is that if you use your biological non-consensus to tell folks what their identity should be it’s shitty.
And I think we were arguing the same thing but I’m tired.
That’s an attempt to redefine sex. Which is all well and good and part of the scientific process. It’s not going to be adopted in the field of biology though, because then talking about sex across the animal kingdom becomes incoherent. Why There Are Exactly Two Sexes addresses that paper directly:
Why do you think this paper is more correct than the other? This paper seems to be locked on a single definition and says everything else is wrong because it does not follow this definition.
Personally, I find it very intellectually unsatisfying because you can have a individual with male gametes but with a female phenotype, and this definition says, this individual’s sex is without a doubt 100% male. It seems the main benefit is not questioning a historical definition, which fits well with conservative opinions. There’s clear evidence on many other subjects that this can slow down or block science (ex: tobacco, climate).
Because it fits the narrative they are selling.
Well no. You’re free to read the paper’s citations. The field of biology has always used this definition of sex, and that paper cites this definition from 1888. Somebody also helpfully set up a project for scientists to sign that affirms the same view:
https://projectnettie.wordpress.com/
Feel free to post anything disputing the paper.
EDIT: I didn’t think I needed to spell this out so directly, but Project Nettie was set up by Dr. Emma Hilton, who has a PhD in Developmental Biology, collecting signatures on a statement affirming the sex binary from other scientists with relevant credentials. You can go look for yourself, and here’s the description from the link:
That it’s published on wordpress doesn’t matter, that was likely just a convenient place to publish. What matters is what the statement says, and who’s signing onto it. I didn’t think that needed to be said, but, some people 🫠
If they felt the need to write such a paper so recently, and the reviewers felt the need to accept it, then the issue is clearly more complex than you are presenting. Otherwise if it is truly that obvious the paper would be worthless.
I’ll let a professor emeritus, author of several popular books, etc etc respond (i.e. you should listen to him). From his commentary on the paper:
There is no complexity here. It’s settled science. A few ideologues are trying to do something silly, and people outside of academia are taking that out of context. This paper was written to clarify that to lay people.
OK. And it still constitutes a single perspective.
That’s an opinion piece from an anthropologist that doesn’t cite any sources. A priori, if you’re unsure, listen to the well-respected biologist talking about his field over a gender studies professor writing an opinion outside of her expertise.
But credentials aren’t everything, so let’s examine on its own merits. First off, it’s largely based on the work of Anne Fausto-Sterling, who is deeply unserious and has admitted to publishing bullshit and backtracking by calling it tongue-in-cheek and ironic:
It’s mostly about higher-level things like how sex is relevant to sports, though it’s kind of a confused mishmash overall. It doesn’t cite any sources, and doesn’t really say anything, but here’s a few relevant quotes:
She doesn’t cite anything for this, but she’s incorrect. If you’re phenotypically female but produce sperm, then you’re male. There’s nothing illogical about it. People with CAIS are male. Scientists aren’t proposing anything of the sort.
This is her gender studies woo showing through. She’s starting with a narrative and working backwards to shove reality into it, no matter how hard she has to twist it.
In the end she acknowledges the binary, though she won’t outright say it.
To sum up, it’s just bluster about the social aspects of sex. If there’s something specific you want to talk about that you think is actually stating a viewpoint at odds with actual biologists, quotes would be helpful.
That’s it. You’re out of the tautology club.
The author of that paper has a PhD in evolutionary biology and is well-qualified to talk about it, but also provides plenty of citations in the paper. His point is simply that trying to redefine sex in that way leads to a circular definition that isn’t useful.
To that point, what does “male gametes but with a female phenotype” mean? What does female mean? How can you define it without reference to gametes?
I still don’t understand what to do based on gametes with XXY genotype for instance
I’m not sure what you mean by “what to do”. If someone has an XXY genotype, their sex is determined by the gametes their body is organized around producing, like everyone else.
To quote the NHS
but what about ovotesticular people? if they can produce both gametes what determines their sex? based on what gamete they were “supposed” to produce? but how do you determine what they’re “supposed” to produce? chromosomes? phenotypes? a combination of all of these? but then we’re back at square one where gametes may be binary but sex isn’t?
Some species are hermaphroditic, but humans aren’t. Nobody’s body is organized around the production of both gametes. Ovotesticular doesn’t mean what you’re thinking. I’ll copy from my other comment
but even then people who can’t produce either can’t be simply classified into what they were “supposed” to produce without involving karyotypes or other sex characteristics, which the paper you linked explicitly argues can’t be used for sex definition:
so for someone with complete gonadal dysgenesis:
but then this is circular:
and I feel your lacking-an-arm comment doesn’t really apply here as humans aren’t solely defined by how many arms we have - the analogy would only work if:
but I think the bigger question this whole biological definition/determinism sidesteps is the one that seems close to heart of the very-same intersex people linked in that Wikipedia page:
when these things affect human beings we can’t try to wash our hands by clinging to models that seem to give us simple answers - if we insist on monothethic definitions that don’t recognize the complexity of sexual development - we end up forcing ambiguous cases into boxes and providing intellectual cover to deny people agency over their own bodies.
Organised around producing here means ‘should produce even if it never did’? You linked a list of disorders yourself, some of them do not allow a body to produce any form of gamete in severe cases
You can read that as “Would produce, if not for a developmental issue”. Their body is trying to produce a certain type of gamete and failing.
A rough analogy is, if a person is born without a hand, we say they’re missing a hand. We don’t throw our hands in the air and say “Whelp, could be anything. Maybe it’s a foot, or a wing, or a spider. There’s just no way of knowing”
Even in the case of missing gonads, their body is still trying to build them and failing. It’s not trying to build nothing
I now see better, but I still don’t understand how are we supposed to determine the sex in edge cases where it’s failing to produce both equally and has both, you mentioned the condition yourself, even though you say that it’s not failing equally that’s a possibility still. I mean, if we can’t determine sex at all maybe the definition is too abstract?