Comment on Denying the Human Sex Binary Turns Biology into Nonsense

• tahira@hilariouschaos.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  From the opening sentence of the article:

  In a new piece for Scientific American, Princeton anthropologist Dr. Agustín Fuentes argues that the binary of male and female is too simplistic to describe the complexity of human sex

  Academia has become gripped by a new religious dogma that must not be questioned. They’re trying to redefine the basic scientific terminology of sex in order to appease an unscientific political movement.

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  • communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Academia has become gripped by a new religious dogma that must not be questioned. They’re trying to redefine the basic scientific terminology of sex in order to appease an unscientific political movement.

    Nobody is doing this. This is a fantasy. Gender and sex are two different things, and sex is legitimately scientifically a spectrum, hermaphrodytes and intersex people actually exist…

    There’s no real problem here, just bigots being upset about things that legitimately don’t matter.

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    • Chucklestheclown@hilariouschaos.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      No sex is not a spectrum. It’s male or female.

      As stated by interactadvocates.org

      No, intersex is not a third sex in the traditional sense of male or female. It’s an umbrella term for people born with sex characteristics that don’t fit typical definitions of male or female. Intersex individuals can have any gender identity and sexual orientation, and many identify as either male or female

      Go look at any biology book at the college level and you won’t find sex is a spectrum. That’s a fringe theory that ignores human biology.

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      • communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        No sex is not a spectrum. It’s male or female.

        This is a matter of opinion, not an objective fact.

        No, intersex is not a third sex in the traditional sense of male or female. It’s an umbrella term for people born with sex characteristics that don’t fit typical definitions of male or female.

        Yes, which is why it’s a spectrum. They don’t cleanly meet either, they are somewhere inbetween and where exactly they are cannot be cleanly defined. You can try to determine this by size of gametes, etc, but you’ll find complicating factor and exceptions in any definition. Since there’s no clean, clear way to define these things, it is in fact a spectrum.

        Intersex individuals can have any gender identity and sexual orientation, and many identify as either male or female

        So?

        Go look at any biology book at the college level and you won’t find sex is a spectrum. That’s a fringe theory that ignores human biology.

        So? They aren’t talking about gender identity, this is a specific guide for a specific course, not representative of all positions by all experts in every field, textbooks are not masters of nuance, they explain things in simple terms to build mastery of a topic, just because a textbook author didn’t want to get into the weeds of this doesn’t mean it isn’t a spectrum and there isn’t complexity and nuance to the topic.

        Talk to an expert with a PHD about this, ask them this specific question, you’ll find a better answer than what the textbook says.

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    • tahira@hilariouschaos.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Intersex people aren’t a monolith. What size gametes each intersex person produces determines their sex. This is the biological definition and is not a spectrum. It is binary and immutable. Gender activists are trying to shove gender into inappropriate places.

      If it doesn’t matter, then it should be no big deal to drop all of the gender woo when speaking of sex, right?

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      • communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Intersex people aren’t a monolith. What size gametes each intersex person produces determines their sex. This is the biological definition and is not a spectrum.

        they often produce both or neither…

        It is binary and immutable. Gender activists are trying to shove gender into inappropriate places.

        Give one example.

        If it doesn’t matter, then it should be no big deal to drop all of the gender woo when speaking of sex, right?

        It doesn’t matter and it’s a better, more accurate descriptor of the situation, so why would we drop it? That’s like saying we should drop dwarf planets because it doesn’t really matter and you prefer the old way.

        There’s a reason science and culture are evolving these terms, it’s because the previous way of using them was simplistic and not as useful.

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