Gender isn’t biological at all, it is a social or linguistic concept. Biological sex is to do with gametes, chromosomes, sexual organs, hormone levels - it is far from binary, as you can see with the existence of intersex people with chromosomes other than XX or XY, differing organs present, and so on.
Comment on Metal Exclusionary Radical Astronomy
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Posted previously with lengthy discussion. I’ll copy my comment here again:
That’s the point of differentiating between sex and gender. Sex is indeed binary, there are exactly two gamete sizes. Gender is what captures everything on top of that base.
If you want more of an explanation, see this recent comment of mine showing that even for people who want to redefine sex to not be gamete-based, they still acknowledge the reality of the gamete binary.
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
lvxferre@mander.xyz 4 weeks ago
To add to that: that gender you’re talking about is actually two distinct concepts, one social and another grammatical/linguistic. The later is more like a traditional way to refer to noun classes, when they also split humans based on social gender.
Sadly my go-to example for that doesn’t work in English, because of the lack of grammatical gender.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
That’s confusing how sex is defined with how sex is determined. See the linked thread for a lot of this discussion, but you’re talking about variations within the sex binary. Intersex people aren’t in conflict with the sex binary, because they’re either male or female with Disorders of sex development.
GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
davidagain@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You’re trying to bring facts, knowledge, understanding and the preexisting scientific consensus into a thread started by powerstruggle, an avid anti trans troll who respects trump’s definition of sex above anyone else’s and shows up in any trans-positive post to derail the conversion for hours and days, and suck any happiness out of it. I’ll tell you this now. It won’t work. They won’t listen.
GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Ahh thanks for the heads up. I wasn’t familiar with their game. I’ll block them now then
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Sorry, but the facts, knowledge, and understanding of the preexisting scientific consensus is that sex is binary, in exactly the way I’ve been saying. You’re welcome to provide any citations to the contrary, but you can’t.
Remember, just because you don’t like the truth, doesn’t mean it’s “trolling” to speak it.
davidagain@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
scientific consensus is that sex is binary
Lol no, you’re just an anti trans troll who dismisses any evidence that goes against your worldview. Anyone who takes even the slightest scan of your post history can see you spending days and days arguing about sex rather than gender any time anyone mentions something reasonably trans positive. It’s toxic.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
That chart shows variation within a sex. That’s all how sex is determined, but not how it’s defined
oftenawake@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Why do you care so much? Sounds like you have skin in the game - that’s why others care so much. Sorry that you can’t accept that you are trans yourself. I hope you find peace with it someday.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Well, why do you care so much?
howrar@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
A bit that can be 0 or 1 is binary. A quantum bit is not binary, even though it’s a linear combination of 0 and 1.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Sure, but that’s not relevant here
oce@jlai.lu 4 weeks ago
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. www.biorxiv.org/…/2023.01.26.525769v1.full.pdf
rooroo@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
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.)
GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s not binary. Anyone not accepting this needs to stop talking about biology because it is clearly not rheir field
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
That’s demonstrating the variation within the sex binary. You’re confusing how sex is determined with how sex is defined.
oce@jlai.lu 4 weeks ago
Consider some of those people are trying to do that for rational reasons and check the article as an example of such reasons.
rooroo@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
I think I agree with you and my irony just got lost. But again, I don’t know enough to be sure n
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
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.
oce@jlai.lu 4 weeks ago
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).
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Why do you think this paper is more correct than the other?
Because it fits the narrative they are selling.
SapientLasagna@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
That’s it. You’re out of the tautology club.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
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?
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
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
That’s not typically the definition people use, but I do admit it’s a way of “solving” the issues of a binary that often arise when using the more common definitions. You’re either a sperm-maker or egg-maker.
So using this definition, there are likely still some intersex people or at the very least people who have an “undefined” sex.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
That’s the definition biologists have always used. It’s just a description of the reality that they found in their field. Lay people have started using it recently because of culture wars, but they’re not incorrect to do so.
There still aren’t “intersex” people as you’re probably thinking. The closest you’ll find in humans is 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.
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I’m actually thinking of people who have neither sets, working or not, but you’ve got me thinking: if a non-functional set would still count in the case of it being the only one (I.e. someone infertile but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary) I’m not sure why it wouldn’t when it’s beside a working one. If it’s binary, surely they either count or they don’t?
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
That falls into the “organized around” bit. They won’t have any other structures necessary for supporting the bit of tissue, and their body won’t be trying to create those structures. As a loose analogy, think of it like transplanting an ovary into a human male. You haven’t changed his sex, you’ve merely created a man with an ovary grafted onto him. His body is still organized around production of sperm.
In the case of someone that’s infertile, if you fixed the issue that was causing their infertility, they would produce the normal gametes that their body is organized around producing. They wouldn’t then magically start producing both gametes or gametes from the other sex.
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Lay people have started using it recently…
Oh my God this is hilarious. Just caught it.
Who are these lay people?
Dude you trolling online without an advanced degree or research history. XD
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I think the meaning is clear. You seem rather upset. Are you having trouble understanding it?
MissingInteger@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
An organism that produces both types of gamete is a hermaphrodite.
davidagain@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“Powerstruggle” is an anti trans troll who turns up in any trans-positive thread to pseudoscience their way to distracting everyone from a fun and positive post about gender into an acrimonious debate about why they think there are only two sexes.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
You’re weirdly obsessed with the idea that anybody that disagrees with you is trolling. You’re free to provide any evidence to support your position, but you’re better suited to simply insult people that try to tell you facts.
You’re repeatedly insulting people trying to show you the truth and refusing to demonstrate anything that supports your position.
You’re a troll.
davidagain@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think anyone looking at your post history will see who the troll is! You’re obsessive and relentlessly obnoxious about this one issue and you derail every trans positive post you come across.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Yep, and that exists in other species, but not humans. Nobody’s body is organized around the production of both gametes, unlike other species
MissingInteger@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
A human with both gametes or no gametes at all is possible.
All of this has been better argued in the previous thread where you displayed an, in my opinion, astounding lack of reading comprehension. @Carnelian@lemmy.world argued eloquently with you quite a while.
Carnelian@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Oh the self proclaimed ambassador for the field of biology is back at it again, what a surprise. Has he revealed yet that his smoking gun ‘study’ that defines sex and ‘represents literally all of biology’ is actually just a rant from a discredited nut job podcaster who has dozens of posts whining about how he’s been totally ostracized by all other biologists?
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Man, really? The person that thinks there’s 3 gamete types because they couldn’t even understand the paper they linked? Them?
I have to say that I’m disappointed that you found that eloquent, but to each their own. I hope that you some day find truth more eloquent.
At any rate, just in case you’re confused (since it’s not clear from your comment if you understand this), sex is defined by the gamete types your body is organized around producing. Someone born without the ability to create gametes isn’t a counter to the sex binary, their body is still organized around the production of sperm or ova, even if faulty. Nobody is born with a body organized around the production of both sperm and ova, not even in the case of ovotestis. See other comments for explanation.
ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 4 weeks ago
Even biological sex is more complicated than just 2 gametes. There are cis-men with XX chromosomes do to a mutation in one of the Xs, there are cis-women with XY due to a myriad of mutations, there are intersex people due to everything from random mutations to chimerism, etc.
T156@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If we put aside humans for a moment, some species of animal have more than binary sexes. Some species of mushroom have thousands, for example.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
Is that you, Lrr, ruler of Omicron Persei 8?
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Those actually aren’t sexes, those are mating types. The difference is that all of their gametes are approximately the same size, i.e. isogamy.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
That’s confusing how sex is defined with how sex is determined. See the linked thread for a lot of this discussion, but you’re talking about variations within the sex binary. Intersex people aren’t in conflict with the sex binary, because they’re either male or female with Disorders of sex development.