The presidents of three American societies of evolutionary biologists and ecologists have written a joint letter to President Trump and members of the US Congress stating that “extensive scientific evidence” contradicts the view that “there are two sexes .
It was bad enough when a friend, who has a degree in mathematics and seems perfectly sane in all other aspects of his life, told me last week that one of his male family members had become “a woman”. He, the family member, apparently underwent this sexual metamorphosis after fathering three children.
Believing in bedrock principles of evolutionary science is now considered "close-minded ignorance" on the left?
This comment is such a clear example of the antiscience moralizing that has captured Democratic politics. There's no cogent point being made, no factual critique, just scolding for vague and undefined thought crimes.
He's wrong. I see you aren't answering my other question.
<<“While these cases are a minority, sex is legitimately difficult to assign for close to 2 percent of the U.S. population,” she said. “We can find real exceptions in real people to whatever rule we might apply to define sex, whether it be sex chromosomes, the size of reproductive cells, hormone levels, internal organs or genitals.”
“The executive order demands that we fit a spectrum into a nonexistent binary box,” Neiman added.
>>
2%, dude. That's a lot of people you're taking rights away from and claiming to know more about than they do.
It's a totally false figure that includes things like CAH which do not result in ambiguity in sex at all. The rate of DSDs that might result in ambiguity is about .018%.
The number can't be right. I agree there should be a third category for people with anomalies, even though most, e.g. all sex chromosome anomalies, can be assigned to one of two sexes. But that some people divert from normal development doesn't mean there is a spectrum of sexes. Humans are tetrapods (4-limbed animals), even if some people are born with fewer ore more limbs.
Sex is not gender/social role/presentation/secondary sexual characteristics. An animal is either male, female, both (in hermaphrodites like snails), one after the other, or possibly none, but there is no third sex. The categories male and female are fundamental to sexual reproduction.
I don’t understand the purpose of this argument. Yes there are a few DSD males in female sports—mostly hailing from third world countries—but the larger issue is first world males claiming a woman “identity” taking women’s places in female sports and elsewhere. They are not claiming to have a DSD — they are saying that their subjective belief trumps their biology for all purposes. That is what most women object to as it destroys all boundaries we have built to protect women.
"they are saying that their subjective belief trumps their biology for all purposes."
Really?
None of the (few) trans people I know insist that their subjective belief trumps biology for all purposes. What they do insist is that their subjective belief shouldn't be used to deny the basic human rights and respect we grant to those with other subjective beliefs.
The ones most of us are concerned about are those who insist they are to be given access to women’s sports and spaces on the same terms as biological women
Reality is not an attack. My point is these scientists are conflating two things that have little to do with each other — the few DSD persons in the world are not the problem. For 99% of us there is no ambiguity in our sex and it can be determined by a simple cheek swab test.
Charles, Anna said it perfectly. Fairness beats equality every day: trans women’s “basic human rights” do not (or should not) be at the expense of fairness to other women. It has nothing to do with lack of respect, if any.
Two things can be right. IMHO it is unfair for people raised as male through puberty to compete on equal terms with people who have grown up biologically female in nearly all athletic endeavors. At the same time, it shouldn't be hard to distinguish that specific opinion from broader, unspecified claims that women are being harmed by "trans rights." What is the harm, and what can be done to rectify it? We needn't throw the baby out with the bathwater by recklessly over-generalizing the issue.
The harm is that males commit 98% of sex crimes, regardless of their 'gender identity.' Allowing males to freely enter women's private spaces like locker rooms, spas, bathrooms, and prisons exposes women to greatly enhanced risks of sexual assault and abuse.
The gall of even asking this question when there have now been MULTIPLE examples of registered sex offenders parading in women's spas on the basis of their self-declared 'gender identity' - around children even - is remarkable.
The locker room stuff is a political flash point. I agree with you that it's problematic and should be dealt with. But that's both rare and solvable, and doesn't and shouldn't necessarily affect issues beyond that.
Even one woman or girl being denied a scholarship, even one woman or girl being denied the dignity of privacy, even one woman being raped or assaulted by a male in prison is one too many.
But of course, it's been thousands of women and girls who've experienced these things, and there is no better proof of the misogyny of the 'trans rights' movement than the fact that you have the audacity to pretend women's rights, privacy, and safety don't matter as much as a male's desire to be validated at every turn.
Ah yes...victimize a whole group to protect a very small number of victims, whom could be protected other ways. Why don't you explore those options? The head of the NCAA said it wasn't even an issue, then Trump shouted at and bullied him until he "changed his mind".
There has been a strong insistence that women give up their rights to accommodate the wishes of others - once again, the perpetual request that we put our needs last. The expectation that women would simply do that - even though those rights were won after great bravery and suffering, and are necessary for women’s full participation in society - is beyond galling and has taken great courage to resist. Left wing men have been hugely disappointing on this front, as has the ease with which young women have been manipulated by the demand to be kind no matter what is taken from them.
Nobody is trying to "deny the basic human rights and respect we grant to those with other subjective beliefs." No one. That's a straw man argument.
So-called "trans" people are some of the most privileged on the planet. That's why they can get away with their narcissistic delusion that they were born in the "wrong body" and that's why they insist that everyone kowtow to their delusion.
Jesus. Sorry that sounds like a religious comment, but it's the only despairing reaction I had to this lunacy. I wonder if there is "extensive scientific evidence" that you can be somehow utterly devoid of reason and yet make your way up a hierarchy to become a president (!!) of a society of evolutionary biology (!!). It's not April Fool's Day, is it?
The scientist’s letter is muddled and tinged with political correctness. They conflate gender and sex, and back up their argument with only 2 references! Gender is a spectrum, hormone levels and secondary characteristics are a spectrum. But sex is so close to a pure binary, the only reason for eliding that is … politics.
"Beyond the incorrect claim that science backs up a simple binary definition of sex, the lived experience of people clearly demonstrates that the genetic composition at conception does not define one's identity. Rather, sex and gender result from the interplay of genetics and environment. Such diversity is a hallmark of biological species, including humans."
WTF does "lived experience" have to do with the criteria to qualify for membership in a category?
But the sexes are, by definition, a binary. By standard biological definitions, to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types. See the Glossary in this article in the Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction:
And those with neither type of functioning gonad are, ipso facto, sexless -- a fairly large category that includes the prepubescent, vasectomees, menopausees, transwomen who cut their nuts off, and most of the intersex. Relative to the last group, the intersex, you might take a gander at this comment by Jerry Coyne, one of the signatories to Dawkins' response to those three presidents:
JC: "Those 1/6000 individuals are intersexes, neither male nor female."
The term being used here is "sex", which is different than gender, the latter is more complicated and at a minimum involves genetics, gene expression and psychology. But the point appears to be that humans only come in two genders, which is silly on its face.
The term "non-binary" is most accurate, few biological traits are binary. The majority of humans are either male or female, but we have intersex, hermaphrodism and transgendered humans.
Despite the linguistic and dogmatic Stalinism of some people, who insist that trans women are women or trans men are man, this is not true either. They are not men or women but something different. And so what.
Every attempt to stuff people into boxes demonstrates how dumb those boxes are. Humans have virtually infinite variety and that is what makes life interesting.
I grew up in the 70s and I recall
distinctly how nobody much cared whether a person was male/female/trans, or gay/straight/bi. There was freedom that seems to have disappeared. I don't get it.
Try explaining to your daughter that the person who muscled her off the ball with ease or the person with a dick in her female changing room is a woman, and see how you go. The painful expressions on the faces of those girls beaten by Lia Thomas is indelible; told to suck it up and stay silent by their mothers or be called transphobes.
What is so wrong with "different", it's beautiful. Trying to force people into boxes is absurd, variation should be celebrated. Linguistic dogma applied to biology is a fool's errand.
“I grew up in the 70s and I recall distinctly how nobody much cared whether a person was male/female/trans, or gay/straight/bi. There was freedom that seems to have disappeared.”
So what do you think all the marches were about then?
Btw, I was on those marches back then. When lesbians were threatened with child removal solely because they were lesbian.
When women were shamed if they were divorced.
When gay men were ridiculed on telly sitcoms.
Your romanticised ‘recollections’ of that era are either written from a place of unaware privilege or written for manipulative effect. Either way, it’s completely untrue.
The term being used here is "sex", which is different than gender, the latter is more complicated and at a minimum involves genetics, gene expression and psychology. But the point appears to be that humans only come in two genders, which is silly on its face.
The term "non-binary" is most accurate, few biological traits are binary. The majority of humans are either male or female, but we have intersex, hermaphrodism and transgendered humans.
Despite the linguistic and dogmatic Stalinism of some people, who insist that trans women are women or trans men are men, this is not true either. They are not men or women but something different. And so what.
Every attempt to stuff people into boxes demonstrates how dumb those boxes are. Humans have virtually infinite variety and that is what makes life interesting.
I grew up in the 70s and I recall
distinctly how nobody much cared whether a person was male/female/trans, or gay/straight/bi. There was freedom that seems to have disappeared. I don't get it.
It would be one thing if I thought their goal was simply bringing attention to the variety of quite rare expressions of intersex. However, it certainly feels like a much more ideological project of inserting a version gender maximalist ideology into contexts (e.g., biological science) where binary sex is clearly the more relevant framing.
Idiots like the three societies' presidents are responsible for people like Dr Upton, a man who identifies as a woman, being able to give evidence under oath in which he claimed to be "a biological woman", denied that the sex binary exists, said he would treat a female patient requesting same-sex care, and dismissed the suggestion that human reproduction requires one large and one small gamete. I repeat - a medical doctor, under oath - FFS!
Instead, the General Medical Council allowed him to change his doctor's registration to "Gender: female" (they don't refer to sex on their registration system at all). They require no paperwork to do so, just the doctor's say-so. In all, 62 doctors have changed their registration records in this way. And any previous suspensions or disciplinary actions magically disappear from the new record! https://archive.is/5jSjb
To put forth, in official capacity, something that is blatantly false just to be politically correct is nothing but pandering to popular opinion which has no basis in fact. It is shameful coming from scientists who should know better.
And indeed they DO know better, as Richard's (and Jerry Coyne's) examples from the three presidents' scholarly work shows. It is cringeworthy virtue signalling that will embarrass them in the not-too-distant future.
Clearly when the Homo sapiens first emerged as a species there was a binary gender code. Made sense. That's what the species needed at the time. However, evolution implies a narrative moving forward, and today's Homo sapiens is not necessarily sexually binary. We don't need to procreate, we need to flourish. There are nuances involved over time with evolution, changes, and we are seeing that in non binary genders, but we are rejecting it because we are so in love with the duality of boy and girl.
I wonder how you imagine our species is going to "flourish" if we don't procreate. Going extinct doesn't strike me as flourishing. The way we procreate is that a sperm penetrates an egg which is implanted in the uterus etc. Male. Female. Binary. Has nothing to do with a person's name or haircut or career choice or hobbies, be they "masculine" or "feminine" .
Of course, I should've mentioned that. Thank you! The species needs members that will procreate, but not all of us, as we can barely sustain the populations that we have now, and it's not viable for that to be the evolutionary imperative of the entire species if we want to survive into the future. 1000 years ago we were very short people. Today we are taller, have Different bodies, which is all part of the evolution. So if our species is moving towards including a gender that was not part of the original model, that would just make evolutionary sense. To resist it is to stick to an old paradigm which may not be relevant for a large, and I mean a huge percentage of the human species. Sticking to a paradigm so strictly is not science. It's value. Think of Einstein refusing to believe his own science that the universe is expanding. Of course he didn't wanna believe it. We are encoded to think things have always been this way, but he learned from his biggest blunder and it seems Dawkins, Jordan Peterson, and others might learn this as well.
Non-binary is quasi-religious, regressive, stereotyping, made up nonsense - still male or female regardless of hair/makeup, clothes and daft pronouns. Our whole reproductive and gamete systems haven’t evolved. Show one bit of scientific evidence for non-binary and don’t drag out the old DSD chestnuts. What does it mean? Non-binaries are not male or female?
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
"To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer." This is exactly right.
For example, try a counter-argument to what Caitlin Jenner has to say about it below.
Do you tell Caitlin (s)he is deluded? Do you tell her that her feelings violate some scientific definition? How can you plausibly reject someone's feelings?
So for those people who say that the terms ‘male’ and ‘female’ are fluid, or not fixed, or can be negotiated, or defined and redefined by humans, can we also say that a person’s skin colour can be fluid, or understood differently, or reinterpreted so that a person who is called ‘white’ can now be understood as ‘black’? And can we say, for humans are in some way defined by their ability to understand the expression of their being in many different ways and forms, that a person born to Finnish parents can now be validly identified by themselves and others, as African-American?
I believe you write in jest, but this has been of crucial importance in US history, though typically in the direction of "black" to "white". If you're really interested, look up the immense amount of writing on the subject of "passing" (i.e. a person nominally "black" who attempts to be understood as "white"). It really mattered back in the days of segregation.
Yes, you have sussed me out. It was ‘intentionally mischievous’ but at the same time, how we answer that question (that I raised) may give us an idea of how we answer the other question of biology. If everything is negotiable, then, well, everything is negotiable. That’s OK as far as it goes, but then if we say only some things are negotiable then where do we draw the line and why. (And who has the authority to draw it). Thanks for the article links. I will follow them up and then, if this thread is still open perhaps, we can talk again. Cheers.
Sir, with all due respect (and indeed much is due), you are contributing to a common problem among scientists, which broadly goes by the name "scientism," a conflation of science and philosophy. Keeping it at the level of common language and understanding, the problem often arises with statements that involve the verb "to be."
When we assert that something "is," or that something "exists," we are on solid ground when we are referring to phenomena like the weather, or wild animals. When it comes to things like the existence of God, as you well know, it is considerably more problematic. I would argue that "male vs. female" falls into that category.
Just like the ontological argument for the existence of God is flawed because as Kant said, "existence is not a predicate," so too with the notion of sex. We all have a common understanding of what people mean when they say "God," it doesn't mean God exists. We also have a common understanding of what people mean when they say "male vs. female." So too when common phrases invoking Newtonian physics, while also recognizing that quantum physics lies outside Newton's realm.
There do exist atheists in this world, as of course you know. So too are there people who call themselves "male or female" to describe how they feel about their personal identities, quite apart from their biological natures. These people are simply not saying the same thing. They are arguing over words and meanings, not some existential reality which is confirmable or disconfirmable by science.
A similar argument can be found among those arguing that abortion is murder (or more prosaically whether Miller Lite tastes great or is less filling). The answer lies not in an attempt to conclusively determine whether or not abortion really "is" murder in some scientific sense, but simply to note that the social/anthropological use of the word "murder" differs among people. So too with "sex."
This is a debate which is unanswerable by reference solely to science. The answer does not lie in studying butterfly wings, it lies in recognizing that human beings use words to mean many things (see Alice in Wonderland).
Those scientists who argue with you in scientific terms are no less guilty of scientism than you are. All of you need to recognize the difference between science and the shades of meaning used by human beings in the world we all inhabit.
Male and female are definable terms. Biologists must define those terms to do science. The fact that many folks want to argue about the scientific definition is neither here nor there. Someone can claim that up means down if they want; it has no bearing on the laws of gravity. Masculinity and femininity, on the other hand, are variable from culture to culture and historic age to age. Feel free to discuss those definitions, which are outside of a biological definition of sex.
You say "male and female" are definable terms. I would remind you that the arbiter of definitions is not science, but a dictionary. And a dictionary is an anthropological document, tracking how people actually use the word. Science can, for its own purposes, define them as it likes, but that has no bearing on how people actually use the terms. You are conflating science with sociological behaviors; they are not the same.
If you identify a third gamete, there might be a reason for those dictionaries to change. Until then, male and female are the only sexes recognized in any dictionary because those concepts graft onto material reality. The interplay between material reality and human needs for communication is the ultimate arbiter of definitions.
This is a specious argument. "...how they feel about their personal identities, quite apart from their biological natures" - exactly. The former can go any way one wants, according to cultural indoctrination, predilection or mere whim, on any day of the week; the latter is determined and stridently fixed at conception by eminently understandable mechanisms of natural selection. It's not a value judgement; it's something one can observe repeatedly and reliably. But really you seem to be arguing ambiguously, perhaps safely for both at once, and waving the essentially pejorative banner of 'scientism'.
I'm agreeing with you that science needs to define some terms very precisely, in order to do science. Yet as you note, cultural definitions are not bound by the precise rules of science. People are free to feel and think and talk in whatever terms they want to use; science has absolutely no right to insist that their terms are wrong, or indeed that any term "is" "right" for all purposes. Much of this silly debate would go away if people were simply more critical about what they assert "is" or "is not."
Where do the mountains end and the plains begin? A mapmaker may be required to answer that question in some precise way, but that shouldn't and doesn't constrain the rest of us in thinking more broadly about it. When scientists make precise definitions to do science, that is well and good. When they stray into making ontological claims, they are properly talking about the realm of metaphysics. Not the same thing.
Trans delusion, once accepted, begins to harm all related abilities to operate in reality. You begin to echo the delusion because you can’t discern reality, and are gradually aren’t able to make functionally true statements.
I don’t believe these professional statements are to made for any other reason than to spread the delusion which these people have absorbed.
The more serious problem is that functioning within science, as opposed to pseudoscience these people should be released from work immediately, and directed to mental help, not to punish them, but to ensure people working in biology are those who operate in the world of facts and reason, not fiction.
Someone who spouted Lysenkoism or theory of humors to Trump, or various amusing Aristotelian ideas about life, they would be relieved of professional responsibilities quickly.
> "… [Trump's] statement that 'sex is determined at conception and is based on the size of the gamete that the resulting individual will produce' is accurate in every particular…"
In addition to the disclaimed low opinion of him, let's be clear about whether he actually deserves any credit for that statement. Of course he didn't write it himself, and presumably doesn't understand those particulars.
I despair.
It was bad enough when a friend, who has a degree in mathematics and seems perfectly sane in all other aspects of his life, told me last week that one of his male family members had become “a woman”. He, the family member, apparently underwent this sexual metamorphosis after fathering three children.
But three evolutionary biologists?
I fear “hypocrites” is far too generous a term.
I hear for anyone close to you who doesn’t conform to your closed-minded ignorance.
Believing in bedrock principles of evolutionary science is now considered "close-minded ignorance" on the left?
This comment is such a clear example of the antiscience moralizing that has captured Democratic politics. There's no cogent point being made, no factual critique, just scolding for vague and undefined thought crimes.
Are you sure it’s “a bedrock of evolutionary science”? Can you claim sufficient expertise to refute scientists who say otherwise?
Yes, anisogamy is a bedrock of evolutionary science.
Dawkins has already used these three dopes' *own research* to undermine their letter. So yeah, that's surprisingly easy.
He's wrong. I see you aren't answering my other question.
<<“While these cases are a minority, sex is legitimately difficult to assign for close to 2 percent of the U.S. population,” she said. “We can find real exceptions in real people to whatever rule we might apply to define sex, whether it be sex chromosomes, the size of reproductive cells, hormone levels, internal organs or genitals.”
“The executive order demands that we fit a spectrum into a nonexistent binary box,” Neiman added.
>>
2%, dude. That's a lot of people you're taking rights away from and claiming to know more about than they do.
It's a totally false figure that includes things like CAH which do not result in ambiguity in sex at all. The rate of DSDs that might result in ambiguity is about .018%.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
Like I said. They're liars.
The number can't be right. I agree there should be a third category for people with anomalies, even though most, e.g. all sex chromosome anomalies, can be assigned to one of two sexes. But that some people divert from normal development doesn't mean there is a spectrum of sexes. Humans are tetrapods (4-limbed animals), even if some people are born with fewer ore more limbs.
Sex is not gender/social role/presentation/secondary sexual characteristics. An animal is either male, female, both (in hermaphrodites like snails), one after the other, or possibly none, but there is no third sex. The categories male and female are fundamental to sexual reproduction.
2% dude. That's a wrong number.
I don’t understand the purpose of this argument. Yes there are a few DSD males in female sports—mostly hailing from third world countries—but the larger issue is first world males claiming a woman “identity” taking women’s places in female sports and elsewhere. They are not claiming to have a DSD — they are saying that their subjective belief trumps their biology for all purposes. That is what most women object to as it destroys all boundaries we have built to protect women.
"they are saying that their subjective belief trumps their biology for all purposes."
Really?
None of the (few) trans people I know insist that their subjective belief trumps biology for all purposes. What they do insist is that their subjective belief shouldn't be used to deny the basic human rights and respect we grant to those with other subjective beliefs.
The ones most of us are concerned about are those who insist they are to be given access to women’s sports and spaces on the same terms as biological women
I agree with that particular concern; but let’s not overreact by extending one valid concern to an across-the-board attack.
Reality is not an attack. My point is these scientists are conflating two things that have little to do with each other — the few DSD persons in the world are not the problem. For 99% of us there is no ambiguity in our sex and it can be determined by a simple cheek swab test.
Charles, Anna said it perfectly. Fairness beats equality every day: trans women’s “basic human rights” do not (or should not) be at the expense of fairness to other women. It has nothing to do with lack of respect, if any.
Two things can be right. IMHO it is unfair for people raised as male through puberty to compete on equal terms with people who have grown up biologically female in nearly all athletic endeavors. At the same time, it shouldn't be hard to distinguish that specific opinion from broader, unspecified claims that women are being harmed by "trans rights." What is the harm, and what can be done to rectify it? We needn't throw the baby out with the bathwater by recklessly over-generalizing the issue.
The harm is that males commit 98% of sex crimes, regardless of their 'gender identity.' Allowing males to freely enter women's private spaces like locker rooms, spas, bathrooms, and prisons exposes women to greatly enhanced risks of sexual assault and abuse.
The gall of even asking this question when there have now been MULTIPLE examples of registered sex offenders parading in women's spas on the basis of their self-declared 'gender identity' - around children even - is remarkable.
The locker room stuff is a political flash point. I agree with you that it's problematic and should be dealt with. But that's both rare and solvable, and doesn't and shouldn't necessarily affect issues beyond that.
How often does this happen! So much so that it feeds your rage?
Even one woman or girl being denied a scholarship, even one woman or girl being denied the dignity of privacy, even one woman being raped or assaulted by a male in prison is one too many.
But of course, it's been thousands of women and girls who've experienced these things, and there is no better proof of the misogyny of the 'trans rights' movement than the fact that you have the audacity to pretend women's rights, privacy, and safety don't matter as much as a male's desire to be validated at every turn.
Ah yes...victimize a whole group to protect a very small number of victims, whom could be protected other ways. Why don't you explore those options? The head of the NCAA said it wasn't even an issue, then Trump shouted at and bullied him until he "changed his mind".
It is not "victimizing" a male to treat him as a male.
Rage? I’m perfectly calm. How often? Every time females are forced to accept intrusion by biological males.
Anyway, I notice you can't answer. Your rage is directed at an unseen enemy, who has no effect on you whatsoever.
Oh, be quiet, John, you retard.
Caring about problems isn’t rage. Your ideology makes no sense and that’s a problem whether you care or not.
The subject is trans people. Deflection to feed your rage narrative is a bad look.
Your own rage narrative doesn't look much better.
More projection, John. You're the one exhibiting "rage," not the rational, scientifically informed commenters here.
There has been a strong insistence that women give up their rights to accommodate the wishes of others - once again, the perpetual request that we put our needs last. The expectation that women would simply do that - even though those rights were won after great bravery and suffering, and are necessary for women’s full participation in society - is beyond galling and has taken great courage to resist. Left wing men have been hugely disappointing on this front, as has the ease with which young women have been manipulated by the demand to be kind no matter what is taken from them.
Right wing men nominate pedophiles for AG and have them as pastors.
Left wing trans men demand, yes, demand, that lesbians engage in sexual intercourse with their "female penis".
Huh?
Then you don't know enough trans people. The majority of them insist that their idiotic beliefs trump biology for all purposes.
Nobody is trying to "deny the basic human rights and respect we grant to those with other subjective beliefs." No one. That's a straw man argument.
So-called "trans" people are some of the most privileged on the planet. That's why they can get away with their narcissistic delusion that they were born in the "wrong body" and that's why they insist that everyone kowtow to their delusion.
More boundaries were destroyed electing a rapist as president.
Whataboutery alert. Look! Over there!…
This "John" person is clearly a troll trying to make wokesters look like morons, and succeeding brilliantly.
True dat.
Jesus. Sorry that sounds like a religious comment, but it's the only despairing reaction I had to this lunacy. I wonder if there is "extensive scientific evidence" that you can be somehow utterly devoid of reason and yet make your way up a hierarchy to become a president (!!) of a society of evolutionary biology (!!). It's not April Fool's Day, is it?
They aren't stupid. They're liars.
The scientist’s letter is muddled and tinged with political correctness. They conflate gender and sex, and back up their argument with only 2 references! Gender is a spectrum, hormone levels and secondary characteristics are a spectrum. But sex is so close to a pure binary, the only reason for eliding that is … politics.
Gender is a made up idea used to oppress women via the limited and confining expectations put on women and girls.
Exactly right.
"Beyond the incorrect claim that science backs up a simple binary definition of sex, the lived experience of people clearly demonstrates that the genetic composition at conception does not define one's identity. Rather, sex and gender result from the interplay of genetics and environment. Such diversity is a hallmark of biological species, including humans."
WTF does "lived experience" have to do with the criteria to qualify for membership in a category?
But the sexes are, by definition, a binary. By standard biological definitions, to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types. See the Glossary in this article in the Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction:
https://web.archive.org/web/20221214064356/https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990?login=false
And those with neither type of functioning gonad are, ipso facto, sexless -- a fairly large category that includes the prepubescent, vasectomees, menopausees, transwomen who cut their nuts off, and most of the intersex. Relative to the last group, the intersex, you might take a gander at this comment by Jerry Coyne, one of the signatories to Dawkins' response to those three presidents:
JC: "Those 1/6000 individuals are intersexes, neither male nor female."
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/06/04/sf-chronicle-sex-and-gender-are-not-binaries/#comment-2048737
The term being used here is "sex", which is different than gender, the latter is more complicated and at a minimum involves genetics, gene expression and psychology. But the point appears to be that humans only come in two genders, which is silly on its face.
The term "non-binary" is most accurate, few biological traits are binary. The majority of humans are either male or female, but we have intersex, hermaphrodism and transgendered humans.
Despite the linguistic and dogmatic Stalinism of some people, who insist that trans women are women or trans men are man, this is not true either. They are not men or women but something different. And so what.
Every attempt to stuff people into boxes demonstrates how dumb those boxes are. Humans have virtually infinite variety and that is what makes life interesting.
I grew up in the 70s and I recall
distinctly how nobody much cared whether a person was male/female/trans, or gay/straight/bi. There was freedom that seems to have disappeared. I don't get it.
Try explaining to your daughter that the person who muscled her off the ball with ease or the person with a dick in her female changing room is a woman, and see how you go. The painful expressions on the faces of those girls beaten by Lia Thomas is indelible; told to suck it up and stay silent by their mothers or be called transphobes.
“They are not men or women but something different”
This is plainly absurd.
It’s also extremely insulting to the people you are referring to.
What is so wrong with "different", it's beautiful. Trying to force people into boxes is absurd, variation should be celebrated. Linguistic dogma applied to biology is a fool's errand.
“I grew up in the 70s and I recall distinctly how nobody much cared whether a person was male/female/trans, or gay/straight/bi. There was freedom that seems to have disappeared.”
So what do you think all the marches were about then?
Btw, I was on those marches back then. When lesbians were threatened with child removal solely because they were lesbian.
When women were shamed if they were divorced.
When gay men were ridiculed on telly sitcoms.
Your romanticised ‘recollections’ of that era are either written from a place of unaware privilege or written for manipulative effect. Either way, it’s completely untrue.
You are not wrong, that is all true. Im talking about my experience, which is not manipulative.
The term being used here is "sex", which is different than gender, the latter is more complicated and at a minimum involves genetics, gene expression and psychology. But the point appears to be that humans only come in two genders, which is silly on its face.
The term "non-binary" is most accurate, few biological traits are binary. The majority of humans are either male or female, but we have intersex, hermaphrodism and transgendered humans.
Despite the linguistic and dogmatic Stalinism of some people, who insist that trans women are women or trans men are men, this is not true either. They are not men or women but something different. And so what.
Every attempt to stuff people into boxes demonstrates how dumb those boxes are. Humans have virtually infinite variety and that is what makes life interesting.
I grew up in the 70s and I recall
distinctly how nobody much cared whether a person was male/female/trans, or gay/straight/bi. There was freedom that seems to have disappeared. I don't get it.
It would be one thing if I thought their goal was simply bringing attention to the variety of quite rare expressions of intersex. However, it certainly feels like a much more ideological project of inserting a version gender maximalist ideology into contexts (e.g., biological science) where binary sex is clearly the more relevant framing.
Idiots like the three societies' presidents are responsible for people like Dr Upton, a man who identifies as a woman, being able to give evidence under oath in which he claimed to be "a biological woman", denied that the sex binary exists, said he would treat a female patient requesting same-sex care, and dismissed the suggestion that human reproduction requires one large and one small gamete. I repeat - a medical doctor, under oath - FFS!
He should be struck off.
Instead, the General Medical Council allowed him to change his doctor's registration to "Gender: female" (they don't refer to sex on their registration system at all). They require no paperwork to do so, just the doctor's say-so. In all, 62 doctors have changed their registration records in this way. And any previous suspensions or disciplinary actions magically disappear from the new record! https://archive.is/5jSjb
Exactly. And the Unions are supporting him and failing their women members.
To put forth, in official capacity, something that is blatantly false just to be politically correct is nothing but pandering to popular opinion which has no basis in fact. It is shameful coming from scientists who should know better.
And indeed they DO know better, as Richard's (and Jerry Coyne's) examples from the three presidents' scholarly work shows. It is cringeworthy virtue signalling that will embarrass them in the not-too-distant future.
What a bunch of fucking idiots! 🤣🤣
Such refined argumentation!
Clearly when the Homo sapiens first emerged as a species there was a binary gender code. Made sense. That's what the species needed at the time. However, evolution implies a narrative moving forward, and today's Homo sapiens is not necessarily sexually binary. We don't need to procreate, we need to flourish. There are nuances involved over time with evolution, changes, and we are seeing that in non binary genders, but we are rejecting it because we are so in love with the duality of boy and girl.
I wonder how you imagine our species is going to "flourish" if we don't procreate. Going extinct doesn't strike me as flourishing. The way we procreate is that a sperm penetrates an egg which is implanted in the uterus etc. Male. Female. Binary. Has nothing to do with a person's name or haircut or career choice or hobbies, be they "masculine" or "feminine" .
Of course, I should've mentioned that. Thank you! The species needs members that will procreate, but not all of us, as we can barely sustain the populations that we have now, and it's not viable for that to be the evolutionary imperative of the entire species if we want to survive into the future. 1000 years ago we were very short people. Today we are taller, have Different bodies, which is all part of the evolution. So if our species is moving towards including a gender that was not part of the original model, that would just make evolutionary sense. To resist it is to stick to an old paradigm which may not be relevant for a large, and I mean a huge percentage of the human species. Sticking to a paradigm so strictly is not science. It's value. Think of Einstein refusing to believe his own science that the universe is expanding. Of course he didn't wanna believe it. We are encoded to think things have always been this way, but he learned from his biggest blunder and it seems Dawkins, Jordan Peterson, and others might learn this as well.
Non-binary is quasi-religious, regressive, stereotyping, made up nonsense - still male or female regardless of hair/makeup, clothes and daft pronouns. Our whole reproductive and gamete systems haven’t evolved. Show one bit of scientific evidence for non-binary and don’t drag out the old DSD chestnuts. What does it mean? Non-binaries are not male or female?
You probably shouldn t explain all this to an evolutionary biologist.
My comment was not to a biologist. It was to Daniel Chacon.
Sheer dammed maddening idiocy! 🤦🏽♂️🤷🏽♂️
Yeah, nah.
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
Three Cheers for Dave!
I think that's the most succinct summary of the trans nonsense I've ever seen.
"To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer." This is exactly right.
For example, try a counter-argument to what Caitlin Jenner has to say about it below.
Do you tell Caitlin (s)he is deluded? Do you tell her that her feelings violate some scientific definition? How can you plausibly reject someone's feelings?
https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/12759854/bruce-jenner-says-interview-woman?t
Thanks Richard. You are a beacon of light in the new Dark Ages.
So for those people who say that the terms ‘male’ and ‘female’ are fluid, or not fixed, or can be negotiated, or defined and redefined by humans, can we also say that a person’s skin colour can be fluid, or understood differently, or reinterpreted so that a person who is called ‘white’ can now be understood as ‘black’? And can we say, for humans are in some way defined by their ability to understand the expression of their being in many different ways and forms, that a person born to Finnish parents can now be validly identified by themselves and others, as African-American?
I believe you write in jest, but this has been of crucial importance in US history, though typically in the direction of "black" to "white". If you're really interested, look up the immense amount of writing on the subject of "passing" (i.e. a person nominally "black" who attempts to be understood as "white"). It really mattered back in the days of segregation.
Yes, you have sussed me out. It was ‘intentionally mischievous’ but at the same time, how we answer that question (that I raised) may give us an idea of how we answer the other question of biology. If everything is negotiable, then, well, everything is negotiable. That’s OK as far as it goes, but then if we say only some things are negotiable then where do we draw the line and why. (And who has the authority to draw it). Thanks for the article links. I will follow them up and then, if this thread is still open perhaps, we can talk again. Cheers.
The "color line" (which is the phrase used) is actually a pretty highly negotiated one sometimes. Here's a more recent story about it all
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/214/transcript
Wonders of the Internet. Here's a long discussion of the topic:
https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.5697/2015.5697.A-Man-Called-White_djvu.txt
Sir, with all due respect (and indeed much is due), you are contributing to a common problem among scientists, which broadly goes by the name "scientism," a conflation of science and philosophy. Keeping it at the level of common language and understanding, the problem often arises with statements that involve the verb "to be."
When we assert that something "is," or that something "exists," we are on solid ground when we are referring to phenomena like the weather, or wild animals. When it comes to things like the existence of God, as you well know, it is considerably more problematic. I would argue that "male vs. female" falls into that category.
Just like the ontological argument for the existence of God is flawed because as Kant said, "existence is not a predicate," so too with the notion of sex. We all have a common understanding of what people mean when they say "God," it doesn't mean God exists. We also have a common understanding of what people mean when they say "male vs. female." So too when common phrases invoking Newtonian physics, while also recognizing that quantum physics lies outside Newton's realm.
There do exist atheists in this world, as of course you know. So too are there people who call themselves "male or female" to describe how they feel about their personal identities, quite apart from their biological natures. These people are simply not saying the same thing. They are arguing over words and meanings, not some existential reality which is confirmable or disconfirmable by science.
A similar argument can be found among those arguing that abortion is murder (or more prosaically whether Miller Lite tastes great or is less filling). The answer lies not in an attempt to conclusively determine whether or not abortion really "is" murder in some scientific sense, but simply to note that the social/anthropological use of the word "murder" differs among people. So too with "sex."
This is a debate which is unanswerable by reference solely to science. The answer does not lie in studying butterfly wings, it lies in recognizing that human beings use words to mean many things (see Alice in Wonderland).
Those scientists who argue with you in scientific terms are no less guilty of scientism than you are. All of you need to recognize the difference between science and the shades of meaning used by human beings in the world we all inhabit.
Male and female are definable terms. Biologists must define those terms to do science. The fact that many folks want to argue about the scientific definition is neither here nor there. Someone can claim that up means down if they want; it has no bearing on the laws of gravity. Masculinity and femininity, on the other hand, are variable from culture to culture and historic age to age. Feel free to discuss those definitions, which are outside of a biological definition of sex.
You say "male and female" are definable terms. I would remind you that the arbiter of definitions is not science, but a dictionary. And a dictionary is an anthropological document, tracking how people actually use the word. Science can, for its own purposes, define them as it likes, but that has no bearing on how people actually use the terms. You are conflating science with sociological behaviors; they are not the same.
If you identify a third gamete, there might be a reason for those dictionaries to change. Until then, male and female are the only sexes recognized in any dictionary because those concepts graft onto material reality. The interplay between material reality and human needs for communication is the ultimate arbiter of definitions.
PS: The dictionary agrees with Dawkins
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/biological-sex-male-female-intersex?t
" leaves out people who carry certain genetic variants and don’t make any reproductive cells, or gametes"
This is a lie. Whether a person actual makes sperm or ova is irrelevant to the definition put forth by the Trump administration.
These activists just can't help but lie through their teeth.
Oh man, they even throw out the "1.7%" lie. They lie incessantly.
This is a specious argument. "...how they feel about their personal identities, quite apart from their biological natures" - exactly. The former can go any way one wants, according to cultural indoctrination, predilection or mere whim, on any day of the week; the latter is determined and stridently fixed at conception by eminently understandable mechanisms of natural selection. It's not a value judgement; it's something one can observe repeatedly and reliably. But really you seem to be arguing ambiguously, perhaps safely for both at once, and waving the essentially pejorative banner of 'scientism'.
I'm agreeing with you that science needs to define some terms very precisely, in order to do science. Yet as you note, cultural definitions are not bound by the precise rules of science. People are free to feel and think and talk in whatever terms they want to use; science has absolutely no right to insist that their terms are wrong, or indeed that any term "is" "right" for all purposes. Much of this silly debate would go away if people were simply more critical about what they assert "is" or "is not."
Where do the mountains end and the plains begin? A mapmaker may be required to answer that question in some precise way, but that shouldn't and doesn't constrain the rest of us in thinking more broadly about it. When scientists make precise definitions to do science, that is well and good. When they stray into making ontological claims, they are properly talking about the realm of metaphysics. Not the same thing.
This is an object example of “folie à deux”.
Trans delusion, once accepted, begins to harm all related abilities to operate in reality. You begin to echo the delusion because you can’t discern reality, and are gradually aren’t able to make functionally true statements.
I don’t believe these professional statements are to made for any other reason than to spread the delusion which these people have absorbed.
The more serious problem is that functioning within science, as opposed to pseudoscience these people should be released from work immediately, and directed to mental help, not to punish them, but to ensure people working in biology are those who operate in the world of facts and reason, not fiction.
Someone who spouted Lysenkoism or theory of humors to Trump, or various amusing Aristotelian ideas about life, they would be relieved of professional responsibilities quickly.
This is no different.
Apparently I can’t spell either. I’m growing exhausted with correcting word correction.
> "… [Trump's] statement that 'sex is determined at conception and is based on the size of the gamete that the resulting individual will produce' is accurate in every particular…"
In addition to the disclaimed low opinion of him, let's be clear about whether he actually deserves any credit for that statement. Of course he didn't write it himself, and presumably doesn't understand those particulars.