you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Fastandthecurious[S] 2 insightful - 8 fun2 insightful - 7 fun3 insightful - 8 fun -  (3 children)

Humans are not bees. But the bee shows sex being a binary is not universal across animals. It means there is no actual difference between a male and a female because two eggs or two sperms can make a zygote too, and male and female are social constructs that only work for humans, not other animals.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

sex being a binary is not universal across animals

This is known -- e.g. the humble planaria worm of countless high school biology classes.

IMO it's not "new" knowledge, it's being sensationalized by activists who desperately want to redefine demonstrated biological norms in terms of rare exceptions. It's also (often) a conflation of human cognitive/emotional behavior (desire, preference, expression re gender) with the cellular mechanics of human reproduction (sex), which isn't science at all.

[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

sex being a binary is not universal across animals

Yes, it only occurs in organisms that reproduce sexually. No one ever said sex & the sex binary are universal across all living things - what is known about sex & sexual reproduction applies only to animal & plant species that have evolved to reproduce in this particular way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexual_reproduction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis

[–]VioletRemihomosexual female (aka - lesbian) 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Even with asexual reproduction and parthenogenesis, almost always it is only two sexes or only females who are present during it.

I believe only some bacteria and mushrooms have more than two types of gametes, the rest of living creatures are either all female, have two sexes or sexless.