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[–]peregrine_throw 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Read this.

TL;DR for the lazy: "Ultimately it's all about the gametes. If you produce sperm you are male. If you produce ova you are female. No human was ever born without the haploid contribution of both male & female gametes."

Ignore the intersex card. DSD occurs at a negligible percentage because it is an outlier development, it is not a natural variety or "spectrum". And intersex people are either male and female. To say they aren't is an insult to their condition. Trans ideology even confirms two sexes when they are bisexual, non-binary, "MTF" "FTM"-- reference to two sexes.

As for WHY they say it, institutional capture (especially in academia) is prevalent. And people who depend on pushing this ideology as their job will not speak the truth, from LGBT orgs down to a paid medical consultant.

[–]Anna_Nym 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

If you look at what a spectrum is, "sex is a spectrum" makes no sense because even by the anti-binary argument, it's still not a spectrum. Spectra are things like light where there are two discrete points and a continuum between. That doesn't apply to sex by anyone's definition.

But setting aside the semantics, yes, there are both biologists and intersex activists who are pushing back against the claims.

Colin Wright's Quillette article is probably the most accessible overview for debunking:

https://quillette.com/2020/06/07/jk-rowling-is-right-sex-is-real-and-it-is-not-a-spectrum/

This is another overview that explains it really well. I found it slightly more difficult get through because it does really get into the weeds of what sex is. But because it really gets into the weeds of what sex is, it helps make clear how disingenuous a lot of the "biological sex is not binary" arguments are.

https://sci-hub.tw/downloads-ii/2020-05-10/0d/10.1007@s12129-020-09877-8.pdf

I don't have a good overview Intersex article handy, unfortunately, because people with DSDs really get the short end of the stick in all of this. Their medical conditions have been weaponized without their say, and no one listens to them when they try to speak up about it. But I do have a short list of some intersex Twitter accounts that you can read through to get some idea of how actual people with DSDs understand their identities and their lives. To be fair, I will disclaim that I know there are intersex activists who very much support being under the LGBT+ umbrella and conceptualizing intersex as a third category of sex. But I don't follow any and so can't link. That viewpoint is well represented in trans activism, though, so this is really about seeing the alternatives.

And as a bonus, a super quick overview thread on third genders, such as muxe or hijra. It's not that informative, but third genders are also widely appropriated in trans activism, and this does call out the basics of that. I can speak to this in more depth if you're interested.

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

I don't have a good overview Intersex article handy

No worries, I got you:

https://medium.com/@radfemflareon/the-intersex-masterpost-bb5a6250e6d6

[–]Anna_Nym 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That title does not lie. That is the intersex masterpost that everyone needs to read! Thank you.

[–]slushpilot 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

First, it's important to note that none of those links are scientific papers. They are articles that interpret and draw conclusions from different studies. Essentially, it's like the editorial page in the newspaper making commentary about current events in the news—not the news itself. These always make the biggest headlines whenever it's something counter-intuitive or sensational.

If you look at the source data, you'll find that, yes—it's true that there are chromosomal variations in some tiny percentage of people or abnormal development of sex organs. The underlying science observes these phenomena, but it doesn't therefore say that the male/female binary is invalid.

These articles are therefore opinions about language—a human construct—not nature. Words are useful tools to get a handle on a concept, but we lose detail as complex issues need to be generalized to be easily reasoned about. For comparison, a few years ago it was of vital importance to determine whether Pluto can be called a planet anymore. In that debate they laid out a set of criteria to definitively argue "yes" or "no" with binary precision, even though the objects we call planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, or other bodies can vary along a continuous spectrum. The astronomical criteria included things like "is it spherical" and "does it clear its orbit of debris" that were able to definitively put it into one of the named categories.

If you compare this astronomy debate to the current effort at redefining sex, it is anti-scientific: it tries to dismiss any criteria for classification, even though the evidence for binary sex has been obvious since long before the scientific method. There is only one question that needs to be asked. And we know it's the right one because it's universal to all animals, even those that haven't yet invented postmodern critical theory.

The question is: does this individual contribute sperm, or an egg?

Based on this we can even say counter-intuitive things like that the male of the seahorse gestates. We can even account for different chromosomes of other animals, so you can forget about XXY and all that stuff being a factor.

It's much simpler than we make it out to be, but that's not to say there aren't some strange things in the margins. Biology is messy, and I think another part of the problem is resistance to words like "normal" or "anomaly". Considered with a scientific eye, when you have over 99% of something that fits categorization, it's perfectly correct to call that normal—especially when the other <1% is a wild mix of "other" that can't easily be classified.

One could therefore say that homosexuality is not normal since it's a small minority. In a purely clinical sense, maybe that's true: heterosexual bonding is the vast majority and the only way we reproduce. That would be fine, but we need to stay away from the trap that "normal" is good and "abnormal" are freaks to be shunned: that's a social value judgment, though, not science. (I would actually consider homosexuality a normal category—since we can enumerate all the bond pairings that leaves no "other".)

When a child is born with undeveloped genitals, or the wrong genitals for her gonads, that is an outlier or an anomaly. Again, no value judgment. I don't think less of anyone because of such a condition, just like I don't think less of someone born with a sixth finger, or try to claim we all have 5.002 fingers on each hand.

[–]materialrealityplz 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Sex is binary. Anomalies in chromosomes or whatever do not make it a spectrum.

[–]inneedofspace 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Intersex people suffer (medically, maybe not socially or personally but medically) from those conditions they may need hormones, may be infertile, may suffer from mental disorders, many need hrt or surgery during puberty, intersex is not a gender it's a chromosomal defect scientist have no evidence of a third sex because it doesn't exist. Not saying intersex people have to suffer some don't want kids (and some can have children) but the point is for anyone to not have that choice means they were born with a medical defect. Our biological goal sa with any species is to repopulate with that in mind we are a binary.

[–]Spikygrasspod 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Soooo the main point is there are some interesting exceptions to the usual female male clusters of sex traits (XX/ovaries/womb/vagina/body shaped foetally and in puberty by oestrogens or XY/testes/penis&testicles/body shaped foetally and in puberty by androgens)

The question is, how relevant is that for how we categorise people scientifically, legally and socially? Society needs to make spaces for the uniqueness of individuals. But people also need to be able to critique how society systematically disadvantages large groups of people in comparison to other large groups of people. Women need to be able to talk about the fact that we're a social group that's systematically disadvantaged on the basis of our femaleness. Rare exceptions to the female male binary don't erase the social systematic disadvantage of females. But erasing the category of woman does make it fucking hard to talk about and address this.

It's fine to say there are exceptions. There are. But when people say sex is a "spectrum", not a binary, they're doing more than 'science'. They're trying to disappear the category of 'woman' or make its boundaries porous so that 1. males can be included and 2. women can't talk about the very real social consequences of being female and being treated as female in a male dominated society.

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The Paradox Institute YT channel and dot com has excellent, easy-to-grasp, crystal clear videos and transcripts explaining these topics. Also follow on Twitter; I think his handle is zaelefty.

[–]FlippyKing 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I want to add another source for Colin Wright's refutation of these ideas, a twitter thread he made a while ago: https://mobile.twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1124406797916409856

The spectrum idea is silly on many levels. Sex is a means of reproduction found in a broad range of unrelated species, ranging from fish and plants, to insects, primates and all the way up to turkeys. Even with interesting variations, like the oft-cited clownfish and seahorse (and I guess mermaid, I'm sorry, I mean mer-individuals of unspecified gender) it still comes down to male and female, or small and large gamete production. With regard to intersexed conditions or DSDs, these are not an indication of any kind of spectrum. Many conditions loosely termed intersex still result in male and female individuals, so those individuals fall squarely in one of the two the bimodal sex categories: male or female. Other dsds, where differentiating between male and female is not clear and reproductive health issues exist, these are not on any spectrum. They simply are disorders that have been dealt with horribly historically by the medical profession. These are around 0.17 (or is it 0.017?) % of the population. Basically our xx xy bimodal distribution of individuals is clear cut for virtually everyone.

But, most importantly, gender has nothing to do with sex other than the presumptions made about about sexed individuals about things outside of the realm of sexual reproduction. Sex refers to reproductive capacity, gender refers to the BS not directly related to reproduction, BS that was entirely made up from each cultures varied assumptions and expectations about how sexed individuals should act. "Gender" is just a neutral sounding sexism.

Another great place for info debunking genderist's arguments is Paul Cockshott's blog: http://paulcockshott.co.uk/oldwp/Butlercritique.pdf

[–]DarthVelma 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

"Gender is just neutral sounding sexism" is EPIC.

[–]FlippyKing 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks! Please use and improve it.