The reality of sex

submitted by BiologyIsReal from link.springer.com

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[–]our_team_is_winning 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Doesn't seem like it needs saying, but sadly it does. Well-worded: <We regard the claim that sex is neither fixed nor binary to be entirely without scientific merit—there are two sexes, male and female, and in humans, sex is immutable (disorders of sexual development are very rare and, in any event, do not result in any additional sexes).>

[–]BiologyIsReal[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, it's unbeliable this letter even needs to be written...

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

Well-worded: <We regard the claim that sex is neither fixed nor binary to be entirely without scientific merit—there are two sexes, male and female, and in humans, sex is immutable (disorders of sexual development are very rare and, in any event, do not result in any additional sexes).>

Agreed. In fact, if i were an author in a relevant field, i'd consider prefixing my articles with those words as a counter-disclaimer.

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

It's interesting that this was published in The Irish Journal of Medical Science, the official organ of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland. I wonder how many other scientific publications it was submitted to.

The one scientific paper this letter makes reference to said that the genetic disease cystic fibrosis manifests, has a different trajectory and a different age of mortality depending on CF patients' sex.

My hunch is that this particular journal chose to publish this letter because persons of ethnic Irish heritage have the highest rates of cystic fibrosis in the world. And coz the fact that CF affects males and females differently has been observed and an "open secret" amongst CF physicians and families since the disease was first identified in the 1950s and more widely investigated in the 60s and 70s.

[–]fr_bandersnatch 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's... fine? Puzzling? It seems like there was an opportunity to provide numerous citations to examples of clear sex differences and their implications, but none have been provided. Is that intentional? This feels like the opening move of a chess game, scooting a pawn two spaces forward. Is this the start of the long game? Make the assertion and let them provide the first counter-evidence?

[–]BiologyIsReal[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think its brief nature is appropriate as this letter was published in a journal of medicine. The average reader knows very well that sex is not a spectrum and that is sex, not gender identity, what matters in clinical practice, regardless that some of them may pretend to think otherwise.

Not sure about the other two, but Emma Hilton and Colin Wright have been speaking out against the denial of sex for a while.