DiscussionBimodal Sex

submitted by Athelhilda2 from self.LGBDropTheT

Recently, I got into an argument with someone about the nature of sex and sexuality, and they said that sex is not binary, but bimodal. Looked up what that means, and what I found is literally talking about intersex people. What are your views on this, particularly if you're intersex?

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[–]reluctant_commenter 15 insightful - 2 fun15 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

and they said that sex is not binary, but bimodal.

This is completely false, and unscientific. I would recommend that this person take a statistics course. And a biology course.

First off: what's "bimodal" and "binary"?

This is what a bimodal distribution looks like:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Bimodal.png

And this is what a binary distribution looks like:

https://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-modules/bs/bs704_summarizingdata/RelativeFrequencyBarChart-AntiHTN_by_sex.png

That second graph, the binary graph, just happens to be a frequency graph where more men than women used some medication. But it is an example of an important point: there are only two sexes. Period.

A bimodal distribution is an example of what we call a "continuous" pattern of data. In a continuous distribution, there are many possible values, i.e. buckets you could place someone into. A good example is dosage for a medication-- you could give someone 1 mL of the medicine... or 1.5 mL... or 1.51... or 1.511... Basically, you could have an infinite number of different possible values that you could see in this distribution.

A binary distribution is an example of what we'd call a "categorical" pattern of data. In a categorical distribution, there are actually only a finite number of possible values or buckets that you could place someone into. For example, you ask someone, "Are you having a bad day, an okay day, or a good day?" and say that they're only allowed to say "Bad" or "Ok" or "Good". There's your three categories.

So now that we've cleared up what "bimodal" and "binary" are...

Why are there only 2 possible categories for "sex" and not infinite sexes?

It's simple: as I pointed out to someone else here, it's because

  • There are only two types of gametes involved in human reproduction-- sperm and ova. (If you have discovered a third type of gamete, please contact the press and collect your Nobel prize.)

  • There are, correspondingly, two sexes found in humans-- one that has a reproductive system corresponding to one type of gamete (sperm), and another that has a different reproductive system corresponding to the other type of gamete (ova).

  • The two sexes are called "male" (for humans with a reproductive system corresponding to sperm) and "female" (for humans with a reproductive system corresponding to ova).

Sometimes people ask, "Why are these discussions about man/woman (or sex) so focused on reproductive capacities?!" and the grand answer is that it's because... human biological sex is defined on the basis of reproduction (i.e. gametes).

Perhaps there are some species where sex is on a continuum but that's not how it works in humans. Full stop. If you discover that your friend you were arguing with belongs to a species of sentient bacteria that has reproductive capacities where sex IS on a continuum (unlike the human reproductive system), I would recommend claiming your Nobel prize for that, too.

edit: left a sentence hanging

[–]xanditAGAB (Assigned Gay at Birth) 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

they see intersex as an addition to binary sex, proving their 'spectrum' and bimodal sex theories. Its taking the facts and bending it through their ideological prison.

[–]reluctant_commenter 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Will just add, thinking about this more: It strikes me that this (the claim that "sex is not binary, but bimodal") is a particularly disturbing piece of misinformation because it sounds smart-- it invokes mathematical vocabulary, and so has the guise of having scientific support, when it does not. "Look, I know what these distributions are!" But that statement makes no logical sense once you tease apart exactly what is being claimed.

Sometimes it is hard to call people out on their bullshit when they use jargon, especially if you are arguing with them in person and trying to be polite (or at least trying to not get mobbed/shouted down by a woke brigade). In such situations, I guess I would generally recommend:

  • Asking the person what exactly they are trying to communicate with the terms they are using.

  • If they seem unclear, ask if they are sure what the terms mean; try to get them to use clearer language.

It is pretty dumb for someone to be like, "Hah! I'm right because you don't know these words!" I think just sticking to the heart of the truth, which is that the definition of sex is 2 types of gametes -> 2 corresponding reproductive systems, one for each gamete (called "the 2 sexes") will get a person far, even when arguing with someone trying to invoke an air of authority on a subject.

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

I don't think the bimodality argument helps their cause. With respect to gender (not sex), bimodality is a fact: if you were to measure a number of characteristics that help to define what we think of as gender along a continuum, the multivariate distribution will in fact be bimodal. What that means is that there are two peaks, where most people are. One peak is "male" and the other is "female". Yes there are some people in the valley between the peaks but -- and this is the important point -- by definition of the term "bimodal distribution" there are relatively few people in that valley. It reinforces the point that continuous "gender" characteristics, which individually do lie along a spectrum, collectively organize around two poles that (shocker) are closely linked to binary biological sex. The variations correspond to GNC behavior, which should be recognized as variations along some axes but not wholesale flipping (except in a few cases), and in no way corresponds to a change in the biological ground truth of sex.

[–][deleted] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Reluctant summed up the science well. "Contact the press and collect your Nobel..." I'm gonna borrow that.

People who are trying to make an argument that sex isn't binary are trying to apply postmodernism. Meaning, they're trying to "trouble" the categories of male and female such that they don't actually exist. E.g. sex is a spectrum and there is no such thing as male or female. That men and women are some sort if discursive fiction because a minority of people out there have some disorder of sexual development (intersex) and don't always perfectly fit into male/female. When, if you stop listening to their sophistry, and just put your common sense hat on, the overwhelmingly majority of people have no disorders of sexual development and are either men or women. The existence of intersex people does not negate this, as they would have you believe. Intersex can produce some categorical issues, depending on whether you're valuing karyotype, gametes, phenotype, some "good enough" amalmagation etc, but it does not mean that men and women don't exist.

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

Reluctant summed up the science well. "Contact the press and collect your Nobel..." I'm gonna borrow that.

Ahaha thanks, I definitely adapted it from someone else though-- there's a biologist against transgender ideology who has made similar comments as that, she's on Twitter, I'll see if I can find her.

I think you've described it very well, it's postmodernist. I forgot to add in my initial comment, about intersex people: Statistical distributions are an idealized pattern, reality-- i.e. the data-- are almost always messier than that.

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

I think you could argue that within the intersex category, there is most likely a bimodal distribution. There will be a mixture of male and female characteristics, but the majority of individuals in the intersex category will still fall more towards the 'female' or 'male' ends of the spectrums, resulting in 2 peaks. However, outside of this sex is functionally binary because there are two options; male or female. Intersex is not a third sex.