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Sex Is Real

aeon.co

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Re: Sex Is Real

#11

Post by Spivak »

happytoexplain wrote: post #9
tus88 wrote: post #2

> Human societies can’t delegate to biology the job of defining sex as a social institution. The biological definition of sex wasn’t designed to ensure fair sporting competition, or to settle disputes about access to healthcare. Theorists who want to use the biological definition of sex in those ways need to show that it will do a good job at the Olympics or in Medicare. The fact that it’s needed in biology isn’t goo…

It sounds like it's making a case that people pretend the concept of biological sex doesn't exist as some kind of defense for social concepts of sex, but that seems like a straw man. I've rarely (never?) heard anybody insist that there are not multiple contexts for the concept of sex/gender.

Yeah, when you get organic terminology like this it always kinda gets weird. The words sex and gender have been used to describe people's "social sex"/"gender identity"/"gender presentation" and their biological sex depending on the context.

Like a trans woman's drivers license and birth certificate will say female so it's hard to cleanly say that sex === biological sex.

Re: Sex Is Real

#12

Post by Spivak »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #7
reanimus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Biological sex is important to consider in biology but that doesn't mean it's important elsewhere."

> "Biological sex is important to consider in biology but that doesn't mean it's important elsewhere." AKA "you might ignore biology when it comes to make political decisions so that me and other biologists are not labelled bigots"? The conclusion of that article is a cop-out.

I'm not sure how you took that from the paragraph. What they're saying is that biological sex is a real, valid concept to biologists. No biologist is going to be called a bigot for saying that biological sex is a thing. (However, in non-academic contexts this statement is used by bigots as a dog-whistle. It's pretty darn obvious when this happens though.)

Re: Sex Is Real

#13

Post by cik2e »

happytoexplain wrote: post #9
tus88 wrote: post #2

> Human societies can’t delegate to biology the job of defining sex as a social institution. The biological definition of sex wasn’t designed to ensure fair sporting competition, or to settle disputes about access to healthcare. Theorists who want to use the biological definition of sex in those ways need to show that it will do a good job at the Olympics or in Medicare. The fact that it’s needed in biology isn’t goo…

It sounds like it's making a case that people pretend the concept of biological sex doesn't exist as some kind of defense for social concepts of sex, but that seems like a straw man. I've rarely (never?) heard anybody insist that there are not multiple contexts for the concept of sex/gender.

I encourage you to google “biological sex isn’t real” and acquaint yourself with this line of thinking.

Radical gender theory does in fact make the bold claim that biological sex isn’t real. That’s right, sex, not gender. The postmodernist underpinnings used to support these types of ideas are rooted in concepts like “objective truth does not exist” and “everything is a social construct”.

Re: Sex Is Real

#15

Post by slowmovintarget »

Aardwolf wrote: post #3
tus88 wrote: post #2

> Human societies can’t delegate to biology the job of defining sex as a social institution. The biological definition of sex wasn’t designed to ensure fair sporting competition, or to settle disputes about access to healthcare. Theorists who want to use the biological definition of sex in those ways need to show that it will do a good job at the Olympics or in Medicare. The fact that it’s needed in biology isn’t goo…

For one, English seems to suffer from having the same word mean two different things (gender, and an activity), that makes it already harder to parse.

No the difficulty, in English, is that gender originally meant one's biological sex. There has been a concerted effort to assert that perceived gender and gender are the same. The confusion is deliberate.

From Webster's Dictionary (1828):

> 1. Properly, kind; sort.

> 2. A sex, male or female. Hence,

> 3. In grammar, a difference in words to express distinction of sex; usually a difference of termination in nouns, adjectives and participles, to express the distinction of male and female. But although this was the original design of different terminations, yet in the progress of language, other words having no relation to one sex or the other, came to have genders assigned them by custom. Words expressing males are said to be of the masculine gender; those expressing females, of the feminine gender; and in some languages, words expressing things having no sex, are of the neuter or neither gender

Nowadays, the political effort is to tie people in mental knots over how a person feels about their gender, how a person presents themselves, and how a person prefers to be addressed.

Re: Sex Is Real

#16

Post by Volundr »

cik2e wrote: post #13
happytoexplain wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like it's making a case that people pretend the concept of biological sex doesn't exist as some kind of defense for social concepts of sex, but that seems like a straw man. I've rarely (never?) heard anybody insist that there are not multiple contexts for the concept of sex/gender.

I encourage you to google “biological sex isn’t real” and acquaint yourself with this line of thinking. Radical gender theory does in fact make the bold claim that biological sex isn’t real. That’s right, sex, not gender. The postmodernist underpinnings used to support these types of ideas are rooted in concepts like “objective truth does not exist” and “everything is a social construct”.

I took your challenge, and, well I couldn't find it. I did find articles like this one https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/06/15/the-myth.... If you read only the headline you might think it's making the argument your implying, but if you actually bother to read it you'll find it doesn't.

From the article:

"The biology of sex is real, but it’s extremely complicated, and there is sometimes no easy way to draw a line between the biologically male and female."

Having now read the top 5 articles for that search term, I still haven't found one that makes the claim your suggesting.

I'm sure if I dig hard enough I could find that someone has said it non-ironically, but if I dig hard enough I can find someone saying the moon landing didn't happen or talking about lizard people non-ironically. That doesn't make it a mainstream movement.

Re: Sex Is Real

#18

Post by akvadrako »

Volundr wrote: post #16
cik2e wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I encourage you to google “biological sex isn’t real” and acquaint yourself with this line of thinking. Radical gender theory does in fact make the bold claim that biological sex isn’t real. That’s right, sex, not gender. The postmodernist underpinnings used to support these types of ideas are rooted in concepts like “objective truth does not exist” and “everything is a social construct”.

I took your challenge, and, well I couldn't find it. I did find articles like this one https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/06/15/the-myth... . If you read only the headline you might think it's making the argument your implying, but if you actually bother to read it you'll find it doesn't. From the article: "The biology of sex is real, but it’s extremely complicated, and there is sometimes no easy way to dr…

The idea that sex is non-binary and socially constructed is certainly around. The first time I heard it was about a year ago on an podcast interview from Sam Harris with an expert in the field of gender studies or something, saying we should consider that gay men might actually be women.

One recent event that brings it to light is JK Rowling said something along those lines, basically that women menstrate¹, and that caused a lot of controversy. I'm sure you'll be able to find plenty of articles against her for saying that.

[1] https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269382518362509313

Re: Sex Is Real

#19

Post by Volundr »

akvadrako wrote: post #18
Volundr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took your challenge, and, well I couldn't find it. I did find articles like this one https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/06/15/the-myth... . If you read only the headline you might think it's making the argument your implying, but if you actually bother to read it you'll find it doesn't. From the article: "The biology of sex is real, but it’s extremely complicated, and there is sometimes no easy way to dr…

The idea that sex is non-binary and socially constructed is certainly around. The first time I heard it was about a year ago on an podcast interview from Sam Harris with an expert in the field of gender studies or something, saying we should consider that gay men might actually be women. One recent event that brings it to light is JK Rowling said something along those lines, basically that women menstrate¹, and that…

Sure. But they aren't saying biological sex doesn't exist. They are saying there is sex and gender and that these two things can be different. Specifically sex is biological, while gender is a social and physiological construct. What is explicitly NOT being said is that biological sex is non-existent. And they are saying that a person's gender may be female while their biological sex can be male (or ambiguous), and that these people should still be considered women. That's very different from saying biological sex doesn't exist.
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