"There is nothing obvious or “essential” about this gendered hierarchy; instead, it must be actively constructed through a process of “gender disciplining” that typically begins at a very early age, and which teaches children both what gender they “should” be, and what that means about how they should think, feel, and act."
Spot on.
So important to reflect on the gendered norms that children are taught from a young age. There is nothing natural about the ways children are separated from birth by gender. They grow up being told from a young age that they have to act a certain way, be a certain type of person, do a certain type of work. So many reach adulthood with a very constrained path in life and little room to think about who they are and what they want for themselves. So many adults have few or no friends of the opposite gender. So many are in jobs that are highly separated by gender. The lessons in this piece are so much broader than just for parents raising a trans kid; all of us need to work on deconstructing the norms we have built about who kids can be based on their gender, and give them a whole lot more freedom and support to just be themselves.
It doesn't help, Bennett, to try to redefine as you do here: '"reproductive sex" as a singular concept is not a biological category. First, I never claimed it was a 'singular concept.' I argued it was a binary part of a larger whole of biological sex, nonbinary or otherwise. Let's just put it this way: if you want a child with 50% of your genes, you would do well to find a partner with reproductive organs radically different from your own. They are both biological and, having evolved together, form a binary pair that can be reproductive. Trying to make this feature of our sexuality 'non-binary' or 'not a biological category' is a fruitless task, pun intended. But we're starting to repeat ourselves. Perhaps we should invite other comments.
I have no idea what you mean by this. I was responding directly to your claim: "My point is narrower, which is that reproductive sex is biologically binary." I responded to this claim of yours by pointing out that "reproductive sex" is not a scientific category, and that the multiple scientific categories that comprise what I imagine you mean by "reproductive sex" are not binary—not individually, and certainly not in aggregate.
I have repeatedly answered your claims with pretty detailed, informed arguments. I have included links to multiple peer-reviewed papers, as well as more popular articles for a general audience. I have attempted to provide working definitions of the various terms we're bandying around—"binary," "sex," etc.
I don't think you've engaged substantively with any of what I've shared at all—just continued to reiterate an opinion which, as i've repeatedly addressed, is not backed up by the data. Without providing any grounds for your opinion, and without addressing the grounds I have provided for mine. I agree that in this context continued engagement is not productive! Appreciate you, and happy to continue this conversation offline.
' I responded to this claim of yours by pointing out that "reproductive sex" is not a scientific category.' This is an odd claim. Students of life's evolution consider binary sexuality a remarkable achievement in the deep history of life on our planet. It allowed for much greater diversity, including mammalian reproduction, and hence our own as a species. But yes, we can continue this discussion elsewhere. It's an important one, and likely to persist.
I would agree that gender, a social construct, is fluid and non-binary. People should be free to express themselves as they see fit, and we should all treat them with democracy throughout. But for 98% of us, biological sex is binary, i.e., it takes one of each to reproduce another. In this way, we are not different than all the rest of the mammalian world. We are assigned a sex at birth, not a gender, or we should be. Gender comes later, when we become social beings. So I'm in agreement with Simone d'Beuuvoir here. She was born female and later became a woman. (The 2% would be those born intersex, with both genitalia, or none, and other variations of these.)
Hey Carl. But as the article points out, biological sex is absolutely *not* binary—not for mammals as a biological class, not for humans as a species, and certainly not for 98% of us. The scientific consensus is increasingly clear on this. Which is exactly the point that the article addresses. See links in article or check out some of these below:
If you include the 2% and make it 100%, you have a point. But I don't, and my point remains. If you want to reproduce another human, you need one of each of the binary sexual organs of the 98% (Artificial insemination doesn't count, or makes the point. Unless you hold to the Virgin Mother of God, which is a unique case, even for believers). If you know of any humans that did not arise from a sperm penetrating an ovum, let us know. Otherwise, my argument stands, regardless of various new scientific arguments. They haven't produced such a being either, and only seek to diminish that fact of our nature in various ways. In my view, we need not make any case for biological sex being nonbinary, and I think trying to do so weakens the more critical point, our consistently democratic defense of gender as nonbinary and defending all those seeking to present themselves as fluid or something other than 'pink' and 'blue.'
No Carl. The science doesn't back up your argument. And that is important because the far right is using bad science to justify all kinds of manner of things, from the denial of medical care to the exclusion of people from schools, bathrooms, sports, and everything else. We can not and should not concede to the bad science, for both political grounds (it justifies terrible practices!) and analytical ones (it is just plain empirically wrong!).
No one is arguing that there is no biological basis for sexual reproduction—of course there is. We are materialists. But the biology is much weirder and wilder than any notion of two easily identified binaries with a few outlying anomalies. That's simply not how human sex operates. Just ask any biologist. Or click any of the articles i linked to. Here's an excerpt from one:
"By birth, then, a baby has five layers of sex. But as with chromosomal sex, each subsequent layer does not always become strictly binary. Furthermore, the layers can conflict with one another, with one being binary and another not: An XX baby can be born with a penis, an XY person may have a vagina, and so on.
Adding to the complexity, the layering does not stop at birth. The adults surrounding the newborn identify sex based on how they perceive genital sex (at birth or from an ultrasound image) and this begins the process of gender socialization. Fetal hormones also affect brain development, producing yet another layer called brain sex. One aspect of brain sex becomes evident at puberty when, usually, certain brain cells stimulate adult male or adult female levels and patterns of hormones that cause adult sexual maturation.Dr. Money called these layers pubertal hormonal sex and pubertal morphological sex. But these, too, vary widely beyond a two-category classification."
Science as weird and wild? Be careful what you wish for. First, there is no 'The Science' on this matter; there are various schools of thought, some offer wider answers, some narrower. I understand that we largely start out female. Why else would men have nipples on their chests? And that the pre-born fetus goes through several layers of change. My point is narrower, which is that reproductive sex is biologically binary. (True, some of the 2% are born with both genitalia, but I've not heard of one able to impregnate themselves.) If you want to say that defining sex as strictly reproductive is too narrow, fine. I understand, and many new things will be learned. But it doesn't make my case for reproductive, biological sex as binary wrong. The only thing that would disprove my point would be a pregnancy brought to term that was initiated with only one set of reproductive organs. The evolution of binary reproductive sex was an achievement of organic evolution, not a fetter. Just the opposite, it allowed for greater diversity and change. And I think taking binary reproductive sex out of what we mean as a significant part of biological sex only makes us look 'weird,' to use your term. What we really need is a stronger defense of various genders and their rights in the social order.
"reproductive sex" as a singular concept is not a biological category. Biologically there is chromosonal sex, gonadal sex, hormonal sex, internal reproductive anatomy, external genatalia, and secondary sex characteristics, just to get started. All of those are components of what comprises the category of biological sex and reproduction. Each of them is distinct. You seem to be collapsing all those different traits into a singular category, which they are not.
Individually, virtually none of the traits that collectively comprise what we refer to as "biological sex" are binary. A binary means something that neatly divides into two (and only two) clear categories that are totally distinct. Sex traits literally do not do that. Generally, most sex traits fall into two overlapping Gaussian distributions. We label one of these "male" and one of them "female." But for every one of these traits, there will be people we label "male" with traits that are more "female-like" than people labelled female, and people we label "female" with traits that are more male-like than people labelled male. This is true of each component individually: chromosomes, gonads, hormones, internal reproductive anatomy, external sex organs, etc. But it is even more complex when we take them in concert. Because individuals will fall into individual different points on that bimodal distribution for each of those many separate components.
Looking at all of those traits together, people *definitely* do not sort into two distinct categories. The firm conviction that they do so is precisely due to the strength of the cultural "common sense" around the notion of such a binary, which we then "read back" into data sets that are much, much more complex. (And again literally, definitionally, non-binary.)
"There is nothing obvious or “essential” about this gendered hierarchy; instead, it must be actively constructed through a process of “gender disciplining” that typically begins at a very early age, and which teaches children both what gender they “should” be, and what that means about how they should think, feel, and act."
Spot on.
So important to reflect on the gendered norms that children are taught from a young age. There is nothing natural about the ways children are separated from birth by gender. They grow up being told from a young age that they have to act a certain way, be a certain type of person, do a certain type of work. So many reach adulthood with a very constrained path in life and little room to think about who they are and what they want for themselves. So many adults have few or no friends of the opposite gender. So many are in jobs that are highly separated by gender. The lessons in this piece are so much broader than just for parents raising a trans kid; all of us need to work on deconstructing the norms we have built about who kids can be based on their gender, and give them a whole lot more freedom and support to just be themselves.
Excellent piece. Thank you, Alex.
It doesn't help, Bennett, to try to redefine as you do here: '"reproductive sex" as a singular concept is not a biological category. First, I never claimed it was a 'singular concept.' I argued it was a binary part of a larger whole of biological sex, nonbinary or otherwise. Let's just put it this way: if you want a child with 50% of your genes, you would do well to find a partner with reproductive organs radically different from your own. They are both biological and, having evolved together, form a binary pair that can be reproductive. Trying to make this feature of our sexuality 'non-binary' or 'not a biological category' is a fruitless task, pun intended. But we're starting to repeat ourselves. Perhaps we should invite other comments.
I have no idea what you mean by this. I was responding directly to your claim: "My point is narrower, which is that reproductive sex is biologically binary." I responded to this claim of yours by pointing out that "reproductive sex" is not a scientific category, and that the multiple scientific categories that comprise what I imagine you mean by "reproductive sex" are not binary—not individually, and certainly not in aggregate.
I have repeatedly answered your claims with pretty detailed, informed arguments. I have included links to multiple peer-reviewed papers, as well as more popular articles for a general audience. I have attempted to provide working definitions of the various terms we're bandying around—"binary," "sex," etc.
I don't think you've engaged substantively with any of what I've shared at all—just continued to reiterate an opinion which, as i've repeatedly addressed, is not backed up by the data. Without providing any grounds for your opinion, and without addressing the grounds I have provided for mine. I agree that in this context continued engagement is not productive! Appreciate you, and happy to continue this conversation offline.
' I responded to this claim of yours by pointing out that "reproductive sex" is not a scientific category.' This is an odd claim. Students of life's evolution consider binary sexuality a remarkable achievement in the deep history of life on our planet. It allowed for much greater diversity, including mammalian reproduction, and hence our own as a species. But yes, we can continue this discussion elsewhere. It's an important one, and likely to persist.
I would agree that gender, a social construct, is fluid and non-binary. People should be free to express themselves as they see fit, and we should all treat them with democracy throughout. But for 98% of us, biological sex is binary, i.e., it takes one of each to reproduce another. In this way, we are not different than all the rest of the mammalian world. We are assigned a sex at birth, not a gender, or we should be. Gender comes later, when we become social beings. So I'm in agreement with Simone d'Beuuvoir here. She was born female and later became a woman. (The 2% would be those born intersex, with both genitalia, or none, and other variations of these.)
Hey Carl. But as the article points out, biological sex is absolutely *not* binary—not for mammals as a biological class, not for humans as a species, and certainly not for 98% of us. The scientific consensus is increasingly clear on this. Which is exactly the point that the article addresses. See links in article or check out some of these below:
https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/genomics/Scientists-reject-binary-view-human/102/i33
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-human-sex-is-not-binary/
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.26.525769v1
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10842549/
http://nytimes.com/2018/10/25/opinion/sex-biology-binary.html
If you include the 2% and make it 100%, you have a point. But I don't, and my point remains. If you want to reproduce another human, you need one of each of the binary sexual organs of the 98% (Artificial insemination doesn't count, or makes the point. Unless you hold to the Virgin Mother of God, which is a unique case, even for believers). If you know of any humans that did not arise from a sperm penetrating an ovum, let us know. Otherwise, my argument stands, regardless of various new scientific arguments. They haven't produced such a being either, and only seek to diminish that fact of our nature in various ways. In my view, we need not make any case for biological sex being nonbinary, and I think trying to do so weakens the more critical point, our consistently democratic defense of gender as nonbinary and defending all those seeking to present themselves as fluid or something other than 'pink' and 'blue.'
No Carl. The science doesn't back up your argument. And that is important because the far right is using bad science to justify all kinds of manner of things, from the denial of medical care to the exclusion of people from schools, bathrooms, sports, and everything else. We can not and should not concede to the bad science, for both political grounds (it justifies terrible practices!) and analytical ones (it is just plain empirically wrong!).
No one is arguing that there is no biological basis for sexual reproduction—of course there is. We are materialists. But the biology is much weirder and wilder than any notion of two easily identified binaries with a few outlying anomalies. That's simply not how human sex operates. Just ask any biologist. Or click any of the articles i linked to. Here's an excerpt from one:
"By birth, then, a baby has five layers of sex. But as with chromosomal sex, each subsequent layer does not always become strictly binary. Furthermore, the layers can conflict with one another, with one being binary and another not: An XX baby can be born with a penis, an XY person may have a vagina, and so on.
Adding to the complexity, the layering does not stop at birth. The adults surrounding the newborn identify sex based on how they perceive genital sex (at birth or from an ultrasound image) and this begins the process of gender socialization. Fetal hormones also affect brain development, producing yet another layer called brain sex. One aspect of brain sex becomes evident at puberty when, usually, certain brain cells stimulate adult male or adult female levels and patterns of hormones that cause adult sexual maturation.Dr. Money called these layers pubertal hormonal sex and pubertal morphological sex. But these, too, vary widely beyond a two-category classification."
Science is weird and wild. And how cool is that?
Science as weird and wild? Be careful what you wish for. First, there is no 'The Science' on this matter; there are various schools of thought, some offer wider answers, some narrower. I understand that we largely start out female. Why else would men have nipples on their chests? And that the pre-born fetus goes through several layers of change. My point is narrower, which is that reproductive sex is biologically binary. (True, some of the 2% are born with both genitalia, but I've not heard of one able to impregnate themselves.) If you want to say that defining sex as strictly reproductive is too narrow, fine. I understand, and many new things will be learned. But it doesn't make my case for reproductive, biological sex as binary wrong. The only thing that would disprove my point would be a pregnancy brought to term that was initiated with only one set of reproductive organs. The evolution of binary reproductive sex was an achievement of organic evolution, not a fetter. Just the opposite, it allowed for greater diversity and change. And I think taking binary reproductive sex out of what we mean as a significant part of biological sex only makes us look 'weird,' to use your term. What we really need is a stronger defense of various genders and their rights in the social order.
"reproductive sex" as a singular concept is not a biological category. Biologically there is chromosonal sex, gonadal sex, hormonal sex, internal reproductive anatomy, external genatalia, and secondary sex characteristics, just to get started. All of those are components of what comprises the category of biological sex and reproduction. Each of them is distinct. You seem to be collapsing all those different traits into a singular category, which they are not.
Individually, virtually none of the traits that collectively comprise what we refer to as "biological sex" are binary. A binary means something that neatly divides into two (and only two) clear categories that are totally distinct. Sex traits literally do not do that. Generally, most sex traits fall into two overlapping Gaussian distributions. We label one of these "male" and one of them "female." But for every one of these traits, there will be people we label "male" with traits that are more "female-like" than people labelled female, and people we label "female" with traits that are more male-like than people labelled male. This is true of each component individually: chromosomes, gonads, hormones, internal reproductive anatomy, external sex organs, etc. But it is even more complex when we take them in concert. Because individuals will fall into individual different points on that bimodal distribution for each of those many separate components.
Looking at all of those traits together, people *definitely* do not sort into two distinct categories. The firm conviction that they do so is precisely due to the strength of the cultural "common sense" around the notion of such a binary, which we then "read back" into data sets that are much, much more complex. (And again literally, definitionally, non-binary.)