For a considerable time, blogger and biology teacher P. Z. Myers has been attacking the sex binary (e.g., here and here), arguing that because characteristics used to recognize sex—”secondary sexual traits”— aren’t binary (e.g., chromosome constitution, genital configuration, body color and so on), sex itself therefore can’t be binary. Here’s are two specimens of Myers’s arguments, which also show their ideological underpinning:
It should be obvious that you cannot define people by their gametes. If this were true, there would be no debate about trans participation in sports: the only effect of sex is to specify which of two flavors of gametes they produce, and the only sports where it would matter are those that are carried out in a petri dish between single cells. But no! Everyone is aware that sex contributes to all kinds of differences beyond their gametes. The whole problem is that we KNOW that there are far-reaching developmental changes that occur after fertilization and as a consequence of sex differences, which are both more subtle and more complex than the anti-trans contingent wants to allow.
. . . Somehow, an awful lot of biologists study sexual behavior — like lekking, or sexual displays, or fidelity, and on and on — that don’t necessarily involve sperm collection or measuring ovulation or that kind of thing. It is absurd to insist that only gametes define sex. I recognize spider sexes by the morphology of their palps, and by their differences in behavior, not gametes. I see the birds flying outside my window, and I discriminate sexes by color, primarily. To say that biologists have better things to do than study gender is ridiculous. Every biologist who looks at the plumage of birds or watches the courtship of spiders is studying a phenomenon far removed from basic gamete formation yet is an indispensable, unavoidable, intrinsic consequence of sex in that species…and the animal isn’t getting a semen count before engaging in it.
I’ve explained before the fundamental error here: the conflation between defining biological sex and recognizing biological sex (we encounter the same issue when defining versus recognizing biological species). The definition of biological sex is based on gamete size and mobility, and those are binary: you produce either eggs or sperm, and which developmental system you have for producing those gametes makes you either a male or a female. There is no third type of gamete, ergo no third sex. Secondary sexual traits, however, need not be binary.
This is not, as some activists imply, a definition that nefarious and transphobic biologists have concocted to somehow erase folks of nonbinary gender. Rather, it’s a fundamental definition that holds throughout animals and plants, and one that helps us make sense of an enormous amount of biology and evolution. Sexual selection, for example, cannot be understood without knowing about the differential investment the two sexes make in gametes of different size
But I’ll let Colin Wright, who’s just published a corrective of Myers’s errors, give a better explanation of the situation. Wright was disturbed that after he gave a really good talk on the sex binary (here), his lecture was praised by Richard Dawkins, one of many well-known evolutionists that Myers disdains. Here are Richard’s tweets (note that Scientific American also buys into the idea that the sex binary is a myth):
Superbly clear & totally correct lecture by Colin Wright @SwipeWright. There are only 2 sexes & they're defined by gamete size. Convoluted attempts to deny binary sex are like Ptolemaic epicycles.https://t.co/LS3PG54JBi
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) January 30, 2024
This ridiculous article (shame on the once-great Scientific American) ignorantly misunderstands the nature of the sex binary: “Actual research shows that sex is anything but binary”.
Sex is not defined by chromosomes, nor by anatomy, nor by psychology or sociology, nor by…
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) January 30, 2024
Myers then went after both Dawkins and Wright for their supposed misunderstandings of sex and their nefarious view of sex as binary. Colin, disturbed by such apparently willful misunderstanding, just published a correction of Myers’s biology on Colin’s website Reality’s Last Stand. It’s the equivalent of a huge slap on Myers’s knuckles by the Ruler of Truth. Click on the headline below to read, and I’ll give a few excerpts (thanks to the many readers who sent me this link):
Excerpts:
. . . as gender ideology gained a foothold within the atheist movement, the brains of many prominent and once-rational figures began to melt. Philosopher Peter Boghossian has poignantly characterized this shift among Left-wing intellectuals from being quick to point out the limits of their knowledge to a tendency to pretend to not know what is undeniably known.
This trend is exemplified by Myers, as I will illustrate.
Recently, Richard Dawkins shared on 𝕏 the lecture I delivered at the Genspect conference in Denver, CO, last year, titled “The Sex Binary: What It Is and Why It Matters.” Dawkins praised my talk as “superbly clear & totally correct,” and reaffirmed the reality of the binary nature of sex. Following this, gender activists bombarded Dawkins with absurd articles challenging the binary concept of sex, including a particularly misleading piece in Scientific American titled “Stop Using Phony Science to Justify Transphobia,” which asserts that “Actual research shows that sex is anything but binary.”
In response to this onslaught of dubious science, Dawkins countered the article directly: “This ridiculous article…ignorantly misunderstands the nature of the sex binary.” He went on to underscore the important distinction between how sex is “determined” versus how it’s “defined” in biology that I outlined in my talk.
At this point you should listen to Colin’s 35-minute talk, if you haven’t already, and then proceed. He begins with how the sex binary helps us understand reverse sexual dimorphism (rare cases in which males help gestate young or in which the females rather than the usual males are the ornate and decorated species):
. . . . how do we know that male seahorses are the ones that gestate young and give birth? Or that in northern jacanas (J. spinosa), it is the females who are larger, more ornate, territorial, and exhibit less parental care than males? This knowledge stems from understanding that male and female are categories that exist independent of mere morphology and behavior.
Myers makes an uninformed argument:
Somehow, an awful lot of biologists study sexual behavior — like lekking, or sexual displays, or fidelity, and on and on — that don’t necessarily involve sperm collection or measuring ovulation or that kind of thing. It is absurd to insist that only gametes define sex. I recognize spider sexes by the morphology of their palps, and by their differences in behavior, not gametes. I see the birds flying outside my window, and I discriminate sexes by color, primarily.
Myers could not be any more confused here. How does he recognize that it is typically males who form leks, or that males often display more elaborate mating behaviors and exhibit less sexual fidelity? This knowledge comes from studying these species and correlating these behaviors with the type of gametes an individual produces. Once we discover that males of the Vogelkop superb bird-of-paradise (Lophorina niedda) possess highly decorative plumage and engage in elaborate sexual displays, we no longer need to continuously verify this. We know it’s the males because we learned that only those with decorative plumage and elaborate sexual displays in this species produce sperm.
However, Myers insists that defining an individual’s sex based solely on gametes represents an “extreme reductionist” approach, and suggests we should consider “all the other valid signals they openly display.”
Dawkins is just being an extreme reductionist to the point he’s making himself and his position look silly. Go ahead, all you reactionary biologists, rant about how there can be only two true sexes because people have some cells that are almost never seen in public, in defiance of all the other valid signals they openly display. Better biologists will go on recognizing all the factors that define sex without your self-imposed, narrow-minded blinders.
And then, very concisely, Wright summarizes the problems with Myers’s criticisms:
The core and critical flaw in Myers’ argument for using other traits to determine the sex of an individual is that these traits are only reliable indicators of sex in species where we already know which individuals are males and females, based on their gametes. In humans, we associate breasts with females and facial hair with males because adult human females typically develop breasts and adult human males tend to grow facial hair. But how would Myers propose to identify males and females in a newly discovered species without any prior knowledge of their secondary sexual characteristics?
Consider a hypothetical new mammal species with some individuals small and blue and others large and brown. Since we know mammals are anisogamous (i.e., reproduce via fusion of a sperm and an egg), we can be as certain as possible that this species also exhibits males and females. But how do we determine which is which? Should we assume the blue ones are males and the brown ones females, as is the case with blue groper fish? But in blue gropers the males are large and the females are small. Should we therefore consider the blue individuals of our new mammal species female because they are small? But in spiders the males are smaller than the females, suggesting perhaps the small individuals should be considered males?
Do you see the absurdity of the approach? We know human males tend to be hairier, male blue gropers are blue, and male spiders are usually smaller, because being male is a trait independent of hair, color, or size. What unites these males is the type of gamete they have the function to produce. That is what makes them male.
Thus, the only way we can know which individuals of our new species are the males and which are the females is to find out which individuals produce sperm and which produce eggs. The. End.
Myers has to understand this, but he is too afraid to tell the truth.
And that’s about all there is, and all ye need to know. The last line implies that Myers understands that there really are two sexes, but is afraid (presumably because he’d be a “transphobe”, which is what he calls those who accept the sex binary) to say it. I can’t judge whether this is the case, because I won’t try to psychoanalyze Myers. But I can say that he’s distorting a biological definition that’s held for well over a century, and is used because it is not only true, but also gives us a deep understanding of biology and evolution. As I’ve always said, recognizing the binary nature of sex should not for a second demean those who are of nonbinary gender, or people who become transgender. The truth is the truth, and to impose your ideological preferences on nature is to commit what I call the reverse naturalistic fallacy: the bogus claim that what be ideologically palatable must also be seen in nature.
You might be evil if:
1) you find that you have chosen to perpetuate lies in order to “do the right thing.”
2) …
2) You personally attack people who hold to definitions found by direct observation and on historical consensus.
Colin Wright notes, correctly, in his piece that some medical doctors have gone seriously astray on the binary nature of sex. Maybe they are just afraid of trans activists who have captured their licensing regulators and can inflict a world of hurt on them. Or maybe they just didn’t pay enough attention to their undergraduate evolution lectures.
“. . . rant about how there can be only two true sexes because people have some cells that are almost never seen in public. . . .” What a bizarre comment this is. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this about something a biologist has written, but he does know how reproduction works, doesn’t he? He sounds like he thinks that those two agoraphobic cells are as meaningless as hair color.
What does it mean to “define people by their gametes?” It’s a strange way of putting it.
It doesn’t seem to be the same as classifying people according to their gametes— or the type of gamete their bodies evolved to produce. It isn’t about defining sex per se. Both of those interpretations would fit into the context of the discussion, but the specific wording here doesn’t really suggest either. And it’s not looking for a definition of “people.”. No, we’re being tacitly accused of “defining people by their gametes.”
Colloquially, when we define someone by a single one of their traits, we reduce their importance to just that trait. If a woman is defined BY her looks or BY her ability to have children, then nothing else about her really matters. If a woman can’t or won’t have children, she’s not a “real woman.” She’s been negated because she was defined by her gametes.
Neither Dawkins nor Jerry would ever have written the phrase “we define people by their gametes” — not even accidentally — because that awkward wording doesn’t get to the issue. It should be obvious that nobody in this discussion is doing this. And yet there’s PZ’s sentence. It suggests he’s mentally connected sex and sexism — or thinks we have.
The line you quoted from PZ also stood out to me. I think it perfectly illustrates the entire problem in a nutshell. And it lets the cat out of the bag regarding what the underlying motive is. And as you pointed out it’s a misrepresentation, a lie.
Exactly, no respectable biologist, particularly Dawkins or Jerry, claims that individuals are defined by gametes (whatever that even means). Yet suggesting they do allows Myers to misrepresent their views while sneaking his mischief under the radar. When one is a deceitful opportunist on the wrong side of an argument, disparaging one’s adversaries becomes essential. Every opportunity must be seized.
is extremely relevant. We have only heard of Peezus because he was a new atheist, and is now proselytizing for the social justice religion. We would never have heard of him at all for his biological work, so it is amusing that he thinks he can take down the likes of Dawkins.
And these days, would he really want his new friends to be reminded of the time he trashed and defiled a Koran? I expect those posts and photos have been memory-holed, as his SJW horde would no longer approve, never mind the local muslim community who might have something to say about it.
There’s a link to the “desecration” here: https://pharyngula.fandom.com/wiki/Crackergate
While the odious Myers has a number of skeletons in his closet, including doxing commenters and false claims against more accomplished people like Michael Nugent, the one that should have resulted in disciplinary action from his department is his dream fantasy of turning his students into mermaids: https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/03/18/nightmare-fuel/. There is no way I’d want a daughter of mine in his class.
What does considering “all the other valid signals they openly display.” mean? My suspicion is that prioritizing the ‘impacts’ of culture, and keeping the trans train running as a recognition of a new way of being, is just the echoes of the old ‘blank slate’ political dogma.
For if people are blank slates with no intrinsic preferences then with the necessary ‘education’ authoritarian activists can hope that, one day, their Utopia can be achieved.
PZ and the Horde are currently mocking those AI-generated “science” images that did the rounds recently. You know, the one with the rat and its, erm, testicles!
Thing is, PZ’s views about sex and gender are on a par with that recent AI churn-out.
They’re also very keen to defend pseudoscience and “other ways of knowing”, over there, these days.
Myers : “It should be obvious that you cannot define people by their gametes.”
The bolded part … I sense a dialectical manipulation of thought …
Exactly, it’s an attempt to muddy the meaning of terms. If we can’t agree on words’ meanings, then we can’t agree on basic facts. That’s the only way he can win his argument, by saying words don’t mean what they mean.
Yep. It’s misrepresentation, false advertising, slight of hand, or as I like to call it, lying.
Over and over again, the same confusion. There is a difference (to paraphrase Jerry above) between how one defines biological sex and how one recognizes it. One has to wonder if, just perhaps, the proponents of the “sex is a spectrum” position are failing to recognize this distinction on purpose. No, that couldn’t possibly be. 🙂
I agree with Colin Wright that Myers’ “confusion” is deliberate. Like so many other scientists he’s chosen cultural popularity over scientific fact. Popularity is a huge motivator.
It’s faith in Dialectic of the Hegelian variety.
It leads from rationality to 2 + 2 = 5
It’s a religion centuries old.
TP I’m waiting for you to start arguing with your own posts from an account named “ParathyroidPlanet”!
Just the antithesis required. For you, maybe Spanish moss (I kid I kid!).
An interesting excerpt – for all the atheists in the audience :
“Not an orthodox theist, not a pantheist, not an atheist – what else is left? Some years ago a Hegel scholar named Robert Whittemore argued that Hegel was a panentheist. The term comes from Greek words meaning ‘all in God’; it describes the view that everything in the universe is part of God, but – and here it differs from pantheism – God is more than the universe, because he is the whole, and the whole is greater than the sum of all its parts. Just as a person is more than all the cells that make up his or her body – although the person is nothing separate from the body – so on this view God is more than all the parts of the universe, but not separate from it. Equally, just as no single cells amount to a person, so no individual parts of the universe amount to God.”
Singer ; Hegel ; OUP ; 1983 ; p.106 (this is a great book).
… Faith in the Dialectic is a religion.
I’m not sure it’s as much about popularity as his desire to believe himself “a good person”.
“Sex is binary” is what the “bad people” believe. So PZ has to prove to himself that he’s a “good person” by believing the opposite. And prove to all the other “good people” that their worldview is scientific in nature. That’s how he knows he’s on “the right side of history” (or, as he would say if he were a member of a slightly different religion, that he’s “doing God’s work”).
I’m sure he believes what he’s saying. He just lacks critical thinking skills and introspection. The “social justice” movement and negative polarization melted his brain with quasi-religion long ago.
cf Freddie DeBoer’s analysis of Good White Men. Focuses on journalists and public policy talking heads. No scientists, but you can find PZ’s type in the catalog. I think the one who comes closest is Adam Davidson, whose “self-aggrandizement, weepy apologia, and total shamelessness” come closest to PZ’s schtick.
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-good-white-man-roster
[also thank gawd for the edit function!]
“You show me ten men who cherish some religious doctrine or political ideology, and I’ll show you nine men whose minds are utterly impervious to any factual evidence which contradicts their beliefs, and who regard the producer of such evidence as a criminal who ought to be suppressed. For instance, on the Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, where I was just working, there is a political sect, the Communists, who, in the territory under their control, forbid the teaching of certain well-established facts of genetics and heredity, because those facts do not fit the world picture demanded by their political doctrines. And on the same sector, a religious sect recently tried, in some sections successfully, to outlaw of the teaching of evolution by natural selection.”
–H. Beam Piper, Last Enemy (1950)
I think the one thing about this debate that a lot of people are missing is that it is a complete red herring.
The vast majority of transgender people do not exhibit a mix of male and female secondary sexual characteristics. They are almost all unambiguously of the sex they were “assigned” (observed) at birth. Look at Lia Thomas: does she have any female secondary sexual characteristics? Maybe her brain*, but she has the body and build of a male. That’s why she is so good at swimming. She probably has to shave and has no breasts, never mind her genitalia, which I am sure are (or were?) male. With access only to her physiology, would any biologist, PZ Myers included, identify her as a human female? I don’t think so.
* interestingly, in the past PZ would have attacked people who suggested that there was any real difference between male and female brains.
Biology denialism has been common in the social sciences for decades.
It’s just shocking to see it endorsed by alleged evolutionary biologists like PZ Myers, and them taking it to such extremes as denying observable facts such as sex being binary.
Sophists gonna sophist.
“That’s why she is so good at swimming.”
She is only good as a “female” swimmer. As a male swimmer she was mediocre at the best.
I have a question to put out there, and would like to get comments.
All of those words – sex (biological sex, really), male, female, man, woman, and gender … how do folks remember their use when learning about the norms of language, people, and science?
What I remember, beginning when I was very young and continuing to maybe a decade or so ago, is that you could pretty much conflate these terms extensively and that it was perfectly alright even when discussing this stuff from the standpoint of science. So one could say sex or gender interchangeably. Male and man. Female and woman. They were pretty much synonyms in the classroom and in texts. I would write exam questions with ‘man’, ‘woman’, and ‘gender’ when it was about biological sex. NO ONE batted an eye.
Then about 10 years ago I began to see that distinctions were being argued for. That sex/male/female were biological descriptions, and that gender/man/woman were social constructs and that you probably shouldn’t use them when being formal about discussing biological sex. What the heck were social constructs?? It took me a while to decide what that meant, and I have to admit it’s pretty interesting. This distinction was of course being made in order to pad out protections for people who identify as trans, and I thought ‘Good! I want to help them!’ So of course everyone should refer to people as men or women according to their self identities and to how they present themselves. It’s only polite. Everyone should have whatever gender descriptions that they identify with.
But then more recently of course we see that the biological terms (sex, male female) are also being conflated into being social constructs, to the point of denying about 200 years of scientific consensus and a very important thing that unites the biology of our species with other species. This in order to again expand out those protections. And if the gender activists have their way we will be left without official ways to name the two biological sexes that evolved since probably before the Cambrian.
So what do other people remember about learning all this stuff?
My observations:
The trans-activist set (and their woke fellow-travelers) have as a primary political goal to abolish the idea of biological sex.
The muddying of these terms is a key component of that effort. This is not accidental. It is planned and executed for political ends. If you make acknowledging the facts of biology a sign of bigotry (see PZ Myers) then you’re well on the way to winning the political battle.
Among other things: They now claim (I’d have to look up references) that everyone is non-conforming to the “culturally-imposed, socially-based” gender binary. You’re all queer, get over yourselves!
I haven’t watched that film “What is a Woman” but I love the idea of it. The trans women are women; but they (and they fellow travelers) don’t have a clue how to define this thing that they claim to be. Absurd and hilarious.
“Everyone is non-binary” is actually a pretty perfect response to most of this gender identity nonsense.
“Gender” was originally described by feminists as **social norms** associated with sex. Progressives were supposed to try to shatter those norms. A male or a female can be and do whatever they want.
“Gender” then got redefined as an **identity** based on the work of queer theorists like Judith Butler. It seems like all this theory does is reify the old social norms and tell people that they have to be pigeonholed into either the “male” or “female” norm. And if they don’t feel like they fit into either of those boxes, then they’re “non-binary”.
Seeing as the gender norms on which these identities are based are sexist nonsense, everyone is “non-binary”. Which renders gender as an *identity* entirely meaningless, and reinforces the claim that we should try to abolish gender as a *norm*.
You should see “What is a Woman”. The creator, Matt Walsh is surely a right wing conservative christian and most likely both homophobe and trans phobe. The movie is one sided……..
Still, it’s great fun to watch so many not beeing able to give an answer to What is a woman? Absurd and hilarious indeed
I can’t stand Walsh, but every time I see a “skeptic” like Matt Dilahunty extolling his bona-fides as a rational person, I want to ask him what is a woman?
Ya, Matt D. What is up with THAT?
I listen to and watch quite a few people on the right.
I am of the left and always have been; but the progressive left has moved away from me. Seems to me, from Jerry’s posts and comments on this site, that he feels similarly.
I listen; but with a critical ear (as I do to the MSM, NPR, etc.). Many online journalists/writers/etc., booted from MSM for not toeing the woke/progressive line, have landed at Substack (or as Sam Harris likes to say: Substackistan). I find many of them very interesting and provocative. They inform me of many other people whom I want to hear from. Others have independent sites (Glenn Loury, Bari Weiss & team).
So it doesn’t bother me in the least where they come from or what their bias is, as long as they are not lying to me. I assume everyone has political stance and that it colors their work. When the nonsense comes out (e.g. in the book They’re Lying by Liz Collin (associated with the film, The Fall of Minneapolis) I can see it coming (usually, usually!).
I just listened to Glenn Loury’s and John McWhorter’s podcast walking back much of their support for The Fall of Minneapolis, which I thought was also excellent. They say straight up, I was wrong and my enthusiasm for the alternate viewpoint carried me away. I still need to read Balko’s (sp?) rebuttal piece.
I recently read Tim Urban’s What’s Our Problem?, to which I give my highest recommendation. One of the most sane books I’ve read in a long time. (And I generally completely avoid the self-help genre.)
Anyway, to use Tim Urban’s excellent terms: I want to live in an Idea Lab, not in an Echo Chamber. To do this, you must listen to people with whom you disagree.
As it happens, the question of what is a woman is now going to be decided in court in Scotland. We live in interesting times, indeed.
Supreme Court to rule on legal definition of ‘woman’ in Scotland
+1
Matt Walsh is a conservative Catholic with whom I disagree about almost everything. But his movie was very very funny. It’s hard to recommend one best scene, but gun-to-head I’d pick the bit with Michelle Forcier if only because a couple years later she’s a defendant in a lawsuit brought by a female detransitioner who did not identify as transgender until she was referred to gender physicians. Forcier failed to help this poor woman to deal with obvious awful mental health problems (dissociative disorder, hallucinations, history of sexual abuse), and Forcier instead pumped her full of testosterone and convinced her she was akshually a man.
https://unherd.com/newsroom/detransitioner-files-lawsuit-against-gender-affirming-clinicians/
Matt Walsh is a conservative Catholic with whom I disagree about almost everything. But his movie was very very funny.
Agreed, and while I don’t like the guy at all, he did an excellent job of revealing how far gender ideology has gone in some areas of academia. Nearly everyone he spoke with revealed fundamentalist views on trans and gender issues, and all gave incoherent and ridiculous answers to the simple question: ‘What is a Woman?’
Like Acarodbo, I recall “gender” changing from being another term for “sex” into the word we use to describe the social expectations and stereotypes cultures placed on the sexes — what’s considered masculine or feminine. My experience with this started back in the 70’s.
People did not have a gender. They either conformed to what their gender was supposed to be or didn’t (or, of course, sometimes yes and sometimes no.) While the question of nature vs nurture was up in the air, Gender as a restrictive social demand was something to fight against. The Gender Non-Conforming were protected and supported: it was fine for a woman to wear pants and work in construction, boys could cry and play with dolls, etc.
Man was still a male of the human species and woman a female of the human species.
I didn’t personally notice that changing until the late 00’s, maybe early teens. It was connected to the conflation of sex and gender in order to validate people who identified as transgender.
Very good comments. I agree. (Though I remember first encountering “gender” as a grammatical parameter when learning the German language in middle and high school!)
Sastra’s post is in line with what my experience was, but I want to add to that as I hear a misunderstanding in the original post. My experience is from my involvement in 2nd wave feminism from the 70s, not the teaching of biology in academia. Feminists wanted to differentiate between biological sex and the social/ cultural expectations of each sex. Gender is the word used to describe “sugar and spice and everything nice” vs “snakes and snails“ type of thinking about sex. Of course, that concept has changed a great deal since then. It has morphed many times into something I no longer recognize, such as believing that biological sex is a cultural construct. That is not at all what the 2nd wave feminists intended.
Feminists wanted to differentiate between biological sex and the social/ cultural expectations of each sex. ”
( CharGPT used to clean up the text) Did a good job for me which relfect my wiev
I hold an MSc in Biology, with additional coursework in Philosophy and Social Anthropology, completed between 1989 and 1997 in Norway, following the sociobiology debate. I recall suggesting to an assistant professor that we should incorporate an introduction to the biological explanations of human nature and culture (Sociobiology). However, the response was a firm “no way” accompanied by a clear dismissal of the relevance of biology within social anthropology. While they didn’t reject the relevance of biology to the study of humans outright, they deemed it irrelevant to the department’s focus.
I’m totally “in” with those definitions of gender and sex. I’m right there with you 2nd-wave feminists. I am one.
Same in kind, Different in degree is straight out of Hermetic alchemy – and the seventh Hermetic principle – published in 1908 at least – The Principle of Gender.
See The Kybalion – it’s free online.
I think somewhere, someone is laughing their asses off at everyone.
As a non-biologist, what I remember about gender from my high school education was that it applied to languages – that Latin, for example, was a gendered language in that nouns were masculine (e.g., “vir”, man), feminine (e.g., “mater”, mother), or neuter (e.g., “ferrum”, iron).
Sex was something entirely different.
Mark, if you were using “gender” when you were very young, then you are still a pup! The word in its current form was practically unknown outside of some academic and feminist circles pre-1980.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gender&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3
I think you have to follow the example of Humpty Dumpty:
Back when I was studying linguistics in the early ’80s, my professors made a distinction between gender and sex in pronouns. In this telling, sex is a real-world category while gender is a more or less arbitrary classification based on categories that most entities don’t fall into one way or another. So pronouns (and nouns and articles and so forth) in languages like Spanish have gender (just try sexing a table), while pronouns in English for the most part aren’t gendered*–we use “she” for female humans and some animals, and “he” for male humans and some animals. There are exceptions, of course, such as when we refer to a car or a nation as “she”, but for the most part our pronouns show sex, not gender.
So I’ve always chafed at the use of “gender” as a synonym for “sex”. The latter is a real-world phenomenon that exists quite independently of human cognition, while the former is just a convenient (or perhaps inconvenient) way humans have developed to classify nouns in their languages.
*There are other ways of classifying nouns that aren’t sex-based, such as animate/inanimate. And many languages don’t bother with such classifications at all, Turkish being one example.
Consider a hypothetical new mammal species with some individuals
There seems to be two different types and you want to determine how they reproduce. Since we know mammals are anisogamous (i.e., reproduce via fusion of a sperm and an egg), we can be as certain as possible that this species also exhibits males and females. But how do we determine which is which? Type 1 is usually smaller than type 2. Both type 1 and type 2 walk on two legs, usually with the other two legs hanging freely on the side
Type 1 Usually two protruding “bulbs” on the chest, seems to be made up of some kind of glands and fat tissue. Between the leg they have a two holes, one connected to the digestive system, the other one to a inner pouch …….which is further connected to a type of gland on each side of the abdomen. This gland/ organ seem to contains rather large cells, not very many however
Type 2 Usuall without significant fat or gland in the chest area, Only one hole between their leg, connected to the digestive system. A protruding organ between the leg, seems to be able to erect to a length of typically 15 cm… Also two sack hanging from below this organ………….seems to contain millions of very small cells
I think you all understand where I am going with this,
Well, the protruding organ should also have a hole in it.
As PCC(E) says, he’s not going to do a psychoanalysis of P.Z. (wise), but I’d sure like to read one. 🙂
Sort of related is an article I read today regarding the teen trans mania and a whistle blower at a clinic. To wit:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/what-happened-at-multicare
It is by Leo Sapir, a writer who specializes in this topic and spoke recently at the Genspec conference.
The story is bonkers. I’m not sure how long it will be before this whole disaster is looked back on as a mix of lobotomy, FGM and social contagion – as it should be – but when that happens it’ll save future teenagers from doing such damage to themselves, encouraged by a terrible medical community captured by TRAs.
D.A.
NYC
Aren’t we in really big trouble if a man with the knowledge, education and professional status of P Z Myers reconsiders the available data and publicly backs a conclusion that denies reality?
I think you’re giving this guy too much credit.
Actually, what is weird is that on balance he is really a smart and educated guy. Correct in all details and nuances on almost all factoids. Even for social causes (which are subjective), I actually agree with him on a majority of things. I may differ from the average commenter here on that.
Then comes the bit about the biology of sex, trans women in sports, and a few other areas and I just don’t get him.
I used to enjoy his column very much. Until he went full-on SJW.
Then, it literally became: No debate (on his site). He would ban and slander anyone who disagreed with him or even brought up certain subjects. “Debate” by insult. I turned my back on that site after one especially egregious incident and never went back, on principle (never). It was a cesspool.
I would likely agree with him on a large variety of subjects. But I find him an obnoxious person (and I’m a bit ashamed that I once wrote a letter of support for him to the University of Minnesota (as an alumnus)).
PZ Myers allowed posters (i.e. WMD Kitty) to post – in the days after 10/7 – that the rape and murder of Jews was a “hoax”, was “staged”, and that Israel was responsible. Even some of the other regular posters have called this particular creep an antisemite, but as far as I am aware, the poster still pops up there.
So, while his banhammer is infamous, it isn’t as wide-ranging as you might think.
Rich Sanderson: Doesn’t surprise me in the slightest! He’s an obnoxious person.
I really wish that were true. But it’s actually terrible to think that P Z Myers is the end result of 20+ years of education and a career as a researcher and professor. Clearly our institutions are failing us when the P Z Myers flourish at the expense of the Colin Wrights and when only someone who have steered well clear of them is likely to answer the question ‘What is a woman?’ honestly.
I think Luiz is correct. I read and commented at Myers Pharyngula during its earliest days. Back then it was all science and atheism. Myers is undeniably smart and he knows his field of science very well (or at least he did). He is also an excellent writer (Or, again, at least he was). His ability to describe science in a way that a general audience could understand while not dumbing it down was top notch. The regulars at the site during those days where also top notch. I’ve rarely come across a commentariat with so many interesting, thoughtful, smart and decent people as that early era of Pharyngula. In my experience that just does not happen unless the proprietor of the site is top notch. If I consider the size of the commentariat, I’ve only ever come across one other that exceeded it, this one.
Luiz question is spot on. How does someone like that turn into the Myers we know today? This isn’t a surprising thing, it’s positively common. Given the myriad examples it’s very obvious that smart people are not immune from doing dumb things or becoming nasty people. Understanding the various ways that happens is important.
P Z Myers is a nobody. I never heard of the guy outside of blogs and social media, but the way you speak of him one would think he is Ronald Fisher or W. D. Hamilton.
Just stop saying “sex” and start saying “gamete-ness.” James’s gamete-ness is sperm. Martha’s gamete-ness is egg. James cannot change in the Eggs-only locker room, and Martha cannot serve Martha’s sentence in the Sperms-only prison.
There are only a handful of contexts where gamete-ness is used to classify people (as opposed to other ways such as age or weight): locker rooms and bathrooms; jails; and, sports. Until the last fifty years, that list also would have included marriage and the military.
So, the question boils down to: are there a good, rational reasons to make gamete-ness a classifier in any contexts? With the usual caveat that any classifier is going to be effectively unfair to a few people. E.g., some 18-year-olds are going to be both physically and psychologically underdeveloped compared to their peers, but we still prohibit them from playing in the Under-18 league because otherwise it would be too difficult to have an age classifier at all. A 200-pound man may be a technically poor wrestler but we wouldn’t let him wrestle in the 150-pound group even though he may actually be most fairly matched against lighter men. We draw lines like this in many contexts, and they hold up as long as there is a defensible rationale for the division. Gamete-ness should be no different.
I don’t think that term will catch on.
Correct, we should replace it with a shorter and catchier word. How about “sex”?
Great comment! Almost all people have a sense and understanding of what that three-letter word means, and in almost all cases they’re correct. Of course, ambiguity occasionally arises, but that doesn’t change the reality of sex as a binary. Some people are born with phenylketonuria, but no one would claim that a human’s ability to metabolise phenylalanine occurs on a spectrum.
Jonathan’s point: “There are only a handful of contexts where gamete-ness is used to classify people.” illustrates part of the problem, as it misrepresents the issue. Biologists are not seeking to ‘classify people’, and as I have asked elsewhere in these comments, what would that even mean? Instead, biologists are seeking to define the biological sex of people, and in that respect, they are spot on.
While I am not fan of PZ these days, I am less of a fan of Wright, who is essentially an alt-right/right-wing token PhD who writes for outlets such as Quillette and The Epoch Times. But sure, hold him up as a beacon of truth.
Ad hominem fallacy noted. Do you have anything to say about his analysis?
[here I made fun of Scott but am deleting]
Really, “token PhD”? My colleagues and I go to a lot of trouble to de-stigmatize careers in pubic policy and other non-academic areas for the large number of our PhD students who decide not to pursue research or academic careers after they defend and graduate. This kind of slur doesn’t help and just perpetuates the idea that PhDs who have careers like Colin’s are somehow failures.
More on point, this is the kind of pointless ad hom that Carole Hooven’s colleagues at Harvard lobbed at her for appearing on a Fox News show to promote her book and to advocate for sex-based rights for women. She went on Fox because other mainstream media outlets would not have her on their shows for fear of the pink-haired rainbow alphabet horde. And they called her a transphobe for it. Like Jim said, engage with Wright’s ideas or not, but don’t smear him for where he writes (though tbh “writes for outlets such as Quillette” is not much of a smear).
Scott, I never saw you comment on this website before and therefore think you came here just to spew your anger, but Quillette is in fact one of the best online magazines left. It is one of the only magazines that consistently defend classically liberal values and science.
Agreed. Quillette is excellent. And Bari Weiss’s team over at the Free Press.
I certainly do not agree with everything they say! But I do not want to live in an echo chamber.
Jonathan Kay is great on the Quillette podcast.
What is your point? You don’t like someone because you disagree with them? So what?
When choosing my beacon of truth I will opt for those who supply evidence. As Wright supplies lots and you provide none, it shouldn’t surprise you that I’m going with him.
All biologists would do well to remember that the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ have many different meanings in different contexts, both in common usage and in biology, and to moderate their arguments accordingly. The use of ‘sex’ to mean ‘type of gametes produced’ was a relatively obscure meaning until it was weaponized in recent arguments about human sexuality.
Completely false.
The reason we have known for centuries which flowers are the ‘male’ ones and which flowers are the ‘female’ ones is because of the gametes they produce. (Did you think it was just a coincidence that everything we define as male creates sperm?
Sexual reproduction is *defined* as the creation of offspring by the union of gametes. Gametes are the very core of the definition of “sex”.
There are two kinds of gametes (sperm and egg), and we need words to refer to the kinds of organisms that produce sperm and eggs. Those words are “male” and “female”.
In other words: there are two sexes, and they are defined based on gamete production. Because sex is literally all about gametes and the union of gametes.
You’re missing my point. Word don’t have one God-given or Science-given definition. When biologists are deciding whether a new individual organism (or organ) is functionally male or female, we often use the type-of-gametes definition of ‘sex’, because in this context biologists have agreed on this definition. When we’re talking about coitus, or about the mode of reproduction, we use different agreed-upon definitions. When I give my ‘Do bacteria have sex’ seminar, I start with a ‘for the purpose of this talk’ definition that captures the issues I want to address. Outside of biology there are many other meanings in use, usually with no formally decided definitions. To a lesser degree the same is true for ‘gender’.
My point is that biologists, in discussions about human sexuality, should not righteously declare that they know the *true meanings* of these terms. Rather they should try to gracefully move the discussion away from definitions to whatever the underlying issues are.
I think you are making a Motte and Bailey argument here. No one argues that sex can’t be thought of as 1) which of two binary gamete-forming body plans you have or 2) the various behaviours that culminate in coitus, depending on context. “Do bacteria have sex?” is just a play on words as posed. If the seminar is compulsory, then you can resolve the ambiguity at your leisure. If it was the title of a lecture to the public, the reaction might depend on how many members of the audience who paid admission took it the opposite way from “the purpose of this talk.” In any event, the various mechanisms by which prokaryotes transfer genes between each other has no bearing on the gametic definition of the sex binary in higher eukaryotes…other than the hydrogen bonding of nucleotide base-pairing during recombination.
You don’t offer any arguments for the view, or even examples, that some definition other than gamete-specific body plan is ever “better” for the purposes of the first sense. We’d have to hear what other definitions you would propose before we can engage with you.
See reply to Acarodbo below for what my research seminar is about.
I don’t think we should be proposing any definitions of sex to be used in arguments about human sexuality – that’s my main point.
The answer to “do bacteria have sex” is an unqualified “no”. “Sex” is unique to eukaryotes. (It requires the production and union of gametes.) You’re just playing fast and loose with the definition.
I might as well give a talk called “do bacteria have nuclei” where I redefine the meaning of “nucleus”.
Also, I’m in no way “missing your point”, when I was responding to your claim that nobody defined sex using gametes until it began to be used recently in arguments about human sex. Gametes are literally the basis for the definition of sex!
At the start of my seminar (to an audience of biologists) I define sex as any process evolved to randomize combinations of alleles. This is not silly, like asking if bacteria have nuclei, but focuses our attention on the important evolutionary question of whether the selected function of bacterial ‘parasexual’ processes is, like meiotic sexual reproduction. randomizing their combinations of alleles. Most evolutionary biologists know little about these processes, and assume that these processes are forms of sex (and yes, they would use that word).
But the answer is “no”. These processes have been selected for transmission of genetic parasites (phage and plasmids) and for acquisition of nucleotides from environmental DNA.
I am somewhat agreeable, in that the various terms seemed to be fairly interchangeable for a long time (see my comment above). But it wasn’t the gamete camp that started this debate, and unlike the other side no one on the gamete side has tried to cow into silence or get anyone fired for taking up with the other side. That is weaponizing by any definition.
The gamete aspect of sexuality is the one and only thing that unites our reproductive biology with all other multicellular sexual species. We need words for that fundamental category. Can’t we keep a few words? Please? It does no one any harm. Honest.
No. Not even if the other side claims to know the *true meanings*. Somehow, the definitions of definitions of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ originally used by a particular scholarly community (human sexuality studies?) have become accepted as the *true meanings* by much of ‘woke’ society and the media. This leads to a lot of angry arguments, and quite a bit of harm, to both sides and to many people who are just trying to be fair.
The solution isn’t to argue that our definitions are right. Different definitions are right in different contexts, and the words work well without strict definitions in many contexts.
The solution is to move away from arguing about definitions, and to instead spell out the actual issues each side is concerned about.
But doesn’t the actual issue here ultimately come down to definitions and the concepts they stand for?
“Transwomen should be considered and treated as women because they are indeed women.”
How do we analyze, discuss, and debate this if we’re going to put aside what a “woman” is?
Because you’re just supposed to ignore the actual meanings of the words now and say whatever is most agreeable to the largest number of people, even if it’s false.
“Science”.
Active members of the two camps keep talking past each other from entranced positions. No one budges, and meanwhile there is a silent majority of biologists and educators who just do their work and keep their heads down. What would be good is to have a set of Big Meetings at various relevant biological societies, where there are talks. People can give their positions. The audiences can learn about the history of discovery about biological sex (that goes back a couple centuries), and history of enlightenment about trans people and human sexuality. Do those elevations in our collective social consciousness really justify a change in how we define a fundamental aspect of biology in our species or in life in general?
From these meetings, there can then be Big Voting Events for what do ‘sex / male / female / man / woman / gender’ mean from the context of biology. Have the vote be (a) Anonymous, and (b) Done only by those who hold faculty positions with a track record of grants and publications. Presumably these will be experts who have a long term commitment to the outcome. Sorry, can’t admit grad students or even postdocs to the voting booth. Not until they prove themselves.
No. Biologist professors don’t get to decide what words in general usage mean. My point is that NOBODY gets to decide this. We should try to set aside definitions and see if we can then agree on how to treat people fairly. Not just trans people but everyone, including people who grew up with narrower ideas of human sexuality.
No. While I have no disagreement with your point on how to treat people fairly, if we abandon the fight over definitions, we concede the field to the ill-intentioned.
Please see my comment below.
“Biologist professors don’t get to decide what words in general usage mean. My point is that NOBODY gets to decide this.”
Alas, powerful people through massive propaganda campaigns often decide what words in general usage mean. One well-paid lobbyist can be worth a thousand scholars.
The reason we wind up arguing definitions is that trans activists do not want to clarify the meanings of these various terms.
I’ve read trans activist Julia Serano’s book Whipping Girl. Here’s how Serano defined “gender”:
Notice the conflation of physical sex with legal sex and “social sex” (?)
Serano continues:
This is mighty convenient when you’re trying to convince people that “gender identity” is more important than sex, and should be prioritized over sex in law and social policy.
Any given term means whatever a trans ideologue needs it to mean in any given argument, forcing those who argue with them to define our terms, which leads to exactly what’s happening here.
Word games and obfuscation are central to their political goals.
I think many of them (like most people, including, it appears, P. Z. Myers) are unthinkingly adopting the definition provided by their community, because they think that words have fixed meanings. Some of the leaders may knowingly be playing mind games and obfuscating, but probably not most.
The solution is to move away from fighting over definitions and identify the real issues people are concerned about.
The real issues people are concerned about have been identified. Men (male human beings) are being allowed into women’s (female human beings) sports, changing rooms, locker rooms, spas, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, and prison housing, based on something called “gender identity.”
The word “woman” has been redefined to mean “a gender identity.”
Children are being subjected to experimental treatments that can result in sterility and sexual dysfunction, among other possible long-term effects, despite a lack of evidence that such treatments improve patients’ mental health.
Some of us object to these things.
If words do not have agreed-upon fixed meanings, then discussion and new knowledge are impossible.
If any interlocutor can slip in a new meaning anytime they feel like (“my lived experience”; magic!*) then you have nothing but gibberish or you are forced to spend all your time on definitions.
Tower of Babel.
The trans-activist community wants the fixed definition of a woman to be: Anyone who declares that they are a woman (whatever that might be). Full stop. Immolation for heretics.
The rest of humanity wants a fixed definition that conforms with reality, common sense, biology, safety for vulnerable women, and fairness for natal women. This does not constitute transphobia.
(* If magic is admitted, then any result can equally well be declared to follow any cause and knowledge is impossible.)
Yes, one of the first things philosophers do when determining why a group disagrees so strongly is examine whether they are using words in the same way or not. Thus, they help clarify things like what a “gene” is, or what a “species” is, or what the “target” of selection is.
Having clear definitions is crucial.
I agree with Lady Mondegreen and completely disagree with Rosie Redfield when she says ‘Some of the leaders may knowingly be playing mind games and obfuscating, but probably not most.’
I assert that people like P Z Myers and Augustin Fuentes are deliberately engaging in the most embarrassing, obvious and dishonest sophistry to appease trans-activists. As Helen Joyce has said, the only way that a man can become a woman is linguistically. Hence this sudden need to redefine words and deny what is well known. None of these ‘leaders’ are doing new research and making new discoveries, they’re simply rejigging the presentation of old information in a way that avoids a conclusion that inconveniences them: that there is no literal sense in which a man can be a woman.
Rosie Redfield’s solution to essentially give in by not ‘fighting over definitions’ seems to me cowardly. Dishonesty and bad faith should not be compromised with. What happens the next time science gives an answer that activists don’t like, say, ‘That humans can’t be cats’? Do we move away from fighting over the definition of ‘cat’ and instead ‘identify the real issues people are concerned about’?
I don’t think we will get very far if we refuse to define what we mean by our terms. To refuse to do so in the service of emollience is awfully kind, but totally unhelpful.
Above you write:
This is one definition of sexual reproduction, but not of sex. Nor does meiosis alone define sex, or sexual reproduction. It is the means by which we see sexual reproduction occur. Clarity of thought can only be expressed through clear speech and that requires definitions. I do not regard use of a dictionary as an insult (as PZ does for some reason).
Quote out of context! I use this definition of sex in my seminars about the function of bacterial parasexual processes. I’m certainly not proposing it as a definition for general use (see above).
You are absolutely correct that this whole debate is based on the non-sequitur that if we accept that sex is defined by gametes, then somehow we will be forced to consider transgender people subhuman and remove all their rights. This line of reasoning is completely false and that’s why its advocates deserve little charity.
And the distinction between defining sex and recognizing or diagnosing it is also appropriate. We define Covid as an infectious disease caused by a virus, but we diagnose it in part by observing symptoms such as cough and anosmia. The same can be said about diagnosing an individual’s sex by means of observable sexual characteristics.
I personally would say: This whole debate is based on the fact that if we accept that sex is defined by gametes, we will be forced to consider transwomen as men which runs contrary to their wishes. That is the true heart of the matter.
I’ve asked 2 general practitioners I respect what they think about pre-pubescent trans-gender medical interventions. Both are traditionally liberal. One is noted within his practice for caring for most of their AIDS and homosexual patients. They had thought that they could have him deal with gender dysphoric youth as well, but he told them he would have nothing to do with it. The other, who practices acupuncture as well as standard medicine, said that we are conducting an enormous uncontrolled and unmonitored experiment on our youth with unknown lifelong consequences. While generally soft-spoken, she stated this with clear anger.
First principle: Do no harm. The transactivist community has thrown this out the window.
Had me until acupuncture. But at least that one is harmless.
Acupuncture is not harmless. There are the obvious risks associated with sticking sharp objects into human beings and also the more general risks associated with using nonsense woo as alternative medicine rather than as complementary medicine.
She uses acupuncture as complementary medicine. She routinely reads Science and Nature as well as the standard medical journals. Having heard that acupuncture sometimes apparently works for dogs and horses, I let her try it on my back pain but she was very clear at the end of session 3 that if it was going to help, it would have by then and that I should return to standard western medical treatment, in my case radio-frequency ablation of facet nerves. I think we were both moving through the process of trying the least invasive to the most invasive procedures. I had also tried PT, a chiropractor, and ultrasound treatments, only the RFA worked and eliminated the need for opioid painkillers.
I am very glad that you have made a recovery. Back pain is horrendous.
How long did you do PT for?
For me, PT has been the only long-term, real cure (or at least management) for my many orthopedic injuries (back, knees, hip, shoulders, elbows, you name it. I used my body hard in my 20s and 30s.)
I had a bulging disc in 2006 that put me in bed with terrible pain 24/7 for 3 weeks; no comfortable position to be found. (I can’t recommend lifting 300-pound pieces of farm equipment by yourself — I hadn’t figured out by that point that I was no longer 20 or 30 years old!)
The Percocets just kept the pain at bay enough such that I wasn’t constantly grinding my teeth and could grab a 2-hour nap now and then. The pain was like a blow-torch up and down my left leg 24/7.
Eventually, I got an epidural bolus of lidocaine and a strong steroid* (thank Ceiling Cat for such steroids). The lidocaine allowed me to stand upright for the first time in weeks and steroid calmed the nerves and other tissues enough for me to begin to live again and do my PT exercises.
I still do them. I will be doing them in a few minutes (18 years later).
Eventually, after 6-10 years, the bulging disc reabsorbed and I am now fully cured. But I carefully practice good lifting hygiene and do my PT religiously. (And don’t lift 300-pound objects by yourself!)
(* When the epidural was actually injected into my spine, it was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, like by a factor of 100. And it lasted about 5 hours! Just kidding, probably 500msec before the lidocaine kicked in; but they had two BIG orderlies lying on my shoulders and legs — I would have levitated to the ceiling.)