On March 2, 125 scientists and people affiliated with biology (from 18 countries) signed a letter to the presidents of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), the American Society of Naturalists (ASN), and the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB) See my post about this here.
Our letter and signatures, resulting largely from the effort of Luana Maroja of Williams College, was written to object to the three societies’ previously published claim that biological sex in all species (not just humans) was some sort of multidimensional social construct that was, above all, NOT binary. Here’s one paragraph from their letter, dated February 5, 2025 and addressed to President Trump and “Members of the U.S. Congress.”
Scientific consensus defines sex in humans as a biological construct that relies on a combination of chromosomes, hormonal balances, and the resulting expression of gonads, external genitalia and secondary sex characteristics. There is variation in all these biological attributes that make up sex. Accordingly, sex (and gendered expression) is not a binary trait. While some aspects of sex are bimodal, variation along the continuum of male to female is well documented in humans through hundreds of scientific articles. Such variation is observed at both the genetic level and at the individual level (including hormone levels, secondary sexual characteristics, as well as genital morphology). Beyond the incorrect claim that science backs up a simple binary definition of sex, the lived experience of people clearly demonstrates that the genetic composition at conception does not define one’s identity. Rather, sex and gender result from the interplay of genetics and environment. Such diversity is a hallmark of biological species, including humans.
I can’t resist pointing out that the “lived identity” part has nothing to do with biological sex, but shows more than anything the ideological purposes of this letter.
Although these views were presented as a “scientific consensus”, the societies did not poll their members. Rather, I gather that they consulted their executive boards and decided that this was a good way to signal their virtue—even if involved distorting biology. Their “multidimensional, multivariate” concept of sex, which incorporates information from a number of disparate traits, is in sharp contrast with what most biologists see as the definition of sex: a binary trait in all animals and plants that is based solely on whether they have the reproductive apparatus to produce large versus small gametes. As Richard Dawkins has explained, the latter gamete-based “Universal Biological Definition” (UBD) of sex has the advantage that, yes, it’s universal (every plant and animal species has only two types of gametes), and it’s also explanatory, essential for understanding stuff like natural selection and sexual dimorphism. The multidimensional definition is neither universal nor explanatory.
The Tri-Societies “definition”—which isn’t really a definition—gives us no way to answer the two questions, “Well, how do you tell what sex a person/animal/plant really is?” and “How many sexes are there, then?” It’s a useless construct foisted on the public to show solidarity with those people who don’t identify with one of the two biological sexes. (I repeat again that it’s a description of nature, not a a prescription about how people should be treated.) But we felt that such a letter needed to be sent to show that by no means do all biologists agree on a multivariate definite of sex.
Our first letter (identical, but with only 23 signatures) was never answered, but this time we asked for a response and got one, signed by all three Presidents. I can’t reprint it because we didn’t ask for permission, but some of its gist is in the response below from Luana. I will say that they admitted that they think they’re in close agreement with us (I am not so sure!), that their letter wasn’t properly phrased, that some of our differences come from different semantic interpretations of words like “binary” and “continuum”(nope), and that they didn’t send the letter anyway because a federal judge changed the Executive Order on sex (this didn’t affect our criticisms). At any rate, the tri-Societies letter is on hold because the organizations are now concerned with more serious threats from the Trump Administration, like science funding.
While I can’t reveal all the points they made, I can say that I see this largely as a victory for reason, as although the letter is still up at the link (they really should remove it and inform the members of the Societies), it wasn’t ever sent and they admit that it has several deficiencies. However, since they do admit those deficiencies, they really should take the letter down because it misrepresents biological reality as well the views of many–perhaps most–evolutionists. (You can also find the letter archived here).
At any rate, the Societies’ letter was sent to all 125 signers, some of whom read this website and are able to comment on the response. In the meantime, yesterday Luana sent the letter below to the Societies (quoted with permission). Given that the Societies admit the letter was misleading and yet it’s still on the internet representing what is said to be a “scientific consensus” and not even giving a definition of biological sex, the proper thing to do would involve either taking it down or writing something newer based on a poll of the Societies’ members.
Luana’s letter:
Dear Dan, Jessica and Carol,
Thank you for your response. We are pleased to hear that the letter has not yet been sent . Is the letter going to be removed from the website and members notified of the change and any future changes?
I am unclear what you mean by “Subsequently a federal judge decided against the Executive Order we were commenting on, and the wording of that EO then changed, rendering our original letter moot.” I am not aware of such change – the EO is still in place (here). What are you referring to?
Furthermore, subsequent to the Executive Order 14168, the HHS has released a guidance (here) to the U.S. government, external partners, and the public to expand on the sex-based definitions. The HHS guidance changed the definition related to “producing gametes” (at conception) to sex “characterized by a reproductive system with the biological function of producing” eggs (ova) or sperm.
We hope we can indeed find common ground,
Best,
Luana
I end by saying that scientific societies need not be “institutionally neutral” when they are dealing with issues that affect the mission of the societies, as the definition of sex surely does. But what’s not okay is for the societies to distort “scientific consensus” in the interest of ideology. I have no idea if the Presidents of these societies really believe what they said (as Dawkins has pointed out, all three Presidents use a binary notion of sex in their own biological work), but something is deeply wrong when you use one notion of sex in your own science and yet deny that notion when you’re telling politicians what scientists “really believe.”
I agree 100% with Jerry writing in his concluding sentence (emphasis added):
The action of the 3 presidents are so utterly foolish and corrosive of the credibility of scientists, it’s mind-boggling. Normally, they should resign because of their flagrant dishonesty. But hey, Claudine Gay and all, lying has become endemic in academia these days. So their actions hardly stand out anymore.
I’m just disgusted. And thank heaven, for people like Luana, Jerry and Anna Krylov.
I concur, Peter.
“but something is deeply wrong when you use one notion of sex in your own science and yet deny that notion when you’re telling politicians what scientists ‘really believe’.”
Sounds like the scientists are learning from the politicians. It’s a bit like donning face masks for the camera, or like ordering lockdowns, shuttering businesses, banning funerals—and then going about one’s own social life as one normally would. But fine podcast you have there, Gavin!
When one sees similar failures of leadership across parties, across disciplines, across generations, then one is dealing with deficits in culture as much as with personal failings.
They were trying to please the trans lobby, maybe?
Glad to see principles guiding the way.
There is most certainly a competitor that is effectively invisible – some literature citations would be a tip-off perhaps – to John Money, Robert Stoller, Judith Butler,… so tiresome.
IMHO “consensus” is an idea that works great until it is used as a Motte with a Bailey. Public confidence in science is degraded with “consensus”. They get suspicious.
“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson
From Real Time with Bill Maher
“2011-02-04” on this video : youtu.be/yRxx8pen6JY
… that quote cuts in two ways, I think.
Thanks to you, Luana, and others for your work on this.
I would have signed your counter-letter myself (using my real name), but as a non-American, I felt that I really shouldn’t express an opinion about a letter written by American scientific societies containing a statement about what the US president said.
I’m glad to see American biologists pushing back against some of this ideology. Thanks for helping lead the charge despite the flak you will likely receive from certain quarters.
Yes big shout out and cheers to Jerry, Luana, Elizabeth Weiss, Lee Jussim, Dawkins, Pinker, Krauss and all the other friends of WEIT who stand up against the nonsense.
It’d be pricey but I’d like to buy you all a few drinks!
D.A.
NYC
As I commented here
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/02/13/a-group-letter-to-the-presidents-of-three-evolution-ecology-societies-objecting-to-their-characterization-of-sex-as-a-spectrum-in-humans-and-all-other-species/#comment-2130918
the authors appeared to know that they were saying something misleading. They really should take the letter down.
Well done.
Bravo! As a signer of the letter, I am pleasantly surprised by their apparent agreement. They really should deep-six their letter.
Jerry; Someone should publish the 3 president’s letter, unless they actually forbid it. There is no way they could be sending a letter to 125 people and not expect it to be made public. Their original letter, your group letter and their reply should be put in the same public place.
I have written them asking for permission to reproduce their letter on this site without further dissing it. If they give that permission, you’ll see the letter.
I feel quite annoyed at Neil deGrasse Tyson for being idiotic about these matters. I used to respect his ability to get people interested in science. But when sex and gender comes up, he mouths absurdities.
I wonder if he is even sincere. He certainly believes in precise scientific definitions for astronomical bodies. Hence the hullabaloo about demoting Pluto from the status of a planet to its new status as a dwarf planetoid. Precise definitions for icy dirtballs that orbit the sun is fine. But biological sex is whatever.
The question must be: How does Pluto identify? A demi-planet or a zir-asteroid?
Questions of our time for Neil – depending on what gender he feels like that day of course.
🙂
D.A.
NYC
And what happens if Pluto undergoes further exploration of self-identity and wishes to detransition back to being a planet?
As I understand it, the scientific issue was this: Astronomers discovered a few dozens of icy dirtballs that resemble Pluto. Such dwarf Plutoid thingys continue to be discovered. Nobody wanted to expand the list of planets to forty or fifty or more. So Tyson and others came up with reasonable objective criteria for planethood and made a definition of “planet” that excluded Pluto.
As far as I know, Pluto has not yet publicly spoken about how it (he? she? ze? they?) self-identifies.
Pluto never speaks. However, the Disney Corporation’s copyright on him expires next year. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto_(Disney) .
There is an informal rule that when an academic starts opining outside of their area, they can easily get totally lost. But I know of some strong biologists who say the same off-kilter things about the biology of sex as NDT would. Then if the conversation turns to something else biological, all of the sudden they start talking normal.
I accept the definition of a planet, and by that definition Pluto ain’t one. So here is a funny video about that.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/643896398060720
Thank you for all your vigilance and efforts and for keeping us informed. And praise to Luana, at the tip of the spear regarding this particular skirmish.
And now they are concerned about science funding. I am sure presenting your organisation as part of Woke Academia is a really good way to secure funding from this government,
I agree the three societies have a stake in public understanding of sex, and the problem with both their original letter and their response to Luana is the distortion of biology.
I wrote to Dan Bolnick (he emailed the response to all the cosigners of Luana’s reply):
“The executive order is a political not a scientific document, and it’s title expresses the political problem: “Gender Ideology Extremism”. The nature and definition of sex in humans is a political topic and the focus of executive orders by a president because gender extremists wrongly claim that some human males who have an internal sense of being a woman are actually females and have the right to access spaces and services for women (in sport, prisons, shelters, public accommodations).
“I’m sorry that your Feb. 5 letter and your email today don’t address that political context and the false biological claims by transgender activists: that a person can be born in the wrong body; the internal sense of being the other sex has a biological and genetic basis; this internal sense can be associated with specific structural or functional brain differences in transgender individuals in fMRI data; medical and surgical transition for trans people allows them to change sex; and the medicalization of such feelings in transgendered children is good because they avoid experiencing the wrong puberty.
“Rebutting those false claims would say nothing about the rights & freedoms of people who feel they are transgender, or anyone else whose gender expression or sexuality doesn’t conform to cultural stereotypes about the two sexes. But biologists like you & me should reject the false claim that some males are female. Even if that means occasionally agreeing with someone like Mr. Trump who, like a broken clock, is almost always wrong but capable about twice a day of saying something that’s true and correct.”
This particular phrase:
Seems so Cartesian
So much of modern left ideology is just super-naive versions of old dubious doctrines. You mention mind-body dualism / cartesianism. Another one is blank slate-ism. Another one is the “noble savage” idea of Rosseau, i.e. the idea that humans were perfect and harmonious and at peace in a pre-civilization “state of nature”, that civilization corrupted them, and what we need to destroy parts of current civilization to get back to that (fictional) idea. The overlaps with decolonisation etc. are huge here.
All this gets mixed (somehow) in with the doctrine of Progress, which says that everything is getting better or destined to get better, being “outdated” is the worst thing (watch for that word, “outdated”, it breaks your brain once you realize how often it is the beginning and ending of the argument for some dubious claim), our predecessors were dumb and evil and should be canceled for their moral failings, etc.
A fair amount of this overlaps with the old Premillenarianism / Postmillenarianism dispute in Christianity. The fundamentalists liked Premilleniarianism which said everything was going to heck and wouldn’t be fixed until Jesus comes back and brings 1000 years of Heaven on Earth. The Postmillenialists said it was our Christian duty to bring about Heaven on Earth through social progress etc.
The Tri-society reply went out to the larger # of signatories of the letter, and I got the email. I don’t recall that they admit that they were wrong to pretend to speak for all (or even a majority of) members of the societies.
FWIW, I just listened on NPR to most of a retrospective on David Johansen (of the NY Dolls & aka Buster Poindexter), who died last week. Much was from an interview from 2002, and at one point he specifically talked about how sex was binary, altho not in that explicit term, and gender was a continuum. There was no pushback on that in 2002.
They’re too specific in their denial of the sex binary not to know its truth in their own work while publicly or outwardly denying it to signal their virtue.
Lies, lies, lies, yeah.
I bet Hemant Mehta and PZ Meyers are crying sweet tears of anti-science salt.
BTW, they’re fighting in the comments [under an article of Meyers cry-raging over Gavin Newsom] over at Pharyngula, accusing each other of “smelling like cheap vodka and soiled underpants”. I can concur that is what Pharyngula regulars smell like. Anyway, apparently, it has only just dawned on them that leftists urging everybody to not vote for Harris, led to Trump. And they’re really angry about that, and with each other! Well, we did warn them.
I haven’t paid any attention to PZ Meyers in years, he’s way into social justice nonsense. Stopped listening to Skeptics Guide to the Universe after Steve Novella announced that sex is a spectrum. Even the most intelligent among us can fall sway to a compelling moral narrative. 😒
I checked it out. They’re hysterical. Saying they won’t vote for Newsom should he be the candidate.
Laying down their markers early, they are.
(I would have said, “Staking their claims early” but apparently that’s a bad word now.)