Here’s a 1.5-hour interview of biologist Carole Hooven by the Free Press’s Coleman Hughes. As you may know, Hooven got her Ph.D. at Harvard, started work as a teaching fellow in biological anthropology, and subsequently wrote the excellent book T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us (2021). She was apparently a superb and popular teacher, nabbing a lot of teaching awards. But then the downfall: she got into trouble after she went on a Fox program and spoke the truth, asserting that there are two biological sexes—carefully adding the caveat that pronouns should be respected and that people with non-standard genders should be treated equally. (You can see the 4-minute Fox interview here.)
But of course the assertion that there are two biological sexes, although true, gets you labeled a “transphobe” (even with the proper caveats), and the DEI people in Carole’s department eventually made it impossible for her to work there, so she left. Harvard should be ashamed of this, and the school has done nothing to rectify its misbehavior. Subsequently, others have been demonized or called “transphobes” for defending the two-biological-sex fact. The demonizers, which include people like Steve Novella and the co-Presidents of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, should also be ashamed of their misbehavior, but they are seeking props for putting ideology over biological truth.
Carole begins by recounting her checkered—or should I say “diverse”—career, describing what happened at Harvard, and then explains the gametocentric definition of sex rejected by gender ideologues. The rest of the interview, with both discussants showing their characteristic eloquence, is a biology lesson, a lesson on sex determination, what can go wrong with the “normal” forms of development, and how evolution has produced differences in the morphology and behavior of the two sexes. Testosterone naturally makes an appearance. You can see why Carole won so many teaching awards.
The YouTube notes are these:
In elite circles, it has become strangely difficult to say out loud what every biology department taught as recently as 10 years ago: that sex is binary, that testosterone matters, and that average differences do not mean categorical rules. That’s why I wanted to sit down with Carole Hooven, an evolutionary biologist who spent 20 years at Harvard teaching hormones, behavior, and evolutionary psychology before she was pushed out for stating precisely that.
In our conversation, Hooven traces how she got here: from her early fieldwork studying chimp aggression in Uganda, to her best-selling book on testosterone, to the moment a single Fox News clip triggered a campus-wide effort to paint her as “dangerous.” She explains what research actually says—about rough-and-tumble play, aggression, libido, and the long-run effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones—and how activists and journalists systematically mislead the public.
Hooven isn’t angry or ideological; she is empirically careful. She draws a distinction almost nobody in public debate seems capable of holding anymore: Sex itself is binary, but sex-associated traits form overlapping distributions. Confusing those two ideas is what produces so much intellectual chaos and so much institutional cowardice.
This episode challenges the comforting myths: that these debates are “just semantics,” that biology can be legislated away, and that open scientific inquiry can coexist with fear of one’s students. What Hooven makes clear is that the science hasn’t changed, only the cost of talking about it.
Michel Foucault’s titles (below) come to mind as the impetus for Gnostic transformation :
History of Sexuality
Madness and Civilization
And Herbert Marcuse :
Eros and Civilization
Repressive Tolerance
… I think the titles alone outline some of the way-background picture to this story.
Maybe also
Parr, et. al.
“Knowledge-driven actions: transforming higher education for global sustainability”
2022
UNESCO
https://doi.org/10.54675/YBTV1653
Glad to see this one! And honored that Carole noticed my comment on YouTube 8 days ago. Again, thanks to this website — Jerry and some of the commenting folks — for bringing the trans-issue into focus for me while I was thinking of other things. (I had not been totally oblivious, but…) This morning’s Emma Hilton reference to her Twitter post — EH is another scientist I look to for authoritative information.
Also, Colin Wright (Ph.d. in biology) has produced some good content on sex, intersex, transgender. There are some videos on YouTube where he gives talks on the intersection of these topics.
Twice I had occasion to argue with a wokie about the alleged nonbinary nature of sex. After regaling me with “sex is a spectrum” arguments, both times the person I was arguing with trotted out the example of the clownfish. I played dumb and asked for an explanation of the clownfish. It was explained to me that under certain conditions a clownfish can change from male to female. I replied: “The words male and female must mean something for that to be true. What did you mean by calling the clownfish ‘male’ before the transformation? By what criteria do we call the fish ‘female’ after the transformation? Perhaps you used the words male and female to refer to gametes and reproductive function just as I do.” One person hemmed and hawed and got confused. The other got angry and called me a bigot and accused me of being a Trump supporter. Lol.
When people start calling you names, you know that they can’t hold up their end of the argument.
Serious question for the ‘sex is a spectrum’ people, what do you call the fact that every person on earth is the fusion of an egg and a sperm? What is the term? Or am I a fascist for even asking the question? And did I just exterminate all trans-people, again?
It is worryingly easy to exterminate whole swathes of people isn’t it? Almost as if it’s not actually happening.
As history is more in my wheelhouse than biology, I hope for an opportunity to ask spectrum believer whether Henry VIII would have had better luck creating heirs if he hadn’t limited prospective spouses to women.
I have wondered if the problem lies in the potential ambiguity of the term “sex”? I suspect that everyone would be happy acknowledge that there are two types of gametes, large and small, that we conventionally call female and male. My impression is that some people use the concept of “sex” to refer to the more complex structures of biochemistry, anatomy and physiology that support the production and use of those gametes, including pregnancy, where variation might be more normal (I’m remembering David Armstrong’s interesting book “The Political Anatomy of the Body” from about 40 years ago…). Just a thought or speculation.
Do please elaborate on what you mean by pregnancy as a domain where “variation” , rather than a strict sex binary, might be more “normal”. Some women can put a shot farther than many men, or bang a gavel with more authority, which is where I thought maybe you were going, but you floored me with pregnancy.
What characteristics could possibly move you to regard a male-sexed person as anything other than a man? You do realize that the activists don’t regard any objective or stated personality characteristics as necessary to the claim of sex-trumping gender. The person merely says he is a woman, or she is a man, and we are obliged to take the claim at face value.
“What characteristics could possibly move you to regard a male-sexed person as anything other than a man?”
Where on earth did you get that bizarre notion? — you’re asserting facts not in evidence, as my lawyer spouse says. I was speculating about possible answers to John Reynold’s serious question. When I have ‘argued’ with people about this, when I have asserted that humans produce two types of gametes, they usually stop and think for a moment. Sometimes they then go one to say “but what about the rest of biology that’s involved” and I wondered if that is what they mean by a broader notion of “sex.”
Be mentioning pregnancy, I meant simply that human females have anatomy and physiology that normally support conception and gestation, or “pregnancy” — ovaries can vary in size, shape, and position. External labia come in a wide variety of forms. Males have anatomical variation as well — penises are highly variable in shape and size, for example — but they are still features of males, not of women who feel that they are males.
I’m simply trying to make sense of what those ridiculous activists might be trying to say when they talk about “sex.” Attacking your supporters here might not be a wise tactic.
“Serious question for the ‘sex is a spectrum’ people”
No, the Woke Won’t Debate You. Here’s Why.
James Lindsay
July 2020
https://newdiscourses.com/2020/07/woke-wont-debate-you-heres-why/
I’ll watch this when I’m at the gym today.
Just finished the interview. It’s a must see! Really excellent tutorial on sex and the role of sex hormones. Lots of subtlety and sophistication in Hooven’s answers and, just as importantly, in Hughes’s questions. I don’t know if this will reach the sex-as-a-spectrum audience, but it does provide good information to use in combating that view.
Norman, thank you! Very kind of you. Sometimes when I hear myself talking about that stuff, I feel like, who is that? I’m pretty sure I’m not known for subtlety or sophistication in my personal life. So, nice to hear I came across that way with Coleman (and yes, he asked great questions!). Perhaps less subtle towards the end, when I described the quality of NDT’s ideas about “hormone categories” instead of “sex categories” in sports.
I wonder whether Carole could answer this question:
When the Harvard graduate students who would have been teaching assistants for your large hormone and behavior class refused to work for you because they deemed you such a transphobe or were afraid of being seen working with you, was that something that they had a legal right to do?
I imagine most graduate students get funding from Harvard, meaning they have a contract with Harvard that spells out the funding arrangement and the funded students’ complementary duties. Does this contract give them the legal right to refuse teaching assistant assignments? I guess no, but don’t really know.
One thing that went through my mind when listening to the podcast: You mentional Steve Pinker, Daniel Gilbert and Jeffrey Flyer as Harvard professors who supported you. But you didn’t give us the names of the people who orchestrated the witch hunt against you. Who was that department chair who organized a letter against you, etc.?
I don’t know – I think these people should be named. Though I assure you I would never try to contact them or go after them on social media.
The whole thing is depressing. Fortunately, the radical transgender activists are losing the fight (though I’m aware that in blues states the mania is still strong). They will soon lose again in front of the Supreme Court (sports). Well, the IOC president just announced that there will be no men in Olympic women’s competition at the next Olympic games. That is another win for sex realists.
But in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in the US, it’s still the old picture: There are DSD males in the league (most prominently Barbra Banda), but only one player (Elizabeth Eddy, she’s retiring) has spoken out against it and then received no public (but plenty of private) support. In public Eddy was called a transphobe and a racist.
As I commented three years ago on one of Jerry’s posts about Dr. Hooven’s terrible treatment at Harvard, engineering the forced departure of faculty members can have a big upside.
https://twitter.com/LauraSimoneLew/status/1508923565076271116
That person leveraged her unfounded criticism of Dr. Hooven into a postdoc at Berkeley and then a faculty position at Santa Barbara.
https://psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/laura-simone-lewis
Hi Peter,
Thanks so much for your comment/question.
I’ll answer the first part soon(ish, I think), but wanted to ask why you think I should name the people who attacked me or pushed me out or just didn’t do their jobs. A bunch of other people have said the same thing. I fantasize about doing that, and seeing them suffer. Or be publicly shamed. BUT that seems like a shitty thing to do (I know how it feels, and it’s the worst), and it won’t get me what I want. I want them to be genuinely sorry, to show they actually care, to SAY they are sorry, they fucked up, it wasn’t right, I was valued, I did a good job, etc. I know it won’t happen, but…I want the nightmares to stop, to never feel nervous when I walk around campus, and instead to feel proud, like I used to. I think this is all normal, right? At least I’m not going postal. But I do kind of understand that instinct (the female form, that is).
Thank you!
Carole
Dang! I read that as “I’ll watch this when I’m at the gyn today.”
She is impressive. I didn’t know about the testosterone surges in utero and at three months, and that testosterone produced later acts upon the changes wrought by those early surges, and that this is a problem for females transitioning to male since they haven’t had the early exposures.
Losing her from teaching is the perfect move in opposite world.
I’ve been heard to joke that of all the ills and evils besetting live on this planet for uncounted eons, testosterone is the greatest culprit (ignoring its “good side”). Like I read a lot of American Indian/Western history, and a universal significant note is the role played by the “young men” in conflicts between Indians and with the Europeans.
I get what you mean, but the joke is like complaining about food because eating it sometimes leads to indigestion 🙁
Masterful presentation in response to good questions, Dr. Hooven. I liked your answer to Coleman’s last question about the most interesting unanswered hormone question being aromatase. Great choice.
31:20. In discussing sexual traits (other than gonads) as on a spectrum, you offered as examples that a boy/man could seem to have a vagina and a girl/woman could have what looks like a penis. I understand you are referring to differences in sexual development appearing as ambiguous external genitalia. Despite the modern non-stigmatizing language, I think we do regard DSDs as congenital malformations akin to cleft palate or cardiac septal defects. I don’t think most clinicians (or parents!) would regard any congenital anomaly (“birth defect”) that impaired function as being part of the spectrum of normal development, (even granting that “normal” is not an objective, values-neutral term, nor is “defect”.) DSDs are not at all like traits such as penile size, labial morphology, etc. occurring within the range of unambiguous normality. So unless I misunderstood, I have to dispute that the degree of masculinization or feminization of the external genitalia as directed by the gonads is a spectral trait.
Yes, many people do worry whether their genitalia are normal and most can be reassured that they are. Yet hypospadias in a boy is always abnormal, as is fusion of the labia in a girl to create an imperforate introitus. These aren’t on any clinically meaningful spectrum of normal embryological development. They are examples of things going wrong, just as you mentioned in your earlier discussion of what you meant by a body plan designed to produce spermatozoa or ova even if an individual doesn’t have (or no longer has) the fully formed ability to do what her genetic recipe predicts. The other sexual characters like height, muscle mass, lust, choosiness, competitiveness, and agreeableness are of course spectral, sure.
17:22. “We can use everybody’s preferred pronouns and respect gender identity, but . . .” From the male trans activist, this produces the retort,
As Harvard showed to its shame and discredit, even meeting the activists half-way with what I might liken to a land acknowledgement won’t satisfy them. If you believe in the sex binary, which you must, you repudiate their claim to be the other sex everywhere it matters. That tells them you were insincere in giving obeisance to their pronouns and are therefore a transphobic bigot.
Harvard’s loss.
Dr. MacMillan,
Thanks for your thoughtful (and kind) comments.
I’ll focus on this point of disagreement from you:
“Unless I’ve misunderstood, I have to dispute that the degree of masculinization or feminization of the external genitalia as directed by the gonads is a spectral trait.”
Yes–I think there has been a misunderstanding. Let me try to clarify.
First, here are my relevant remarks from the podcast:
“All the other traits that are associated with sex— that are associated with the ability to produce sperm or eggs—are on a spectrum. That includes something as basic as sex chromosomes. Or genitalia which are not always what you might predict for a male or female. Generally, you know, almost always males will have X Y sex chromosomes and a penis, but they don’t have to. Sometimes they don’t.
Sometimes a male can have what appears to be a vagina or a female could have what appears to be a penis. So, you can start with these very basic reproductive characteristics and there is those are not a clear distinct binary. Of course, when you get into things like hormone levels, body types, breasts, breast size, gender identity, whatever, however you want to define that, gender presentation, desire for rough and tumble play, parental investment, all those things are of course on a spectrum.
So, I just think that’s important to say and to clarify. And what is happening now is that there is a conflation between sex itself and the traits associated with sex.”
I am, as you noted, relying on manifestations of various DSDs (types of congenital anomalies, as you put it) to make my point that even traits that we might think define sex, like genitals or chromosomes, do in fact vary within sex. They do not define sex, but are simply associated, most often very strongly, with sex.
So, agreed—the variations I mentioned are not part of “variations of normal development.” I don’t believe I claimed they were, nor does my broader claim rely on that being true. My point is that the only trait that is essential to sex is gametes. I harp on this partly because I’m tired of people claiming to be the opposite sex, or that sex is on a spectrum, precisely because people with DSDs show that males (people who make sperm) don’t always have a typical penis or sex chromosomes, for example. I want to grant that, explain why that’s the case, but also to explain that these atypical traits do not make the possessors a third or (or fourth or fifth) or the opposite sex.
If I understand your argument, you’re saying that the only variation in sex-associated traits that should qualify as “spectral” is that which lies within the healthy, typical, functional category. You wrote that traits that do not fit into that category, like hypospadias (in which the urethral opening lies not at the tip of the penis but on the underside) “aren’t on any clinically meaningful spectrum of normal embryological development.” Again, I agree. But nevertheless, the location of the urethral opening, size of the clitoris/labia/penis, sex chromosomes, etc. are generally predictable given one’s sex; however, they all exist on a natural spectrum, and are not “reliably” associated with sex.
And one small note: you wrote that you dispute that the “degree of masculinization or feminization of the external genitalia as directed by the gonads is a spectral trait.” Here we’re getting into the weeds, but I didn’t mention anything about being directed by the gonads, since most of these aren’t the gonads’ fault, as in hypospadias, where the issue is with the genes and the lack of proper functioning of the 5-ARD enzyme, or, say, in congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), which is caused by another enzymatic mutation, leading to high androgen production from the adrenal gland and masculinization of the clitoris.
Thanks again for engaging.
I should stop procrastinating!
Best
Carole
Carole,
Your two paragraphs beginning, “So agreed,. . .” clarify my confusion completely. Clinically important malformation (or incomplete formation) of the external genitalia according to the sex defined by gamete-plan type is still a spectrum within that binary sex. It is not a third (or 4th…) hybrid sex no matter how ambiguous the genitalia look. That is a helpful way to support the sex binary and I thank you for elaborating.
I stand corrected about my “directed by the gonad” solecism. Of course it’s the expression of genes. I think I was trying to say that defective gene expression can matter more in one sex than the other. An XX (almost always SRY-ve) conception that is heterozygous for the defective androgen receptor gene will be unaffected (probably) while an XY (almost always SRY+ve) conception with no wild-type allele will have CAIS. The gonad doesn’t drive this, just that which gonad the embryo has is correlated with what the consequences of the defective gene will be. Conversely a baby boy with CAH would probably have normal external genitalia. Both boys and girls could have life-threatening adrenal insufficiency.
Thanks for responding. I think I owe you tuition.
Best,
Leslie
Leslie,
How gracious of you! A pleasure to have the exchange. Thank you.
Best
Carole
From Helen Joyce, one of the leaders in the fight against the radical transgender agenda:
Nature & Nurture #155: Dr. Helen Joyce – Making Sense of the Transgender Debate, April 18, 2025, 100 mins
On Youtube
(1:35:05) Question: Helen, I want to close asking your advice for other people like myself or even more undecided than myself, who maybe don’t have so much skin in the game. They generally want to be respectful when they encounter these edge cases. They don’t want to be rude and use someone’s non-preferred pronouns. They’re also uncomfortable at the thought of doing it. Maybe they go along with it anyway, just to err on the side of not getting bullied. I think that’s the vast majority of people who have a more common sense understanding of sex differences and are just scared. I think the tide is turning, that people are speaking up more and looking for pragmatic solutions. But what do you say to the average person who wants to make it better?
(1:36:00) Helen Joyce: I can’t tell anyone else to blow up their lives for a principle. But you have to understand that if you call a man a woman, 99 times out of 100, that man is going to take that as you agreeing with him using women’s spaces and doing things that only women are meant to do. He just will. That is the deal. That is what they’re told by their activists is their right. So if you want to say to a man, “You seem like a nice chap. You do you. Wear what you like. But you’re a man”, that’s the only way you can actually say “And don’t come into the toilets with me. You’re not welcome. You’re not. It’s not okay. That’s boundary violation.”
But I’m not the one who’s at university. I mean, I know loads of you. I was at this event on Wednesday and a bunch of university students came and all of them, the ostracization they’ve experienced, the not just borderline, the actual bullying that they’ve experienced from other students and from academics, and I mean these are all people who are willing to use people’s preferred pronouns. They’re just not willing to say that transwomen are women, as a theoretical, like, fact. So I’m not the one who has to try and live in that environment. Everybody knows what I think. And I’m older. So I can’t say that somebody should go along with it. But know what you’re doing. What you’re doing is you’re saying that they can insist that they can destroy everything that women need men to stay out of. All these rights that have been won by disagreeable people who are willing to make a point that most people would think seems trivial. Like why did Rosa Parks not sit where she was allowed to sit? It was a principle. It was a seat on a bus. What about the guys who won, it’s funny enough, it’s cake icing both on this side of the Atlantic and in America. What about these guys who weren’t willing to bake the cake? Like these are the people who protect free speech and won rights for all of us because they were willing to stand on a principle. And it’s okay if you’re not willing to. Most people aren’t. But just recognize that you are leaving it to other people.
(1:38:15) Question: Many of these trans people think that they’re Rosa Parks in standing up, even if they do it in a bullying way.
Helen Joyce:Yeah, I know. Because they’re lied to by their activists. They’re encouraged to be … I mean, they’re bullies who think of themselves as social justice heroes. They’re not even bad people. They’ve been made bad by the ideology. But what they’re doing is bad. If you’re a man and you come into spaces, that’s if there’s a sign on the door that says female, and you’re male, you’re not welcome in there. Doesn’t matter what games you play to yourself to say, “Oh, I’m really female. I’m an edge case. I pass.” You are doing a bad thing. But at the moment, anyone who tells you you’re doing a bad thing has to be extraordinarily brave and also quite bloody minded. It’s no coincidence that it’s usually people who are religious who take these cases, because most people are more pragmatic. Most people think to themselves “This is going to be so much grief. Why me? Why do I have to do this?” But if you think you’re immortal soul is on the line here and that God chose you as an instrument, then you may do it. I’m an atheist. I’m just recognizing that there’s a reason why free speech for all of us, the boundary of free speech has been set by conservative Christians, because they are the people who are willing to stand at the absolute edge case which was “Are you willing to ice a cake that says a message that you think will damage your immortal soul?” And by doing that they protected free speech for absolutely everybody. And it’s okay if you’re not that hero. Most of us aren’t. But just recognize that every time you play along with somebody else’s lies about their sex, you are helping those people to think that you’re okay with it.