Category: sex and gender issues

Scientific American reverts to unscientific wokeness

August 20, 2025 • 10:00 am

Well, Laura Helmuth may no longer be at the helm of Scientific American, but the magazine seems to have again again dipped its toes into the waters of unscientific ideology. To wit: they’re posted a 14-minute podcast emphasizing that nature—and that includes humans—is “non-binary”. The problem is that, as usual, they get what is binary (biological sex) deeply confused, conflating it with behavior and morphology of animals, features that, while they may be bimodal, are not nearly as nonbinary as biological sex, which, as I’ve explained ad nauseum, defined on the basis of gamete types. (See also this post by Richard Dawkins.)

If you click on the link below at Scti.Am, you can hear this ideologically-motivated discussion between writer Rachel Feldman and biologist Nathan Lents of John Jay College, who is touting his new book (see bottom). I haven’t read it, but he summarizes its thesis in the podcast. The ideology is implicit, not explicit, but is encapsulated in the constant and obsessive denigration of the binary by both Feldman and Lents. The problem is that they don’t understand what biologists mean by “the binary.”  It’s the binary of gamete type (used to define biological sex), Jake!

Click to listen. It’s only 14 minutes, but I found it painful.

The mishigas begins at the beginning, when Feldman, touting the “nonbinary” thesis, proclaims at the start

“What we’ve often labeled as anomalies might actually represent successful evolutionary adaptations deserve serious study. And these creatures can help us understand how our own species breaks the binary, too.”

But of course nobody with any brains has ever said that the diversity of behaviors in human males and females, or the fact that there is some overlap in traits like height red blood cell count, ARE binary. We recognize that traits like height are bimodal (the modes certainly reflect some sexual selection), but Feldman, like Lents, misses the real binarythat’s at issue (and that has led to sexual selection): the binary of gamete type.  For reasons Richard Dawkins, Emma Hilton, Colin Wright, Carole Hooven, and I have explained at length, gamete type is the concept of sex (not an a priori definition), because a binary of gamete type (large, immobile eggs vs. mobile sperm) is almost completely universal in plants and animals.

Nor has anybody with neurons that work said that the diversity of behavior, morphology, and so on in mammals is unworthy of study, or doesn’t exist. Look at all the attention devoted to the difference between bonobos and chimps, for example!

At any rate, Feldman says that Lents’s new book claims that biologists have completely failed to appreciate the role of diversity among individuals in the life of social animals. As she says, Lents’s book “breaks down the idea of there being a sex binary in most places in the natural world.”

This is confused. There is a binary of gamete type—eggs and sperm—in all animals and plants. While some creatures like earthworms can be hermaphrodites, they still carry only eggs and sperm, and thus are members of both sexes, not a third sex. There is no third type of gamete.

But of course if you take any other trait, there is variation within sexes. Even in humans there is variation within males in whether or not they have a penis, and this rare variation does not represent a third sex, or a breaking of the binary of sex, but a developmental anomaly. Nor does the variation among very rare “intersex” individuals represent a “successful evolutionary adaptation”, for most of these individuals in humans are sterile.

Now some variation in behavior can be an adaptation, for example the existence in some fish species of what is called “sneaky fuckers“: males that develop the appearance and behavior of females so they can get close to females to mate with them without attracting the attention of aggressive larger males. But these s.f.s are still males. There is a nonbinary of reproductive behavior, but not of sex. The sneaky fuckers are MALES. It is annoying that neither the interviewer nor Lents realize that this behavior not breaking the binary of biological sex, but affirming it. What is broken is uniformity of sexual behavior, but nobody every claimed it was unbreakable.

In fact, Lents pronounces here that  “The binary is really the problem.  . . instead what you see is a continuum. . of masculinity and femininity”. . . . The categories [of male or female] themselves are too narrow to be helpful. . .  Natural variation doesn’t fit into those buckets.”  I cannot believe that Lents is unaware that the controversy about sex has involved the binary of biological sex, and that this controversy exists for only one reason: some humans don’t accept their natal sex.  Every biologist who has followed this ideologically-based disputation knows that. Instead, Lents asserts that “The binary is inhibiting us,” and implies that those who reject the binary are not “open minded”.

That is wrong and misguided. I propose that Lents wrote this book for the same reason Agustín Fuentes probably wrote his book: if you reject the male/female binary, it supposedly supports the worldview of those people who don’t think of themselves as male or female, or feel that they are really members of the sex that wasn’t their natal sex. This feeds into the “progressive” view exemplified by the mantra “trans females are females” (or the same for trans males).

This ideological rejection of the sex binary exemplifies what Luana Maroja and I called “the reverse appeal to nature”: imposing your ideological views of what’s good onto nature itself. (It’s the converse of “the naturalistic fallacy”). But recognizing that biological sex is binary in humans, all other animals, and plants is not constricting or inhibiting. Au contraire: it’s opened up whole new worlds of investigation, including theoretical investigations of why the sexes are always two (cf. Ronald Fisher) and, most of all, the recognition that sexual selection and sexual dimorphism is nearly always explained at bottom by differential investment of males and females in their different gametes. Ignoring the sex binary in this case would lead to our missing crucial understanding of traits that are ubiquitous in biology (e.g.,  ornamented and plumed males versus more drab females, males competing for females, etc., etc., etc.).

I’ll add one more evasion that Lents makes. He cites Joan Roughgarden’s book Evolution’s Rainbow as support for his views, but doesn’t note that Roughgarden herself, who is trans, nevertheless said explicitly that biological sex is binary. What Roughgarden got wrong was repeatedly committing the naturalistic fallacy: arguing that the diversity of sexual behavior is animals somehow justified the diversity of sexual behavior in humans.  That was unnecessary, and a logical fallacy. Showing that female bonobos rub their vaginas together does not prove that lesbians in human are “natural” and not immoral. That has no bearing on the issue. The morality of same-sex behavior in humans doesn’t need justification by finding it in animals. Even if no animal showed it, there’s would still be nothing wrong with homosexuality. (I reviewed Roughgarden’s book in the Times Literary Supplement, and will be glad to send readers a full copy if they inquire, as it’s no longer on the Internet.)

But I digress, and will make only one more point. When Lents is asked to give a “nonbinary” example of behavior, he cites recent work showing changes in the behavior of Hawaiian crickets. A fly that parasitizes these crickets invaded the islands, attacking the males who chirp loudly to attract females.  Chirping thus became maladaptive, and natural selection silenced males, so they had to attract females without chirping. Lo and behold, many (though not all) of the cricket males became silent. But they still got mates. Why? Because the silent males paired up with calling males, so they could still get females without calling attention from the parasitic flies. This pairing was adaptive for the silent males, though probably not for their chirping confrères.

This is interesting, and probably an example of evolved behavioral change in one sex—but note that Lents still refers to two sexes as “male” and “female”, implicitly accepting the sex binary. For crying out loud, no biologist doubts that there can be behavioral “polymorphism” in animals. In bees, females can be sterile workers and, less often in a colony, fertile queens. That is not a problem, nor does it even bear on the sex binary.

As I said, Lents surely knows that the binary at issue is one of sex definition, not sexual behavior or morphology.  He doesn’t mention the binary of biological sex. Instead, he caters to “progressive” listeners by repeatedly assuring them that the binary (whatever it is) is dead.

It’s dead, but it isn’t lying down, and never will. To talk about the sex binary as Lents and the reviewer do, is, I believe, intellectually dishonest. (It may be in the book, but I’ll bet that if it is it will be denigrated as irrelevant and distracting).

I hoped that the new Scientific American, sans editor Laura Helmuth, wasn’t going the Helmuthian route of distorting biology to cater to the au courant liberal ideology. I’ll be watching them. In the meantime, sex is binary: there are two sexes, and that’s all she wrote.

Lawrence Krauss interviews Carole Hooven

August 9, 2025 • 12:00 pm

This is one of the twenty-odd interviews that Lawrence Krauss conducted to support the new book he edited, The War on Science, comprising essays about the pollution of academia by ideology. (Nearly all of us indict ideology from the Left, though many of us, including me, admit that the Right is currently a bigger threat to science—but perhaps only temporarily.)  As you know, I am not a fan of podcasts and long videos, but I’m trying to listen to as many of my cowriters  as I can (Luana Maroja and I have an essay in the volume, but didn’t do an interview).

Here’s an interview with Carole Hooven, whom you’ve surely heard of as an evolutionary biologist specializing  in testosterone and the evolutionary basis of sex differences. (Her book T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us, is excellent.)  When teaching at Harvard, she made the mistake of saying that there were only two sexes, and that statement snowballed into a huge fracas. Hooven’s colleagues in human evolutionary biology wouldn’t support her for emphasizing the biological facts about biological sex, for that’s a minefield that demonizes those who enter it as “transphobes”. As Carole recounts in her Free Press piece, “Why I left Harvard,” she got in trouble for simply speaking the truth. If you know Carole, you’ll know the she’s eminently civil and polite. She just wasn’t ideologically correct. Here’s an excerpt of the FP piece, which she reprinted as the essay in The War on Science.

In the brief segment on Fox, my troubles began when I described how biologists define male and female, and argued that these are invaluable terms that science educators in particular should not relinquish in response to pressure from ideologues. I emphasized that “understanding the facts about biology doesn’t prevent us from treating people with respect.” We can, I said, “respect their gender identities and use their preferred pronouns.”

I also mentioned that educators are increasingly self-censoring, for fear that using the “wrong” language can result in being shunned or even fired.

The failure of her colleagues to defend her for speaking the truth is reprehensible, and eventually the pressure forced her to leave her department.  The rest you can hear in this video (the interview starts at 4:04).  There’s a lot more than the Harvard-cancellation story: Carole’s had an interesting life, starting as a primatologist working in Africa, and you’ll learn something about that, too. Have a listen.

The Lancet publishes a glowing but deeply misguided review of a book that denies the sex binary, yet the author of the review had previously TOUTED the sex binary

August 8, 2025 • 10:20 am

We’ve all learned that The Lancet, once a respectable journal, has gone full-on “progressive,” denying the sex binary, adopting a comprehensive Left progressive position, blaming rich white countries for all the health problems of poorer countries, and advocating gender-activist language, as it did in its widely-criticized cover below. Much of this was done under the editorship of Richard Horton (still the editor-in-chief), who makes no bones about the journal being institutionally biased. It might as well be edited by AOC.

It is no surprise, then, that the magazine just published a long “review” of Agustin Fuentes’s new book, Sex is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary, which came out in May. I haven’t yet read it, but the summary of it in various reviews tells us that the title is exactly what it’s about. And apparently Fuentes maintains that sex is a spectrum not just in humans, but in all animals—a deeply misguided position (see examples below). Further, The Lancet review not only adopts this position, but it’s a position that the review’s author, Sarah Richardson—a Professor of the History of Science and Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard, as well as director of the Harvard GenderSci Lab—previously embraced with gusto (see below). She has clearly changed her mind, but doesn’t tell us why. Apparently it’s not because there are new facts about biology that mandate jettisoning the gametic definition of biological sex so her change of position must be based on something other than new biology.  And I bet you can guess what would make one embrace a gametic concept of sex in 2013 and then reject it 12 years later!

Further, the review smacks of sour grapes (Richardson lost her grant due to Trump’s declaration), osculates the rump of Lancet’s “Commission on Gender and Global Health”, conflates sex with gender, spends half of its time criticizing what the right has done to science (it’s hardly a book review), misrepresents animal sex in an attempt to show it’s not binary, and, worst of all, attacks those who hold that the definition of biological sex is binary and based on gamete type, saying that we are doing this deliberately to hurt trans people and folks of non-standard gender.  We are, she says, “sophists,” determined to attack gender equality, and clearly hateful and bigoted.

I found out about this review from Carole Hooven’s tweet below, which is, as always, polite. I can’t say I’m as polite as Carole, but reviews like this, so misguided and confused, and which deliberately distort biology, anger me:

Here’s Carole Hooven’s tweet about the review, and it’s followed on X by three more tweets about the book and the binary in general. But sure to read the initial tweet below:

Here’s a copy of the review, which you can also find online here.

Here are the main problems with Richardson’s glowing review; quotes from the review are indented:

1.) The book conflates gender with (biological) sex.  This starts right at the beginning with the title.  Fuentes’s book is mostly about sex, as it is sex that he sees as a spectrum in opposition to his critics.  What Richardon’s  defending is both a presumed spectrum of biological sex as well as gender (she never defines the latter). While Fuentes’s book is about sex, Richardson uses sex and gender as things that apparently go together. They don’t: one is a biological feature, the other a social role. Examples:

The Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health lucidly highlighted how attacks on the concept of gender, and on gender equality and women’s rights more broadly, are not new. As Sarah Hawkes and her colleagues demonstrated, such attacks are part of a well-funded, global right-wing movement that over the past two decades has sought to challenge the concept of gender and erase it from public policy and discourse. With the advance of these ideologies, the USA—a country that has been an established global leader in medical research at the intersection of health and gendered power inequalities—now risks a vast loss of knowledge, in-progress science, and a generation of trainees in studies of gender inequality and health.

. . . This interdisciplinary, scientist-humanist voice is vital in our time. As the Lancet Commission makes clarion, gender is an essential concept for improving health and wellbeing for everyone. Defending research and clinical practice in gender-related areas must be a priority in the face of perilous new attacks on science and academic freedom.

. . . . This interdisciplinary, scientist-humanist voice is vital in our time. As the Lancet Commission makes clarion, gender is an essential concept for improving health and wellbeing for everyone. Defending research and clinical practice in gender-related areas must be a priority in the face of perilous new attacks on science and academic freedom.

But what about biological sex? However, this conflation doesn’t bother me too much: after all Richardson at least distinguishes sex and gender,  What bothers me more is Richardson’s attacks on her opponents (e.g., me) as motivated by bigotry and transphobia:

2.) The review is largely an attack on the Trump administration and the right, insappropriate for a book review. Worse, it attacks those who favor gamete-based species concept, saying that they’re motivated by bigotry. You have to wade through a full page of invective before you get to the book itself.  Such digressions are sometimes okay, but Richardson says nothing new. (See the first sentence of the review under 1.) above. The two bolded bits below were also singled out by Hooven in her tweet above:

Trump and his Project 2025 coalition’s appeal to biology might seem surprising, given their derision of scientific knowledge in other areas, ranging from the evidence of the wide-ranging impacts of climate change to the life-saving and preventive effects of vaccines. But although the gametic definition makes reference to biological systems, it is sophistry, not science. Those who promote this definition favour the assertion that sex inheres in gamete (sperm and egg) production because, in part, it facilitates their political aims by fuelling unhinged panic in some quarters about transgender threats to traditional gender roles. Like scientific bigots of yore—such as the anthropologist J McGrigor Allan, who in 1869 pronounced in the Journal of Anthropological Science that, “Thousands of years have amply demonstrated the mental supremacy of man, and any attempt to revolutionize the education and status of women on the assumption of an imaginary sexual equality, would be at variance with the normal order of things”—the recent favour bestowed on the gametic definition of sex by anti-trans gender traditionalists appeals selectively to science to naturalise and rationalise inequality and exclusion.

Well, she’s just wrong here. As I’ve always said, the biological (gametic) definition of sex does not “rationalise inequality and exclusion” (I add, though, that I have favored some exclusion based on sex, but it’s limited to things like sports participation and occupation of jails.) But here Richardson is painting us all with a broad brush, and painting us the wrong color. As I’ve said, the biologists I know who favor the gametic sex binary are nearly all liberals opposed to bigotry—that is, typical left-wing professors who have no opposition to people assuming different genders. Finally, if you want to attack an argument, you don’t say that your scientific opponents are motivated mostly by bigotry and a desire to hurt society.

As Hooven says in her tweet about these bogus accusations,:

The subtext is that in science, simply following the evidence is ill-advised if you (or others who have power over you) think it will lead to social harms. What kind of person would want to hold, let alone give voice to such harmful views as the gametic one?

And look at the bit below, which covers her tuchas just in case she’s wrong. But I agree with the ethics bit in this paragrah, though of course this part also implies that defenders of the sex binary are fostering bigotry:

But, of course, whatever the facts of biological science, this does not and cannot determine society’s laws and policies. Matters of social justice and equality under the law when protecting women and gender minorities from discrimination or upholding human rights and dignity when accommodating legal and social gender transition are questions of human values and judgement, enjoining us to ongoing dialogue, the consideration of plural perspectives, and the cultivation of multiple forms of expertise in free and democratic societies.

3.) Sour grapes. Richardson mentions this as an aside:

My federal research funding, a National Science Foundation grant on laboratory models for preclinical biomedical studies of sex-related biology, which supported new trainees in the field including a postdoctoral scholar and graduate research assistants, was terminated some 3 months ago.

Make of that what you will. I wouldn’t have included it, for it makes one question whether Richardson’s attacks on Trump and his policies are in part motivated by her rancor at losing her funding. At least there’s more evidence for that than for her claim that all of us who favor the gametic concept of sex do so because we want to harm people of nonstandard gender!

4.) Richardson gives a completely false characterization of biology, implying that sex binaries are really sex spectra. Apparently Fuentes’s argument against a sex binary is the familiar one, also made by the Novellas, that because members of the two sexes are so diverse, and there are so many other behaviors associated with sex, then biological sex is so plastic that it simply can’t be a binary. He (and Richardson), then proffer a list of animals that supposedly go against the sex binary. First, the familiar but faulty argument against a binary:

Although the arguments are not necessarily new, Fuentes’ plea for careful attention to diversity, context, and variation in pronouncements on the biology of sex offers up-to-date examples and citations to meet the current political stakes. Gamete size, he explains, does not reliably predict other forms of sexual dimorphism, nor mating and reproductive behaviour, in sexual species. Furthermore, there are not only two sexes, and sex can most definitely change. In humans, he argues, sex is a biocultural construct. Gamete size represents but one of multiple components and developmental processes—including gonads, hormones, genitals, fertility, mating, parenting behaviour, secondary sexual characteristics, and gender identity—that mainstream science recognises as constituting “sex” in human medical, social, and cultural-symbolic systems.

The fact that sex can change in some species is not an attack on the gametic binary, for when it changes, as in clownfish, it changes from either male to female or vice versa, and the gametes change, too. No new sexes appear. And what does Richardson or Fuentes mean by “there are not only two sexes”? What other ones are there? Further, the diversity of development and behaviors among different species still does not efface the sex binary, as I said in a post the other day. What is binary is gamete type, and its’binary-ness is not only universal in animals and vascular plants, but also the most useful sex concept for understanding evolution. Of course there is variation in sex-related traits, but there are only eggs and sperm—and no other type of gamete.

But here is the bit that really peeves me—almost more than her calling us “anisogamites” names and accusing us of sophistry and bigotry:

To grasp the richness of biological variation produced by sexuality, according to Fuentes, we should look at sex in its evolutionary and developmental context and appreciate its fundamental plasticity. Rather than simply comparing average males and females, more important is the overlap and variation in the distribution of traits around those means between the sexes. Fuentes builds this case through examples that may be more or less familiar to readers given the explosion of popular literature on sexual diversity in nature in recent decades—from the sex-changing bluehead wrasse, to same-sex mating birds who rear offspring together, to monogamous owl monkeys with minimal sexual dimorphism, to female hyenas with external genitalia, and naked mole rats with a three-sex social system similar to bees. Everything we know about the evolutionary history of sexuality, Fuentes persuasively argues, should lead us to expect plentiful natural plasticity and variation in its expression, even within a single species.

Do these species counteract the sex binary? Nope! Let’s look at each one:

Blueheaded wrasse: These fish can change sex (unlike transsexual humans), but they change only from one sex to the other. And are only two sexes. From Wikipedia:

Initial phase females and initial phase males both can change into terminal phase males. This change can be relative quick, taking around 8 days.[12] However, this change in sex is permanent: once an initial phase female or male changes into a terminal phase male, it cannot change back.

I’m surprised Richardson didn’t throw the clownfish in here, in which males can change permanently into females. Again, there are only two sexes. Defenders of the gametic definition do not deny that, in some species that are not humans, individuals can change their biological sex. To show sex change doesn’t lay a hand on the sex binary.

“Same-sex mating birds who rear offspring together.” I’m not sure what Richardson is talking about here, but I know one thing: if two individuals of a bird species mate and produce offspring, they are not members of the same sex. And of course there are many vertebrates in which the parents rear offspring together.

“Monogamous owl monkeys with minimal sexual dimorphism”.  So what? Owl monkeys are either male or female. The fact that they have minimal sexual dimorphism is hardly rare: many species are not very dimorphic, particularly those which are more monogamous and in which there is reduced competition in males for females.

“Female hyenas with external genitalia”.  Note that Richardson calls them “female”, for, like all mammals, hyenas are either male or female! Here she undercuts her own argument. As Wikipedia notes, this is true of spotted hyenas:

The genitalia of the female closely resembles that of the male; the clitoris is shaped and positioned like a penis, a pseudo-penis, and is capable of erection. The female also possesses no external vagina (vaginal opening), as the labia are fused to form a pseudo-scrotum. The pseudo-penis is traversed to its tip by a central urogenital canal, through which the female urinates, copulates and gives birth.

We don’t understand why this is so, but there are theories that the male-like organ in females, produced by the persistence of androgens, may contribute to their social dominance. But despite that, how does Richardson know that those spotted hyenas are female? Because they produce eggs, not sperm, and get pregnant and give birth!  Shoot me now!  The sex binary is untouched by hyenas. Even AI says this:

  • Not True Hermaphroditism:
    Despite the external appearance, female spotted hyenas are not hermaphrodites. They possess ovaries and produce eggs, and their internal reproductive organs are female. 

If Richardson can prove that female hyenas are hermaphrodites, producing both sperm and eggs, I’ll pay her $1000.

“Naked mole rats with a three-sex social system similar to bees.”  This is NOT an example of three sexes, nor are bees. Like bees, naked mole-rats have “castes”, with some individuals reproducing and some not. But the non-reproducting individuals have either male or female reproductive systems–they just don’t produce gametes.  Here’s how Wikipedia describes it, and note that even the non-reproducing mole rats are either ‘male” or “female” (bolding is mine):

The social structure of naked mole-rats is similar to that of ants, termites, and some bees and wasps.  Only one female (the queen) and one to three males reproduce, while the rest of the members of the colony function as workers. The queen and breeding males are able to breed at one year of age. Workers are sociologically but not physiologically sterile.[61] Smaller workers focus on gathering food and maintaining the nest, while larger workers are the tunnelers, and are the most reactive to threats. The non-reproducing females appear to be reproductively suppressed, meaning the ovaries do not fully mature, and do not have the same levels of certain hormones as the reproducing females. By contrast, there is little difference of hormone concentration between reproducing and non-reproducing males.

Note that non-reproducing individuals are either male or female, though in eusocial insects like bees the sterile caste usually comprises females (workers).   There is no third sex in any of these examples; there are just individuals of one biological sex or the other that are effectively sterile.

Couldn’t Richardson use Wikipedia? Why is she distorting the biology of these animals to buttress the case that there are more than two gameticallty-defined sexes. I muyst say that I have little use for people who mislead others about biology because misleading is necessary to buttress an ideology,

I’ll add that 12 years ago Richardson was a booster of the gametic concept of species, but has apparently changed her mind. Here’s a tweet that shows that, with the relevant parts in color:

The change.  Then:

Now: biological truth has become “sophistry”!

Now of course people are entitled to change their minds: in fact, it is a virtue of scientists to change their minds if new facts appear that undercut their theories. But no new facts have appeared in the last 12 years that would militate against the gametic species concept. All the examples Richardson cited above were already known 12 years ago!

So what has changed to turn her into a “progressive” biologist like Fuentes? I can think of only one thing: the rise of a militant form of gender activism that makes it politically expedient (and enhances one’s virtue) to attack the sex binary. We have another example of the ideological subversion of biology.

The parallels between sex and species, and why the gametic concept of sex is the most useful

August 6, 2025 • 10:00 am

I spent most of my scientific career working on speciation, and my thoughts on the issue were published in a book with my student Allen Orr, Speciation (this collaboration is still the bit of science that I’m proudest of).  The first chapter and the appendix of the book deal with species concepts, and we argue that the Biological Species Concept, in which species are defined as groups of organisms which, when they co-occur in nature (i.e., are “sympatric”), do not exchange genes, is the most useful one.  There are various traits that impede gene flow between species—the variety of so-called reproductive isolating barriers include mate discrimination, hybrid inviability or sterility, differences in niches in the same area, differences in timing of reproduction, and so on. (We have chapters on all of these barriers in the book.) The conceptualization of species as groups of organisms separated by barriers to gene flow was called the Biological Species Concept (“BSC”) by the great evolutionist Ernst Mayr.

Now there are some gray areas about some groups, as gene exchange between what we may think are “good” species actually does occur. What do we call these forms? We talk about that in the book, too.  After all, as one reader noted, speciation is an evolutionary process, and as populations diverge genetically when they’re geographically isolated (the way we think most speciation begins), there will be a longish period  in which they will exchange genes if they became sympatric, and may even fuse back into one species. We are increasingly recognizing that more species than we thought exchange some genes in nature. We call these populations “species-like” as opposed to “good species”, which exchange no genes.  (Again, this is in the book.) Still, there are many species that don’t exchange genes with any other species. Homo sapiens is one of these, but there are many others like koalas, American robins, lions, and so on.

And I’ll add that we freely admit that the BSC can’t be used with some groups, including asexual species, populations that never contact each other in nature (although if they produce sterile or no hybrids when forcibly mated in zoos, they are good biological species), and species that are extinct. We discuss these problems and some possible solutions in Speciation,. 

But the BSC has been the species concept adopted, explicitly or implicitly by most biologists. And that’s for two reasons. First, the BSC appears to explain why nature really is “lumpy” rather than a spectrum of plants and animals with no boundaries between any groups. The lumps are kept apart by the evolved reproductive barriers.

Second, and importantly, the BSC gives us a research program to understand the origin of the “lumps” that are species. If you can understand how the reproductive barriers arise between populations, then you’ve explained the problem of why nature—at least the moiety of nature that reproduces sexually—is lumpy in a given area. That is, you’ve explained the origin of species. And that is something that Darwin didn’t do, despite the title of his great book.

The implicit recognition that the BSC explains the lumpiness of nature is buttressed by my observation that no matter what other species concept people adhere to, when they are discussing in the scientific literature the origin of species, they invariably address the origin of reproductive isolation. This is a tacit admission that they adhere to a form of the BSC. It’s the near-universality as well as the utility of the BSC that has led to its adoption.

And that also holds for the “gametic concept” of biological sex that we’ve discussed before.

There are four parallels between using the BSC and using the gametic concept of sex, or GCS (the GCS holds that sex is binary in animals and vascular plants, with males having small mobile gametes and females large, immobile ones). Here are the parallels between the two concepts:

1.) If you use the BSC, the way you recognize species may differ from the way you “define” (or “conceptualize”) them.  This difference also holds for biological sex. Sex can be defined gametically, but newborns are usually recognized as males and females by their genitalia.  That does not efface the GCS because the correlation between genitalia and gamete-formation system is nearly perfect. There are some exceptions, but they are very rare.  Sex remains binary, though, because the exceptions to this correlation do not constitute a third sex. There remain only two types of gametes.

2.) The BSC and GCS are both the most useful concepts for understanding how evolution works. Only the BSC is capable of explaining why sexually-reproducing species comes in ‘lumps,” and only the GCS can explain sexual selection, a form of selection that is ubiquitous and almost universal in explaining the differences between males and females.

3.) Biological species can diverge through a number of processes. These include, among others, natural selection, sexual selection, meiotic drive, and differential infection with bacteria that can lead to reproductive isolation in hybrids (e.g., Wolbachia). Likewise, the two sexes can diverge through a number of processes, though the evolutionary advantage of such divergence via disruptive natural selection.

4.) Like the BSC, there are concepts or definitions of sex that don’t rest on gamete type but on other things: what genes are present, chromosome configuration, even “lived experience” or self-image.  But no other concept of sex is as universal or utilitarian as the gametic concept.

This post will demonstrate the fourth point.

As I’ve said before, the sexes evolved in “isogamous” species (ones whose gametes were originally identical) almost a dozen times, yet in all cases we wind up with two sexes, not three or five. That’s because, at least according to theory, the two-sex situation is evolutionarily stable and resists going back to isogamous species or producing species with more than two sexes.  Again, the recognition of the sex binary was important in helping understand the evolution of why sex is binary. It was the great evolutionist R. A. Fisher who pointed this out.

Here I’ll show that, as with species, there are many ways that sex can evolve and be developmentally determined, doubtlessly resting on the independent evolution of the sexes. Yet despite this diversity of determination, we always wind up with just two sexes that produce either large, immobile gametes or small mobile ones. This paper by Doris Bachtrog et al. in PLoS Biology demonstrates that (click below or find the pdf here):

The paper shows, as summarized in the figure below, the diverse ways sex is determined in animals. The caption for the figure is below (click figure to enlarge it) and gives examples of each kind of sex determination.

Figure 4. Schematic overview of some sex determination (SD) mechanisms. M refers to meiosis, F to fertilization. Haploid stages (n) are indicated as shaded areas and diploid stages (nn) are unshaded. Hermaphrodites: Most flowering plants (and gastropods and earthworms) simultaneously contain both male and female sexual organs (simultaneous hermaphrodites). Many fish and some gastropods and plants are sequential hermaphrodites; clownfish, for example, are born males and change into females, while many wrasses or gobies begin life as females and then change to males. Environmental Sex Determination: In turtles and some other reptiles, sex is determined by incubation temperature of the eggs (temperature-dependent sex determination). Social factors can act as primary sex-determining cues: sexually undifferentiated larvae of the marine green spoonworm that land on unoccupied sea floor develop into females (and grow up to 15 cm long), while larvae that come into contact with females develop into tiny males (1–3 mm long) that live inside the female. Genotypic Sex Determination: Almost all mammals and beetles, many flies and some fish have male heterogamety (XY sex chromosomes), while female heterogamety (ZW sex chromosomes) occurs in birds, snakes, butterflies, and some fish. In mosses or liverworts, separate sexes are only found in the haploid phase of the life cycle of an individual (UV sex chromosomes). In some flowering plants and fish, such as zebrafish, sex is determined by multiple genes (polygenic sex determination). In bees, ants, and wasps, males develop from unfertilized haploid eggs, and females from fertilized diploid eggs (haplodiploidy), while males of many scale insects inactivate or lose their paternal chromosomes (paternal genome elimination). In some species, sex is under the control of cytoplasmic elements, such as intracellular parasites (e.g., Wolbachia) in many insects or mitochondria in many flowering plants (cytoplasmic sex determination). In some flies and crustaceans, all offspring of a particular individual female are either exclusively male or exclusively female (monogeny). doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001899.g004

I’ll repeat here some of the ways that sex is determined.

Single genes
Multiple genes working together
Temporal effects (either sequential or environmentally based sex change, with clownfish an example of the latter). Note that there are still only two sexes, but they appear at different times of an individual’s life
Temperature dependence, as in many reptiles. Whether you turn out male or female depends on the temperature at which the fetus is incubated
Environmental effects (as in clownfish when the alpha female dies)
Whether or not you have a half set or a full set of chromosomes (e.g., bees)
Whether you have like or unlike sex chromosomes

There are others, too, as you see. The point is the despite these many ways that sex is determined, all of them result in just two sexes—males and females. So it’s a canard to point out this diversity as a way to dismiss the sex binary. Yet people still use this canard to argue that sex is a spectrum, just as they use the canard that the recognition of sex can be based on different traits as a way to dismiss the sex binary.  As Luana and I wrote in our paper:

We can see the stability of the two-sex condition by realizing that what triggers the development of males versus females varies widely across species. Different sexes can be based on different chromosomes and their genes (e.g., XX vs. XY in humans, ZW vs. ZZ in birds, individuals with like chromosomes being female in mammals and male in birds); different rearing temperatures (crocodiles and turtles); whether you have a full or half set of chromosomes (bees); whether you encounter a female (marine worms); and a host of other social, genetic, and environmental factors. Natural selection has independently produced diverse pathways to generate the sexes, but at the end there are just two destinations: males and females. And so we have an evolved and objectively recognized dichotomy—not an arbitrary spectrum of sexes.

In the end, the whole kerfuffle about whether sex is binary or a spectrum results from only one thing in one species: some members of H. sapiens do not accept their biological sex because they feel as if they are members of their non-natal sex—or no sex at all.  We would not be having this argument if we were foxes or robins, And nobody (except the three evolution societies, who have now retracted their claim) argues that sex is a spectrum in all species.

The argument against the binary rests on good motives—the desire to not oppress those who don’t conform to their natal sex. But the argument is still misguided. It assumes that we can impose our ideas of social justice onto nature. But nature is recalcitrant, and throws up just two sexes in all animals and vascular plants.

It is the failure of those who argue for a sex spectrum to admit their motivations that bothers me the most.  Instead, they pretend that they are suddenly recognizing a truth about our species (or about nature in general) that has not been realized for over a century.  The lesson: never impose your ideology onto nature, a tactic that I call the “reverse naturalistic fallacy.”

And I’ll say for the umpteenth time that the fact that sex is binary in humans should not affect the way we treat those who don’t accept or conform to their natal sex. The binary is an observation, but the rights and treatment of “nonbinary” folks is an ethical issue.

Gametic oppression?

August 5, 2025 • 10:40 am

This link goes to a “call for papers” for an upcoming conference at Yale in April of next year (or click on title below).  The announcement appears on a webpage by Rene Almeling, who appears to be one of the two organizers of the conference:

Rene Almeling
Professor of Sociology, Public Health, History of Medicine, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Yale University

Sarah S. Richardson
Aramont Professor of the History of Science and Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Harvard University

The conference is designed to lead to the publication scientific papers dealing (probably not kindly) with “gametocentric sex”.

Here’s the gist of the announcement (bolding is mine)

Inspired by rapidly emerging developments in the science and politics of fertility and by the rise of gametocentric definitions of sex, as well as a decades-long tradition of gender scholarship about gametes in relation to sex, race, sexuality, and health, we invite contributions to a workshop for early-career researchers in the social sciences and humanities who are developing the next generation of scholarship about eggs and sperm. Our aim is to provide mentorship for further development of works-in-progress, either in the form of dissertation chapters or publishable articles.

We invite proposals from early-career researchers – e.g. graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, assistant professors – in the social sciences and humanities as well as interdisciplinary scholars in the health and life sciences who are studying any aspect of eggs and sperm. We are especially interested in creative and innovative theoretical and/or methodological approaches, and we intend for the topic of “gametic politics” to be understood broadly. Potential topics might include (but are definitely not limited to):

  • analyses of how gametes have figured into historical and contemporary definitions of sex;

  • the politicization of gametes across multiple domains, such as medicine, education, sports, and law;

  • the intersection of gametic politics with myriad forms of inequality, such as those associated with gender, race, class, and sexuality;

  • how various scientific approaches to gametes are mobilized in political discourse;

  • individual experiences of and beliefs about gametes, including in relation to one’s gender identity;

  • the emergence of gametic metaphors and their implications for science and society.

As the first bit notes, the whole affair was inspired by “gametocentric definitions of sex,” which of course are not definitions but actually “concepts”, in the same way that the “biological species concept” (BSC) is not an a priori definition of species, but a recognition and encapsulation in words of a biologically observed near-universal.  The BSC arose because it has been recognized forever that nature is not a “spectrum of animals and plants”:  there’s no continuum between blackbirds, parrots and falcons. Or between clover, white oak trees, and poison ivy. Rather, nature is “lumpy”, with different nearly discrete groups that we call “species”. To understand how a continuous evolutionary process leads to a nature that is “lumpy,” the BSC arose to recognize that the “lumps” are maintained by reproductive isolating barriers that impede gene flow between nature’s “lumps.”. As Allen Orr and I wrote in the first chapter of our book Speciation, the BSC immediately gives us a research program for understanding the origing of species (those “lumps”): find out how the reproductive isolating barriers arise.  The BSC arose because it not only recognized a near-universal in biology (such near-universals are rare), but also was utilitarian, explaining the origin of the lumps.  This is why Darwin, who didn’t have a good definition of species, was unable to understand the origin of species, despite the title of his great 1859 book. It should have been called The Origin of Adaptations instead.

Likewise, it was recognized over a century ago that all animals and vascular plants (with a few exceptions caused by developmental anomalies) come in two flavors, male and female, and these differ because the former have small mobile gametes and the latter large immobile ones. I’d prefer saying “the gametocentric CONCEPT of sex,” for the gamete-size concept holds in all these organisms, and no other concept of sex holds across all those species. So again we have a concept to deal with something nearly universal in nature that, as a bonus, helps us understand evolution.

Of course I know little about the genesis of this seminar, nor read the papers of the organizers, but the stuff in bold leads me to believe that this symposium seeks to overturn the “gametocentric definition of sex” because it is seen as oppressive to those who feel that they are not really members of the sex recognized by their gametes.

Unfortunately, holding any other view of biological sex not only makes the recognized binary not universal, but also effaces our ability to understand evolutionarily important phenomena like sexual selection. Like the BSC, the gametocentric species concept is utilitarian as well as nearly universal. To those benighted individuals who say that biological sex is really a complex mixture of various traits, including “lived experience” and “one’s psychological self concept”, I’d ask, “Well, how many biological sexes are there in humans? An infinite number?”  Is that true of foxes, ducks, and iguanas, too?”  Remember that three biological societies declared that sex was a spectrum in all species, but then took down that declaration because a lot of biologists opposed it. In fact, in later correspondence the three societies admitted that their initial declaration was misleading–and conceded a lot of our points.

As I’ve said repeatedly, the binary concept of biological sex is the only one that makes sense, but it says nothing about people’s feelings about what gender they really are, doesn’t justify our mistreating people who feel neither male nor female (or feel they’re not members of their natal sex), and is certainly not transphobic. Recognizing that helps explain why, over and over again—probably a dozen times—natural selection has led to the evolution of two sexes—and each time the same gametic distinction is the result.  Understanding why there are only two sexes coming from these independent origins is another question answered only by recognizing the sex binary.  As Ronald Fisher wrote in his magesterial The Gentical Theory of Natural Selection:

No practical biologist interested in sexual reproduction would be led to work out the detailed consequences experienced by organisms having three or more sexes, yet what else should he do if he wishes to understand why the sexes are, in fact, always two?   (pp. ix of 1958 Dover edition)

Now I may be defending something that this conference actually accepts, but I’m guessing from the announcement that the purpose is to show that the sex binary is oppressive because not everybody feels “male” or “female”. And if that’s the case, we have another example of ideology trying to erode scientific knowledge in the name of social justice.

We shall see next year. In the meantime, I’ll continue to defend the binary concept of sex based on gamete size and mobility.

U.S. Olympics bars trans-identified men (“trans women”) from competing athletically against biological women

July 23, 2025 • 1:00 pm

This is apparently a done deal, though probablydone for the wrong reasons. The NYT headline gives the important result; click on it below or read the archived version here:

A summary:

The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee quietly changed its eligibility rules on Monday to bar transgender women from competing in Olympic women’s sports, and now will comply with President Trump’s executive order on the issue, according to a post on the organization’s website.

The new policy, expressed in a short, vaguely worded paragraph, is tucked under the category of “USOPC Athlete Safety Policy” on the site, and does not include details of how the ban will work. Nor does the new policy include the word “transgender” or the title of Mr. Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” referring to it instead as “Executive Order 14201.”

Mr. Trump signed the executive order on Feb. 5.

The committee’s new policy means that the national governing bodies of sports federations in the United States now must follow the U.S.O.P.C.’s lead, according to several chief executives of sports within the Olympic movement. Those national governing bodies oversee many, but not all, events in Olympic sports for all ages, from youth to masters’ competitions.

In a letter sent by email to the “Team USA Community,” the U.S.O.P.C. acknowledged on Tuesday that its policy had changed. The letter, from Sarah Hirshland, the U.S.O.P.C.’s chief executive, and Gene Sykes, the president, said the committee had held “a series of respectful and constructive conversations with federal officials” since the executive order was signed.

“As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations,” the letter said, adding that the committee would work with the national governing bodies to implement the new policy.

. . .Those new rules still allow trans women to compete, but only in the men’s category.

All others who aren’t eligible for the women’s category, including nonbinary athletes, transgender men and intersex athletes, will also be limited to competing in the men’s category, the policy says.

The right reason for such a ruling is because it because it’s fair to women, and because trans-identified men, especially but not exclusively those who have gone through male puberty, have on average an athletic advantage over biological women.

But fairness doesn’t seem to undergird this ruling was made. After all, the Olympics has had years to ponder this issue, and basically punted on it, saying that each sport had to make its own rules.  The clue: the USOPC explicitly cited Trump’s Executive Order when announcing its decision, and without federal support, Los Angeles would be unable to host its scheduled Summer Olympics in 2028. In other words, the decision was likely made not out of fairness, but out of fearfulness. It’s sad when bullying and fear replaces fairness in this way.

But I’ll still take it, because regardless of the reasons, this is what I’ve always thought was the right thing to do. It is not transphobic, nor does it “erase” trans people.  Trans people or those who aren’t biological women can nevertheless still  compete in athletics if they wish, but in men’s divisions. Alternatively, and perhaps more fairly than that, there could be an “other” division for those who aren’t either biological males or biological females. (I can’t deal with all other exceptions now, as they will take careful consideration.)

Most Americans agree with me on this issue.  A recent Pew survey shows that:

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that majorities of U.S. adults favor or strongly favor laws and policies that:

  • Require trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth (66%)
  • Ban health care professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors (56%)

The first issue is the one at hand, and two-thirds of American adults favor what the USOPC just did.  But you can bet that this doesn’t settle the issue for the distant future. After all, Trump won’t be President forever (despite what some readers think!), and a “progressive” President could easily change things back. On the other hand, I think the moral arc of athletic fairness is bending towards justice, especially with the data increasingly showing general athletic advantages of trans-identified males over biological women.

Alex Byrne’s “colleagues” dogpile him for co-writing a critique of American pediatric gender medicine

July 7, 2025 • 8:45 am

Alex Byrne holds a chair in philosophy at MIT, and has done considerable research on gender issues.  This has resulted not only in several papers but also in an estimable book, Trouble With Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions. I read the book and liked it, and eventually became convinced of its thesis that the idea of “gender” is so slippery that it really shouldn’t be used at all. “Sex roles” would do as well, but somehow even I continue to use the g-word.

Luana sent me this new development in the Byrne saga. Because Alex contributed to the writing of a Health and Human Services Review of treatments for pediatric gender dysphoria, he is in the process of being demonized by a group of academics. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the HHS review, really; the demonization came because it was issued by an HHS whose head was appointed by Trump, and also because it goes along with the increasing evidence that treating childhood dysphoria with “affirmative care” is deeply problematic, leading to premature dispensations of hormones and surgery to adolescents and children who, without that “care,” would mostly come out as gay.

But the pre-puberty treatments, often given before any reasonable age of consent, deprive those children of any chance of a meaningful sex life—including one without orgasms—forever. And the mutilation involved in sex-role-altering surgery surely requires consent of someone who understands the consequences—someone who’s mature. (I waffle between the ages of 18 and 21.) But if you deviate from the “progressive” party line that “gender-affirming therapy”—the one-way escalator from dysphoria to hormones and often to surgery—is the essential cure for gender dysphoria, then what is happening to Alex will happen to you, too.

Finally, Alex is getting dogpiled because his critics aver that, because he’s a philosopher, he has no expertise to weigh in on issues involving gender, even if he’s written about them repeatedly in scholarly venues. That’s rich because, as you’ll see, most of his critics don’t even approach Alex’s level of expertise.

The whole brouhaha serves to demonstrate that “cancel culture”—the attempt to ruin someone’s career if they transgress “progressive” ideological stands—is alive and well.

The announcement of the dogpile was tweeted by Jesse Singal, who has suffered his own accusations of “transphobia” for taking positions similar to Alex’s:

Here’s the letter, with the link in the heading:

Dear Professor Alex Byrne,

It was alleged in May that you were among the anonymous authors of the HHS report on pediatric trans care. The report, among other things, issues the alarming recommendation that trans youth should not have access to gender-affirming care, despite the leading pediatric medical body in the country supporting the efficacy and life-saving potential of these treatments. [1]

In light of your recent confirmation [2] of these allegations, we as your colleagues at MIT, in philosophy, and in higher-education feel it necessary to speak out.

While we are not here calling for official or unofficial sanctions, we the undersigned believe that your behavior (a) perpetuates harm toward the trans community; (b) constitutes a failure to uphold your responsibilities as an academic; (c) is the result of an extremely misguided decision to collaborate with the Trump administration.

Marginalization of Trans Communities. While you claim to support the right of trans people to live freely, in practice your behavior does not support this right. Since 2020 you have published a number of academic articles, as well as one book, arguing against trans inclusivity. And there can be no doubt that such rhetoric, along with the new HHS report, further marginalizes and stigmatizes trans people, both within and outside of philosophy. [3]

But your contribution to the HHS report raises serious issues well beyond this particular issue about marginalization. Indeed, we submit that the allegations against you should be a cause for significant concern, even for those who share your views about trans people.

Let us explain.

Academic Professional Ethics. We are happy to grant that your participation in the authoring of the report is an exercise of your academic freedom. Per the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, jointly agreed upon by the AAUP and AAC, academic freedom entitles professors to freedom in research and publication of results. [4]

But since 1966, the AAUP has also agreed on a Statement on Professional Ethics. [5] Per this 1966 Statement, professors are obligated to “exercise critical self-discipline and judgment in using, extending, and transmitting knowledge” and to “practice intellectual honesty”. We take this to mean that as academics, we also have a responsibility to the public to not misconstrue the scope of our expertise, nor comment in our capacity as academics on issues where we lack the requisite expertise. It is, of course, compatible with professional academic ethics to express one’s views publicly, even when one is not an expert, i.e., one might lobby for a particular candidate or write an op-ed in a newspaper.  But contributing to a document as an expert in an area in which one is not an expert is contrary to professional standards.

The HHS cites contributors to their report on pediatric trans care as including medical doctors, medical ethicists, and a methodologist. [6] While you are a highly regarded philosopher of mind and have recently written on the philosophy of gender, you are not a medical ethicist by training. Moreover, to our knowledge, you do not have medical or scientific training, nor have you published any peer-reviewed pieces in medical journals.

Given your lack of the requisite expertise, we believe it is inappropriate for you to engage in the shaping of national medical policy on gender-affirming care for trans youth. Familiarity with theories of gender made from the armchair does not equip one to make expert judgments about the quality of medical studies, nor about the lived experiences and needs of trans youth and their families.

In contributing to a medical report that will have significant negative impacts on the lives of trans youth across this country, we believe that you have failed to uphold your responsibility as an academic to provide expert testimony only on matters included in your domain of expertise.

Collaboration with the Current Presidential Administration. The past few months have witnessed the Trump administration engage in the kidnapping of international graduate students from the streets, the deportation of innocent people to dangerous foreign prisons without due process, the cutting of lifesaving aid to millions across the world, and the undermining of the independence of colleges and universities across the country. We find these actions appalling, unethical, and undemocratic.

For these reasons, we believe it is deeply myopic for any academic to collaborate with the Trump administration in this moment, regardless of one’s particular views about gender. However misguided one may think “gender ideology” is, it is simply unconscionable to for that reason, make common cause with an administration so engaged. Indeed, were the Trump administration to suddenly decide tomorrow to support gender-affirming care for minors, we hold that it would be equally shortsighted and reprehensible if trans advocates were to then overlook everything else the administration is doing and join them as collaborators.

There is already a term of criticism for when a government appeals to pro-LGBTQ+ policies so people turn a blind eye to its other, harmful actions: that term is ‘pinkwashing.’ In this moment, we need a similar term of criticism for gender-critical theorists who overlook the rest of a government’s appalling behavior, merely because that government shares one’s views on gender. One can think that trans politics is misguided and also refuse to collaborate with such an administration.​​​​​​​

By contributing to the HHS report, we believe you have not only misconstrued the extent of your academic expertise, but have also badly misjudged the gravity of the current administration’s actions.

As of yesterday, the letter was signed by (according to my count) 211 people, 31 of whom who refused to give their names and appear as “anonymous”, 65 who say they are graduate students, and 57 who say they are undergraduates. (See the signers by clicking on this link.) While there is some overlap between these groups, it’s fair to say that about half the signers lack either the courage or the expertise to call out Byrne for “lack of expertise”. What kind of person would refuse to give their names when engaging in such a dogpile?

And note that the “expertise” of those judging Byrne’s expertise (probably without having read his book or the rest of his work) include students or professors in mathematics, mechanical engineering, women’s history, urban studies and planning, aerospace engineering, computer science, chemical engineering, bioengineering and a even “Anonymous (Staff)”. (I didn’t bother to look up some of the others whose fields weren’t specified.)

What is clear about these critics are several things (characterization and bolding below are mine):

a.) Many of them have not read Byrne’s work on gender and transitioning, as judging from their signing a letter that mischaracterizes his views (see his response below).

b.) His real crime is almost Soviet-style in its nature: “Collaboration with the Current Presidential Administration.” Because the report came out as an HHS document, it can be traced to Trump, ergo to Satan, and ergo Byrne is an agent of Satan.  It’s Trump, Jake! Read this again and weep (from the letter):

Collaboration with the Current Presidential Administration. The past few months have witnessed the Trump administration engage in the kidnapping of international graduate students from the streets, the deportation of innocent people to dangerous foreign prisons without due process, the cutting of lifesaving aid to millions across the world, and the undermining of the independence of colleges and universities across the country. We find these actions appalling, unethical, and undemocratic.

For these reasons, we believe it is deeply myopic for any academic to collaborate with the Trump administration in this moment, regardless of one’s particular views about gender. However misguided one may think “gender ideology” is, it is simply unconscionable to for that reason, make common cause with an administration so engaged.

Whatever else the administration has done, and I’ve made it clear that I deplore nearly all of it, it’s crazy to say that you shouldn’t try to help it provide more salubrious forms of gender care given Trump’s EO on the issue. Kids are being mistreated, and you shouldn’t help them because in so doing you’re co-signing an HHS document?

c.) The collaboration of Byrne on a public document is characterized as a breach of professional ethics, since he’s a philosopher and therefore lacks “expertise”. From the “Dear Professor Alex Byrne” letter:

Given your lack of the requisite expertise, we believe it is inappropriate for you to engage in the shaping of national medical policy on gender-affirming care for trans youth. Familiarity with theories of gender made from the armchair does not equip one to make expert judgments about the quality of medical studies, nor about the lived experiences and needs of trans youth and their families.

Byrne answers this in his response (see links and excerpts below).

d.) These people who decry Byrne for lack of “expertise” are apparently themselves unaware of the increasing evidence against “affirmative” pediatric gender care, especially the use of “blockers”. They cite American organizations ideologically determined to support “affirmative care”, but don’t even mention Britain’s Cass Review, which led to the dismantling of all but one of that nation’s gender clinics and a ban on puberty blockers for people younger than 18. Several European countries now allow puberty blockers only as experimental treatments, forbidding them as instruments of  general “affirmative care”.

e.) It’s clear that although the letter denies any attempt to ruin Alex’s career, accusing him of professional malfeasance clearly has that end. It will predictably encourage his colleagues—not just at MIT but everywhere—from associating with him, and will drive away students who would otherwise seek his mentorship. As Byrne says in a Washington Post op-ed noting why he co-authored the HHS report:

The hostile response to the review by medical groups and practitioners underscores why it was necessary. Medicalized treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria needs to be dispassionately scrutinized like any other area of medicine, no matter which side of the aisle is cheering it on. But in the United States, it has not been.

I was familiar with the other authors — there are nine of us in all — and I was confident that we could produce a rigorous, well-argued document that could do some good. Collectively, we had all the bases covered, with experts in endocrinology, the methodology of evidence-based medicine, medical ethics, psychiatry, health policy and social science, and general medicine. I am a philosopher, not a physician. Philosophy overlaps with medical ethics and, when properly applied, increases understanding across the board. Philosophers prize clear language and love unravelling muddled arguments, and the writings of pediatric gender specialists serve up plenty of obscurity and confusion.

f.) Finally, and perhaps most important, nowhere in the letter do the signers engage in the claims of the HHS report. The proper way to engage something like the report is with rational counterargument and data, not with accusations of “lack of expertise” or of being on “the wrong side of the aisle.” This is implied in these tweets, two by Byrne’s wife Carole Hooven, who suffered her own demonization on the basis of sex and gender—to the extent that she had to leave her department at Harvard:

Robert P. George, a political philosopher at Princeton, also notes the letter’s failure to engage the recommendations of the HHS report:

Byrne’s reply is a document of unusual rationality, calmness, and maturity, and simply dismantles the dogpile letter above. I don’t have space to reproduce it all, but I will give the first bit:

Dear colleagues and others,

Thank you for your open letter (reproduced below), concerning my involvement in the recent Department of Health and Human Services Review of treatments for pediatric gender dysphoria, which I discussed in a June 26 Opinion for the Washington Post.

The topic of pediatric gender medicine is emotionally fraught, and some people understandably feel vulnerable, angry, and frustrated. However, an open letter of this sort is not a constructive way to express one’s view that a colleague has committed professional ethical lapses and errors of judgement. Formal university channels as well as more collegial options are available, including writing opinion pieces. Encouraging individuals on social media to join a public condemnation of a colleague is inimical to the mission of the university.

The letter makes two main complaints:

(A): I have breached “professional standards” in contributing to the Review because of my “lack of the requisite expertise”; this “constitutes a failure to uphold [my] responsibilities as an academic.”

(B): Given the actions and policies of the current administration, my decision to take part in writing the Review was “extremely misguided” and “unconscionable.”

Framing the letter, you write that “since 2020 [I] have published a number of academic articles, as well as one book, arguing against trans inclusivity.” Despite referring to my “rhetoric,” you give no quotations or citations in support. People interpret “trans inclusivity” differently, but on an ordinary understanding of that phrase I haven’t argued against it. For example, from the preface of my book, Trouble with Gender:

[N]o one’s pursuit of a dignifying and fulfilling human life is impeded by anything in the pages that follow–neither transgender people, nor women, nor gay people, nor any other relevant constituency. If there is any doubt about that at the start, I hope it will vanish by the end.

You also accuse me of producing work that “further marginalizes and stigmatizes trans people.” Indeed, you have “no doubt” that this is the case. Since you provide no evidence for this claim, I will not address it here, except to say that I disagree.

The last 2+ pages of Byrne’s letter take up the claims (A) and (B) that he says his critics make, and simply demolishes them. But he ends on a conciliatory note:

Our “Ethos, Diversity, & Outreach” webpage says that “the Philosophy Section aims to create a vibrant and tolerant intellectual community with heterogeneity in backgrounds and opinions, and where the overriding norms are those of civilized rational argument.” I endorse these aims and commend them to you. As some of you know, I enjoy talking to people with very different perspectives from my own. My office door is always open if any of you would like to discuss the issues raised by your letter in person.

The misguided, erroneous, and hamhanded letter of the critics above shows the extent to which science and medicine have been politicized in America, injected with ideology to the extent that if you collaborate on an endeavor coming from the “wrong side of the aisle,” people on the “right side of history” (or so they think themselves) will try to ruin your career. This is a reprehensible endeavor from people infused ideology, hate, and anger.