9am on Radio 4: Start the Week - sex and gender

He is arguing with people who are directing him to the" science vet" thread about how sex is all spectrumy wectrumy.

Just want to say thank you for "spectrumy wectrumy". I tend to reuse as often as possible.

twitter.com/sharonmoalem/status/1351538250314379264?s=21

And thank you to nauticant for highlighting the broadcast - I will listen.

Imnobody4 did he feature on the channel 4 programme then? He is obviously trying to advertise his book (not a criticism!).

I remember on radio 4 that he was obviously treating the 2 sexes as v distinct, but at the same time tried to be gender friendly in his language. Now he seems to be on a crusade to remind everyone that sex is binary.

Manderleyagain
I totally agree, only just realised it's an old thread when I saw I'd commented. On twitter now he's much more challenging of 'gender pseudo science'.
There was a recent Channel 4 Programme 'Are Women the Fitter Sex? which asks does sex matter although it does slip into gender a bit.

I saw this scientist Sharon Maolem in the last couple of days on twitter, and remembered hearing him on this radio 4 program, so looked up this thread. He is being unequivocal about the need to recognise sex and not use the word gender in its place.

"Why is the 'Gender Data Gap' in medicine dangerous?

Because the real data gap in medicine pertains to sex (M+F). So why are activists using 'gender', when the correct word in this case is 'sex'?

Sex is not gender...."

" Biological sex in mammals is binary (M/F). With all our advancements in genetics/medicine we currently have no way to change an individual's biological sex.

So why does this matter?" this thread continues here mobile.twitter.com/sharonmoalem/status/1348580691022393345

He is arguing with people who are directing him to the" science vet" thread about how sex is all spectrumy wectrumy.

I might be wrong but I get the impression that he's only recently appreciated what's been going on in the way biology is being represented for policial aims.

I particularly didn't like is how towards the end both of the guests acknowledge that people "have a gender" as something distinct from a sex. I am not sure anyone actually said what they meant by 'gender' either. It seems to have many varied meanings beyond learning foreign nouns.

Like Pavlov's dogs

Yes it is like that, isn't it.

I thought the autoimmune link was due to the ability to be pregnant etc. Some women have an immune issue that rejects pregnancy. Some autoimmune issues become better during pregnancy too. Breasts are believed to have evolved from the immune system and certainly have been shown to make antibodies in response to baby's snot on the areola.

It's also thought That we are too clean and don't have enough parasites which would keep an over active immune system busy.

Thanks, @nauticant, I skimmed that yesterday. Fascinating stuff.

The bit I didn't follow was why that led women to have more autoimmune problems than men

I found this in The Atlantic when I was looking for the same thing, Gasp0de. Can’t vouch for the science but it summarises the ‘pregnancy compensation hypothesis’ as a reason for this difference between men and women. It is written quite clearly and is based upon an article published in a genetics journal:

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/06/women-autoimmune-diseases-pregnancy/591901/

I remember posts from BowlofBabelfish too. They were excellent.

I would like to know more too. We used to have the basic dominant recessive model, then I understood they thought other genes appeared to be switched on more randomly. Now this is saying that both genes may work together.

We used to have @BowlofBabelFish who used to explain things well but I think she may be back at work now.

If we have any geneticists here, I'd be interested in further information (in Noddy terms, though, I'm afraid!) on what Gina Rippon said quite early on - something like, when she was a student it was stated as fact that if you have two copies of a chromosome (as women do for all 23 pairs and men do for 22 out of the 23), then quite early in development the body switches one off and only works from the other one. She seemed to imply it was thought that was quite random and the body might switch off a perfect chromosome and work from one with problems.

If I understood that part correctly, Sharon Moalem is saying that this is now known to be incorrect and that the body always has the option to go back to copy number 2 if there's a problem with number 1. Hence women having far fewer health problems deriving from faulty X chromosomes than men, because men only have one X chromosome and women have two.

The bit I didn't follow was why that led women to have more autoimmune problems than men.

Interesting that the Y chromosome has very few genes on it and lots of them are concerned with making sperm swim, if I heard that bit correctly.

Just one other thing I’ve just remembered - from a low-brow source, sorry - about basic physiological differences due to male and female chromosomes...

A couple of years back, on one series of Bear Grylls’ The Island, you know when they are all cast away on a Pacific island and have to hunt and fend for themselves - climatic conditions caused an unusual shortage of potential food (fish). As a result, all the participants ended up virtually starving. Even more than usual on this programme.

After a certain point, it was only the women who were able to do anything physical (fetch wood, water, try and hunt, etc.). It was posited (not sure by whom) that this was because of women’s fat reserves, which gave them a much longer-lasting supply of energy to draw upon.

If I remember, it may have been the episode when the group was initially divided into a team of men and a team of women. The series - and in fact some other seasons of the show - featured some seriously impressive strong females - characters I remember much more clearly than the male participants.

Anyway, just thought I’d throw this into the discussion!

I didnt think either of them sounded nervous.

I was incredulous that Wark actually asked whether people's treatment for certain illnesses should depend on their biological sex (rather than their gender ID). Yes, yes it should Kirsty.

My heart sank when he used 'assigned sex at birth' but to be fair it was in response to a question about trans. So I guess he just automatically fell into line with the bullshit language. Like Pavlov's dogs.

He was also saying that the cells with the different genes activated actually work together. This is interesting. I have no idea how this works and how he found it out/measured this. It would be interesting to read his work for this.

As far as I understood it, he was claiming that men have one set of genes on the X chromosome that code in relation to the immune system, and women have two X chromosomes, hence two sets. Either one can be activated in different cells, so that gives a back up if there is a duff gene.

If you have a gene that does not do the required job, you have a second chance with the second gene - however that may be rubbish too. If you are a man with a really good single gene - then that could be better.

Therefore, it is not a lot different to saying men are taller than women - on average, yes, but individual men may be shorter than a lot of women and vice-versa. Like a lot of sex characteristics. It doesn't mean that because you are a man you will be tall.

I think he was overstating on the superiority business, and yes it does provoke backlash because it is not absolutely true.

It does mean that on average women's immune systems cope better, and explains the greater frequency of auto immune illness in women. But it doesn't mean all women have a better immune system than all men. I would worry that if people are looking out for men in situations where they fair worse, they may be missing the same thing happening in a woman.

I hope this is understandable - I am not all that good at explaining things usually.

Sharon did say at one point that sex and gender had now become uncoupled (not a direct quote). He didn't elaborate but that's the fundamental issue. If gender is no longer linked to sex what the hell is it. Gina's constant theme was we're all unique individuals at the cognitive behavioural level, hence the fingerprint analogy. I understand why she's nervous about overclaiming the biological differences, it's so easy to fall into determinism.
On the whole I welcome this line of research as long as it's thoroughly critiqued. I find it fascinating and doesn't conflict with brain plasticity at all. I wish he hadn't used the word superiority, it immediately provokes a backlash.

Listening now, I have to concentrate hard!

I know GR explains her position more clearly in the gendered brain.

I thought it was fascinating but thought Sharon was extrapolating a little too far out of his area of expertise into other areas of biology when he was explaining the implications of his work, and fell into a bit of mansplaining at that point.

Otherwise, he seemed to be trying to be sympathetic to the idea of transgender whilst what he was saying that his work was showing differences of sex and that didn't quite add up to that. I am sure he was trying to be mindful of other's sensibilities, without being completely knowledgeable of all the political wrangling around it which is understandable really. It is movement that has taken a lot of unpicking in places like here - other people know the reality but want to try and be nice without realising there is a line where this is no longer possible.

Gina's work takes socialisation more into account. She did sound worried at that transgender question - and it is probably worrying when she has already been involved in this debate so knows where things can go. But she was good

I enjoyed it - it was the best thing in this sort of area for some time, and they didn't say 'gender' all the time, which the BBC seems to prefer to sex if at all possible, these days. It was nice to have something about science instead of politics for a change.

Kirsty Wark did a good programme on menopause and HRT a while back. This is another area where there is a lot of political stuff about what women 'should' do and how they should behave, and is a complicated tangle of science, health and culture.

I think ideas around equality/ individuality/ difference versus commonality/similarity/sameness are going to be the major topics of this new century - across many areas.

don’t condemn either of them for sounding nervous. There are a surprising amount of scientists who avoid the topic altogether

Yes, shows far reaching the ideology is.......when experts have to watch what they say, and how they say it.

Neuroscience is interested in pathways and structures....which are fairly malleable

That’s what I thought was the point both guests tried to get across - there are some aspects of our physical selves that change for a myriad of reasons, which obviously could include hormone treatment and social conditioning, but others don’t.

I don’t condemn either of them for sounding nervous. There are a surprising amount of scientists who avoid the topic altogether.

I think relistening to the actual words used about sex/gender/gender identity segment might prove worthwhile.

(transcript is often even more revealing)

Yes, Gina Rippon did have a good go at muddling things there. I might listen again to the (shorter) re-broadcast at half 9 tonight

Neuroscience is interested in pathways and structures....which are fairly malleable - it would seem - according to personal and individual experience, and how experience can alter those pathways.....So, in itself, neuroscience sees the brain in a more open ended kind of way, I guess.

She did sound nervous when on the gender identity topic; like she didn't want to offend or provoke.