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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Any scientists/academics who can explain the rationale behind the idea of ‘sex is a social construct’?

77 replies

4ammusings · 31/07/2021 02:29

Just that really. I am trying to understand where this idea has come from and how the science supposedly backs it up (as declared by many trans activists). I understand that intersex people do exist and there are certain conditions that cause sex ambiguity, therefore technically sex isn’t strictly binary in all circumstances. However, from my understanding, most people still fall into the categories of male or female, based on their chromosomes.

I have a family member who is a biologist yet strongly believes sex is non-binary and merely assigned at birth. I can’t understand how she reconciles her biological knowledge with this seemingly ideological concept which appears (to me anyway) to have no real basis in science. I also can’t discuss this with her as she is so aggressively part of the TWAW brigade that the topic is not up for reasonable or respectful discussion.

Am I missing something here? Happy to be proved wrong, and she undoubtedly does have more biological knowledge than me. I just haven’t heard any convincing scientific evidence to date to actually back this claim up and am wondering if any scientists could please weigh in? Just to clarify, I understand the argument that gender is a social construct, but am talking specifically here about biological sex (just so the two aren’t conflated).

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NiceGerbil · 31/07/2021 03:12

Well it's a means to an end.

The argument comes first and then usually very little backup etc.

Usually there's a new scientific discovery and everyone goes Wow.

All of this the starting point is what will help their arguments/ bamboozle people so they think ok I'm not a scientist so maybe true.

The starting point here is that sex is s social construct but internal Gender ID is intrinsic.

4ammusings · 31/07/2021 02:31

Terrible grammar in the heading there, apologies, it’s 2.30am
🙈

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