BBC: "Dragon Lizards and the Gender Spectrum"

[Abitofalark]

BBC Radio 4 programme on Thurs 19 Sept '24 9 45 pm

Programme notes (in part):

"Sex is simple. Or so we're taught; animals can be male or female. But even the briefest glance at the animal kingdom tells us that this simply isn't true. Some creatures have only one sex; some have three; some have none at all. Some animals are two sexes at the same time; some flip flop between them when the time is right. When evolution came to solve the problem of procreation, she did it in a myriad of mind-blowing ways.
When it comes to humans, it's even more complicated - we have this thing called Gender, too. It's often defined as the social and cultural side of sex, distinct from the biological. But that's not the full story. ..."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q3ks

Three sexes, eh? I'm fascinated to know what the 3rd gamete is

That series is rather good. I’ll listen to what it actually says before judging.

Humans being aren't clownfish. Or dragon lizards.

And we really, really aren't protozoans or mushrooms. Those things are absolutely fascinating, but they are fuck all to do with gender.

Hmm. I've always thought that it was the exceptions that proved the rule. The vast majority of higher life forms are divided into 2 sexes. The development of two sexes increased the variation of genes in the next generation significantly, thus setting evolution into overdrive. We wouldn't be here without it.

'Gender' is a human construct. Until very recently it matched sex i.e. there were two genders. It's only recently that humans have imagined that this is not the case. Sadly, we are starting to apply it to non-human species e.g. dogs. Non-humans don't care what gender they are, or even understand the argument!

Might give the series a try (though given current identity politics it would probably irritate the hell out of me) but these links are ridiculous. Centipedes have many legs, elephants have four, what does this mean for humans? Fuck all frankly because we are not elephants and centipedes.

What a huge surprise - it's reasonably sane and interesting (although lacking detail - more assertion than explanation) until they drag gender into it and the trans expert turns up. 'Intersex' conditions do not prove that human sex isn't binary, and they don't affect 1.8% of people. And no, 'most' scientists are not now talking about 'sexgender' [sic].

It isn't 3 sexes of course! It's male, female and hermaphrodite, where hermaphrodite means the ability to create both male and female gametes. So still 2 sexes.

Parthenogenesis usually occurs when females don't have access to males.. Their offspring are clones of the mother. It is extremely rare for this to be the only reproductive choice, as it would stymie evolution.

I haven't heard any other programmes in this series and just happened to see this one on the schedule when I was looking for something else.

It's interesting to speculate whether this fits with other broader themes in the series or whether it has a specific agenda. It's only a 15-minute programme so I'm not expecting any great depth or discussion.

They say nothing more about the roundworms - only that 'one species has 3 sexes'. I think they must mean the Auanema recently discovered in California.

It's a nematode worm that does indeed break the normal rules for nematodes. Usually, species have males and hermaphrodites. This one has males, hermaphrodites and females.

This is not a 3rd sex. There is no 3rd gamete.

They can also survive massive doses of arsenic - 500 times the amount that would kill a human. I suggest we don't take them as a model.

Maybe we.could learn from dragon lizards and become more flexible about our methods of sex determination?

No we fucking can't! We are not reptiles. We don't have a hybrid chromosome/temperature-dependent method of sex determination. And we can't just decide to evolve one because that would be cool.

That not how it works. That's not how any of it works.

I need a drink.