Any other scientists feel like you are in an alternate reality?

[RockPaperScience]

I mean, seriously.

I’ve sequenced and karyotyped more X and Y chromosomes (and autosomes, I’m not picky) than I can count. How did we get to this sorry, ugly, baffling state of affairs of science and biology denial. I know we kind of know how, but I’ve had a glass of wine and WTAF is going on?

[Enough4me]

One view, TWAW
Opposing view, TWANW
Truth, TWAM

[NCBlossom]

I like a quote that says there are three sides to everything.

One view, an opposing view and then the truth.

I think that I believe that. I believe that there are objective truth’s that we get closer to.

[DisappearingGirl]

You know what. It's not the fact that there are thousands of people on twitter or wherever who believe and promote this ideology.

After all there are thousands of people who don't believe COVID exists. There will always be thousands of people on twitter who believe any old nonsense.

It's the fact that our governments, health services, universities, schools, police services, academic societies and journals believe it (or say they do) and promote it.

If we can change that, I'll be happy!!

[Enough4me]

If there is a spectrum, does it start with XY and end at XX, so there is an imaginary centre?
X 1/2X & 1/2 Y

Or is the imaginary spectrum between three values XX, XY XZ?

Is there an imaginary scale, e.g. 75% X and 25% Y?

I'd like to see peer reviewed journal articles to qualify this BS amazing new spectrum. Not going to happen is it!

[BigHuff]

Much like @GonadTheGaul, the definition of sex at my work place (biotech) is clear cut - people routinely talk of male and female and never ever has anyone said anything nonsensical about intersex/no sex/a spectrum, etc.

Our staff handbook is inclusive of trans people but does not avoid making references to women/female employees. Kudos to HR.

[Artichokeleaves]

'Alternative facts' are a legacy of the Trump era. I'm reminded of the song Tim Minchin wrote lampooning it:

'If the facts don't fit my narrative I'll just invent alternatives'

It doesn't work. Objective facts, objective reality is the only way to have shared meaning on which to base a society on. There can be no obligation on one person to enable another to maintain an uninterrupted preferred narrative.

And yes, I can't put this in the terms I would prefer because of censorship on female people being too blunt in their pointing out of threats to their rights, and to democracy and civil rights in general.

[InPraiseOfLadyGrey]

Oh sorry I got distracted before posting and partially failed to make my point, which is that just like with any abusers, this lot have got people globally trying to understand them, wondering whether they have a point, questioning our own logical factual scientific reality, questioning our reasonableness and trying to bend over backwards to accommodate the abuser's desires in the hopes that they'll stop using us. When what we should be doing is cracking down on it and not tolerating it.

[Ethelfromnumber73]

Yep, along with every other medic and scientist that I know. It's true what they say about squeaky wheels though.

[InPraiseOfLadyGrey]

Some people have an individualised personal reality. It's become a thing.

Is this not just a facy way of saying "some people are delusional"?

[InPraiseOfLadyGrey]

I don't find the whole thing confusing, maybe because I'm not a scientist, I do find it scary though. IMO gender ideology is emotional abuse. Where someone else typed something along the lines of "the cleverest TRAs alter language to bamboozle" etc, I read that in my head as "the most manipulative emotional abusers alter language to bamboozle" etc. That's how I see it.

Women fought for equality, men said "oh great now you're equal you can do everything that we do and also still do by yourself all the stuff you used to do, too".

Women fought some more for equality and men were like "our old methods to keep them down aren't working, we need to increase the abuse. Let's start ramping up with the part where we destroy everything they are, break down their entire identity, not on an individual woman basis but globally. Let's destroy everything that being a woman actually is, so they can't escape us ever and will have to return to being afraid of us and what we might do since they can see how totally we control the world and them".

Obviously this is not all men, but just as one rotten apple in the bag destroys the "apple-ness" of all the others and turns them into mouldy mush, so this segment of rotten male abusers turns the whole world into an unpalatable place.

[Artichokeleaves]

Some people have an individualised personal reality. It's become a thing.

However their personal alternate realities are not my problem. In reality, sex is dimorphic, and everyone knows and acts on this as established fact even if at the same time they're obfusticating about it.

[TheWeeDonkey]

@LemonSwan

What has darwinism got to do with this?

Darwin spinning in his grave at the idea that there are more than 2 sexes in mammalian species is providing the electricity to power Twitter and Tumblr. Therefore propagating the belief that there are more than 2 sexes in mammalian species. 😶

[Helleofabore]

Or mishy, does it include this Professor’s definition.

well, i think it’s like your definition of “firefighter”—quite circular, as it goes, because it is a messy, socialized term. a woman is a person who is, or has been, presumed to adopt a passive role in sexual intercourse and a reproductive role in economic life. it’s not perfect

twitter.com/graceelavery/status/1405661319903289344?s=21

[Helleofabore]

Well Mishy, are you agreeing with how Long Chou understands becoming a ‘female’.

twitter.com/sal_robins/status/1451608596127498241?s=21

To be clear mishy

‘Getting fucked makes you female because fucked is what a female is’?

Is this what you mean by being on a spectrum? This is from the ‘side’ you are in support of, so I am checking if this is your definition. Do you think it is what Darwin would agree with?

[LemonSwan]

What has darwinism got to do with this?

[Enough4me]

I thought that Darwin noted survival through natural selection, not artificial selection.

The TW ideology is artificial, people are not evolving to have more than two sexes, and their ultimate goal appears to seek a society of people who are all men, some with fake breasts (procreation will be interesting!).

I presume that they know that they cannot be women as long as women exist and show the world what women are, so women need to be erased?

[Helleofabore]

But TheWeeDonkey we also know this poster does it often. Like saying a founder of Stonewall knows nothing about gay history. Like using slang from other countries out of context.

Trying to use Darwin to support sex is a spectrum is par for the course.

[merrymouse]

My knowledge of history is minimal so if somebody who said they'd studied history told me some rubbish about the life of King George I, complete with made up events and dates, I wouldn't spot anything wrong unless I wrote it down and checked (assuming I could recognise a reliable source to check), or unless it was totally outlandish.

Yes, but whereas there isn't much need to know about George I in everyday life, the practical consequences of sex are difficult to avoid.

[TheWeeDonkey]

Also still howling at PP using Darwinism to prove that sex isn't real 🤣

[TheWeeDonkey]

@Beowulfa

I'm interested in the rise of gender ideology and veganism. Being (not unreasonably) repelled by the options that face farm animals at birth, means knowing that those options depend on their sex. There's no third career path for lambs born "on the gender spectrum".

I was watching that Clarkeson's Farm, and TBH I am woefully ignorant about the realities of farming life so it did come as a shock to me the ease that animals past their breeding capacity are slaughtered.

I thought it was shown in as compassionate a way as it could be but it was still very eye opening.

I still don't understand how people who's careers are on the coal face of sex differences can say sex isn't real or sex is on a spectrum. Very odd.

[TheElementsSong]

Something that I find odd is that some of my colleagues still believe in gender 'outside work' and will insist that for anybody who says they're trans, we must all pretend they're the sex they want to be instead of the sex they are. These are people who think logically, understand complex biology and do medical research where the division between the sexes is integral to getting the research right, but they seem to have a huge blinker on that divides scientific and medical reality from the 'gender world' they inhabit the minute this subject comes up.

I call it the "BEEEEEEKIND" filter.

[GonadTheGaul]

I'm in biomedicine. In my field we have to know the difference between male and female, for some of my clinical colleagues it's the difference between patients living or dying. Nobody has a problem with biological sex in a medical/scientific context. Something that I find odd is that some of my colleagues still believe in gender 'outside work' and will insist that for anybody who says they're trans, we must all pretend they're the sex they want to be instead of the sex they are. These are people who think logically, understand complex biology and do medical research where the division between the sexes is integral to getting the research right, but they seem to have a huge blinker on that divides scientific and medical reality from the 'gender world' they inhabit the minute this subject comes up.

Another issue is that there's a lot of scientific and medical lack of understanding in the general population in my experience, including among people who may be highly educated in other areas. I think we have access to a lot of medical and scientific information online, in documentaries and in books. There's a lot of misinformation out there too and some of it sounds plausible, or is spun to sound plausible, unless you know a subject quite well. If it's not an area you know and you listen to somebody who sets themself up as an expert then you could easily be mislead. My knowledge of history is minimal so if somebody who said they'd studied history told me some rubbish about the life of King George I, complete with made up events and dates, I wouldn't spot anything wrong unless I wrote it down and checked (assuming I could recognise a reliable source to check), or unless it was totally outlandish.

There's also an odd disconnect between people who will believe and promote somebody who knows little about the subject talking rubbish about biology (e.g. a philosopher who claims male and female testosterone levels overlap) but are keen on claiming they want to follow the science on something like Covid. I suppose it's the difference between believing anything that supports an ideology you like which you see as not having any cost to yourself (and not caring about the cost to others) and believing in reality when there's a risk of your own death if you don't.

I suppose a result of this is the people who think they know about science, even when what they believe is total rubbish, and will assert that even when talking to people who really know what they're talking about, like that student trying to tell Robert Winston he's wrong about biology. What I struggle to understand is the fact that they see an eminent biologist, saying something about his field of expertise, and they don't think 'hang on, maybe he's right'.

[Packingsoapandwater]

How did we get here?

I reckon I have an answer for that.

Technology gave people with next to no scientific awareness, from a country of embedded religiosity and an innate belief in the soul as a separate entity to the body, a global megaphone.

The rest of it is money, multinationals, politics, and the manipulation of metanarratives.

[Enough4me]

I have a background in biological sciences and would like to know how sperm can be so varied. I always thought a Y sperm created men (boys) when fertilising an egg (always X), so to find out there are ranges of Y is fascinating. I would love to know the research into this amazing Y sperm that exists in a spectrum.

Alternatively, are Y sperm the same, but some variation occurs in the womb creating this spectrum, wondering about the research?

Or, are babies born a sex and something in the environment is causing this spectrum.
Shouldn't this have been spotted, what could be doing this?

Finally, isn't it strange that this spectrum did not exist until it became fashionable -like there is no science behind it?

[Missmissmiiiiiiiiisss]

I heard the whole “very few people know what chromosomes they actually have” line on the Norlan podcast …. And was like with rare exceptions we are XX when we are born a physical girl and XY when born a physical boy. For most of the rare exceptions, it would become obviously at puberty if there was DSD caused by a chromosomal abnormality. Then vanishingly rare are those who have biological children.

It’s a bit like saying we don’t know that toddler humans who have milk teeth will lose them and get adult teeth. But because the vast, vast majority do, we very reasonably assume it as fact that this will happen unless something has clearly gone awry.