Another uncritical gender identity article in the journal Science

[TheBiologyStupid]

Science, the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has been captured for a while, sadly. Here's it's latest uncritical example of gender identity nonsense: www.science.org/content/article/how-astrophysics-helped-me-embrace-my-nonbinary-gender-identity-in-all-its-complexity

I despair for science (more broadly) sometimes...

Wowsers... "In high school, I particularly hated freshman physics and its inflexible rules, which seemed to mirror the society I lived in."

Wow. All this deserves is "Ya cannot fight the laws of physics, captain" from Scotty in Star Trek. And it's an interesting statement on paths to reality denial.

They need a biology degree (not that biologists have been much better in the current political climate, but many of them at least feel guilty about sex denialism deep down).

If as a non binary person, they are challenging the gender stereotypes they grew up with, that's great. Gender stereotypes should be challenged. The only problem is the assumption that everyone else accepts the gender stereotypes and that you have to be non binary to fight them.

This article is just one person's story and doesn't seem anti-science in the way some other TRAs are.

"Now, I realize the power of my identity. Being nonbinary means challenging the status quo every day. It means everything can and must be questioned. It means exploring things others take to be fundamental in new ways from new angles. In my everyday life, my gender identity compels me to find unconventional solutions to difficult problems."

How long before Einstein is transed 🙄

Articles in magazines like this have done a ton of harm, they make regular people feel like this is scientifically legitimate.

freshman physics and its inflexible rules

OMG 🙄🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄
How dare the LAWS OF PHYSICS be so triggering. Does this person try to get to work by sitting on a tea tray and deciding it's a bus, or get offended when they drop their drink and it spills?

I do agree that questioning everything is a good idea, in fact it's kind of the point of being a scientist - and amazingly you can even do it without the revelation of being "non-binary". Funny then that questioning the sanctity of gender identity doesn't seem to have occurred to them, or noticing that they're no more non-binary, questioning or capable of open-ended thought than all those boring normies.

It's amazing Bohr and Planck managed to discover quantum physics at all, what with being so cisheteronormative.

How long before Einstein is transed

No risk of that. He's a man.

Yes, the normalisation of this gender woo nonsense in respectable publications has a lot to answer for.

"when puberty brought feelings of dismay and disgust. Every day meant performing femininity while feeling increasingly isolated from it"

OK I get this person may have had issues with puberty, it's not exactly a barrel of laughs what with the periods and the boobs and the raging hormones, but I have to ask

How does one perform femininity?

I don't remember my mother explaining this bit in the now you are becoming a woman talk.

Boiledbeetle: I take “performing femininity” to mean the gender roles associated with being a woman. So when I hit puberty I felt compelled to perform femininity by shaving my underarms and legs, wearing makeup, painting my nails etc.

I started to read it but couldn't get to the end such boring drivel!

But my most frequent question, starting when I was about 5 years old, was why am I a girl? And for that, my parents had no answer. In fact, in the 1990s, in the foothills of the Appalachians, no one did. It was my first encounter with a question that has no simple answer.

I know that in the US those that live in the Appalachians are denigrated as backwards, inbred hillbillies but seriously? To imply that in the 1990s no one in the mere foothills even knew why some babies are girls and others are boys? The fictional Appalachian parents know the spot on Jupiter is a mega hurricane but they don’t know that when a sperm with chromosome X meets an egg, hey presto that’s why you’re a girl.

Hey guys, we're gonna need to change the fundamental laws of the universe. That cool?

Thanks fit explaining. It would explain why I didn't get the reference. It never occurred to me to do any of those things. EVER.

As a kid I was what was then called a tomboy. As I grew up I always preferred the activities that were in those days associated with being male - cars, sports, mending stuff, drinking beer out of pint mugs etc.

When I was grown up I married, had a couple of kids, had grandkids, got widowed, still liked cars, sport, mending stuff, drinking beer out of pint mugs etc.

Am now in my eighth decade and have only just realised I was never a girl or a woman at all. I have always, apparently, been non-binary. Who knew?

FFS, there is nothing progressive about this trans, queer, non binary shit. It is totally regressive and part of the most old-fashioned gender strait jacket narcissistic bollox ever.

I am probably ranting because in this apparently anything goes non-binary age I have just totally failed to find a birthday card for my daughter that is not bloody pink. Non binary, my arse.

parietal, the "if" here is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting! "If as a non binary person, they are challenging the gender stereotypes they grew up with, that's great."

NB doesn't challenge stereotypes. It seeks to absolve special individuals from the burden of stereotypes while leaving them in tact for those of us who aren't clever enough to utter the magic words "I identify as...". NB can only exist (in a philosophical sense, because it sure a shit isn't materially real) if the rest of us are and remain binary.

Challenging stereotypes would be "as a woman I can do [traditionally masculine thing]". NB says "I must not be a woman if I do [traditionally masculine thing].

Exhibit A: the much missed Magdalen Berns explains beautifully

I thought science was supposed to be about objectivity, once you turn it into an ideology it's not science.
Not quite as infuriating as this one though.
gcn.ie/watch-quantum-physics-helped-understand-queer-identity/

NB doesn't challenge stereotypes. It seeks to absolve special individuals from the burden of stereotypes while leaving them in tact for those of us who aren't clever enough to utter the magic words "I identify as...". NB can only exist (in a philosophical sense, because it sure a shit isn't materially real) if the rest of us are and remain binary.

This x 100.

NB doesn't challenge stereotypes.

I think it does actually. Like it or not, agree with it or not, it is in fact a socially acceptable reason for men/women to not adhere to gender stereotypes, roles and expectations. We didn’t have that before. If you were not gender conforming, you were socially excluded and stigmatised no matter what your reason was. So I think it is a step in the right direction of breaking down gender.

We didn’t have that before. If you were not gender conforming, you were socially excluded and stigmatised no matter what your reason was.

That's what the people doing it seem to think, at least. They seem to think they're living in 1955.

From the outside, really not buying this. I'm pretty certain they're more socially excluded and stigmatised by their claims to not be men or women.

I think the number of people who think they're idiots and try to avoid them as "hard work" is far higher than the number who would be bothered they were just dressing weird.

Although maybe this isn't true in their peer groups, who share the 1955-style gender ideas?

Regardless, we very much did have this before, even if they forgot it.

We didn’t have that before. If you were not gender conforming, you were socially excluded and stigmatised no matter what your reason was.

That's what the people doing it seem to think, at least. They seem to think they're living in 1955.

Or even earlier. Victorian times perhaps.

What sort of social stigma and exclusion do you think is experienced by gender non-conforming people who don't identify as non-binary today @Discovereads?

"In my everyday life, my gender identity compels me to find unconventional solutions to difficult problems."

I really wish I could ask the writer to explain this further, because I can't make head or tail of what they might mean.

We didn’t have that before. If you were not gender conforming, you were socially excluded and stigmatised no matter what your reason was.

When I hit puberty I didn't shave my legs or underarms, didn't wear nail polish and didn't use makeup. Most of my friends didn't either. We had short hair, were focused on our school work or sports, had good senses of humour and quite liked boys in an abstract sort of way. Nobody socially excluded us or stigmatised us. We were part of the norm - some girls wore make up, some didn't, some were more interested in style, some weren't. The majority of girls in the late 70s early 80s where I grew up were like this. The stereotypes of what every teenage girl should look like are a fairly recent thing and the perfect precursor to this gender stuff.

I don't agree. If non-binary provides a socially acceptable way of not adhering to stereotypes then it doesn't actually challenge them, does it? It merely side-steps them for people who "opt out" of their actual sex.

Actually challenging stereotypes is not following stereotypes whilst remaining truthful about your sex.

I can't believe we're still having to have this conversation, it feels as though some things, like pink birthday cards for girls, are more pervasive than they were years ago.

"Being nonbinary means challenging the status quo every day."

I laughed out loud when I saw they made this the expose quote.

No, it doesn't. Being nonbinary means you stereotype and propagate the status quo of masculinity and femininity, and only proclaim that neither applies to you.

Nicely said, Jacqueline.