Please help shed light on sex/gender debate in science

[YahdahYahdayYoo]

I have a PhD in biology but left research in my 20s and haven't kept up with the research since. Unfortunately, I've been spending the last day or two down a rabbit hole of discovery and depression. My once much beloved sphere has been shredded by DEI. We all knew Scientific American has been captured since that special issue a few years ago. It turns out now Cell and Nature are on to it declaring 'biological sex' difficult and not inclusive.

From Cell this year!
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1036931

Nature 2015
https://www.nature.com/articles/518288a
Yet if biologists continue to show that sex is a spectrum, then society and state will have to grapple with the consequences, and work out where and how to draw the line. Many transgender and intersex activists dream of a world where a person's sex or gender is irrelevant. Although some governments are moving in this direction, Greenberg is pessimistic about the prospects of realizing this dream — in the United States, at least. “I think to get rid of gender markers altogether or to allow a third, indeterminate marker, is going to be difficult.”

Cell 2024
https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(24)00122-3
The history of sex research: Is “sex” a useful category?

Answer: no

However, this article is later cited by a scientist whose career has focused on sex differences. The author does suitable head bowing to the DEI lobby but comes out strongly in favour of biological sex given the atrocious history of overlooking the female sex category in scientific and medical research.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01205-2

I simply cannot believe we're in a place where sex is a spectrum and 'we can't know what sex someone is' has become cannon knowledge. Thank goodness for Richard Dawkins. That man might have been bolshy and annoying over his crusade against religion but we need all his oratory skills and insights to fight this plague. I really had no idea this has spread so far and so deep and so high (and I've been following this board for years - GI is a gift that keeps on giving 🙄).

Can someone explain where/why biologists went wrong because I missed this one

As far as I understand, developmental neurobiologists, when considering sex, are looking for sex differences in the brains of males and females, and not, I believe, finding simple answers. More power to their microscopes and MRIs, and let them get on with it. Whatever they find will be food for thought. But if they are looking for sex differences, they must have a prior conception of sex, or they have nothing to sort their samples by.

Any definition of sex which is not centred on reproductive strategies will not be very useful. It is precisely because of reproduction that the category of sex is important. Otherwise, there would be no difference between men and women and the whole concept would evaporate. Men and women would cease to be men and women. Perhaps that is what the transhumanist ideologues are trying to achieve.

The bloody, raw reality of it is reproduction, and that's gametes - however they are generated (some species do not use the XY/XX chromosome strategy, but they still have gametes and sex). I believe that if you get away from reproduction, then you are not defining sex, but simply describing the effects of sex. Either that, or you are talking about something else altogether.

However, if you define sex by physiology and morphology or anatomy then there is variation beyond the binary

But this isn’t true. The variation does not mean it is beyond the binary. There are normal variations of physiology - such as hormone levels - within each sex, and there are normal variations of morphology or anatomy within each sex, then there is pathology that may tip the physiology, morphology or anatomy into what might be perceived as that of the opposite sex for any of those particular characteristics. But it’s pathology: it’s when things go wrong, and as I have said repeatedly, things going wrong, becoming abnormal, can’t be used to define what is normal.

If you are a female with pathological levels of testosterone, as a “variation beyond the binary” you are a female with pathology.

If you are a male with an underdeveloped penis (such as with 5-ARD) as a “variation beyond the binary” you are a male with pathology.

A human born with one leg is a “variation in anatomy”. It does not cloud the picture of the definition of humans as a bipedal species.

A human born with a single heart ventricle is a “variation in morphology”. It does not cloud the definition of humans as being a species with a four chambered heart.

And so on.

There needs to be a significant pushback against misusing pathology and disease to redefine the norm, particularly when it comes to sex.

100% perfect response.

Anything other than strictly gametes are merely correlates of sex. Chromosomes are near enough perfect correlates, genitalia a little less perfect, height and shoe size more approximate and 'brain sex' pretty crap.

Humans don't have x-ray vision. We can't see chromosomes but we can see a bunch of secondary sexual characteristics that make us conclude male/female. Sometimes we are wrong. It's always interesting to me how unusual it is to be wrong though.

I've been listening to this book on audio, an interesting story for many reasons but the narrator (!) ( https://www.zoeplaydon.com/ )

It's rather emotively narrated. The narrator (the author) is doing voices for all the main characters interactions. If I couldn't tell their viewpoint from the writing I certainly can from the speech inflections and tone.

A shame because it is an interesting story and a case where a biological woman identifying as a man managed to subvert primogeniture, no wonder the case was hushed up.