The Guardian, on Trump's EO re: gender ideology

[theilltemperedqueenofspacetime]

Did anyone else notice that the Guardian has at last caught up with this discussion, and supplied exactly the tropes one expected of them:
Sex is really complicated, too complicated for you plebs to comprehend.
Now we're all female, because early embryos are not yet morphologically sex-differentiated , ha ha ha!
If Trump is allowed to say male and female are different, it gives him carte blanche to take away female's rights, just like the Taliban.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/25/trump-executive-order-sex

It was the most read opinion piece this morning but not open for comments. Nor did they solicit letters for the letters page.

I literally cringed with embarrassment when I read that idiotic Guardian headline. What a comedown from the days when every liberal and leftie I knew ( including me) saw it as part of our family, a dearly loved friend. And absolutely to be respected.

I wonder if 'arse' and 'elbow' is too binary a choice.

Summed up perfectly 😂

True, but she will want to signal her membership of the elite pack anyway.

Did you read her article about a family get together after covid and how loadscof them brought couscous? It's all part of the same "see who I am" business. Signalling to their tribe.

Yes, fatuous piffle indeed. To think I used to buy The Guardian every day. There always was a fair amount of fluff and nonsense, but this is dangerous pseudo scientific bollocks.

I used to love the G2, the long pieces in there were almost always fascinating and opened up new areas of thought and journalism. No more...

Imagine promoting a worldview so irrational and so impossible to base public policy on, that you make a seditionist twat like Trump of all people look better when he opposes it. Recognising when a thought experiment is an interesting intellectual exercise for a therapy session, and when it's a genuine step forward requiring legal recognition, is pretty important for journalists and politicians.

“Come on horrifically oppressed women in Afghanistan! Whatcha moaning about? Sex is complex right? It’s not about men or women - so just identify as a bloke or a non binary (or anything you like really) and problem solved ladies! Freedom to sing in the streets and get educated!”

Muppets

What did all of them bringing couscous signal? That they hate coeliacs? Is that virtuous?

And acknowledging "morphological sex differentiation" is as good as transphobic anyway, isn't it?

If a million monkeys banged randomly at typewriters they would make more sense than Arwa Mhadawi's regular drivel.

Middle class north London staple. I read a book by another north London media woman whose family ate a lot of sushi. It's signalling to each other.

But coeliac-hating as a side order, right?

Glad I'm not a middle-class north Londoner, it sounds horrid.

Tabouleh is much nicer than rather tasteless couscous anyway.

I like couscous when it has stuff in it, or when I was a student I used to make a sort of couscousotto instead of risotto.

The debunk argument in this article falls down at its first premise. We are not all female at conception - this idea was around in the 80s but has now been shown to be scientifically inaccurate, in that the drivers of sex development are in the embryo as soon as the sperm makes it into the egg.

Things like this are the reason I have no intention of quitting X.

Amazing 🤣

Couldn’t get past the “sex is complex” in the byline. Embarrassing. The knots people are having to twist themselves into to avoid agreeing with 🍊 Face…

Sorry - no time to read whole thread, but this article is in line with the "clever clever" remark by the TW Congress member.

Name escapes me, but the Democrats thought it oh so clever.

Sarah formerly Tim Macbride. It's based on that.

So weird… as little as five days ago the Guardian published this article. Men are growing bigger and stronger all the time, apparently, more so than women, which is a little alarming. Seemed to know sex was binary in this context. Do you think we can all identify into ‘bigger and stronger’?

www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jan/22/men-have-grown-twice-as-much-as-women-over-past-century-study-shows

Scientist here. And I'm not even a meteorologist or a physicist. A biologist. An evolutionary biologist where practically all we do is talk about sex (because it's so important for giving natural selection much more to work with).One of the first things they (used to?) teach us in biology is the difference between sex and secondary sexual characteristics. We were all shocked to learn (we were young, you know how it is) that even ovaries and testes are secondary sexual characteristics, to say nothing of vaginas and penises.The only primary sexual function is producing eggs or sperm. That's it. That's all. Even the most baffling DSDs in humans ("intersex") only influence how secondary characteristics develop. The fundamental potential to produce eggs or sperm still determines sex (including when the potential doesn't develop into full function). No one has ever seen a spegg.And all scientists do know that. Some just like to waffle on about secondary sexual charateristics so they can sit at the Cool Kidz table in the lunchroom.

How do scientists in general deal with the ones who say that sex is on a spectrum etc? Is it politely ignored? Are they not laughed at?

In many cases I imagine that that depends on whether they want to keep their jobs or not.

I must admit, it's hard to hold The Scientists in the highest regard, when in most cases they (and their professional organisations) have been much too quiet in not denouncing the unscientific lunacy that is being peddled these days, not least in the pages of the Guardian and the rest of the 'liberal media'.

Another vote for bulghur wheat over couscous here!