Does the guardian really not see?

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

"We work tirelessly to establish the facts – and when we get them wrong, we correct them. For democracy to survive, for society to progress, we need a shared foundation of facts. If we cannot broadly agree that the grass is green, we cannot have a conversation about what to do about the pollutants that are killing it"

https://www.theguardian.com/media/ng-interactive/2026/may/06/how-to-survive-the-information-crisis-we-once-talked-about-fake-news-now-reality-itself-feels-fake

this is a good article about the importance of facts, connection and how society might navigate the current crisis of mis and dis information

and yet Viner has written the above with clearly straight face while editing a paper that hounded out journalists who said that no one can change sex and continues to relentlessly push the TWAW/ppl especially women who don't believe are nasty bigots and to put it kindly misrepresent the law in this area

dors she reallly not see or is she just as much of a victim of all the things she points out in her article?

"The fact that you consider organic personality inclinations/preferences as a 'performance' is more a reflection of your own rigid expectations of conformity rather than any credible analysis of human behaviour. That you seriously believe there's no biological naturally occurring autonomy that drives preferences is quite the tell."

How often a day do you spend using ChatGPT for discussion points and come out sounding like a word salad from a Thesis? Why is it that none of you can speak like normal human beings, instead sound like robots programmed a thesaurus word salad.

Yes, there are lots of people on Reddit denying that sex is real. It is genuinely good to see you acknowledging this.

Anyway...

Regarding the bimodal point, this makes sense to me. I was assigned female at birth but there females who are more female than me, who sit further on the right hand side of the graph below. I now realise I must be in the middle.

This graph is from a video that explains sex bimodality in more detail: https://theparadoxinstitute.org/videos/is-sex-bimodal

Absolute rubbish. Your desperate attempt at deflection is destroyed when you consider A) social programmes to help victims and perpetrators are BASED ON prison data, and B) you yourself rely on the data regarding lesbians (a tiny cohort) so you use the data for lesbians but not for trans people; and omit that lesbians can include transwomen so therefore your statistics are skewed.

Which makes you a hypocrite. Flailing about. No one is buying your argument. Not even you. And we all know it.

Ooh you missed your typo, you are of course a trans woman rather than a transwoman because trans is just an adjective like tall, short, gay, white, black, whatever - you are just another sub category of “woman”. Solidarity, sister!

Love the graph, so mathematically sound and convincing.

It's like you have this off pat - "this is my refutation and I'm standing by it". Again - superficial.

Other posters have engaged at length with the flaws and inconsistencies in this approach. They've used statistics, logic (and, honestly, common sense). I have, too (your selective approach to which statistical patterns, definitions etc. - which facts/opinions/generalisations etc. - that you accept/reject as "valid", with examples from your posts).

In short, again, it really doesn't help your argument to start with the assumption that a poster's missing something... and thereby miss something yourself.

The irony of it just draws attention to the holes in your argument, not the strengths.

If these holes are easily addressed, address them - convincingly.

Sex is binary, it is not bi modal, you are misinformed.

@Aisha176 you are making the extraordinary claim here, not people saying that “trans women” commit male pattern violence. Why wouldn’t they? You make a claim that they’re more similar to women in crime patterns, you need to prove it, otherwise they are just a group of men with no reason to believe there is anything differentiating them from other men other than the spurious claim that they’re women.

Transwomen are demonstrably male. And less than 8% have any surgery down there. Transwomen per capita, are far more dangerous than other males. Data proves this over and over and over and over again across several countries.

You also forget that it's not just about safety, but privacy and dignity away from the male gaze.

It doesn’t sound like you’ve thought any of this through particularly thoroughly and I doubt your flailing will convince anyone that doesn’t already share your ideological worldview @Aisha176

You don't seem to understand how words come into being which is by social usage.

Again with the assuming my own lack of understanding as opposed to your own. It's happening so much here, and exhausting, because it just means posters need to repeat earlier points, but breaking them down.

I'd have hoped that my reference to "evolution... life and death imperative" would have shown that I fully acknowledge "social usage" ("evolution" - I'm not sure what else could this mean in the context of language?) but, within this context, as applied to this word, am suggesting that the necessity of distinguishing between male/female outweighs the pull of any corresponding/conflicting "[gendered] associations". I'd add that the relationship between these two ("woman" as sexed/gendered) is hugely complex, as the two are frequently conflated, without ever losing sight of the primacy of the biological imperative (in fact, rather, to highlight and exploit this at women's expense). The infinity of ways that this is done across geography, history - and, on a more granular scale, in a single blood conversation ("Stupid wooman!") - is an absolutely fascinating study in the oppression of women, and ranges from the depressingly instinctive to the cynically strategic. I'd also argue that the way in which you attempt to separate them is itself an ironically inverse evolution of the same trends that have led to our current predicament.

Your second paragraph is rather hard to follow - it's ambiguous what the "it" refers to.

If you reply, please don't begin with "I don't understand". Ask yourself whether you do.

Sex itself is not bimodal.
There are only sperm or eggs, no intermediate gametes.

What is that graph plotting along the x axis?

Some aspects of human physicality traits have a bimodal distribution that aligns with sex (like muscle mass or similar).

But sex does not have a distribution that you can plot like this.

Over 99.8% of humans are either male or female, as defined by whether they have a body designed to make sperm or eggs. It is not about external appearance eg bigger tits doesn’t make you “more” female.
The remaining 0.02% are mainly easily categorised as male or female with a difference of sex development so something has gone wrong during development so that their internal (primary) sex doesn’t match with their external (secondary) sex characteristics.

So, I ask again, what is being plotted in that graph on the x axis and the y axis?

Firstly, unless you can educate yourself on the difference between stereotypes & typical behaviours you won't have the ability to fully understand & engage in this conversation proficiently. Maybe you don't really want to anyway?

I have educated myself on this difference, which means that I have the ability to understand and engage in this conversation proficiently. I love it that you're calling out everyone else's ability to understand things. It's so clever! Some people call that a DARVO, but obviously that's because they haven't educated themselves and don't know what a DARVO is!! They're such silly sausages 🤦‍♀️

Secondly, as I have already mentioned, I don't make the 'rules' on appropriate language usage, society does. When a term gets picked up & widely used it becomes common parlance.

Right! As things stand currently, as an AFAB transwomen, I am very much a marginalised minority. You can see it on this thread. Catiette even thinks I've lost patience and don't want to write long and thoughtful things anymore. There is talk of parody. Everyone is denying my existence. Well, you're not. Thank you. One day language will evolve so that AFAB transwomen like me can be accepted in the LGBTQIA2SAFABTW community. Until then I will stand up against bigotry and patiently correct anyone whose understanding isn't there yet (Catiette, that was for you. My patience hasn't gone anywhere).

I get why this upsets many women given typical behaviours can also be stereotypes (expectations) but that doesn't change the fact that the sexes share typical behaviours that are more common to one sex than the other hence associations to a particular group. However wrong or right you believe this to be, its how language works that isn't by any nefarious plan but the basic utility in associations used to classify phenomena.

My behaviour on this thread is definitely more stereotypically like that of a transwoman. I don't have a nefarious plan, because I'm not wicked or evil. I'm simply joining in with a thread about how the Guardian presents truth and what that means in today's world, just like you. Truth and facts are important. The Guardian recognises this and so do I.

I haven't read the full thread, nor know everyone's backgrounds, so may be confused about who is arguing for which side here, but that link seems to be a GC debunking of the bimodal sex argument. Which to be fair is one of the easier anti-science debunking tasks.

We wouldn't bother to distinguish between men and women if we were differentiating according to 'typical behaviours'.

We distinguish between men and women for the same practical reason that we distinguish between any other organism that reproduces sexually.

But I suppose if you have never had to consider whether you might have to push an entire new person out of your nether reasons, that might pass you by.

PS I think I've dealt with your replies to me now. I'll read the rest of the thread if/when I can, but a quick skim seems to indicate other posters are experiencing what I am. Kudos and thanks, regardless, for the more serious engagement than usual. I's not an easy thing to debate, and posters here are very practised in picking up on contradictions and flaws in your perspective. I honestly think we'd be thrilled to see these meaningfully addressed...

The suggestion that sex is bi-modal just demonstrates confusion about statistical terms.

The logic of your argument can't be denied.

Thank you! I've got so much to learn.

Yes, that gap is important. Without it, language can't evolve and I will forever be othered. This is the only thread in which I will be my authentic self and I will make every effort to get this right. Why did I come out on this thread, you ask? I was initially inspired by the Guardian's sturdy grip on facts and realised how important it was to remain authentic when I started seeing posts that demonstrated the same insights.

You really are a true cister ❤️ I take it that word is acceptable? You're the first person on this thread to validate my identity and I've already learned that it's super important to go straight to the people who show kindness and make sure they use the correct words. Hopefully I've sufficiently gaslit and guilt-tripped you into doing so but please let me know if I haven't as I can switch between complimenting and shaming you as necessary, as I fully understand how difficult it is to accept people as they truly are when my identity doesn't affect you unless you chose to be offended by it. You're a gem ❤️❤️❤️

Edited to add: glad you liked the graph.

❤️❤️❤️❤️

A very confused post. Biology just is. That the word used for a an adult female is 'woman' and for an adult male is 'man' has nothing to do with power structures. They are just words. Words with established meanings which are understood the world over in every language and in every culture.

Your own analysis would suggest that it is 'gender' that is the oppressive construct, not biological sex or the words which have developed to refer to it. If women have been oppressed is to do with the social constructions and assigned meanings....not the very fact of their biology.

'Trans' is a made up term...and it distinguishes nothing apart from the delusion that one is really the opposite sex; or more generously.....that one likes to role play the opposite sex for emotional/ psychological reasons.

It is you who is suggesting that " organic" preferences of personality are an indicator of this thing called 'gender' - rather than simply an expression of individual personality. It you who is assigning 'gender' to these particular characteristics at the level of personal expression, not me.

And on the contrary, I do think that sex can, and does, have some obvious but also subtle impacts on one's behaviour and experience - but this is not fixed in stone and can still vary in strength between individuals and between different cultures. Only a woman feels the surge of maternal love after the birth of a child...which is a product, entirely, of biology and the animalistic instinct to protect..and any woman who has experieneced this knows about that very intimately. A father/man may feel intense love and a desire to protect too.....but it is different in tone and in degree.

Males are generally hard-wired to pursue sex...which makes male sex drive different to that of the female. Males don't ovulate and there is not such an obvious cycle.....and furthermore males have less obvious investment in the porocess of reproduction and nurturing young and can distance themselves in a way that females/women cannot.

Males are also far more prone to acts of sexual abuse and violence than females...and even when the males/men are homosexual in orientation - the sex drive is far more detached and promiscuous and focused on objectification and fetish than you will ever find in women/females - and this can be evidenced in gay male hook up culture/saunas/cruising and so on.

This comment reminds me of anti feminist men who claim feminism is an expression of man envy rather than rooted in organic inclinations/preferences.

Wow. Way to misunderstand Feminism! Even knowing all the guff you've previously spouted (and I'm pretty you've spouted it under another name before, how's it going btw?) I'm genuinely quite shocked you could get it so wrong.

Feminism isn't rooted in organic inclinations/preferences. That's a shockingly sexist idea.

Feminism is rooted in women's rejection of the unfair treatment of the female half of the species because we are female. Society constructs sexist narratives around us that constrain and deminish us. Feminism is a reaction to false narratives and the social constructs around them. If the constructs didn't exist, we wouldn't need Feminism. It's entirely a reaction to external injustice.

So it's not wrong to say in some ways Feminism exists because women envy men - of course we do! We envy their freedom.

As I believe I said to a poster who made very similar arguments at a similar time of night before, by your logic slaves aren't people forced to be chattels, they are just people who really like wearing chains.

Just because some women conform with some gendered expectations and some men do likewise - it does not mean that a man who expresses societally coded 'feminine' pursuits or preferences is a woman, or that a woman who likes playing football, lifting weights and fancies other women is a man.

Someone who loves pink, has long hair, wears dresses, uses lippy and has manicured nails, uses lots of makeup, and likes jewellery especially dangly earrings. Apparently is never aggressive or violent. Only interested in fashion.

But if we take behaviours of men who identify as women as indicators of "typical behaviours of women", by that logic we also love to transgress boundaries, ignore safeguarding, have thin skins, are litigious, threaten to rape other women with our lady dick if they dare to say ‘no’ to us, enjoy cross dressing for sexual pleasure, and have a strong desire to police others speech, actions and non actions. In short, expect the world to adhere to our preferences.

Given those typical womanly behaviours, it’s a mystery as to why women are not running the world.

You've already had it explained that 'a stereotype' is the word given to observed 'typical' behaviours over time.

Oh, and another gender studies postgraduate here to pontificate and correct wrong thinking. Is that a typical male behaviour or a typical female behaviour? Or a male acting out a typical woman behaviour? Or…. 🤔