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I get into debates about this topic all the time. There are definitely people on the left who claim that sex isn't binary, and that the existence of intersex p

by nabnob 8y ago

I get into debates about this topic all the time. There are definitely people on the left who claim that sex isn't binary, and that the existence of intersex people somehow disproves the idea of male/female sexes.

foldr 8y ago
That seems like a separate topic. The question at issue is whether people who can be clearly classified as "men" or "women" according to general consensus show some cognitive differences on average. I have not seen anyone deny this. In a similar way, one might argue that "races" don't really have any objective existence, and yet still acknowledge that e.g. African-Americans are less likely to go to college than Asian Americans. Such stats aren't invalidated by the lack of any objective biological definition of "race", or by the existence of some people with mixed African/Asian heritage, etc. etc.
Faark 8y ago
You seem to mix up binary with bimodal. Sex is indeed not binary, as illustrated by the many cases of "it's complicated". You can try to define a strong line, but the resulting rule will be quite arbitrary and mostly be based on your feelings. Accepting the distribution to be bimodal obviously still allows most of us to easily be categorized as either male or female. Same for gender roles, by the way, though with a bigger focus on behavior than biology.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> There are definitely people on the left who claim that sex isn't binary It fairly obviously is not. That sex traits are multidimensional and that there are more than two ways that that they present in combination is...not really a matte about which there can be serious, fact-based debate. > and that the existence of intersex people somehow disproves the idea of male/female sexes. It (and a number of other phenomena that aren't typically labelled intersex, including, but not limited to, the way certain physical sex-linked traits other than external genitalia in transexuals are, on average, more typical of the sex corresponding to their gender identity than to sex identified by their at-birh genitalia or combination of sex chromosomes) obviously disproves the idea of exclusive stereotypical male and female sexes. But none of that is relevant to the upthread issue, which was the supposed claim that males and females are mentally identical. That is a rather distinct claim from “sex is more complex than a male/female binary distinction”.

by nabnob 8y ago

foldr 8y ago

That seems like a separate topic. The question at issue is whether people who can be clearly classified as "men" or "women" according to general consensus show some cognitive differences on average. I have not seen anyone deny this. In a similar way, one might argue that "races" don't really have any objective existence, and yet still acknowledge that e.g. African-Americans are less likely to go to college than Asian Americans. Such stats aren't invalidated by the lack of any objective biological definition of "race", or by the existence of some people with mixed African/Asian heritage, etc. etc.

Faark 8y ago

You seem to mix up binary with bimodal. Sex is indeed not binary, as illustrated by the many cases of "it's complicated". You can try to define a strong line, but the resulting rule will be quite arbitrary and mostly be based on your feelings. Accepting the distribution to be bimodal obviously still allows most of us to easily be categorized as either male or female. Same for gender roles, by the way, though with a bigger focus on behavior than biology.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> There are definitely people on the left who claim that sex isn't binary It fairly obviously is not. That sex traits are multidimensional and that there are more than two ways that that they present in combination is...not really a matte about which there can be serious, fact-based debate. > and that the existence of intersex people somehow disproves the idea of male/female sexes. It (and a number of other phenomena that aren't typically labelled intersex, including, but not limited to, the way certain physical sex-linked traits other than external genitalia in transexuals are, on average, more typical of the sex corresponding to their gender identity than to sex identified by their at-birh genitalia or combination of sex chromosomes) obviously disproves the idea of exclusive stereotypical male and female sexes. But none of that is relevant to the upthread issue, which was the supposed claim that males and females are mentally identical. That is a rather distinct claim from “sex is more complex than a male/female binary distinction”.