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Why do you find this offensive? Wright's key points regarding 'sex realism', as I understand them, are that sex is not a spectrum (as many people are claiming

Why do you find this offensive? Wright's key points regarding 'sex realism', as I understand them, are that sex is not a spectrum (as many people are claiming these days) but a male-female binary, and that sex is still an important characteristic in many circumstances, such that it cannot realistically be supplanted by 'gender identity' or similar. Seems like a reasonable viewpoint to me, and not one that would generally be considered offensive for others to mention.

hvdijk 4y ago
- richbell 4y ago
  > Nothing suspicious about this at all. This type of low effort comment is generally frowned upon. Perhaps they didn't feel comfortable discussion controversial matters on their main account?
  - hvdijk 4y ago
    That explanation is directly ruled out by GP's comment: the GP doesn't think this is controversial.
    - hairybobbins 4y ago
      I know it's a controversial topic. I'd rather it wasn't, and that, given the wide-ranging impact on policy and law, people could discuss this freely without e.g. getting banned from online payment services and social media sites, being doxxed by activists, and so on.
      - hvdijk 4y ago
        If you know it's controversial, we now know "not one that would generally be considered offensive for others to mention" was, at best, being disingenuous. Is there anything else?
        hairybobbins 4y ago
        I meant generally as in, most people, who don't take an active interest in this topic. I know it's controversial to those who do. But I think that in itself is worth challenging. I mean, in the comment at the top of this thread, we have someone who became extremely offended at even the mere mention of someone with an opposing viewpoint to their own. In an article that isn't even about that topic. Does that seem a reasonable reaction?
pjc50 4y ago
Intersex people are living proof that it's not always a binary.
- leephillips 4y ago
  An “intersex” person (now usually described by doctors or biologists as a person with a disorder of sexual development, or DSD for short) is either male or female, just like any other human being. So to use the rather silly terminology under dispute, “binary”. The “disorder” is a non-typical development of sexual characteristics of the person’s sex: a disorder of male development in a male, or of female development in a female. We can’t even mention the disorder without implicitly affirming the sex categorization that it affects. The “binary” is part of the definition of homo sapiens. Every “intersex” person is either male or female. Many in that community object to others describing them as some kind of other sex and, especially, using their medical condition as an ignorant cudgel to advance the “trans” rights agenda.
  - dawnbreez 4y ago
    This sounds like you're conflating biological sex (i.e., having both breasts and a penis) with gender (i.e., person IDs as female). I understand why; they use almost the same terms. However, it is important to note that, if you are describing a person who was assigned female at birth, and continues to identify as female, that's entirely describing their gender, not the state of their biological sex characteristics. In other words, if a person experiences DSD, but self-identifies as male or female, what you are describing is not proof that sex is a binary, but rather proof that a person with DSD can experience gender dysphoria.
    - leephillips 4y ago
      I don’t see where I’ve conflated anything, nor do I understand your attempt to show where I have. “Biological sex” is redundant; sex is a biological classification. There isn’t any other kind.
      - 4y ago
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
It may SEEM like a reasonable viewpoint to you, but it's not grounded in reality. Saying sex is a binary is excluding anyone that doesn't fit within that binary. And if that's something you can't imagine, then it's not a subject you should have or voice an opinion on.
- MerelyMortal 4y ago
  > if that's something you can't imagine, then it's not a subject you should have or voice an opinion on. That's a dangerous thought process. Silencing people who don't understand things surely cannot be good as a whole.
- implements 4y ago
  It’s grounded in the reality 99.98% experience - that individuals are biologically differentiated into the male (inseminating) or female (gestating and nursing) reproductive role. Stress reproductive role there - as unique individuals they have limitless other personal and social roles they can fulfil, and to be honest I don’t see these as naturally gendered, nor feel it would be desirable for it to be so.
  - implements 4y ago
    Well, you could downvote - but, given as the first paragraph seems to be biological fact, perhaps you could instead mount a reasoned defence of gendered personal and social roles, and why they should have primacy over sex as defining components of the identities of “man” and “woman”. As someone born in the 60s, a time when gendered roles began to be considered limiting and harmful, I would genuinely love to see a defence - at least one beyond “It makes people with gender dysphoria happy” (which is a good thing, but not obviously the right thing given the opportunity for discrimination between genders and expected conformity to normative gender stereotypes).
- hairybobbins 4y ago
  You might disagree with this point of view, but that doesn't make it unreasonable. As Wright notes in https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/sex-is-not-a-spectrum https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/sex-is-not-a-spectrum, this view of sex as a binary system is based on the concept of male and female being the two discrete halves of the reproductive system in humans (and other anisogamous species): "Biological sex [...] is connected to the distinct type of gametes (sex cells) that an organism produces. As a broad concept, males are the sex that produce small gametes (sperm) and females produce large gametes (ova). There are no intermediate gametes, which is why there is no spectrum of sex. Biological sex in humans is a binary system." Surely this is not an unreasonable starting point for an evolutionary biologist to extrapolate from?
dawnbreez 4y ago
The trick here is that we're looking at dogwhistles. To someone outside the theater of culture-war this takes place in, this looks like a series of perfectly ordinary statements. Of course sex is binary, and that statement doesn't sound like it conflicts with gender being a spectrum, because sex and gender are obviously separate. However, to someone who has lived within this theater of culture-war--who have been dealing with this rhetoric as rhetoric, which is what it is--this is a red flag. "Sex is binary" is the opening salvo in a common rhetorical strategy, which goes "Sex is binary, you're either male or female" -> "I'm just stating a fact, no need to be defensive" -> "See, this is why I don't trust trans people" -> "This is why you shouldn't trust trans people, they contradict basic facts like sex being binary". Notice the magic trick here--by picking phrasing that's plausibly deniable, and then framing any reaction to it as "disagreeing with Science", this guy can make it look like he's disagreeing with trans people, and make it look like trans people are somehow in the wrong for this, without ever actually having to stop and explain why. That's not even getting into the fact that, frankly, "sex is binary" isn't actually correct. There are plenty of examples of species that don't actually fit into a binary sex model correctly--species which can reproduce both sexually and asexually, species which can change sex in order to find mates more reliably, and even cases where more than two sexes can be observed (such as in bees, for whom "worker", "drone", and "queen" all have different sexual characteristics). This goes against what most of us were taught when we were young, but that's part of the rational approach to the world: sometimes the model that we were given when we were in elementary school is wrong, and a newer model is a more accurate description of what's going on. And that's part of the goal, here. "Sex realism", here, has nothing to do with reality, just as "religious fundamentalism" rarely has anything to do with the fundamentals of whatever religion is involved. Rather, "sex realism" is a rhetorical strategy which uses the aesthetics of skepticism to make one's argument seem sensible, polite, and rational. It relies on the audience never actually questioning whether the "sex realist" is describing reality, or reading beyond the face value of what they are saying. The especially insidious part of this tactic is the way it weaponizes the reactions of people who understand what the dogwhistle means. People like me, who have spent hours upon hours discussing these things, immediately recognize the tactic at play--and more often than not, react loudly and angrily. After all, I've seen this conversation play out over and over, and invariably the guy claiming to just be a sex realist turns out to be an asshole, just like how the guys who claim to be "race realists" inevitably start citing things like the 13/50 argument (which is a whole other can of bad-statistics worms). But that's part of the plan--when I or someone like me says "What the fuck, get out" in response to the initial statement, that's when the sex-realist turns to the audience and says, "See how upset this person is over these definitely true things I just said! Clearly, if they're losing their cool this badly, I must be right!" And this works, because it short-circuits past the part where the sex-realist's argument is evaluated. By framing things in this way, the sex-realist can convince members of the audience to trust him before evaluating his argument, which lets him avoid actual scrutiny of what he's claiming. TLDR: Wright is framing a simplified, not-really-correct statement as absolute truth, and then framing the people he opposes as unreasonable and irrational, to take advantage of the fact that human beings use trust to save processing power and avoid having to actually evaluate arguments.

hvdijk 4y ago

richbell 4y ago
> Nothing suspicious about this at all. This type of low effort comment is generally frowned upon. Perhaps they didn't feel comfortable discussion controversial matters on their main account?
- hvdijk 4y ago
  That explanation is directly ruled out by GP's comment: the GP doesn't think this is controversial.
  - hairybobbins 4y ago
    I know it's a controversial topic. I'd rather it wasn't, and that, given the wide-ranging impact on policy and law, people could discuss this freely without e.g. getting banned from online payment services and social media sites, being doxxed by activists, and so on.
    - hvdijk 4y ago
      If you know it's controversial, we now know "not one that would generally be considered offensive for others to mention" was, at best, being disingenuous. Is there anything else?
      - hairybobbins 4y ago
        I meant generally as in, most people, who don't take an active interest in this topic. I know it's controversial to those who do. But I think that in itself is worth challenging. I mean, in the comment at the top of this thread, we have someone who became extremely offended at even the mere mention of someone with an opposing viewpoint to their own. In an article that isn't even about that topic. Does that seem a reasonable reaction?

pjc50 4y ago

Intersex people are living proof that it's not always a binary.

leephillips 4y ago
An “intersex” person (now usually described by doctors or biologists as a person with a disorder of sexual development, or DSD for short) is either male or female, just like any other human being. So to use the rather silly terminology under dispute, “binary”. The “disorder” is a non-typical development of sexual characteristics of the person’s sex: a disorder of male development in a male, or of female development in a female. We can’t even mention the disorder without implicitly affirming the sex categorization that it affects. The “binary” is part of the definition of homo sapiens. Every “intersex” person is either male or female. Many in that community object to others describing them as some kind of other sex and, especially, using their medical condition as an ignorant cudgel to advance the “trans” rights agenda.
- dawnbreez 4y ago
  This sounds like you're conflating biological sex (i.e., having both breasts and a penis) with gender (i.e., person IDs as female). I understand why; they use almost the same terms. However, it is important to note that, if you are describing a person who was assigned female at birth, and continues to identify as female, that's entirely describing their gender, not the state of their biological sex characteristics. In other words, if a person experiences DSD, but self-identifies as male or female, what you are describing is not proof that sex is a binary, but rather proof that a person with DSD can experience gender dysphoria.
  - leephillips 4y ago
    I don’t see where I’ve conflated anything, nor do I understand your attempt to show where I have. “Biological sex” is redundant; sex is a biological classification. There isn’t any other kind.
    - 4y ago

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

It may SEEM like a reasonable viewpoint to you, but it's not grounded in reality. Saying sex is a binary is excluding anyone that doesn't fit within that binary. And if that's something you can't imagine, then it's not a subject you should have or voice an opinion on.

MerelyMortal 4y ago
> if that's something you can't imagine, then it's not a subject you should have or voice an opinion on. That's a dangerous thought process. Silencing people who don't understand things surely cannot be good as a whole.
implements 4y ago
It’s grounded in the reality 99.98% experience - that individuals are biologically differentiated into the male (inseminating) or female (gestating and nursing) reproductive role. Stress reproductive role there - as unique individuals they have limitless other personal and social roles they can fulfil, and to be honest I don’t see these as naturally gendered, nor feel it would be desirable for it to be so.
- implements 4y ago
  Well, you could downvote - but, given as the first paragraph seems to be biological fact, perhaps you could instead mount a reasoned defence of gendered personal and social roles, and why they should have primacy over sex as defining components of the identities of “man” and “woman”. As someone born in the 60s, a time when gendered roles began to be considered limiting and harmful, I would genuinely love to see a defence - at least one beyond “It makes people with gender dysphoria happy” (which is a good thing, but not obviously the right thing given the opportunity for discrimination between genders and expected conformity to normative gender stereotypes).
hairybobbins 4y ago
You might disagree with this point of view, but that doesn't make it unreasonable. As Wright notes in https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/sex-is-not-a-spectrum https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/sex-is-not-a-spectrum, this view of sex as a binary system is based on the concept of male and female being the two discrete halves of the reproductive system in humans (and other anisogamous species): "Biological sex [...] is connected to the distinct type of gametes (sex cells) that an organism produces. As a broad concept, males are the sex that produce small gametes (sperm) and females produce large gametes (ova). There are no intermediate gametes, which is why there is no spectrum of sex. Biological sex in humans is a binary system." Surely this is not an unreasonable starting point for an evolutionary biologist to extrapolate from?

dawnbreez 4y ago

The trick here is that we're looking at dogwhistles. To someone outside the theater of culture-war this takes place in, this looks like a series of perfectly ordinary statements. Of course sex is binary, and that statement doesn't sound like it conflicts with gender being a spectrum, because sex and gender are obviously separate. However, to someone who has lived within this theater of culture-war--who have been dealing with this rhetoric as rhetoric, which is what it is--this is a red flag. "Sex is binary" is the opening salvo in a common rhetorical strategy, which goes "Sex is binary, you're either male or female" -> "I'm just stating a fact, no need to be defensive" -> "See, this is why I don't trust trans people" -> "This is why you shouldn't trust trans people, they contradict basic facts like sex being binary". Notice the magic trick here--by picking phrasing that's plausibly deniable, and then framing any reaction to it as "disagreeing with Science", this guy can make it look like he's disagreeing with trans people, and make it look like trans people are somehow in the wrong for this, without ever actually having to stop and explain why. That's not even getting into the fact that, frankly, "sex is binary" isn't actually correct. There are plenty of examples of species that don't actually fit into a binary sex model correctly--species which can reproduce both sexually and asexually, species which can change sex in order to find mates more reliably, and even cases where more than two sexes can be observed (such as in bees, for whom "worker", "drone", and "queen" all have different sexual characteristics). This goes against what most of us were taught when we were young, but that's part of the rational approach to the world: sometimes the model that we were given when we were in elementary school is wrong, and a newer model is a more accurate description of what's going on. And that's part of the goal, here. "Sex realism", here, has nothing to do with reality, just as "religious fundamentalism" rarely has anything to do with the fundamentals of whatever religion is involved. Rather, "sex realism" is a rhetorical strategy which uses the aesthetics of skepticism to make one's argument seem sensible, polite, and rational. It relies on the audience never actually questioning whether the "sex realist" is describing reality, or reading beyond the face value of what they are saying. The especially insidious part of this tactic is the way it weaponizes the reactions of people who understand what the dogwhistle means. People like me, who have spent hours upon hours discussing these things, immediately recognize the tactic at play--and more often than not, react loudly and angrily. After all, I've seen this conversation play out over and over, and invariably the guy claiming to just be a sex realist turns out to be an asshole, just like how the guys who claim to be "race realists" inevitably start citing things like the 13/50 argument (which is a whole other can of bad-statistics worms). But that's part of the plan--when I or someone like me says "What the fuck, get out" in response to the initial statement, that's when the sex-realist turns to the audience and says, "See how upset this person is over these definitely true things I just said! Clearly, if they're losing their cool this badly, I must be right!" And this works, because it short-circuits past the part where the sex-realist's argument is evaluated. By framing things in this way, the sex-realist can convince members of the audience to trust him before evaluating his argument, which lets him avoid actual scrutiny of what he's claiming. TLDR: Wright is framing a simplified, not-really-correct statement as absolute truth, and then framing the people he opposes as unreasonable and irrational, to take advantage of the fact that human beings use trust to save processing power and avoid having to actually evaluate arguments.