Biology is Complicated

A thought-terminating cliche to retire in the so-called gender "debate"

Gametic sex and its proxies

Sex isn’t complicated*. In mammals, sex is determined—but not defined—by the Y chromosome at conception. That is, “the direction of sexual development is initiated and determined by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome”.

The cascade of sexual differentiation resulting in a male or female adult phenotype is complex**, but the definition of sex is simple, and distinguishes you as male or female:

An organism’s sex is female if it produces the ovum (egg cell)

An organism’s sex is male if it produces the spermatozoon (sperm cell)

Outside of comical illustrations, there are no speggs or spergs, only a smeghead—spegghead?—would imagine otherwise. There is no third or in-between gamete regardless of what the term “intersex” might call to mind. There is only the large gamete (egg) and the small gamete (sperm).

“Biological sex reflects two distinct evolutionary strategies to produce offspring: the female strategy is to produce few large gametes and the male strategy is to produce many small (and often motile) gametes. This fundamental definition is valid for all sexually reproducing organisms.”

A definition of sex cannot invoke the Y chromosome, as it must apply to all anisogamous species (species that produce two gametes). Some such species “change sex or have non-genetic or facultatively genetic sex determination systems” with sex determined by temperature, nutrition, or population density. (Previously, I erred by defining sex as genetic/chromosomal sex, rather than as gametic sex.)

“Sex-associated genotypes or phenotypes (including sex chromosomes, primary and secondary sexual characteristics and sex hormones), sex roles and sexual differentiation are consequences of the biological sex.”

Definitions based on genotype, phenotype, or sex roles do not encompass the full diversity of life. This much is obvious when you consider the pregnant male seahorse.

“Genotypic and phenotypic features, as well as sex roles are often used as operational criteria to define sex, but since these traits differ vastly between sexually reproducing species, they only work for selected species.”

It is argued that an individual of a sexed species, themselves unable to produce gametes, cannot be said to be sexless. But here, we deviate from a universal definition of sex, and use an operational definition based on genotype/phenotype:

“It is crucial to note, however, that the sex of individuals within a species isn’t based on whether an individual can actually produce certain gametes at any given moment. Pre-pubertal males don’t produce sperm, and some infertile adults of both sexes never produce gametes due to various infertility issues. Yet it would be incorrect to say that these individuals do not have a discernible sex, as an individual’s biological sex corresponds to one of two distinct types of evolved reproductive anatomy (i.e. ovaries or testes) that develop for the production of sperm or ova, regardless of their past, present, or future functionality.”

—Dr Colin Wright (Reality’s Last Stand)

To avoid offending individuals with non-functional gonads or to prevent suggesting any inferior status, there is certainly an appetite for an alternative definition of sex focusing on the promise of potential for gamete production:

In our view, one’s sex doesn’t depend on the kind of gamete one is capable of making, but on the kind of gamete one is designed to make, where design is understood in terms of an evolutionary or ontogenetic selection process. Specifically, we argue that what it is to be, say, male, is to have a part or process that has the (proximal or distal) biological function of producing sperm.

For a universal definition of sex, however, we must view sex as dynamic, as a product of life stage, and as indicated by current gamete production. Otherwise, how can we distinguish male and female clownfish which are “designed” to have the capacity to be both sexes but are, at any given time, either male or female?

Would you define a butterfly as a “caterpillar with potential”? Would you define “sighted” in such a way that you included the blind based on the fact that they were meant to have (functioning) eyeballs? A scientific definition needs only to lay out necessary and sufficient criteria.

Genotype/phenotype are useful proxies in defining human sex in a way that is useful to the functioning of our society. There is no falling back on genotype when it comes to organisms with “non-genetic or facultatively genetic sex determination systems”, however. Therein lies the flaw—the lack of universality when describing species that have one thing in common: sex.

Thus, some philosophers of science argue that “the fact that a species has only two biological sexes does not imply that every member of the species is either male, female or hermaphroditic”.

“Importantly, sexes are life-history stages rather than applying to organisms over their entire lifespan. […] Assigning sexes to pre-reproductive life history stages involves ‘prospective narration’ – classifying the present in terms of its anticipated future. Assigning sexes to adult stages of non-reproductive castes or non-reproductive individuals is a complex matter whose biological meaning differs from case to case. The chromosomal and phenotypic ‘definitions’ of biological sex that are contested in philosophical discussions of sex are actually operational definitions which track gametic sex more or less effectively in some species or group of species. Neither ‘definition’ can be stated for species in general except by defining them in terms of gametic sex.”

Society would still define a young or infertile male as such, distinguishing him from female humans, despite a lack of sperm production, but the definition used would change to something less universal and less suited to considering the diversity of all sexed species i.e., the goal of biology as a scientific discipline defining the unifying trait of all anisogamous species.

The scientific definition is narrow, but the operational definitions of sex, that folk taxonomy that forms the basis of legal sex, are still so narrow as to exclude all men from “woman” and all women from “man”. But, what about your unfalsifiable feelings, how do they factor into where you are classified as a man or woman in matters of public policy?

Transgenderism and its lunacy

Sex is binary because there are only two sexual reproductive strategies***. The implications for transgenderism are thus: taking wrong-sex hormones will render you unhealthy; you will not shimmy your way up a nonexistent sex “spectrum”. The characteristics you associate with sex are its consequences, whether biologically or socially. (Emulating consequences? That reminds me of homeotherapy, another form of systemised nonsense.)

Sex is not a grab-bag of characteristics, stereotypes, and social expectations you can attempt to emulate to be more or less female. The very notion is absurd and reminds me of an episode of Invader Zim wherein the eponymous alien, wishing to pass himself off as human, harvests and implants into his abdominal cavity plentiful human organs, thoroughly convinced, “More organs means more human. It will work...”.

At birth, your phenotype, which maps to gametic sex and is unambiguous in 99.98% of cases, was examined. If you were phenotypically atypical, then a blood test revealed your genotype, and then your sex was recorded. Man and woman are defined legally with respect to sex, even when a chromosomal or phenotypic operational definition is used rather than a universal, gametic one.

Transgenderism’s “pick your sex based on whatever feels best” approach leads to legal fiction which replaces “sex” with “desired sex” on birth certificates. Can you imagine if all words worked that way? Why I’d be a billionaire, just not a “cis” one whose perceptions align with shared reality, and “socially” speaking the bank would have to extend to me a small, one-million dollar loan.

Sex-based differences in sexual victimisation/perpetration persist whether or not you turn a blind eye to a man committing exhibitionism and voyeurism in spaces where girls and women are in a state of vulnerability and undress. Sex-based differences in stamina, speed, and strength persist even when you pretend a male athlete is/has become female and cheer him on as he fractures a woman’s skull in an MMA bout.

“Woman” is not a feeling in a man’s head. There is only one way to be a woman, it is to be an adult female human. There is only one way to be a woman “socially” and that is to exist as an adult female human in society rather than in the untouched wilderness.

Biologic is complex; transgenderism is simple-minded but that is no reason to substitute one for the other.

Footnotes

*Well, maybe you just aren’t doing it right.

**To the extent that homosexuality, but not gender dysphoria on its own, is associated with atypical sexual differentiation of the brain. Atypical meaning “less distinct” in this case. The “lady brains trapped in male bodies” canard, based on laughably poor logic in addition to falsehoods, needs to die its undignified death already.

This “logic” also rears its demented head—one of the many Hydra heads of transgenderism—in discussions of the BSTc (the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis). In trans-identified men, it is woman-sized. Therefore these men are, on some “level”, women, trans-privilege activists crow. (Sound logic; my fat hamster is a guinea pig then.) A more plausible explanation is that this region, which governs sexual behaviour, plays a role in paraphilias.

In the case of trans-identified men, autogynephilia. A man’s fetish for appearing female/embodying the essence of his target “sex object”. Proponents of this “woman as tall as average man = somehow a man” cherry-picked “logic” would hesitate to call gay men or, say, to pick a paraphilia at random, paedophiles “women”. When you follow a line of reasoning to its absurd conclusion, that is the point where you abandon it.

“These data show that whereas homosexuality is linked to cerebral sex dimorphism, gender dysphoria primarily involves cerebral networks mediating self–body perception.” (When not attributed entirely or in large part to the fetishistic, sexist reduction of womanhood/manhood.) I can find you a neural correlate for any erroneous perception; it is still erroneous. I still won’t pretend to share it. I won’t call it a “gender identity” and feign one of my own to prop up and legitimise your delusions.

**Begging and blackmail.

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Till next time!

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