alt-text for thumbnail: The words: ““biological” sex is the gender binary” on a 2d digital art wooden background next to the non-binary flag
Obligatory video; didn’t watch, but biological sex is medical/scientific term, not a social one. The fact that some people are intersex doesn’t detract from that, it’s just part of the medical definition. Also, it’s not a binary - as I just mentioned, intersex people exist and have a scientifically defined biological sex that is not in the binary of male or female.
Gender is a totally different thing, it is a social construct and also very much not a binary.
How do you define biological sex though?
Especially when someone can change their sex through hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery, especially if they do it at an early enough age?
XX vs XY
Also x, xxy, xxxy, and xyy
Well yes, but those are just the most common intersex configs. Many don’t even make it to birth
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It’s the chase biology glitch lol.
Nnnno. Biological sex predates mammalia. There’s some fuzz at the boundaries, because biology is squidgy and gross, but the overwhelming majority of humans are not ambiguously sexed in any way. Most people are either born with XX chromosomes and a normal-ish vagina, or XY chromosomes and a normal-ish penis.
The video author is thinking of gender. Gender is the made-up part where any societal distinction is placed on this anatomy. But barring significant elective surgery, the author almost certainly has a biological sex that could be immediately and rudely verified. That does affect every person’s existence, even if they’re trans, because (for example) not many women get prostate cancer. If you’ve got one then you have to worry about it.
Sex is not “an appeal to the gender binary.” That’s completely backwards. Gender is an appeal to sex, often in the same way racial stereotypes are an appeal to skin color. There are associated differences… but they’re never what assholes are shouting about.
people here think “scientific terms” are not social constructs? Yall, scientific models are models they aren’t reality itself
anyways, go subscribe there and talk in my discord if you want to talk to people realistic about this shit
All models are approximations of reality, thus they are ideas humans make in the context of their social situation. Norms and attitudes impact what we research, how we interpret data, and what we end up believing.
While the aim of science is to get closer to the truth the end result is going to approach but never reach perfect accuracy. With gender we see the social norms all through the expression of gender in different ages, generations, socioeconomic statuses, cultures, and countries. With sex we see a flattening of what is present into a strict binary with exceptions rather than what is actually present, a range of different karyotypes, sensitivities to hormones, levels of hormone production, interactions in regulatory genes, and differing morphologies. Gender is a diverse spectrum, but so is sex, and the reason we teach the XX XY version is the same as how we teach mathematic ideas. Basic stuff first, then expanding on that idea, then going further until we have the capacity to really understand the basics, like the multiple page proof that 1+1=2. Yes, basic biology says male and female, but intermediate talks about the diverse presentations of sex.
