this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
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Binette is giving you the lecture that happens in every first year college bio class to students.
Basically evolution has in the past (to other animals) and could in the future (as soon as tomorrow) add a third sex to anything (including humans) if there was evolutionary pressure to (which there may be). Physics is only deterministic in the short term.
The other issue is that when people (especially those in any scientific community, such as biologists) use the word gender, they specifically mean the list of attributes different societies place on biological sex characteristics they can observe.
Gametes are not something an unaided eye can identify in society so its not how gender has ever been assigned. Might as well use the SRY gene or even "the presence of sufficiently activated SRY receptors". This is why in society we largely determine gender by what biologists call "secondary sex characteristics" aka ones not actually required for reproduction.
If assigning a gender was evolutionarily important, we'd be assigning it based on primary characteristics like you're suggesting. But that didn't happen. Assigning gender 1:1 with biological sex may actually be evolutionary disfavored. If this misalignment seems more common in humans than that would be compelling evidence humans have evolutionary pressure against such an agreement.
So when you say (paraphrased) "sex and gender correlate strongly so we should redefine gender to make them correlate EXACTLY" what you're actually proposing is a social engineering scheme which means you need to make the argument it benefits society in some way.
You're confusing prescriptive vs descriptive. I agree that a third sex might be selected for in the future, but that's not the current reality. Until that happens it's correct to note that, based on how sex is defined in biology, it's binary in humans.
I've explicitly differentiated between sex and gender. Your paraphrasing is misreading what I've written. Sex is binary in humans, and gender isn't.
I addressed your points. But the other lecture they give to first year biology students needs to be given as well.
Species, has I believe 7 definitions in biology all with varying use cases.
Sex currently has 2 plus several proposed additional definitions.
So no, humans are not "defined" binary they "fit into the binary model." The one that includes hermaphrodite as a third option and used for all animals. Biologists don't say things like "human sex is defined binary" for a reason and thats because they fit animals into models not the other way around. For instance until relatively recently hyenas were thought to hermaphroditic because both sexes of hyena have similar external genetalia. The categorization changed with observations.
Biology isn't axiomatic like math, its mostly observational and certainly started as an observational science. Models change as necessary.
But this guy says it, and he's defined himself to be the sole authority, so that matters more than any number of biologists.
Every argument they come up with has been refuted in past threads, and they just dismiss anything they disagree with as irrelevant, but treating tenuous sources like a supposed screenshot of Imane Khalif's SRY test originating from an obscure site that's never been republished by a mainstream one, even if they'd been calling for her to be barred from future tournaments based on no evidence so would love to vindicate their stance with test results.
It's not worth your time to engage with them in good faith.
I'm sure everyone would like to see said refutations. You're not lying, are you?
Yeah I kinda forgot the whole "model" aspect of it. Models are still useful, but they're just that: models. If it's not helping the current context, then it's just useless.
I mean, you're just flat-out wrong. You should listen to those lectures, they would do you some good.
https://projectnettie.wordpress.com/
(Because it sadly needs to be said, I'm not "citing wordpress", I'm citing a project created by a PhD Developmental Biology with many signatories with relevant credentials, which she chose to host on wordpress)
Bringing up hyenas is ironic, because it's a great illustration of why sex is defined that way. Female hyenas have a pseudopenis. But how can we tell that they're female? Because they produce the larger of two gamete types! Without the gametic definition of sex, there's no way of talking about "female" across species.
Sex is defined by gamete production because it's the only coherent way to describe the reality that biologists have found across all anisogamous species.
Biology has one definition of sex, that has remain unchanged for well over a century, and has no serious attempts to change it.
Look if you don't understand what models are I would encourage you to take a single college level science class.
Biology and science in general isn't axiomatic. Mathematical models are which governs how to apply them. You're making the mistake people who have never waded into science frequently make. You can define sex a certain way but the models can easily change.
I just quoted people with PhDs in the subject at hand, telling you that you're wrong. Do you think that they've maybe taken a single college level science class?
You're taking the quotes out of context. When people write like that they assume the reader understands scientific models.
What additional context is missing?
I'll also cite another PhD Evolutionary Biology, also telling you directly that you're wrong
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-025-03348-3
You can read more of it if you'd like, but there's no more context that softens that direct rebuttal of your point.
That they are defining the model. The model is based on observations. And the model can change in the future.
That is the fundamental context being abandoned here. Biology is driven by observations. If they came across something that complicated the model they would change the model. Again you're putting the cart before the horse. The quotes your using assume the audience understands some amount of science.
The model could change if a third gamete type evolved, but that's not a caveat worth mentioning. Maybe we'd get a sperg! Or a spegg!
Stop being silly because you're pissy about being wrong. Another quote from the same Phd Evolutionary Biology as above:
Anisogomy is by definition binary because they're a subset of multiple models but we were talking about biological sexes which includes plant and fungi models of sex which are absolutely not binaries and are more complicated. You're clearly unfit to have this discussion if you think your quote is some kind of "gotcha".
I'm getting redditor debate bro energy from you. Go take a science class and stop misquoting people. Anisogomy specifically refers to a subgroup of plant and animal reproduction.
You're confusing sex with mating types. But thank you for finally acknowledging that anisogamy is by definition binary.
I realize that the accentuation there might come across as sarcastic, but it's genuine. Too many people are trying to argue with me about things I'm not saying or they misunderstand. My original comment should've been an entirely uncontroversial minor correction.
I did acknowledge it in every post. I said biological sex has two models and one is not a binary model. You made some absolutely inane assumptions about the future of scientific models.
I think you're confusing sex with mating types again, but as long as we can agree for anisogamy
You're not making the point you think you are.
Anisogamy also refers to some plant sex characterizitions; its a paraphylitic group. Its better to think of it like a basket you can sort things into.
There's also evidence animals have transitioned between zw and xy sexual systems multiple times. Its likely that in transition periods there would be both zw and xy which suggests historically, at least a kind of transitory "xyz" system (which would fall outside anisogamy's definition if x y and z all had different sized gametes - not an impossibility) where there were likely two compatible pairings and a noncompatible pairing but that would be a costly system to maintain so its not surprising existing observations don't see this occuring.
If such things were identified in the wild it could be defined as a "third sex" or as a "transitory sexual system" etc. Dolly the sheep also had 3 parent/donor cells instead of the usual two. Its a special case but it also falls outside of normal sexual reproduction model as many gene editing expiriments do.
The models describe commonalities, not certainties or absolutes. This is why the original analogy is fine; there are things that seem like they would obviously fit into sexual reproduction (>1 but not exactly 2 dna donors or parent organisms such as polyspermy) but we still call it a binary because such instances are rare. The original analogy is also an obvious analogy for gender (or "legal sex" or "sex assigned at birth" because as soon as it has a social context it becomes gender and law is a social context).