"most basic gender science will reveal a vaguely bimodal distribution of gender for some gendered characteristics." is my untested hypothesis. I'm too eepy to go collect data.
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2025
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replacing standard with gender gives me a little giggle, because this is obviously how gender works
It's always the 'common sense' crowd that needs to reduce everything to the most basic and mostly binary understanding of the universe. Good vs evil, us vs them.
Anything that upsets that proverbial apple cart is evil because it's not part of their existing world view.
Y'all don't learn about intersex in sex ed on the last years of middle school?
uh, 30ish years ago no. my education did not address intersex people until the bachelor's level 4th year genetics class i somehow got into even though i didn't have the prereqs.
Mine did, 30 years ago in 95 (and it's wild that 95 was not 10years ago).
XXY, XYY and other stuff.
That’s a 90-ish minute video by evolutionary biologist Forrest Valkai goes over the science of sex and gender. The TL/DW version is that the quote here is exactly right. Sex is fuzzy and before you could even start to say something like that it’s binary you first need to establish which of the many sex markers you’re going to use and why you’re excluding the other ones, gender is a social construct which is not the same as sex, and any modern biology textbook above a high-school level will say exactly that. Not implicitly, but explicitly.
If it’s the kind of thing you’re interested in and you’ve got 90 minutes to spare you could do worse than listen to a scientist lay it out.
Forrest is great at explaining complex topics
Is he the new CGP Grey?
I dunno about new, I just know him from the Atheist Experience call in shows. He's always so positive and energetic, even when he's laying an intellectual smackdown on a creationist caller.
Just because something is obvious doesn't mean it's right.
It wasn't until the 1900s that Principal Mathematica was written in order to derive fundamental axioms that can be used to derive all other mathematic principles.
This is the book that people often partially joke about it being the first exhaustive proof that 1+1=2.
I guess my point is also the compliment to your point. Even things that are right are not always obvious.
I think your point is actually "even things that are right and obvious are not always obviously right" or something like that. It's obvious to all of us that 1+1=2, and it is correct, but it isn't correct because it's obvious. It just happens to be both obvious and correct, but for very different reasons.
Probably. Because I read what you said and agree. Maybe I said it badly.
Do you mean Principia Mathematica?
Yeah. Auto correct or dyslexia. I like to blame autocorrect.
Obviously.
Everybody knows a string has 0 mass and air resistance is negligible, it's basic physics!
First assume the cow is spherical and traveling through a vacuum.
This same sentence could probably be said by someone working on string theory...
It's good that gender being a social construct is slowly becoming accepted. It's also good that people are starting to realize that sex is complicated and there are no simple rules to determine someone's sex.
The one drawback to all this I can see is that it might be slightly undermining progress made in avoiding stereotyping interests and activities as being male activities/interests or female activities/interests. IMO, the progressive view in the 1970s was that boys could play with dolls, girls could play with cars. Boys could wear dresses, girls could play sports. Boys could put on makeup (and then perform on stage in bands made up of other boys with big hair and makeup), girls could like superhero comic books. It seems to me like with the modern acceptance that some people are transgender, we're now slipping back into thinking that hobbies and interests are gender-coded.
It's good that gender being a social construct is slowly becoming accepted. It's also good that people are starting to realize that sex is complicated and there are no simple rules to determine someone's sex.
I think the second half of your comment is true, but it is part of the push back against genders as social constructs. I wouldn't agree that it's becoming accepted. Most people either disagree or pay some lip service to the idea and then buy an all pink dress for their little girl because "it's what she likes"
but it is part of the push back against genders as social constructs
I don't think so, at least not exclusively. I think trans people are some of the people pushing it. They want to fit in, so they lean into things that are stereotypically part of that new gender. But, by doing that, they push out people who are of that gender, but have no interest in those stereotypical things. For example, I worked with a transgender woman. After she transitioned she started wearing lots of makeup, "girly" clothes, high heels, a fancy wig, and started leaning into her stereotypically female interests. But, this was at a tech job where many of the other women wore Star Wars tees and jeans, minimal or no makeup, and geeked out over keyboards and Linux distributions. I got the impression that they felt uncomfortable around the trans woman, because of the over-the-top approach.
I'm not trying to police her behaviour, and I can understand some reasons why she might have done it. I just think it's unfortunate the effect it had on the other women around the office.
There's no genders, we are just atoms in a certain formation.
They are all in the head.
"Basic biology" mfs when intermediate biology comes along
Again, 12 year old grown ups and their 12 year old views
Scientifically, I'd say it's mostly about male/female but that there are exceptions. Socially, I'd say that we are all taught to play act when young and some roles are preferable to us as we age, regardless of science. All the world's a stage. May everyone feel like they fit. Peace.
Scientifically it’s multiple continuums with trends across a broad population correlated with foetal and pubescent hormone exposure that is poorly applicable to individuals. But sure let’s reduce that complexity all down to „male/female“ scientifically.
There are plenty of well educated trans and homo phobes out there. Making it about education level sounds classist/elitist and alienating to the many well meaning intelligent people who didn’t have the opportunity to reach levels of higher education.
There are plenty of racist, misogynistic, and bigoted “educated” people.
You don’t need a university classroom to teach you about gender or sex or being a decent human being. All of this information is readily available to the public, in fact, if it takes a Masters or PhD to understand what is yes- in fact basic biology and gender theory, then you’re doing something wrong. And by basic I mean, human biological sex can also be complex and gender is a social construct. It’s an afternoon course not six plus fucking years of schooling.
Yes, oversimplification is weaponized but framing like this can come off as insulting and makes it sound more complex than it needs to be.
It's a recurring problem with humans that something makes them feel bad, and then they stop listening.
Someone who feels bad about how they didn't go to college, and then stops listening to the contents, is a fool.
You are correct that there are many such people, and we should probably avoid triggering them, but it's kind of frustrating we have to constantly walk on eggshells lest someone's fragile ego cracks and a monster comes out.
Not only walking on eggshells, we are literally being forced to put our children in danger of infectious diseases that we got rid of a long fucking time ago
I mean you’re not wrong. It’d be great to live in a perfect world. This method has worked great for leftists and liberals alike in winning friends.
Perhaps because I’ve walked the line between workers rights and blue collar backgrounds I have a little more empathy for meeting people where they’re at then demanding they adhere to academic standard. I’ve never found arrogance, perceived or real, to be a very helpful tool in organizing or building community. Flies and honey and all that jazz.
While I agree that we shouldn't alienate people with elitism, I think k this is a fair criticism.
Basic biology has the connotation that it's something everyone should know and grasp.
The reality is that basic biology is simplified, not factual. That should be pointed out. The educated or intelligent ones, should understand the distinction, even if they disagree. The uneducated can either switch off or be educated.
Allowing misinformation to proliferate is a bigger problem, in my view, than alienating people that don't want to listen or learn.
Hail science!
I don't want you to understand what relativity or supernova is, how to grow crops, how to make operation or how to fix a sink so don't make me understand what is biology past middle school. Just saying, don't want to hurt anybody but maybe it's not people problem but education problem. Stop blaming people that they were educated certain way and they accepted truth presented by public education system, blame country that is educating people this way. You can't change people but you can change future of your country.