Comment by orangecat

5 years ago

or even any serious scholar (in any field) arguing that there is no biological basis for sex?

Sadly this is a thing: https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1207834357639139328 https://twitter.com/ScienceVet2/status/1035246030500061184

It's a motte-and-bailey argument going from "a small percentage of people don't neatly fall into either the male or female category" to "the concept of biological sex is meaningless and the only relevant factor is a person's self-identification".

>It's a motte-and-bailey argument going from "a small percentage of people don't neatly fall into either the male or female category" to "the concept of biological sex is meaningless and the only relevant factor is a person's self-identification".

Except that's not what the links you posted say. In fact, the very first sentence of the second link says: "First, sex defined: We're talking physical sex here, not gender."[0]

What's more, the same poster says further down: "It is worth noting that I never talk about transgender in this thread. Intersex is not the same as transgender. You can be one without the other, or be both."

So that thread doesn't say anything close to what you think it says. Unless I misunderstood either the twitter thread or you. Which is always possible.

Would you mind expanding on your point? It might lead to an interesting discussion.

[0] https://twitter.com/ScienceVet2/status/1035246030500061184

> > or even any serious scholar (in any field) arguing that there is no biological basis for sex?

> Sadly this is a thing:

Neither of the things your point to argue that.

They do argue that biological sex is not simple or binary, but that's very different from “there is no biological basis for sex”.

> It's a motte-and-bailey argument going from "a small percentage of people don't neatly fall into either the male or female category" to "the concept of biological sex is meaningless and the only relevant factor is a person's self-identification".

Except it's not; another thing neither of the sources you point to argues is that the various biological sex features don't matter: each of them matters; where they matter differs.

Unless, of course, by “matter” you mean specifically “provide an excuse to base socially ascribed gender on something other than gender identity”, in which case, sure, but it's hardly a motte-and-bailey argument, then.