Male seahorse get pregnant, but that doesn’t make them trans, they’re unambiguously male. This is a great example of why sex is defined by gamete size. If it weren’t, we couldn’t talk about males and females in any useful way across the animal kingdom.
Clownfish would be a better example as they’re sequential hermaphrodites, but that doesn’t have any bearing on the human sex binary.
This is often a point of confusion, but human sex is binary. There’s edge cases that require clarification as to how they fit into the binary, but don’t disprove it.
Human sexuality overall is complex and that’s why we differentiate gender from sex. The sex binary and gender spectrum complement each other though, and don’t clash.
If you’re interested in learning more, here’s some background reading:
We fall into that category, where we have two body plans, each organized around producing either sperm or ova. Other species have more body plans, such as recognizably distinct males, females, and hermaphrodites:
Those species are a good contrast. Humans don’t have that variation, and so sex is binary in humans.
There’s literature that explains this specifically in detail, though most of it doesn’t really explicitly talk about it, much like math papers don’t generally explain that integers can be added together.
Also purple is a non spectral colour, meaning it is not on the rainbow, it is not a part of the visible spectrum of light, it is not among the resulting colours of the white light dispersion, it is a hallucination and exists only on human minds.
It is binary if you define it as a concept of reproduction, which it is. Every human that has ever been born had two parents. Looks pretty binary. Intersex people and edge cases cannot reproduce naturally, to my knowledge. So only those belonging to those two specific biological categories of sexual reproduction (males & females) can reproduce.
I never said that those who cannot reproduce are not human. Those who cannot reproduce are not a category of those who can. Those who can, in case of human sexual reproduction, have only two options.
“None” is not a colour. Thank you for proving my point.
People’s bodies are still organized around the production of either sperm or ova, even if they’re unable to reproduce due to a developmental issue. You can call that a third category if it’s useful to you, but that doesn’t form a third sex as understood by biologists.
Also sex is defined by a pair of chromosomes, at conseption sex cells merge, each of them has only 23 chromosomes, the resulting cell has 46, which is why they say that sex is defined at conception, you can’t determine the sex at this stage without destroying the single cell (zygote), but the chromosomes will not change nevertheless
Do you have a particular edge case in mind? One that’s commonly brought up is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovotesticular_syndrome, but that doesn’t fall outside the sex binary. Having a bit of nonfunctional tissue doesn’t affect one’s sex.
Colors aren’t a great analogy either, because in anisogamous species, gametes are strictly binary. There’s sperm and ova, with 0 overlap and 0 other options. “Purple gametes” just don’t exist.
This also isn’t my opinion, this is the accepted definition in the field of biology.
A better analogy for the author’s clarification would be “Red and blue, each with a continuum of variation in hue”. There’s still no purple, just different shades of red and different shades of blue. I don’t really have more to add beyond pointing out that this is the author of the paper directly clarifying that point.
You’re free to invent whatever categories you find useful of course. But biologists will continue to recognize human sex as binary, because that is a useful description of the reality they encounter.
How about chickens? If you have some hens without a rooster, you’ve got good chance that one of them will “transform” into a rooster. Especially if you had a rooster but it died.
I think we agree. Maybe I was misreading the above comment, but I was just clarifying that “transform” in that sense for chickens is not actually changing sex, and so is a different situation than clownfish.
Male seahorse get pregnant, but that doesn’t make them trans, they’re unambiguously male. This is a great example of why sex is defined by gamete size. If it weren’t, we couldn’t talk about males and females in any useful way across the animal kingdom.
Clownfish would be a better example as they’re sequential hermaphrodites, but that doesn’t have any bearing on the human sex binary.
*the non-existent human sex binary
Every gender is binary because the universe we live in is a simulation run on the higher sphere’s equivalent of a pentium iii.
This is often a point of confusion, but human sex is binary. There’s edge cases that require clarification as to how they fit into the binary, but don’t disprove it.
Human sexuality overall is complex and that’s why we differentiate gender from sex. The sex binary and gender spectrum complement each other though, and don’t clash.
If you’re interested in learning more, here’s some background reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonochorism
We fall into that category, where we have two body plans, each organized around producing either sperm or ova. Other species have more body plans, such as recognizably distinct males, females, and hermaphrodites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trioecy
Those species are a good contrast. Humans don’t have that variation, and so sex is binary in humans.
There’s literature that explains this specifically in detail, though most of it doesn’t really explicitly talk about it, much like math papers don’t generally explain that integers can be added together.
Ok, yes. That’s where I believe the binary is false.
You have red, you have blue, and then there’s a bunch of egde cases. To me that’s not the end of the story. I believe purple exists.
Also purple is a non spectral colour, meaning it is not on the rainbow, it is not a part of the visible spectrum of light, it is not among the resulting colours of the white light dispersion, it is a hallucination and exists only on human minds.
Ok there Isaac Newton. Call it violet.
Literally in the lines of calling white black
It is binary if you define it as a concept of reproduction, which it is. Every human that has ever been born had two parents. Looks pretty binary. Intersex people and edge cases cannot reproduce naturally, to my knowledge. So only those belonging to those two specific biological categories of sexual reproduction (males & females) can reproduce.
So those who cannot reproduce and aren’t in either category are still human. And therefore in a third category.
Red, blue, none. Three categories.
Also, intersex can sometimes reproduce.
I never said that those who cannot reproduce are not human. Those who cannot reproduce are not a category of those who can. Those who can, in case of human sexual reproduction, have only two options.
“None” is not a colour. Thank you for proving my point.
Please provide source for that claim.
People’s bodies are still organized around the production of either sperm or ova, even if they’re unable to reproduce due to a developmental issue. You can call that a third category if it’s useful to you, but that doesn’t form a third sex as understood by biologists.
Intersex is a confusing term, and doesn’t dispute the binary. People are still male or female, with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disorders_of_sex_development
Also sex is defined by a pair of chromosomes, at conseption sex cells merge, each of them has only 23 chromosomes, the resulting cell has 46, which is why they say that sex is defined at conception, you can’t determine the sex at this stage without destroying the single cell (zygote), but the chromosomes will not change nevertheless
Do you have a particular edge case in mind? One that’s commonly brought up is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovotesticular_syndrome, but that doesn’t fall outside the sex binary. Having a bit of nonfunctional tissue doesn’t affect one’s sex.
Colors aren’t a great analogy either, because in anisogamous species, gametes are strictly binary. There’s sperm and ova, with 0 overlap and 0 other options. “Purple gametes” just don’t exist.
This also isn’t my opinion, this is the accepted definition in the field of biology.
Not anymore, no.
Sex Redefined: The Idea of 2 Sexes Is Overly Simplistic | Scientific American https://share.google/T8SeIlF6VVw1nWogD
From the author of that paper:
https://xcancel.com/ClaireAinsworth/status/888365994577735680
That last quote reads as “Red and blue. Don’t need a word for purple.”
But we do need a word for purple.
This is an English and categorization problem.
A better analogy for the author’s clarification would be “Red and blue, each with a continuum of variation in hue”. There’s still no purple, just different shades of red and different shades of blue. I don’t really have more to add beyond pointing out that this is the author of the paper directly clarifying that point.
You’re free to invent whatever categories you find useful of course. But biologists will continue to recognize human sex as binary, because that is a useful description of the reality they encounter.
How about chickens? If you have some hens without a rooster, you’ve got good chance that one of them will “transform” into a rooster. Especially if you had a rooster but it died.
I’m not aware of that being an actual change in sex. The hen can develop male characteristics, but won’t produce functional sperm.
Neither does trans surgery?
I think we agree. Maybe I was misreading the above comment, but I was just clarifying that “transform” in that sense for chickens is not actually changing sex, and so is a different situation than clownfish.