This makes me SOOOO ANGRY! Why should we have to expend all this effort for something that has been blatantly obvious for eons. The amount of energy wasted on this idiotic trans ideology to try to penetrate the lies that have eviscerated scientific fact and in the process destroyed our families, our communities and our entire culture, is incalculable. Why don't the TRANS activists have to prove their position? Don't tell me, I already know. They don't have to because their position is defended by billions of dollars worth of propaganda and censorship. It's infuriating and utterly depressing the amount of time invested in convincing people that 2+2=4.
Thanks for this! I appreciate every inherited trait I have from my parents and thoroughly ground my worldview as a female one. In my latest movement video at Ute Heggen YT channel, I introduce the 5 minute clip with a plug for this substack and urge my viewers to become paid subscribers for exactly this valuable content. Every word, into random and chosen ears, counts.
Your last sentence reminds me of a phrase -- "the grave will supply plenty of time for silence" --from a relatively famous quote of Christopher Hitchens:
“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”
As I tromp around outside, in my overalls and heavy garden gloves, I say to myself, "What the heck is "gender-non-conforming"? Why was my kind, nurturing father called a "mothering kind of man," which he took as a great compliment--he was never a mere spectator to stupidity. He never used the "she" pronoun for my ex-husband. Others in the family, thinking they needed to 'lead the way,' did.
That's the nature of joint probability distributions -- there tends to be an overlap; many individuals in one distribution are likely to exhibit traits more common among individuals in the other distribution. Unfortunate though that statistics tends to be "counter-intuitive" which results in that point not being readily or easily understood by many people.
But, speaking of "gender non-conforming", you might also like a very good guest post -- and my comment thereon 🙂😉 -- over at Broadview on an "An Ode to the Tomboys and Butch Lesbians":
Still offering $1 million for the third human gamete and an explanation of its role in human reproduction in the form of a body of scientific medical literature
Well, well, well -- will wonders never cease. 🙂 Jumped ship to Substack? Shut down your Gender Heretics page? Any plans to port some of your older articles to Substack?
Though as something of a quibble -- or maybe it's the crux of the matter -- my objections to Zach's recent posts here, and to Colin's own rather unscientific definitions for the sexes elsewhere, aren't at all because they're using the production of either of two types of gametes as the basis for those definitions. It's because of their rather decidedly unscientific reluctance to consider that the logical consequences of those definitions are that those individuals -- of all anisogamic species -- which don't have any functioning gonads are thereby sexless.
And it's not just me that is saying that -- one of the more notable proponents of that view is Paul Griffiths -- university of Sydney, philosophy of biology, co-author of Genetics and Philosophy -- who said:
"Nothing in the biological definition of sex requires that every organism be a member of one sex or the other. That might seem surprising, but it follows naturally from DEFINING each sex by the ability to do one thing: make eggs or make sperm. Some organisms can do both, while some can't do either [ergo, sexless; my editorializing]."
The distribution of phenotypes is strongly bimodal, which indicates two distinct populations. Some sex linked traits show significant overlap in the distributions, for others, such as grip strength, there is little to none. Sorry I don't have references to hand. I'll have to get them after work.
Apropos of that "strongly bimodal", y'all might like an oldish post by Colin, William Malone, and Julia Robertson over at 4th Wave Now on "No Child is Born in the Wrong Body":
Of particular note is the graph of a "strongly bimodal" "joint probability distribution" of, apparently, a composite of various personality traits by "sex" that might reasonably qualify as a multi-dimensional "gender spectrum". Several years ago, Colin had tweeted a decent summary of the different conceptions of "gender" in play, his items 3, 4, & 5 probably corresponding to, or encompassing that 4th Wave composite:
But I've elaborated on that theme in my preliminary efforts to "rationalize gender", to put the concept on a more scientific footing; link therein to the program that Colin and Company apparently used to create their composite graph:
History is always interesting. But what about the future?
We are a technologically advanced species and biological reproduction is, frankly, a bit old-fashioned. It is possible, some would probably say likely, that we will experience a revolution in genetic engineering within a generation or two. The sexual method of reproduction would then give way to cloned reproduction with tailor-made DNA from a laboratory.
Fairly decent article, set of citations, and summation of the concept of, and definitions for the sexes. And it's nice to see that the definitions from Parker's and Lehtonen's Molecular Human Reproduction [MHR] journal article are front and center, i.e.:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
However, I wonder whether you, and all those tweeting links to that MHR article have taken a close look at the definitions in that Glossary, and have given any thought at all to the logical implications of them. To me, and to philosopher of biology Paul Griffiths (see below), those definitions stipulate what are called "necessary and sufficient conditions" for category membership; those definitions are what are called stipulative and intensional definitions:
"An intensional definition gives meaning to a term by specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for when the term should be used. In the case of nouns, this is equivalent to specifying the properties that an object needs to have in order to be counted as a referent of the term."
"Sex is defined by potential gamete production: If your body developed towards the production of small gametes, you're a male, and if your body developed towards the production of large gametes, you're a female."
But there's absolutely diddly-squat there in the definitions of Parker & Lehtonen about "potential gamete production"; they're all about ACTUAL gamete production . "produces gametes" is present tense indefinite; it is the property that an entity MUST have to qualify as a referent of the terms "male" and "female". Ergo, if organisms can't produce either type of gamete then they are, ipso facto, sexless.
And Griffiths' Aeon article underlines the same necessity for FUNCTIONAL gonads to qualify all organisms, of all anisogamous species, as male or female:
"Nothing in the biological definition of sex requires that every organism be a member of one sex or the other. That might seem surprising, but it follows naturally from DEFINING each sex by the ability to do one thing: make eggs or make sperm. Some organisms can do both, while some can't do either [ergo, sexless]. [my editorializing ...]"
By the same definitions that you (Zach) are, otherwise credibly, championing, "male" and "female" are not exhaustive categories. A large percentage of many species, including the human one, are simply sexless, are neither male nor female.
Rather disconcerting to see the rather desperate efforts by various so-called biologists and philosophers to peddle the view that everyone has to have a sex, that everyone is either male or female -- no exceptions, much less some third of the human species at any one time. But all of those "usual suspects" are thereby engaged in the "deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable." Lysenkoism writ large:
Indeed. Much of gender is, as you suggest, incoherent twaddle and antiscientific claptrap. However, not all of it so qualifies -- something that even Colin once agreed with, more or less; see his tweet from several years ago:
"1/ Most confusion about 'gender' results from people not defining it. Many definitions are in circulation:
As he suggests or argues, much of the problem with the current "debate" over gender is that pretty much every man, woman, and otherkin has a different definition for that concept, Colin's items 3, 4, 5 being the more rational, credible, and useful one. But the rather idiotic conflict over those definitions tends to preclude much in the way of dialog or resolution of the underlying issues.
For instance, see this post at Blocked & Reported by Herzog and Singal, along with my comments thereon, where they throw stones at Jon Stewart's more credible "13 genders" -- endorsing Colin's spectrum of personalities -- while championing Tucker Carlson's "two (!!11!! 🙄 ) genders" -- Colin's item 1 whereby "sex" and "gender" are synonymous:
Bunch of freaking pigheaded idiots; too clueless to realize that they mean very different things by the same words. Pox on both their houses.
Y'all may have some interest in my preliminary efforts to "rationalize gender", to put the concept on a more scientific footing following Colin's lead relative to those last three items of his:
This makes me SOOOO ANGRY! Why should we have to expend all this effort for something that has been blatantly obvious for eons. The amount of energy wasted on this idiotic trans ideology to try to penetrate the lies that have eviscerated scientific fact and in the process destroyed our families, our communities and our entire culture, is incalculable. Why don't the TRANS activists have to prove their position? Don't tell me, I already know. They don't have to because their position is defended by billions of dollars worth of propaganda and censorship. It's infuriating and utterly depressing the amount of time invested in convincing people that 2+2=4.
Thanks for this! I appreciate every inherited trait I have from my parents and thoroughly ground my worldview as a female one. In my latest movement video at Ute Heggen YT channel, I introduce the 5 minute clip with a plug for this substack and urge my viewers to become paid subscribers for exactly this valuable content. Every word, into random and chosen ears, counts.
Your last sentence reminds me of a phrase -- "the grave will supply plenty of time for silence" --from a relatively famous quote of Christopher Hitchens:
“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/37722-beware-the-irrational-however-seductive-shun-the-transcendent-and-all
Though more than a few other phrases there have more than passing relevance as well ...
As I tromp around outside, in my overalls and heavy garden gloves, I say to myself, "What the heck is "gender-non-conforming"? Why was my kind, nurturing father called a "mothering kind of man," which he took as a great compliment--he was never a mere spectator to stupidity. He never used the "she" pronoun for my ex-husband. Others in the family, thinking they needed to 'lead the way,' did.
Kind of think you answered your own question in liking a previous comment of mine about a 4th Wave Now article by Colin & co-authors ... 😉:
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-origins-of-two-sexes/comment/10477447
That's the nature of joint probability distributions -- there tends to be an overlap; many individuals in one distribution are likely to exhibit traits more common among individuals in the other distribution. Unfortunate though that statistics tends to be "counter-intuitive" which results in that point not being readily or easily understood by many people.
But, speaking of "gender non-conforming", you might also like a very good guest post -- and my comment thereon 🙂😉 -- over at Broadview on an "An Ode to the Tomboys and Butch Lesbians":
https://lisaselindavis.substack.com/p/guest-essay-an-ode-to-the-tomboys/comment/10407458
So glad to see Zach on Reality's Last Stand! Wonderful!
There are more than a few "flies" in the "ointment" that Zach is peddling ...
See my comment here:
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-origins-of-two-sexes/comment/10479441
It's a shame that this level of knowledge needs to now be widely known to counter "misinformation" but I will share. Much appreciated!
I'm stealing this pic is it ok?
I had to pay $12 for the license at iStock. So if you reproduce it, you could be violating their copyright. FYI
Use it at your own risk!
Thank you so much for the clarity of your article, Zach
Well written, thank you
Still offering $1 million for the third human gamete and an explanation of its role in human reproduction in the form of a body of scientific medical literature
No takers so far
Well, well, well -- will wonders never cease. 🙂 Jumped ship to Substack? Shut down your Gender Heretics page? Any plans to port some of your older articles to Substack?
https://web.archive.org/web/20210118114141/https://genderheretics.org/index.php/2020/07/17/gender-heretics-is-offering-1-million-for-a-third-human-gamete/
Though as something of a quibble -- or maybe it's the crux of the matter -- my objections to Zach's recent posts here, and to Colin's own rather unscientific definitions for the sexes elsewhere, aren't at all because they're using the production of either of two types of gametes as the basis for those definitions. It's because of their rather decidedly unscientific reluctance to consider that the logical consequences of those definitions are that those individuals -- of all anisogamic species -- which don't have any functioning gonads are thereby sexless.
And it's not just me that is saying that -- one of the more notable proponents of that view is Paul Griffiths -- university of Sydney, philosophy of biology, co-author of Genetics and Philosophy -- who said:
"Nothing in the biological definition of sex requires that every organism be a member of one sex or the other. That might seem surprising, but it follows naturally from DEFINING each sex by the ability to do one thing: make eggs or make sperm. Some organisms can do both, while some can't do either [ergo, sexless; my editorializing]."
https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity
Couple of my recent comments here that elaborate on the same theme in some detail:
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/how-our-shoes-can-help-explain-the/comment/10526512
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-origins-of-two-sexes/comment/10479441
Just to play Devil's Advocate, is there any merit to the suggestion that sex genotypes are a binary, but sex phenotypes are a spectrum?
The distribution of phenotypes is strongly bimodal, which indicates two distinct populations. Some sex linked traits show significant overlap in the distributions, for others, such as grip strength, there is little to none. Sorry I don't have references to hand. I'll have to get them after work.
Apropos of that "strongly bimodal", y'all might like an oldish post by Colin, William Malone, and Julia Robertson over at 4th Wave Now on "No Child is Born in the Wrong Body":
https://4thwavenow.com/2019/08/19/no-child-is-born-in-the-wrong-body-and-other-thoughts-on-the-concept-of-gender-identity/
Of particular note is the graph of a "strongly bimodal" "joint probability distribution" of, apparently, a composite of various personality traits by "sex" that might reasonably qualify as a multi-dimensional "gender spectrum". Several years ago, Colin had tweeted a decent summary of the different conceptions of "gender" in play, his items 3, 4, & 5 probably corresponding to, or encompassing that 4th Wave composite:
https://nitter.it/SwipeWright/status/1234040036091236352
But I've elaborated on that theme in my preliminary efforts to "rationalize gender", to put the concept on a more scientific footing; link therein to the program that Colin and Company apparently used to create their composite graph:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/i/64264079/rationalized-gender
He has another article that answers this well. Scroll down to the section called Phenotypic Definitions:
https://www.theparadoxinstitute.com/read/what-are-sexes
Tl;dr sex phenotypes are a spectrum /within/ the male or female reproductive strategies.
History is always interesting. But what about the future?
We are a technologically advanced species and biological reproduction is, frankly, a bit old-fashioned. It is possible, some would probably say likely, that we will experience a revolution in genetic engineering within a generation or two. The sexual method of reproduction would then give way to cloned reproduction with tailor-made DNA from a laboratory.
What would this do to our two sexes?
Fairly decent article, set of citations, and summation of the concept of, and definitions for the sexes. And it's nice to see that the definitions from Parker's and Lehtonen's Molecular Human Reproduction [MHR] journal article are front and center, i.e.:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990
An article which I see that you (Zach) have also been front and center in championing on Twitter -- a fairly popular one in fact:
https://nitter.it/zaelefty/status/1459926052009095169#m
https://oxfordjournals.altmetric.com/details/2802153/twitter
However, I wonder whether you, and all those tweeting links to that MHR article have taken a close look at the definitions in that Glossary, and have given any thought at all to the logical implications of them. To me, and to philosopher of biology Paul Griffiths (see below), those definitions stipulate what are called "necessary and sufficient conditions" for category membership; those definitions are what are called stipulative and intensional definitions:
"An intensional definition gives meaning to a term by specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for when the term should be used. In the case of nouns, this is equivalent to specifying the properties that an object needs to have in order to be counted as a referent of the term."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensional_and_intensional_definitions
But you (Zach) elsewhere claim that:
"Sex is defined by potential gamete production: If your body developed towards the production of small gametes, you're a male, and if your body developed towards the production of large gametes, you're a female."
https://nitter.it/zaelefty/status/1257430799915286528#m
But there's absolutely diddly-squat there in the definitions of Parker & Lehtonen about "potential gamete production"; they're all about ACTUAL gamete production . "produces gametes" is present tense indefinite; it is the property that an entity MUST have to qualify as a referent of the terms "male" and "female". Ergo, if organisms can't produce either type of gamete then they are, ipso facto, sexless.
And Griffiths' Aeon article underlines the same necessity for FUNCTIONAL gonads to qualify all organisms, of all anisogamous species, as male or female:
"Nothing in the biological definition of sex requires that every organism be a member of one sex or the other. That might seem surprising, but it follows naturally from DEFINING each sex by the ability to do one thing: make eggs or make sperm. Some organisms can do both, while some can't do either [ergo, sexless]. [my editorializing ...]"
https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity
By the same definitions that you (Zach) are, otherwise credibly, championing, "male" and "female" are not exhaustive categories. A large percentage of many species, including the human one, are simply sexless, are neither male nor female.
Rather disconcerting to see the rather desperate efforts by various so-called biologists and philosophers to peddle the view that everyone has to have a sex, that everyone is either male or female -- no exceptions, much less some third of the human species at any one time. But all of those "usual suspects" are thereby engaged in the "deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable." Lysenkoism writ large:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
Classy ...
Indeed. Much of gender is, as you suggest, incoherent twaddle and antiscientific claptrap. However, not all of it so qualifies -- something that even Colin once agreed with, more or less; see his tweet from several years ago:
"1/ Most confusion about 'gender' results from people not defining it. Many definitions are in circulation:
1. Synonym for sex (male/female)
2. A subjective feeling in relation to one's sex
3. Societal sex-based roles/expectations
4. Sex-related behavior
5. Personality traits"
https://nitter.it/SwipeWright/status/1234040036091236352
As he suggests or argues, much of the problem with the current "debate" over gender is that pretty much every man, woman, and otherkin has a different definition for that concept, Colin's items 3, 4, 5 being the more rational, credible, and useful one. But the rather idiotic conflict over those definitions tends to preclude much in the way of dialog or resolution of the underlying issues.
For instance, see this post at Blocked & Reported by Herzog and Singal, along with my comments thereon, where they throw stones at Jon Stewart's more credible "13 genders" -- endorsing Colin's spectrum of personalities -- while championing Tucker Carlson's "two (!!11!! 🙄 ) genders" -- Colin's item 1 whereby "sex" and "gender" are synonymous:
https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-138-jon-stewart-and-john/comment/10429776
Bunch of freaking pigheaded idiots; too clueless to realize that they mean very different things by the same words. Pox on both their houses.
Y'all may have some interest in my preliminary efforts to "rationalize gender", to put the concept on a more scientific footing following Colin's lead relative to those last three items of his:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/i/64264079/rationalized-gender