Biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than two sexes

[madd0ct0r]

http://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

very cool article with a lot of interesting cases presented.

Let's see if I can reproduce the table:

The sex spectrum

A typical male has XY chromosomes, and a typical female has XX. But owing to genetic variation or chance events in development, some people do not fit neatly into either category. Some are classed as having differences or disorders of sex development (DSDs), in which their sex chromosomes do not match their sexual anatomy.

KEY
Chromosomes
Gonads
Genitals
Other characteristics/ examples
.
.
Typical male
XY
Testes
Male internal and external genitals Male secondary sexual characteristics
.
.
Subtle variations
XY
Testes
Male internal and external genitals
Subtle differences such as low sperm production. Some caused by variation in sex-development genes.
.
.
Moderate variations
XY
Testes
Male external genitals with anatomical variations such as urethral opening on underside of penis. Affects 1 in 250–400 births.


46,XY DSD
XY
Testes
Often ambiguous
The hormonal disorder persistent Müllerian duct syndrome results in male external genitals and testes, but also a womb and Fallopian tubes.


Ovotesticular DSD XX
XY or mix of both
Both ovarian and testicular tissue
Ambiguous
Rare reports of predominantly XY people conceiving and bearing a healthy child.


46,XX testicular DSD
XX
Small testes
Male external genitals
Usually caused by presence of male sex-determining gene SRY.


Moderate variations
XX
Ovaries
Female internal and external genitals
Variations in sex development such as premature shutdown of ovaries. Some caused by variation in sex-development genes.


Subtle variations
XX
Ovaries
Female internal and external genitals
Subtle differences such as excess male sex hormones or polycystic ovaries.


Typical female
XX
Ovaries
Female internal and external genitals
Female secondary sexual characteristics

[Starglider]

Eh, as biology goes it's still a pretty sharp category. We're all comfortable with the notion of 'species', even though it's more blurry around the edges than 'sex'.

[Simon_Jester]

That doesn't even begin to be a complete table; having XXY sex chromosomes, for instance, is so common it's been a known syndrome since the 1940s.

[Zixinus]

This was known for quite some time. Biology is weird because it doesn't have hard borders and there are always outliers to almost everything.

[Simon_Jester]

It's still a good article, though. Because anything that makes people less ignorant on this issue is good, because knowing facts is good.

It is, basically, true to say "humans fit into two broad categories: male and female, each with associated secondary characteristics and personality traits."

But that is like saying "land vehicles may have two or four wheels." It is true of the majority of land vehicles, but there are a variety of exceptions (heavy trucks, motorcycles with sidecars, exotic car designs). These categories definitely exist, they are very real. But they are not literally the only categories that can exist.

Likewise "either fully masculine and definitively male in all ways, or fully feminine and definitively female in all ways" are not the only categories that can exist.

There exist people whose physical bodies are by all appearances male, but whose brains and minds are structured to function the way female brains and minds do. Or vice versa. Or people who are fully male by all appearances in all respects except that the plumbing just doesn't work. Or females, likewise. Or people who appear to be fully female in all ways until someone actually checks their DNA and it turns out they have a Y-chromosome that just happened not to 'switch on' during fetal development. Or a zillion other possibilities.

So being willing to acknowledge and work with this physical reality is kind of a necessity.

[Starglider]

But that is like saying "land vehicles may have two or four wheels." It is true of the majority of land vehicles, but there are a variety of exceptions (heavy trucks, motorcycles with sidecars, exotic car designs). These categories definitely exist, they are very real. But they are not literally the only categories that can exist.

No, it is like saying 'land vehicles move on two or more wheels'. This is true for over 99.9% of land vehicles; tracked vehicles are quite rare. Similarly, intersex conditions account for approximately 0.05% of the population. Some people attempt to grossly overrepresent this for ideological reasons, counting numerous variations that do not actually introduce any ambiguity in biological sex; and even then they can't find enough to count to get it over 1%. A 0.05% failure rate is actually very good performance for a biological classification scheme, so while yes anomolies in gonad development and sexual differentiation are interesting and worth studying, it does not present any sort of philosophical challenge to the standard male/female categorisation. We just need to remember the edge cases when writing laws.

Gender presentation is of course an entirely separate issue. The conflation of intersex developmental anomolies and transgender psychological states (specifically, certain transgender people trying to hype up the prevalence of intersex conditions to supposedly make arguing for their own rights easier) is unfortunate and obfuscating. 'Masculine' and 'feminine' are problematic terminology in this context because people apply them to behaviour, clothing, social expectations, acquired morphology and lots of other detail that varies independently of (but is of course correlated to in practice) biological sex. When speaking about the genetics and cell biology of reproduction and reproductive organ development, I would just stick to 'male' and 'female'. Some people still object to even that, "penis is not a male organ and to say so is bigoted etc', but at that point what can you do except make up entirely new words that mean 'sperm-producing' and 'egg-producing/embyro carrying". At which point I'm sure those words would become objectionable as well.

[Zixinus]

The problem is that the current cultural shift is towards that of re-establishing cultural gender (what one feels or identifies as) as opposed to reproductive gender. Western thought has decided on following only the latter and then creating very strict gender-roles to suit them. Now those gender-roles are not as strict and heavily deconstructed, new ones are being made and the two types of gender get confused. It will take a while until a new, sensible (for most) system is established and accepted, then outliners are simply not made a big deal of, their difference not beaten over their heads and does not interfere with their life more than it strictly has to.

[Simon_Jester]

But that is like saying "land vehicles may have two or four wheels." It is true of the majority of land vehicles, but there are a variety of exceptions (heavy trucks, motorcycles with sidecars, exotic car designs). These categories definitely exist, they are very real. But they are not literally the only categories that can exist.

No, it is like saying 'land vehicles move on two or more wheels'. This is true for over 99.9% of land vehicles; tracked vehicles are quite rare. Similarly, intersex conditions account for approximately 0.05% of the population. Some people attempt to grossly overrepresent this for ideological reasons, counting numerous variations that do not actually introduce any ambiguity in biological sex; and even then they can't find enough to count to get it over 1%. A 0.05% failure rate is actually very good performance for a biological classification scheme, so while yes anomolies in gonad development and sexual differentiation are interesting and worth studying, it does not present any sort of philosophical challenge to the standard male/female categorisation. We just need to remember the edge cases when writing laws.

I honestly think this is purely a matter of semantic bickering.

The practice of biological science is not the problem. The problem is, simply, that random people with layman-level knowledge of biology tend to be in denial that edge cases even exist. Or just dismiss them as "freaks" who don't deserve to have rights other than to be gawped at.

Gender presentation is of course an entirely separate issue. The conflation of intersex developmental anomolies and transgender psychological states (specifically, certain transgender people trying to hype up the prevalence of intersex conditions to supposedly make arguing for their own rights easier) is unfortunate and obfuscating.

There is some evidence that transgender psychological states are intersex conditions... of the brain. And, for that matter, that homosexuality is basically the same thing- a specific part of the brain's circuitry being cross-wired and getting the opposite sex's mate selection pattern.

Intuitively we should expect such things to have some underlying physical cause... and what category of cause for anomalies in mate selection, gender identity, and so on could be more plausible than "part of your brain got assigned the configuration that normally belongs to the opposite sex?"

'Masculine' and 'feminine' are problematic terminology in this context because people apply them to behaviour, clothing, social expectations, acquired morphology and lots of other detail that varies independently of (but is of course correlated to in practice) biological sex. When speaking about the genetics and cell biology of reproduction and reproductive organ development, I would just stick to 'male' and 'female'.

Agreed- but again, the problem isn't the practice of biological science, it's laymen being ignorant of what biologists already know. The reason I'm lauding this is because it may contribute to decreasing that ignorance, the same way a good explanation of how evolution actually works may decrease the traction imbecilic creationists have among the population by, oh, 0.1% or something.

[Starglider]

I honestly think this is purely a matter of semantic bickering.

The Internet is full of semantic bickering, which is fine, if not terribly productive, unless you are actually discussing the psychology of semantics.

What I do have a problem with though is people who not only want to ignore reality, they want everyone else to be required to ignore reality too. Usually this class of people are religious nuts, but unfortunately the cutting edge of transgender advocacy nows seems to encompass "There’s nothing intrinsically male about XY chromosomes, testosterone, body hair, muscle mass or penises.". That is simply denial.

[Zeropoint]

My response to the whole issues mainly "why are we even wasting breath arguing about this?" If someone wants to live as and be recognized as a different gender than what's on their birth certificate or what everyone would guess by looking at them . . . what's that to me? I mean, why the heck should I even CARE? How does it warrant any response from me beyond, at worst, rolling my eyes behind their back? It "neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket." In the US, we recognize "pursuit of happiness" as one of the fundamental civil rights, and if it makes you happy to be a different gender, who am I to stop you?

[Simon_Jester]

What I do have a problem with though is people who not only want to ignore reality, they want everyone else to be required to ignore reality too. Usually this class of people are religious nuts, but unfortunately the cutting edge of transgender advocacy nows seems to encompass "There’s nothing intrinsically male about XY chromosomes, testosterone, body hair, muscle mass or penises.". That is simply denial.

Thing is, there are two entirely valid points behind a statement like that, whether you call it denial or not.

One is that, well, you can have a person who is otherwise strikingly feminine in many ways, but possesses any one of those things.

The other key point here is that there's a huge obstacle in the way for people whose bodies are normal but have an intersex condition specifically of the brain (homosexuality being the common one, gender identity disorder being the less common but more marked one). GID in particular makes it nearly impossible to live a happy and normal life except by trying to live as a member of the opposite biological sex. Because despite how difficult and awkward and unsatisfactory sex reassignment is, it's better, more reliable, and less Orwellian than trying to rewrite the brain to match the sex of the body.

At which point you have people with biologically male bodies, yet structurally female software/wetware. And they have basically no option for functioning in society in a way they can survive except, well... to get rid of the things that shout "male!" Such as their testosterone, body hair, muscle mass, and penises. Trying to be the people their Y chromosome 'says' they are isn't working for them, because the part that's out of line with the standard "male 1.0" model is the brain- the one part we can't tinker with.

And then people tell them they're male and they're crazy for wanting to "mutilate themselves" because they're ignoring the 'biological fact' that they have testosterone et. al. and are therefore men.

Female-to-male transsexuals have the same problem reversed, obviously.

Given that this is a reality, I'm not going to criticize someone for staking out positions that sound silly, like "there's nothing male about a Y chromosome." What they want to say is "just because I have a Y chromosome doesn't mean my gender is 'man.' " And that's because for them basically everything is riding on being seen as a woman to the point where they're willing to do almost anything to themselves to make that happen.

And not many decades ago, this was being used as a bludgeon against homosexuals too- "they're men, that's a fact, so they should be attracted to women, that's a fact because that's how biology works, right?" Or "That woman over there isn't actually attracted to women, she's just confused and needs to be forced into line with the facts of life," followed by 'corrective' rape or other such horrors.

Basically, there's so much history and ongoing practice of the general public interpreting simple and basically obvious facts about biological sex, and taking them as prescriptive statements about social and psychological gender. Given how much pain that's causing people I don't mind if it gets deconstructed a bit in the ongoing public conversation.

[biostem]

The issue, IMO, is this whole notion of "normal" - people view anyone that isn't "normal" as deviant/inhuman, when all it really means is "not typical". A homosexual person is not normal NOT because they are less than human or undeserving of rights, but because their sexual preference is simply not present in the overwhelming majority of people. A person born with something other than XX or XY chromosomes, for instance, is by definition abnormal. They absolutely deserve all legal rights and protections under the law, but the fact remains that they exhibit abnormalities/deformities, by definition.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah.

The problem is that fixing the "abnormal means inferior" meme is really hard, so people instead fight to broaden the definition of 'normal' and resist being labeled as a 'deviation' from that normal. Because 'deviate' and 'deviant' are pretty much identical in the mind of the general public.

[biostem]

Yeah.

The problem is that fixing the "abnormal means inferior" meme is really hard, so people instead fight to broaden the definition of 'normal' and resist being labeled as a 'deviation' from that normal. Because 'deviate' and 'deviant' are pretty much identical in the mind of the general public.

I get your point, but wouldn't that basically redefine "normal" into meaninglessness?

[Starglider]

The other key point here is that there's a huge obstacle in the way for people whose bodies are normal but have an intersex condition specifically of the brain (homosexuality being the common one, gender identity disorder being the less common but more marked one). GID in particular makes it nearly impossible to live a happy and normal life except by trying to live as a member of the opposite biological sex.

There is intense ideological objection to the 'male brain / female brain' model from the other brigade of fanatical (anti-)gender activists, the radical feminists. They all say this is all social conditioning / patriarchy gone wrong (everything bad is due to patriarchy), that there is no biological difference between male & female brains, and that all studies which appear to indicate otherwise are biased artifacts of patriarchial science. Specifically they would say that your comment

At which point you have people with biologically male bodies, yet structurally female software/wetware.

is incorrect and also inherently and terribly oppressive. So the same kind of denial of objective reality and ideological opposition to scientific research, just a slightly different rationale.

Because despite how difficult and awkward and unsatisfactory sex reassignment is, it's better, more reliable, and less Orwellian than trying to rewrite the brain to match the sex of the body.

I have never objected to people adopting whatever roles they like or undertaking body modification, except to note that the later sometimes has significant health risks. I object to people trying to block and sabotage general discussion of basic biological facts, just as I object to creationists trying to deny, defund or ban research into evolution. I also object to attempts to weaponise victimisation as in the darker side of the 'cotton ceiling' guilt trip, although I confess a certain grudging respect to transgender activists there for so successfully taking the rhetorical arsenal developed by radfems, flipping it around and using it against them.

And then people tell them they're male and they're crazy for wanting to "mutilate themselves" because they're ignoring the 'biological fact' that they have testosterone et. al. and are therefore men.

This is why the man/woman vs male/female distinction is helpful. The former we can reasonable redefine by social convention, the later is something generated by millions of years of evolution that we can't change (at least not with radical transhuman technology that doesn't exist yet), although we can do some cosmetic surgery to mitigate dysphoria. This was the mainstram transgender position for a long time (as shown by the contemporary preference for 'transgender' over 'transsexual'), and it is unfortunate that the radical fringe of activism is now moving back to saying 'gender and sex are the same thing' while still saying 'gender is whatever I feel it is'. The logical consequence being that biological sex is whatever you feel it is, when clearly it is an objective reality. Even otherkin don't typically try to argue that they biologically are dragons etc.

Given that this is a reality, I'm not going to criticize someone for staking out positions that sound silly, like "there's nothing male about a Y chromosome." What they want to say is "just because I have a Y chromosome doesn't mean my gender is 'man.' "

No, this is not a case of not grasping the teminology. Maybe it was last decade, or might be for a few people new to the discussion. Long term activists live and breathe the subtle language distinctions, are hyper-aware of phrasing and are constantly trying to change everyone else's behaviour via control of acceptable language. In this case specifically trying to erase any ability to talk about the biological reality of sexual differentiation.

And that's because for them basically everything is riding on being seen as a woman to the point where they're willing to do almost anything to themselves to make that happen.

Well yes, this is something the radfems like to harp on about endlessly, the insecurity of transgender identities. I'm sure it's double cisgender opressive to mention it, or simply undeniable evidence of how transgender is a purely a patriachical construct to invade woman's spaces and mislead lesbians into pretending to be men, depending on which flavour of radicalism you are immersed in.

[Simon_Jester]

Starglider, it seems that your complaint has reduced to "The most radical fringe of activists for an otherwise sympathetic cause are saying things! Things that would suppress science, if they ruled the world!"*

My reply is "Yawn, ah yes, it must be Tuesday."

Seriously, if you really want to you can find an idiot supporting any conceivable position. It's not worth umpty pages of alarmism to cope with the discovery that one idiot exists.
________________

*Which, of course, they do not, and can not, to an extent that is positively comical. Postmodern fringe activists can never rule the world because they are too busy playing word games and backbiting against each other. They can barely get their act together enough to cause anything meaningful to happen in the parts of the world that are, for lack of a better term... real.

[Starglider]

Starglider, it seems that your complaint has reduced to "The most radical fringe of activists for an otherwise sympathetic cause are saying things! Things that would suppress science, if they ruled the world!"

Correct. This is a rather minor concern, in the grand scheme of things wrong with the world, but it's the topic of the thread so I decided to talk about related counterproductive activism. I guess I see a disproportionate amount of this due to the large numer of furries making silly claims along these lines.

Seriously, if you really want to you can find an idiot supporting any conceivable position. It's not worth umpty pages of alarmism to cope with the discovery that one idiot exists.

The situation becomes problematic when the mainstream gives radicals license to redefine acceptable behaviour. Creationists are sadly given that license by many mainstream conservatives, but obviously not by the liberal community represented here. Radical feminists are not getting much traction with denying gender outside of Tumblr and a few academic gender studies contexts, largely because transgender activists pushed a directly opposing narrative and won the battle (in the 2000s) for who was going to get mainstream liberal acceptance. But as a side effect from that they received essentially a blank cheque from the liberal mainstream, in that disagreeing with the transgender fringe about anything is cissexism, and that is dangerous for the same reasons that blanket suppression of dissent is always dangerous.

[Alyrium Denryle]

There is intense ideological objection to the 'male brain / female brain' model from the other brigade of fanatical (anti-)gender activists, the radical feminists. They all say this is all social conditioning / patriarchy gone wrong (everything bad is due to patriarchy), that there is no biological difference between male & female brains, and that all studies which appear to indicate otherwise are biased artifacts of patriarchial science. Specifically they would say that your comment

And they are demonstrably wrong, everyone knows they are demonstrably wrong, and the other feminists think they are idiots. They are over-reacting to misogynistic stereotypes about cognitive performance in areas like mathematics or suitability for politics where there are few if any differences between the sexes (in those respects) that are not accounted for by socialization and subsequent adolescent neural pruning. The differences in the brain that do exist are mostly in the portions of the brain not responsible for higher cognitive functions.

This is why the man/woman vs male/female distinction is helpful. The former we can reasonable redefine by social convention, the later is something generated by millions of years of evolution that we can't change (at least not with radical transhuman technology that doesn't exist yet), although we can do some cosmetic surgery to mitigate dysphoria. This was the mainstram transgender position for a long time (as shown by the contemporary preference for 'transgender' over 'transsexual'), and it is unfortunate that the radical fringe of activism is now moving back to saying 'gender and sex are the same thing' while still saying 'gender is whatever I feel it is'. The logical consequence being that biological sex is whatever you feel it is, when clearly it is an objective reality. Even otherkin don't typically try to argue that they biologically are dragons etc.

The reason this happens is functional. It makes the lives of transgender persons much easier to refer to a transwoman as a woman, and female. We dont mark gender on government forms, we mark sex. Birth certificates all that, lists the birth sex as defined by genitalia. Shit gets confusing and possibly dangerous when your identity documents say one thing but you present as something else. So as far as social life and legality are concerned, it is much much easier if a transwoman is considered both a woman and female (albeit one who is infertile).

What a biologist might call her when doing a study of genetic sex ratio in humans while studying X-linked meiotic drive or something like that matters much less, and we can keep that to ourselves in our academic papers.

[Channel72]

Starglider, it seems that your complaint has reduced to "The most radical fringe of activists for an otherwise sympathetic cause are saying things! Things that would suppress science, if they ruled the world!"

Correct. This is a rather minor concern, in the grand scheme of things wrong with the world, but it's the topic of the thread so I decided to talk about related counterproductive activism. I guess I see a disproportionate amount of this due to the large numer of furries making silly claims along these lines.

Or rather, people tend to highlight some subsection along the continuum of hot-button issue arguments/counter-arguments that they find to be the most irritating. I agree that activists who try to redefine or deny scientific realities in the name of civil rights are kind of fucking irritating. (It's almost actually more fun to destroy their arguments than it is to argue against actual bigotry coming from the political right.) But I think Simon Jester and many others have too much compassion towards the overall plight of the people these activists fight for to be too irritated about it. I think I have latent conservative tendencies so sometimes I have to remind myself to have compassion as well.

[Simon_Jester]

To me, attacking counterproductive activists is a fool's game because it encourages internal fighting and squabbling among basically good-willed people who want to see the expansion of freedom and peace in society.

People of that nature have enough trouble without fighting each other.

[Axton]

There are, no doubt, people in the Appalachians who would jump to dispute that the norm is for humans to have five digits on each hand, and could readily supply an armada of sistercousins to bolster their claims that six or seven digits to an appendage is not outside the norm.

But their "norm" is a percentage of a percentile.

We should be careful not to conflate exceptions with rules, no matter how strong the arm of pathos is.

[Simon_Jester]

Exactly what's your argument? That biological sex is NOT a spectrum?

Because describing biological sex as a spectrum is a useful idea. It fits, summarizes, and explains the facts quite well.

Of course, your post is vague enough that I'm not sure what you're saying. Exactly what rule are you worried about seeing conflated with its own exceptions?

One sign of a successful scientific theory is that the apparent rule gains the ability to explain its own exceptions, rather than having to wave them away as "uh, I don't understand those."

[Axton]

Can non-male or non-female propagate the species? Because that's the function of sex as a biological construct. And (unless we're getting into some transhumanist woo here) function is what drives biology.

[Axton]

I realize there may be some here whose feelings are hurt by that. I won't patronize you by apologizing. There is constructive, and there is non-constructive, even in nature. The universe is messy. If you are "messy", it doesn't make you wrong, or a bad person. But there's a difference between "messy" and not. Recognizing what is ordered versus what is not isn't an indictment of your value as a person, and it isn't meant to be. But it is a recognition of how the mechanism is supposed to work.

I hope you'll see what I'm trying to convey here, and I hope you won't be offended, because offense isn't my intent. I also recognize that I can't in any way prevent you from being offended if you are heart-set on choosing to be offended; but if that's the case, I won't give a half a damn.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Can non-male or non-female propagate the species? Because that's the function of sex as a biological construct. And (unless we're getting into some transhumanist woo here) function is what drives biology.

Hi!

Guess what my Ph.D is in.

If you guessed "Biology" you are correct.

However, your post is wrong.

First of all, evolution and development are not about "propagation of a species", they are both about the passage of genes from one generation to the next. If you cannot understand that, you have no business talking. But lets move on.

Evolution is not an intelligent designer, there is no foresight. What comes out of it are a set of jury-rigged systems, each adaptation built off what came before that it could work with at the time. This means that developmental processes are a giant mess, and extremely error prone.

Intersex conditions--including homosexuality and the state of being transgender (because Simon is right, they ARE intersex conditions)--are largely a result of that genetic and developmental mess. Any explanation of how the development of biological sex works has to account for them. We cannot handwave them away as aberrations of how things are "supposed" to work. We have to know how it does work.

That is reality and I am not going to patronize anyone by apologizing for it.

Moreover, your line of reasoning DOES lead to actual people being evaluated as inferior, false, or freakish. So not only are you just wrong, but your line of argument justifies abuse on top of that.

I realize there may be some here whose feelings are hurt by that. I won't patronize you by apologizing. There is constructive, and there is non-constructive, even in nature. The universe is messy. If you are "messy", it doesn't make you wrong, or a bad person. But there's a difference between "messy" and not. Recognizing what is ordered versus what is not isn't an indictment of your value as a person, and it isn't meant to be. But it is a recognition of how the mechanism is supposed to work.

I hope you'll see what I'm trying to convey here, and I hope you won't be offended, because offense isn't my intent. I also recognize that I can't in any way prevent you from being offended if you are heart-set on choosing to be offended; but if that's the case, I won't give a half a damn.

For someone who claims not to want to patronize people, you certainly do a good job coming off as a condescending prick.