In light of recent controversy and its handling, the twice-a-year FediForum unconference for April 1st and 2nd has been canceled by its organizer.
In light of recent controversy and its handling, the twice-a-year FediForum unconference for April 1st and 2nd has been canceled by its organizer.
So…while biology does account for male and female reproductive systems across a variety of species, they have found that, as they continue to study many different forms of life, that they actually have to keep adjusting the model of what they once thought. Life is weirder, more complex, and accounts for a tremendous amount of variation in how this whole thing works.
I’m not a biologist, there are experts who can speak extremely well on this subject. Within the field of biology, the whole “two sexes” thing is kind of an oversimplification. Even if we just focus on humans and not, say, some form of algae with 500 different sexes, there are plenty of divergent forms of human beings that manifest as some form of intersex, with quite a few different variations.
Even if intersex people are a fraction of a fraction of the population, they are a compelling case study for why things don’t definitively boil down across some kind of sexual binary across the board for absolutely everyone. Heck, even males and females in the traditional sense of sexual dimorphism tend to exhibit traits of the other sex in one way or another.
TL;DR - it’s a huge complicated can of worms, and people who try to shutdown discussion of nonbinary or transgender identities with “there’s only two sexes, it’s just science!” tend to have a grade-school understanding of biology.
I feel like were straying back into “sex and gender are the same thing” territory which seems reductive to me.
Not sure why we would focus on algae when we’re clearly only talking about humans.
I get that intersex/other genetic disorders exist. But I still don’t get how that breaks the rule instead of proving it. The rule is that humans have two arms and two legs. Just because there’s one armed people doesn’t mean that rule is broken. It means they’re an exception to that rule.
Another thing to consider is that humans have a brain powerful enough to override human instincts. For example, we are born with an instinct to reproduce, but we can choose not to.
This also applies to our sexuality, personality, gender, behaviors, preferences, and more. We don’t have to conform to instincts, norms, or stereotypes.
Since that is the case, unless you’re strictly talking about anatomy, two sexes aren’t an accurate way to describe human sexuality.