The Trans Agenda and the Fall of “Scientific American,” By Mrs. Vera West
Back in the day, I subscribed to popular journal, Scientific American for my children, to stir up an interest in science, which it did. But today I would not do the same. I will explain. The journal has recently published an article claiming that it is "misinformation' (immediately translate as "contrary to Left wing ideology") to claim that there are only two sexes. This binary claim is "being used against transgender people" and in order to target "gender-affirming medical care." Oh, this shocking, if true.
The article states that binary critics are "oversimplifying scientific knowledge, fabricating and misinterpreting research, and promoting false equivalences." The main argument is that there are only two sexes, and apparently there are not, but we are not told how many there are.
This seems to be the core argument: "There's something to be said about the rhetorical tricks here. The people who use ideas about biological sex against trans people are first appealing to the idea of biology as a description of difference, but then they do a jump and use that conception of biology as a form of meaning. The thing is, we organize society around meaning, not difference. Biology at its core can't tell you what matters to human organizations. So there is a fallacy here of looking at the human difference at the biological level, oversimplifying it, and then saying, "That's what we should organize people around." We should really be asking what we care about, and then look to see if biology has anything to say about it. If you go through that exercise, then you realize that biology really has very little, if not virtually nothing, to say about things like trans rights."
As I read it, there is no scientific refutation of the proposition that here are only two sexes for humans. The issue of trans rights is quite distinct from the science question of how many sexes. Even the existence of intersexes, people with both male and female parts does not refute this, since there are still the basic genetic properties, and the very idea of intersexes, presupposes the binary categories of male and female body parts.
In short, the argument is nonsense.
"Scientific American has published a piece claiming that "misinformation," such as the notion that there are only two sexes, is "being used against transgender people" and in order to target "gender-affirming medical care."
The article states that there are three types of "misinformation," and they are "oversimplifying scientific knowledge, fabricating and misinterpreting research, and promoting false equivalences."
The piece asserts that "Many of the arguments against trans rights center on the idea that transness itself is not legitimate—that there are just two sexes, period."
There are only two sexes though.
It then turns to 'scientist' Simón(e) Sun, a self described trans(sexual) ándrógýne \ (neuro)biologist, pronouns in bio person and notes "You describe this idea as 'sex essentialism.' Can you explain that term, and talk about how it shapes the debate."
They/she then states "Essentialism is the idea that you can take any phenomenon that is complex and distill it down to a particular set of traits. In the case of sex essentialism, the idea is that you can sufficiently describe sex by a few particular characteristics. In this debate, it used to be chromosomes, now it's gametes (egg and sperm cells)."
Yeah, that is biology 101 and no matter how many times they/she says it's changed and that anyone who doesn't agree is a 'transphobe', it hasn't.
They/she continues, "The target is always moving, because if you want to make something binary, then you need to find the most binary characteristic. Today, sex essentialism boils all of sex down to the gametes that a person produces."
Again, biology 101.
"But biology is just not that simple," Sun continues, adding "The sex essentialist perspective is completely wrong about the biology of how sex characteristics arise."
It is that simple though.
The piece goes on in this vein, throws in 'hate' and 'prejudice' and climate change and Donald Trump, all to push the ideological agenda that life-altering drugs and surgeries shouldn't be challenged."
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