Woke has Penetrated Anthropology; Biological Sex a Social Construct By James Reed
First mainstream anthropology, under the influence of Franz Boas, came to reject the concept of race as having explanatory power. Some decades latter the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the Canadian Anthropological Society (CASCA), have now cancelled sex as well: “There is no single biological standard by which all humans can be reliably sorted into a binary male/female sex classification,” it reads. "On the contrary, anthropologists and others have long shown sex and gender to be historically and geographically contextual, deeply entangled, and dynamically mutable categories." Well, what is a social construction is sociology and anthropology, pseudosciences at best.
The idea here is that sex and gender are not binary, but pure social constructions. These are the same body of arguments used against race, and as these arguments against sex can be shown to be flawed, the arguments against race also fail.
“Two major scholarly groups have cancelled a panel defending biological sex as a “necessary analytic category” from an upcoming conference.
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the Canadian Anthropological Society (CASCA) removed the programming “Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby” from their November meeting “Transitions” for fear it would compromise the “scientific integrity of the program.” The female-led panel described its goal as explaining why “gender is not helpful and only sex will do.”
In a statement titled "no place for transphobia" which the organization issued to The National Desk (TND) Thursday, the groups defended their decision as avoiding a “cardinal sin” of academia.
“The session was rejected because it relied on assumptions that run contrary to the settled science in our discipline, framed in ways that do harm to vulnerable members of our community,” AAA told TND in a statement. “It commits one of the cardinal sins of scholarship—it assumes the truth of the proposition that it sets out to prove, namely, that sex and gender are simplistically binary, and that this is a fact with meaningful implications for the discipline.”
The statement continued, noting sex has “long” been an unreliable standard to classify humans.
“There is no single biological standard by which all humans can be reliably sorted into a binary male/female sex classification,” it reads. "On the contrary, anthropologists and others have long shown sex and gender to be historically and geographically contextual, deeply entangled, and dynamically mutable categories."
The panelists, one of whom is a lesbian, expressed their disappointment and fired back with a letter to event organizers, calling the decision “egregious.”
“From the time of this acceptance until we received your letter dated September 25th, 2023, no one from the AAA or CASCA reached out to any of the panelists with concerns. Thus, it comes as a shock to all of us that the AAA and CASCA canceled the panel,” it reads.
The letter continued, noting that the panel even mentioned potential harm to the LGBT community as an outcome of ignoring distinctions between sex and gender.
When news of the cancelation reached X, Elon Musk replied saying "wow."
Identity politics have become a hot-button issue across both countries as of late. In the U.S. this week, the Biden administration proposed taking custody of foster children whose parents don’t “support” their gender identity. In Canada, the country’s Global Affairs department issued a warning last month for “2SLGBTQI+” citizens against traveling to the U.S.”
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