In the Lancet, the term “research” carries multiple definitions. It often refers to an umbrella term for a set of biologicaal attributes being associated with sociological and ideological features (eg, sex assigned at birth).
Strangely, nobody seems to find it exceptional that the sex/gender binary and on ad infinitum is only found in humans: man / woman / non-binary / trans (both ways) / homosexuality (both ways) etc, etc, etc. But not in canines (dogs, bitches) or cats (molly, tom) nor cattle (cow / bull / steer [if castrated) nor horses (stallion / mare / gelding [castrated male]) etc. But never a trans-dog, trans-bitch, trans-cow, trans-bull, trans-tomcat, trans-molly, etc.
I would suggest go so far as to suggest that this is an all-time biological breakthrough by The Lancet. Get set for that august and to now authoritative journal’s editor to go racing around the streets stark naked yelling: ‘Eureka.! Eureka.!”
@Omar #2: The freemartin syndrome is an intersex condition of cattle that’s been known since ancient Rome, and possibly before that. Essentially, if a cow has twin calves of opposite sexes, androgens from the bull calf masculinise the heifer calf, which will be sterile with slightly unusual genitals. This is obviously a big deal if you’re a farmer.
Which is why I’m particularly annoyed by condescending comments about “fourth grade biology”. We’ve ALWAYS known that there are anomalous syndromes and conditions like this.
@Piglet, and gender ideology would say the freemartin proves sex is a spectrum and not binary, whereas the rationalist would say it’s 100% female, but with a disorder of sexual development.
Piglet @ #4: Female and male penguins, no doubt like many other bird species, as prospective parents of what is in their mutually-produced eggs, share the task of keeping their eggs warm when cold weather arrives, particularly in and around the Arctic and Antarctica. Their eggs can otherwise freeze very fast if left uncovered by a warm parental body. So while one parent goes off to feed, the other minds the eggs.
Sex is not a construct in the same way race is. You can make an argument for gender as a construct if by gender you mean something like all the social and cultural beliefs and expectations that attach themselves to the sexes, but at that point you’re well beyond biology.
You can make an argument for gender as a construct if by gender you mean something like all the social and cultural beliefs and expectations that attach themselves to the sexes, but at that point you’re well beyond biology.
Yet the genderists use the term “gender” for one’s”inherent” “internal sense” of whether one is a man or a woman, and/or male or female, so there must be at least some biological component once they posit gender as something happening inside the human head. This ambiguity allows them to move between all of these concepts of gender to their advantage, allowing quick shifts between motte and bailey. It’s weasel words all the way down.
And shame on the Lancet for surrendering to ideology and abandoning science. Just another unwelcome example of my observation that “Any organization that embraces trans activism turns to shit.” Genderists can now point to the Lancet as “authoritative” support for their claims, whereas the Lancet takes a black eye to its reputation.
Omar, et al, here is an article on the “transgender Lioness” that follows the science. DT’s link is activist nonsense written by “Actor, Filmmaker, LGBTQ+ & Women’s Rights Activist” Phaylen Fairchild. One of those things does not agree with the others, but Phaylen Fairchild is a TIM.
This article is quite clear that there is a form of DSD in Lions. It is not a transgender Lion as the Lion made no choice, did not claim to be born in the wrong body, or demand life saving medical care on threat of suicide. The Lion was simply born that way.
It is always instructive to see how little scientific basis there is to transgenderism when they have to resort to lies about biology.
Omar, please excuse the nitpick, but there are no penguins in or around the Arctic. Penguins are almost exclusively found in the Southern Hemisphere (the Galapagos penguin is the one exception.)
Antarctic Penguins don’t “share the task of keeping their eggs warm when cold weather arrives”.
It’s always cold in Antarctica, with average coastal temperatures around -10C.
The female lays an egg, then passes it to the male to keep on his feet and covered with belly fat. Any egg that slips from the father’s feet dies. The male will incubate the egg while the female heads to sea to feed and fatten herself. Females are gone from the colony for 6 – 8 weeks. When the females return, chicks are almost all hatched and the males have fasted for around 4 months. Chicks born to females who don’t return will die as the fathers must struggle to the sea to replenish their own energy and fat stores.
It’s a miracle they survive, but ain’t evolution a wonder?
Your Ladyship and Your Reverence (@ #10, #11): Nitpicks noted. However, because of the Earth’s axial tilt relative to its orbital plane, no part of the planet misses out on seasonal variation of temperature. My wording @ #6 covered more species than penguins, however. But you are both right. I shall have my staff look into the matter, with a note to please make sure that such a snafu does not happen again. (Sigh.)
Probably unlikely, but I wonder if this is another instance of activist interns taking over an organization’s coms? It’s quite a coup for gender ideology to capture a prestigious, authoritative journal such as The Lancet, despite the fact that its surrender to them diminishes and devalues the very prestige and authority they coveted it for in the first place.
And what have they won? what do these guidelines do? From the excerpt here in the original post, The Lancet is now endorsing several key goals and concepts of gender ideology, but in a very slippery way. It doesn’t come straight out and say that sex is a social construct, but makes this claim by sidling up to it through elision:
Sex and gender are often incorrectly portrayed as binary (female/male or woman/man), concordant, and static. However, these constructs exist along a spectrum that includes additional sex categorisations and gender identities, such as people who are intersex/have differences of sex development
(DSD), or identify as non-binary. (my bolding)
Here, sex has been slyly lumped together with gender as a social construct, without having argued for or providing any evidence to support this claim in its listing of the definitions of sex at the beginning of the paragraph. And look what else they slip into this sneaky little paragraph. They claim that sex is “incorrectly portrayed” as “binary,” and “static.” But sex is binary: there are only two sexes. And sex is static; humans can’t change sex.
It’s interesting that this guidance uses both “intersex” and “DSD”: the former offers the possibility of a continuum between the poles of male and female (which is why I believe it was included, despite the persistant requests of people with DSDs not to use “intersex”), while the latter does not. Sex is not a spectrum. “People who are intersex/have differences of sex development” no more prove that sex is a “spectrum” than polydactyly or oligodactyly prove that the number of fingers or toes on humans is a “spectrum.” Yet DSDs are not halfway houses “bewteen” the two sexes. These conditions are, in terms of normal development, dead ends. They are mistakes made by errors in the growth program which is normally supposed to produce a male or female body. They are result of a process that has in some way gone wrong, not an additional, expected pathway of development as usual. They aren’t stable, desired outcomes. They are not additional “colours” on a “spectrum”, they are the equivalent of typographical errors in a text, or incorrectly assembled components on an assembly line; outcomes that were never intended, but which occurred nonetheless. They are the rare, particular outcomes of particular disorders specific to each sex, not some sort of amorphous no-man’s-land between the conditions of male and female. You’d think that something called a “spectrum” would exhibit a larger percentage of members at places other than the two “ends” of its supposed “range.” Compared to the expected “male” and “female” bodies that normal growth and development produce, the numbers of people with DSDs is very small,; certainly not enough to merit their deployment to argue that sex is a “specrum.” Using DSD conditions in this way to argue against the sex binary is dishonest and deceptive. They do not prove or support the claim they are making. they must know this. This is not an error or mistake. This is an ideologically driven position, not a medical or physiologically mandated one. It is politics, not medecine. There is no science that disproves the binary, immutible nature of sex in humans, otherwise the discoverers of any such disproof would have won Nobel Prizes for medecine. Until the writers of this guidance for The Lancet show up in Stockholm to collect their awards, I will count them as liars.
*”Concordant” doesn’t really enter the picture if “gender” does not exist. Interestingly, there is no claim in this excerpt for “gender” being the “innser sense of identity” that can be “born in the wrong body.”
I’ve read that the term “penguin” was originally applied by some European seafarers to the Great Auk (Pinguinis impennis*), a black and white, flightless, diving bird that once lived in the North Atlantic. When Europeans later encountered another group of black and white, flightless, diving birds in the waters of the Antarctic, they used the name originally used to refer to the Great Auk to this new group of somewhat similar (but unrelated) birds. Once the Great Auk was driven to extinction in the mid 19th century, the Southern birds were the last penguins standing, taking sole posession of the name, the first bearers of the moniker being no longer around to share it.
*As the Great Auk was essentially a giant Razorbill (Alca torda), there are some ornithologists who would rather see the Auk in the genus Alca.
“Here, sex has been slyly lumped together with gender as a social construct, without having argued for or providing any evidence to support this claim in its listing of the definitions of sex at the beginning of the paragraph.”
The argument is that sex is assaigned (at birth) – but that is precisely a binary construct (as evidenced by the rulings made in exceptional cases e.g, DSDs).
Every person with a DSD, every last one, is male or female. There is no third sex, there is no third gamete. There is, in mammals, a definite sex binary.
Hey, what about the penguins that identify as being in the Arctic? What about those days when Antarctica identifies as being in the Arctic? You might be committing literal violence by misgeographizing them!
In the Lancet, the term “research” carries multiple definitions. It often refers to an umbrella term for a set of biologicaal attributes being associated with sociological and ideological features (eg, sex assigned at birth).
Strangely, nobody seems to find it exceptional that the sex/gender binary and on ad infinitum is only found in humans: man / woman / non-binary / trans (both ways) / homosexuality (both ways) etc, etc, etc. But not in canines (dogs, bitches) or cats (molly, tom) nor cattle (cow / bull / steer [if castrated) nor horses (stallion / mare / gelding [castrated male]) etc. But never a trans-dog, trans-bitch, trans-cow, trans-bull, trans-tomcat, trans-molly, etc.
I would suggest go so far as to suggest that this is an all-time biological breakthrough by The Lancet. Get set for that august and to now authoritative journal’s editor to go racing around the streets stark naked yelling: ‘Eureka.! Eureka.!”
@Omar; #2
https://phaylen.medium.com/meet-mmamoriri-the-transgender-lioness-bc729ab0a9a4
@Omar #2: The freemartin syndrome is an intersex condition of cattle that’s been known since ancient Rome, and possibly before that. Essentially, if a cow has twin calves of opposite sexes, androgens from the bull calf masculinise the heifer calf, which will be sterile with slightly unusual genitals. This is obviously a big deal if you’re a farmer.
Which is why I’m particularly annoyed by condescending comments about “fourth grade biology”. We’ve ALWAYS known that there are anomalous syndromes and conditions like this.
@Piglet, and gender ideology would say the freemartin proves sex is a spectrum and not binary, whereas the rationalist would say it’s 100% female, but with a disorder of sexual development.
https://www.thecattlesite.com/articles/975/what-is-a-freemartin/
The Lancet is apparently abandoning rationalism.
DT @ #3: I found that your link is paywalled.
Piglet @ #4: Female and male penguins, no doubt like many other bird species, as prospective parents of what is in their mutually-produced eggs, share the task of keeping their eggs warm when cold weather arrives, particularly in and around the Arctic and Antarctica. Their eggs can otherwise freeze very fast if left uncovered by a warm parental body. So while one parent goes off to feed, the other minds the eggs.
Sex is not a construct in the same way race is. You can make an argument for gender as a construct if by gender you mean something like all the social and cultural beliefs and expectations that attach themselves to the sexes, but at that point you’re well beyond biology.
Yet the genderists use the term “gender” for one’s”inherent” “internal sense” of whether one is a man or a woman, and/or male or female, so there must be at least some biological component once they posit gender as something happening inside the human head. This ambiguity allows them to move between all of these concepts of gender to their advantage, allowing quick shifts between motte and bailey. It’s weasel words all the way down.
And shame on the Lancet for surrendering to ideology and abandoning science. Just another unwelcome example of my observation that “Any organization that embraces trans activism turns to shit.” Genderists can now point to the Lancet as “authoritative” support for their claims, whereas the Lancet takes a black eye to its reputation.
Omar, et al, here is an article on the “transgender Lioness” that follows the science. DT’s link is activist nonsense written by “Actor, Filmmaker, LGBTQ+ & Women’s Rights Activist” Phaylen Fairchild. One of those things does not agree with the others, but Phaylen Fairchild is a TIM.
This article is quite clear that there is a form of DSD in Lions. It is not a transgender Lion as the Lion made no choice, did not claim to be born in the wrong body, or demand life saving medical care on threat of suicide. The Lion was simply born that way.
It is always instructive to see how little scientific basis there is to transgenderism when they have to resort to lies about biology.
https://africageographic.com/stories/unravelling-the-mystery-of-mmamoriri-the-maned-lioness/
Omar, please excuse the nitpick, but there are no penguins in or around the Arctic. Penguins are almost exclusively found in the Southern Hemisphere (the Galapagos penguin is the one exception.)
Omar, further nitpicks.
Antarctic Penguins don’t “share the task of keeping their eggs warm when cold weather arrives”.
It’s always cold in Antarctica, with average coastal temperatures around -10C.
The female lays an egg, then passes it to the male to keep on his feet and covered with belly fat. Any egg that slips from the father’s feet dies. The male will incubate the egg while the female heads to sea to feed and fatten herself. Females are gone from the colony for 6 – 8 weeks. When the females return, chicks are almost all hatched and the males have fasted for around 4 months. Chicks born to females who don’t return will die as the fathers must struggle to the sea to replenish their own energy and fat stores.
It’s a miracle they survive, but ain’t evolution a wonder?
Dang. If I were a male penguin I’d be all “Fuck this” in about 15 minutes, heading for home and a nice hot bowl of soup.
Your Ladyship and Your Reverence (@ #10, #11): Nitpicks noted. However, because of the Earth’s axial tilt relative to its orbital plane, no part of the planet misses out on seasonal variation of temperature. My wording @ #6 covered more species than penguins, however. But you are both right. I shall have my staff look into the matter, with a note to please make sure that such a snafu does not happen again. (Sigh.)
Probably unlikely, but I wonder if this is another instance of activist interns taking over an organization’s coms? It’s quite a coup for gender ideology to capture a prestigious, authoritative journal such as The Lancet, despite the fact that its surrender to them diminishes and devalues the very prestige and authority they coveted it for in the first place.
And what have they won? what do these guidelines do? From the excerpt here in the original post, The Lancet is now endorsing several key goals and concepts of gender ideology, but in a very slippery way. It doesn’t come straight out and say that sex is a social construct, but makes this claim by sidling up to it through elision:
Here, sex has been slyly lumped together with gender as a social construct, without having argued for or providing any evidence to support this claim in its listing of the definitions of sex at the beginning of the paragraph. And look what else they slip into this sneaky little paragraph. They claim that sex is “incorrectly portrayed” as “binary,” and “static.” But sex is binary: there are only two sexes. And sex is static; humans can’t change sex.
It’s interesting that this guidance uses both “intersex” and “DSD”: the former offers the possibility of a continuum between the poles of male and female (which is why I believe it was included, despite the persistant requests of people with DSDs not to use “intersex”), while the latter does not. Sex is not a spectrum. “People who are intersex/have differences of sex development” no more prove that sex is a “spectrum” than polydactyly or oligodactyly prove that the number of fingers or toes on humans is a “spectrum.” Yet DSDs are not halfway houses “bewteen” the two sexes. These conditions are, in terms of normal development, dead ends. They are mistakes made by errors in the growth program which is normally supposed to produce a male or female body. They are result of a process that has in some way gone wrong, not an additional, expected pathway of development as usual. They aren’t stable, desired outcomes. They are not additional “colours” on a “spectrum”, they are the equivalent of typographical errors in a text, or incorrectly assembled components on an assembly line; outcomes that were never intended, but which occurred nonetheless. They are the rare, particular outcomes of particular disorders specific to each sex, not some sort of amorphous no-man’s-land between the conditions of male and female. You’d think that something called a “spectrum” would exhibit a larger percentage of members at places other than the two “ends” of its supposed “range.” Compared to the expected “male” and “female” bodies that normal growth and development produce, the numbers of people with DSDs is very small,; certainly not enough to merit their deployment to argue that sex is a “specrum.” Using DSD conditions in this way to argue against the sex binary is dishonest and deceptive. They do not prove or support the claim they are making. they must know this. This is not an error or mistake. This is an ideologically driven position, not a medical or physiologically mandated one. It is politics, not medecine. There is no science that disproves the binary, immutible nature of sex in humans, otherwise the discoverers of any such disproof would have won Nobel Prizes for medecine. Until the writers of this guidance for The Lancet show up in Stockholm to collect their awards, I will count them as liars.
*”Concordant” doesn’t really enter the picture if “gender” does not exist. Interestingly, there is no claim in this excerpt for “gender” being the “innser sense of identity” that can be “born in the wrong body.”
Re penguins.
I’ve read that the term “penguin” was originally applied by some European seafarers to the Great Auk (Pinguinis impennis*), a black and white, flightless, diving bird that once lived in the North Atlantic. When Europeans later encountered another group of black and white, flightless, diving birds in the waters of the Antarctic, they used the name originally used to refer to the Great Auk to this new group of somewhat similar (but unrelated) birds. Once the Great Auk was driven to extinction in the mid 19th century, the Southern birds were the last penguins standing, taking sole posession of the name, the first bearers of the moniker being no longer around to share it.
*As the Great Auk was essentially a giant Razorbill (Alca torda), there are some ornithologists who would rather see the Auk in the genus Alca.
@Your Name’s not Bruce?;#14
“Here, sex has been slyly lumped together with gender as a social construct, without having argued for or providing any evidence to support this claim in its listing of the definitions of sex at the beginning of the paragraph.”
The argument is that sex is assaigned (at birth) – but that is precisely a binary construct (as evidenced by the rulings made in exceptional cases e.g, DSDs).
Not much deep thought going on.
Every person with a DSD, every last one, is male or female. There is no third sex, there is no third gamete. There is, in mammals, a definite sex binary.
OB #12, have you never seen “March of the Penguins”? It’s well worth investing 80 minutes of your day.
Oh, yes, but that doesn’t mean I remember it. I forget everything I see or read.
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Hey, what about the penguins that identify as being in the Arctic? What about those days when Antarctica identifies as being in the Arctic? You might be committing literal violence by misgeographizing them!