Is Sex Bimodal?
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- čas přidán 22. 03. 2020
- When discussing biological sex, there is disagreement over whether sex is a spectrum (with a range of possibilities) or whether it is binary (with only two possibilities). Seeing the potential extremes of either side, many decide to strike a compromise by saying that sex is bimodal. Does it work?
Contributors:
[1] This video was adapted from a Twitter thread by evolutionary biologist Colin Wright (@SwipeWright).
Sources:
[1] Wright, C. (2020). Is Sex Bimodal? Twitter. (threadreaderapp.com/thread/12...)
[2] Sax, L. (2002). How common is lntersex? A response to Anne Fausto‐Sterling. Journal of Sex Research.
[3] Marinov, G.K. (2020). In Humans, Sex is Binary and Immutable. Acad. Quest. 33, 279-288.
[4] Lehtonen, J., Parker, G. (2014). Gamete competition, gamete limitation, and the evolution of two sexes. Molecular Human Reproduction, 20(12).
[5] Cox, P., Togashi, T. (2011). The Evolution of Anisogamy, A Fundamental Phenomenon Underlying Sexual Selection. New York Cambridge University Press. 17.
[6] Loof, A. (2018). Only two sex forms but multiple gender variants. Communicative & Integrative Biology, 11(1).
[7] Witchel, S. (2017). Disorders of sex development. Best Practice and Research in Clinical Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 48, 90-102.
[8] Schmitt, D. (2016). Sex and gender are dials (not switches). Psychology Today.
[9] Hyde, J. (2014). Gender similarities and differences. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 373-398.
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The other problem with sex being bimodal is it’s very anthropocentric. Height, hormones, chromosones , facial hair, breast development all only make sense in a human context and cannot be applied to other animals or plants. If a sex categorization paradigm only applies to humans then you know it’s biased.
Just use gamete production as the metric you're either male, female, intersex or true Chimera.
@@resmores That is redundant for two reasons. Firslty, if you use gamete producution to determine if you are male, female, intersex of chimera, then you will find that there are only two options, not the four your listed, because there are only two gametes, and there has never been a human hermaphrodite. Secondly, gamete PRODUCTION is problematic because that would mean that children are sexless, and after menopause women become sexless, which is not accurate. The only definition of sex that makes sense is 'A female/male is an organism whos developmental pathway pertains to the production of eggs/sperm'. Rather than the actual production of the gamete, its about the one the body is intending to produce or did produce.
@@umwhathere have been people who had both gametes
@@councilofflorence4896 There have not and I’ve already looked into this literature . The best ever found was women with one ovary that was streaked (never shown to produce viable sperm) and autopsies of bodies that are speculated to have produced both gametes . Find me the study that shows there’s ever been a person who actually produced both that worked. Anyway even if there was someone who produced both, that still wouldn’t be a third sex
The next time someone tells you that “sex is bimodal”, ask them to draw the graph and label both axis. They won’t be able to.
Sure, they could make graphs about height and hormone levels, but not sex itself.
Define sex.
@@egorkotkin They refer to the biological categories of male and female, which are defined by what type of gamete their reproductive system is ordered towards.
@@Seethi_Cwhat is XXY? what are people who are intersex then?
@@lazerizer6895 XXY is known as Klinefelter's Syndrone. People with Klinefelter's are male, not "partially male, partially female". There are no females with Klinefelter's syndrome.
@@Seethi_C why do so many people (including even some bimodal gender advocates) say that gender is determined by chromosomes if that can be "debunked" with intersex people existing? I feel like all this misunderstanding could be avoided by pointing out that yes, while chromosomes are a spectrum, and sexual characteristics are also a spectrum, gametes aren't (at least not in humans)!
Being in near centre of a mode peak doesn't make you more male/female it just makes you more average, or more common in sharing traits. One true concept of a bimodal distribution is that male/female can exist on either extremity of the graph, all be it with less common in traits than those in the modal peaks
The bimodal distribution of various sex characteristics such as hormone count doesn't imply "some males are more male" as you quoted - that's just a fragile assumption that to be more male you need to have more of these traits
@Josh the Art Critic yes modes show trends not absolutes, so you can lack many the modal characteristics of being male such as height, muscle mass, beard, androgen levels, and still be genetically male. Or you can not be genetically male but have lots of the characteristics such as beards, genitals and hormone levels more common in men. Humans are not just strict boxes.
@Josh the Art Critic with bell style distributions the upper and lower quartiles typically represent less than 3% of the data set BUT THEY STILL EXIST all be it rare.
I.e. Bearded women, men with low testosterone levels or androgen insensitivity. Short men with high testosterone. Tall men with high estrogen levels.
yeah i agree, the judgements he made about men being less where just judgements. He imposed a judgement into the data
@Josh the Art Critic you misunderstand. You think because the data is exploring a distinction that the groups are exclusive. But theyre not bipolar, they're biMODAL. They show whats common within the groups that have been labelled and most importantly they show that the commonalities aren't absolute within the groups. I for example am intersex. Across the different sets being studied, from hormones to height, i would mode differently everytime if i were placed in either category . Biological sex really isnt as simple as XX XY. It's actually defined by a large collection of genetic AND physical characteristics which biologically don't need to match up with what's common. Thats not to say that non-intersex people can't also share less common traits in their categories. And the ≈2% of us who are intersex dont need to be in the upper, lower and central minima (the lowest extremities.) Across some facets of the very diverse set of sex characteristics many us will even peak some modes. Bimodal distributions dont show an absolute polarity nor do they suggest it. They show a skewing the data set that 97% share a majority of their of traits with each other, nut not completely. This is the raw statistics of bell distributions as a mathematical axiom. 3/100 people across all the data sets to be completely outside the modal quartiles is ALOT of people all be it a minority. And in specific data sets like hormones or height the variation is even greater You cant just apply other examples of this data presentation method being used in other utterly unrelated studies. Two types of grain from different plants?? Ants?? That's like comparing bar charts on stars and fruit simply because they're both bar charts.
Thank you for your information! I’m so disappointed by how intersex individuals are stigmatized and neglected by the society, even medical personnel kinda force (parents) intersex infants to choose the traditional biological sex and get surgery. It is time to normalize intersex, just like left-handedness or heterochromia eyes.
>less than 0.1% of the world population is intersex, it is a rare medical condition (and it is a medical condition)
>raising the child without any particular gender in mind usually leads to more confusion and dysphoria for the child
>heterochromia and left-handedness don't affect daily life.
@@AlquimistEd what are your sources for your second point? What would "raising the child with a particular gender in mind" entail?
@@aigerimsam3523 treating the child as a boy or a girl.
@@AlquimistEd how about letting the child choose especially if they are transgender
As it ever was, XX produces a female, XY produces a male. And regardless of how many Xs there are, XXX or even XXXX it will still be female. And regardless of how many Ys there are, XY, XYY, XYYY it will still be mail. And in extremely rare cases of XX males the SRY gene is carried on one of the chromosomes, usually the shorter, as a result of something gone awry in the testes during spermatogenesis; it will still cause the cascade effects that produce the male with the male candle ridge developing and a female canal ridge withering. Awed as am at your doctorate in Doctorthingology from the medical school of Madeupby U, I am pulling rank on you; I am captain of the starship Enterprise. Give me a snappy salute and get your butt off my bridge, “Doctor”. 😄
Thank you for your clarity. Will your book be coming out in Kindle? I do hope so.
Holy fuck. This idiot is writing a book?
@@dgoldman0 go back to your ecochamber and don't come back out the real world
@@theraptor3485 that's you, bro. Try to understand basic statistics and probability theory before vomiting any more b.s.
@@dgoldman0 it ok many people are and will die alone, just like you. There no need to be Angy and even less need to do bad thing with that anger.
@@theraptor3485 bro, learn science. It's not just something you use in school. It applies to the real world. That's the point.
Bi modal is a reference to the modal averages on a normal distribution. Normal distributions only work with continous variables (measurable in decimals). Whereas, sex is a discontinuous/ discrete categoric variable (non numerical) and cannot be represented on a normal distribution because it is binary.
@jinti !! you are referring to secondary sex characteristics, the physiological ones developed after natural puberty.
Primary sex characteristics refer to the physiology at birth. Biological sex is determined whether you have the reproductive system to support egg development (female) or sperm development (male).
Secondary sex characteristics are in many cases a normal distribution like height, waist to hip ratio, hand size, mass etc BUT the modal frequency would be larger for males than females in each of those distributions because the male SEX (primary sex characteristic) is a discrete category compared with the female sex (primary secondary sex characteristic), so secondary sex characterstics are bimodal.
People with DSDs (intersex) are still male OR female not a 3rd sex and would also have a variation of secondary sex characteristics which cross over more than typically BUT just like with any other human being they will have EITHER fully formed ovaries OR testes NOT both! Therefore male or female.
This should have 10M views but bullshit like "sex is oppressive" goes viral nowadays
I'm not entirely clear on the logic for the arguments being put forth here and I think more specificity is needed. There's a lot of equivocation which takes place within the video, such as when you state that: "most of these infants are unambiguously male or female (4:34)." What are the specific attributes which make these intersex people unambiguously male or female? And when these attributes are met, why should these definitional categories be used for them?
Further, there's not a clear argument you've put forth as to "why" we "should" define sex as binary. Could the premises, evidence, and conclusion for this be clearly laid out as to why it should be defined this way? Is it for purposes of pragmatism, consequential factors for society, etc.? As is, the video appears to say, here are the definitions of sex according to these sources, but even the sources (at least the ones I can find anyway) fail to provide the reasoning as to why we should define sex as binary.
And I think more clarity also should be provided regarding there only being a binary which is based on the gametes. For example, if you want to define male and female as XY and XX, respectively, then could you provide why we should define it this way? And you should also consider how you'd address the various different combinations of these such as XYY, XXY, etc. as these would not meet the XY and XX requirement.
Also, what was the point of the other sources besides #1? The vast majority of your content in the video was from this twitter thread source of Colin Wright (threadreaderapp.com/thread/1233299010456174593.html).
Sex is binary because humans are a sexually dimorphic species. Humans develop to be able to instinctively recognise someone's sex. The whole purpose of having a sex is to fulfill a biological role. If you can't fulfill that role in any way, you're no less male or female than others who can fulfill that role. Seeing sex as binary is important because it's the most pragmatic, reasonable approach. If we see every human as having his own individual sex, we are going to stagger the development of biology
@@charlene2459 So essentially if I were to break down the argument put forward (please correct if improperly done):
*Conclusion:*
Seeing sex as binary "should" be done because it's the most pragmatic, reasonable approach (reworded slightly to steel-man the argument)
*Reasoning:*
1. The whole purpose of having a sex is to fulfill a biological role.
2. If you can't fulfill that role in any way, you're no less male or female than others who can fulfill that role.
3. If we see every human as having his own individual sex, we are going to stagger the development of biology
*Evidence:*
- Sex is binary because humans are a sexually dimorphic species.
Overall, you did a good job giving clear and concise descriptive and prescriptive claims, well done :)! However, there are a few criticisms you'll encounter with your line of argumentation:
*Conclusion Critique:*
While pragmatism can have usefulness and reasonableness, where we draw the lines from a definitional standpoint is subjective and socially constructed. Others would argue there are meaningful differences between male, female, and intersex individuals' reproductive systems and that we should identify these cases as a sex outside the binary to precisely represent biological reality. The argument can then be made that intersex people are by definition a different sex because they can have notably different reproductive systems than the standard binary (i.e. people with a vagina and internal testes, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, etc.). In their eyes, the further differentiation would thus still provide pragmatism and utility by providing an accurate and complete picture of human biology.
Note: Even further differentiation can be done than this to an infinite degree depending on the attributes selected and the level of precision desired, I was just providing an example argument above.
*Reasoning Critique:*
1. The purpose of having a sex from a biological imperative standpoint is to reproduce, but this doesn't necessitate that sex "should" be to reproduce. Further substantiation would be needed here.
2. This primarily depends on where we decide to draw the lines between male and female and the reasoning for those lines. If the appropriate arguments are made, definitions should be updated.
3. This assumes the development of human biology and expansion of our species "should" be our purpose. In order for this to be true, further substantiation is needed. And we'd also need evidence/reasoning to demonstrate this, as my best faith research and reasoning couldn't find anything to demonstrate a slippery slope for human biological development.
*Evidence Critique:*
- Others may argue that the evidence provided is indeed accurate, but it's not a complete picture, thus the need for more precision in identification of other sexes.
@@theheretic7013 intersex isn't a third sex. In every single intersex individual, there is obvious male or female development. People with Swyer Syndrome have male chromosomes but they develop as female. Everything about them except their chromosomes is female.
thank you lol this video is wack. and what about genetic mosaicism? he doesnt even mention it.
@@theheretic7013 intersex people don't have a notably different reproductive system though. To argue this, you would need to argue that they produce an entirely different gamete other then that of the typical sperm or egg, and that they would have a completely different design or reproductive anatomy. You would need to argue that their reproductive system is entirely self sufficient. The most severe cases of dsd have fertility issues, while ones that are less severe can procreate cus again they are able produce either sperm or egg.
Most of these graphs are not bimodal, you have defined two binary categories and shown each is monomodal and have different modes. The graphs also overlay in such a way that combining them produces another graph which is monomodal. What am I missing here?
I was gonna say, the graphs of height and voice pitch were two graphs laid over each other, whereas the graph of sex characteristics is one thing. If you graph the height of all adults (like how the graph of sex characteristics is for all people), you would have one mound, not two. The reason two mounds show up in his graph is because he already categorized the data, instead of allowing the data to inform categories.
Sex CAN ONLY be a binary (unless reproduction suddenly, drastically changes).
Deformities =/= "a sex". Biology doesn't give out participation trophies, where SIMPLY EXISTING creates "a 27th sex", tailor-defined to fit your individual chromosomal disorders, primary and secondary sexual traits, feelings-based "gender" self-ID, and what colour your mood-ring is on the day.
Definitions have always been (by necessity) based on HEALTHY, TYPICAL, (potentially) REPRODUCYIVE members of whatever species. And HEALTHY, REPRODUCTIVE humans (and mammals overall... And the vast majority of vertibrates... And even most insects, and many plants) are ALL either 100% male, or 100% female.
Find me a human, who has anything EXCEPT one male biological parent, and one female, and THEN stuff like "sex is a spectrum" and "binodal distributions" MAY stop being laughable cope.
(And I mean a "naturally concieved" birth- Deliberate, artificial intervention doesn't alter defintions of NATURAL catagories; The fact we can artificially gene-splice jellyfish DNA into rabbits, doesn't require "rabbit" to be re-defined, to include luminous fur.)
Desperate, agenda-motivated cope about "non-reproductive people exist, therefore definitions of sex are somehow separate from reproduction!!!" makes about as much sense as arguing "amputees exist, therefore any description of human anatomy that includes limbs, is A LIE!!!"
My God reading all that yapping was hard.
There is male and female phenotypes, but there are people born biologically between including genitalia as DSDs. Although they are abnormal intersex people are still people with hearts and soles that matter.
Also there are lesbians who've had eggs transferred into another woman with sperm donation, and although yes there is a sperm donation it's technically a three-parent child because they're born in the other Mom with the first's egg.
Also gender and species is not the same, men and women are still human.
I could go more into trans people, but clearly there's not a whole lot that you can understand. I'm sure that you won't even want to read any of this with the clear display of mass inside of your cranium along with how triggered you are.
Thank you!!!!
Do you intend to subtitle the videos to other languages such as Portuguese (Brazil)? Seriously, your content needs to reach more people.
It's not information, it's almost entirely false. Basic reasoning should be enough to let you know that. For example, how can you tell someone's sex by looking at them? What happens if someone takes anabolic steroids? He even lists the various metrics by which we distinguish phenotypic expression of sex. even a child can understand that male and female have variations within each category.
@@makeshift2105 again, just because humans can identify individuals who are within 2 standard deviations of the bimodal peaks does not support your case lol. there is no way to determine genetic sex without looking at the genetics. it's in the name. phenotypic sex is another story. I'm also sure I've told you that exact explanation at least five times in our previous conversations, so I'm not sure why you keep repeating yourself.
@@makeshift2105 as always you intentionally miss the point which is that sex and sex expression is on a continuum. chromosomes are bimodal as cells deactivate chromosomes and gene expression is affected by epigenetics. There's definitely less variation in the genetics, but there are still a very large number of mutations and intracellular interactions. If you had spent any of your time away actually learning something, you'd know this by now.
@@makeshift2105 There is, actually, as gametogenesis is not the sole basis of sex. I've explained this to you already. I've cited half a dozen papers and two textbooks. if you have a problem with the science, you'll have to provide scientific counter-evidence, kid.
@@makeshift2105 "Once again, your definition isn't the one widely used." my definition is widely used.. it's the scientific definition... your bigotry is not based on science and it's silly for you to think you can convince scientists without providing any evidence lol
"and genes" literally one gene determines sex in humans.
If you can somehow show that gametogenic tissue can develop without a common stem cell, that would basically support your claim. unfortunately for you, sexual differentiation in humans is one of the most studied fields in human development and no amount of semantic weaseling will help you spread your disinformation.
"Ok, so humans can dye their hair pink, therefore pink hair color is a phenotype that occurs in humans?" if you have evidence that the behavior of dying one's hair pink has an epigenetic effect, sure. I haven't seen any evidence for that, though.
Unfortunately this doesn't really seem to answer the question here. In order to determine sex we need to identify the variables necessary for one to fall into a sex category. If we dig into the the variables and parse out which are necessary for sex we could go from there but otherwise, this doesn't tell us anything.
Genitals are usually sufficient, and if not then you've got chromosomes. These are enough to determine the strictly biological sex at least
He mentioned that at the beginning. The gametes that determine your reproductive system, whether your body produces sperm or ova.
anatomy for the production of either sperm or ova is what determines someones sex, its the most obvious thing ever... everyone was born from the combination of sperm and ova (produced by a male and a female respectively)... 49.9% of unambigoulsy male, and 49.9% of unambiguously females, with just 0.02% of intersex disorders is definetly not a spectrum.
the ideologues use general genetics and body types between the sexes to pretend sex is bimodal, but this is just fallacious at best and manipulative at worst.
This video is outstanding. I’ve had This exact discussion in comments at least 13 times . I always bring up these same points, but you’ve comprehensively presented them, with quotes from experts, and great graphics. Thank you
SRY gene is the key.
no
Thank you, this is very clear and well presented.
I don't think he really address the subject my friend.
A sad point, Intersex people are part of the pure sex binary. In very rare cases, these folks have ambiguous genitalia. In these rare cases, sex determination is based on genes and/or ultrasounds. Intersex people are part of the male/female binary.
You're incredible man. Thank you so much for your videos. I'm ordering your book as soon as the corona stim money gets deposited into my account lmao
Ocen Okean so glad you appreciate this content! And thank you for your interest in my book. If you ever have any questions for me, you can find me on Twitter (@zaelefty).
I’ve watched two of your videos (so far) and I like how you’ve explained things...have you addressed hermaphroditism in a video yet? How does that affect/change your explanations of binary sex categorization?
Not yet, but hermaphroditism would be a good topic to make a video about! True hermaphrodites don't exist in humans, but if they did, it would simply mean that they have both male and female functions in one body (the male function produces sperm and the female function produces ova), and thus, they would be both male and female at the same time. This is still a binary system because there is not a third reproductive function, but rather two systems existing in one organism.
@@ParadoxInstitute they do exist. journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/8756479302239553
@@dgoldman0 and they are also incredibly rare, 'accounting for less than 10% of all intersex cases'. And like zac has stated, true hermaphroditism does not a new sex make. In fact, DSD's prove the binary nature of human sexual reproduction. In true hermaphroditic phenotypic males, reproduction is almost impossible, however this still makes them male as their bodies develop towards the production of small gametes. There have been cases recorded of true hermaphroditism in phenotypic females who have successfully given birth, however this is also rare (yet possible) as people with this condition have developed towards the production of large gametes, meaning their gonadic function is largely tied to the female reproductice role. In any case, both sets of functioning gonads would need to be present and fully functioning (meaning self fertilisation would be possible) in many more cases for this to be statistically meaningful. The article doesn't mention self fertilisation, nor does it affirm the idea that true hermaphrodites are considered a third sex.
@@Raziel433 it does not matter how rare they are. If you understood the difference between a general bimodal distribution and a binary distribution, you would know that an outlier cannot exist, by definition, in a binary system. You would also know that bimodal means TWO modes. It does not require that there be a third of anything. That would be TRI-modal.
The problem is that neither of you seem to understand basic mathematics. And you can't understand science without understanding mathematics.
@@dgoldman0 they're not really functional though. From what I read in the paper you provided there was ovarian tissue and testicular tissue, but that isn't really a functional female reproductive system. The definition we use for true hermaphrodite humans, from what I understood, is already different from hermaphrodite in other animals like snails.
The bimodal frequency distribution is a representation of how the sex determination system actually works. Not how your ideological biases imagine it works. Intersex conditions, Swyer and De LaChapelle Syndromes give an indication of the underlying mechanisms of sex determination.
i think this misses the point in that sex being bimodal shows that YES male and female traits that are often associated with sex have an average, but one which may deviate in one way or another; and i think this point is missed when people say sex is binary, where its implied that there is one way to be male or female-- and mind you, being male or female in a way that deviates from the average doesnt mean it should be categorized as 'more male' or 'more female.' i think within this set of people, there will be those whose traits maybe lean towards the opposite sex while being as male as is relevant (like i dont think were gonna test everything from their chromosomes to their brain's grey matter) as with a male who has some 'female traits' of being shorter, smaller, with big hips, and a higher voice, but then there are also those who meaninfully fall outside of this norm enough for us to categorize them as being intersex (as with many more of the prevalent sex characteristics overlapping, such as genetalia, male pattern hair growth, or whatever.)
None of the traits you have mentioned define (rather than determine) what sex is.
Many people are ignorant on the topic (this apply to both sides) and look at the problem only from a superficial level or enough to back-up some of their claims or ideas.
XX and XY are not the reason why we have the concept of Sex or why we divide in male and female. If in humans we would have hypothetically a more complex sex determination system as a standard evolutionary tendency, like:
WY===>Females WX===>Females XX===>Females
YY ===>Males XY ===>Males
The number of sexes would still be 2. The fact that there are 5+ possible chromosomical combinations doesn't mean there are 5+ sexes (notice that this is an actual sex determining system of the platyfish + you can also check Haplodiploidy). Some animals don't even have sex chromosomes and their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubated egg(ex. Croccodiles)...despite that we can still distinguish between the males and the females of that species.
To make you understand what sex is, you have to see sex as an emergent property. Sex is a category of biological systems organizzed towards the tendency to favour the potential production of a specific type of gametes (in this case we tend to divide between the common bigger and smaller gametes, in our case sperm and ova; this systems influence reproductive roles). Yes, this include young males and old females as they still have a verifiable system organizzed towards the production of ova or sperm (hence why some diagnosis are massively different on the basis of such fact; an infertile woman that produce 400 ng/dl will be a remarkable cause of concern compared to an infertile male with the same T production). Even the combination of the 2 sexes would still not be a new sex, as to be as such a new sex would require the production of a gamete that is completely different in function from the other 2 so much so to determine even an entire new reproductive role. Intersex are ambiguous cases, but they also have a stronger tendency toward one of the two sexes (even when it comes to "True Intersex" conditions), meaning that they are a form of variation of the 2 systems. In humans, male and female reproductive systems are antagonist of each others: one stop the functional development of the other (See "True Hermaphrodism" in humans - which, as far as historical data goes, is not actually a fully functional form of Hermaphrodism - where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue). We associate certain set of chromosomes, endocrinology, genitalia and other sexually dymorphic traits to a sex, because they are typical of a male or female system relative to our species due to evolutionary reasons. This still doesn't mean that having a female with a male endocrinological sex is a new sex: if anything this conflict between sex and endocrinological sex actually give us information of a potential malicious event. If it is not malicious, then you are a female with a male endocrinological sex, like others Female Animals that would have a Male endocrinological sex relative to us (see Moles).
Even if we consider certain DSD people neither Male or Female, still doesn't mean that such people are a new sex. Not fitting into the criteria of something doesn't necessary mean you are a new category of that classification. If Sex is defined by a system related to gametic production, In the hypothetical case that you have 0 biomarkers or traits relative to such criteria and thus you are a completely neutral being, the equivalence SEX=male,female,intersex it will still be misleading, as intersex people are not equal to a SEX (thus the equivalence would be SEX=Male,Female, hence the definition of sex you can see on biologyonline. com)
Yes, a bimodal distrubuition would imply that you are less male in respect of something as you are saying that those traits define how male you are (ignoring that all such traits you gonna pick are inheritly antropocentric, thus inconsistent in many other taxa). If people are not less of a "male" for having less of a typical phenotypical trait or less of a "female" for the same reason, then you can only be a male or a female...a binary.
Thank you for my Ted Talk.
Your presentations are excellent, and whoever does your graphics does an excellent job.
except he's totally wrong lol.
@@snowballeffect7812 LolLLOLOLLoooL
@@TearTheRoof0ff he cites literally no science, since all of it contradicts his politically-motivated position. the dose effect has been described and understood for over a century lol.
@@snowballeffect7812 Absolutely.
@@TearTheRoof0ff gg no re
Another brilliantly presented (and very timely) video.
A sad point, Intersex people are part of the pure sex binary. In very rare cases, these folks have ambiguous genitalia. In these rare cases, sex determination is based on genes and/or ultrasounds. Intersex people are part of the male/female binary.
we have moved on from being limited to a reductionist boolean value in reproductive categorization a while ago in scientific literature pertaining to humans. adding data granularity specific to things like chromsomes, hormone levels, primary/secondary characteristics leads to more accurate regression and analysis, with reproductive role still being deducible (including the null state, which is not captured in the occidental understanding based on English etymology found in the video). the English word "sex" and "gender" are closest to matching the set relationships described in language agnostic ethnography and medicine, hence why they are used
seems OP built a channel advocating for lower quality data based on a reactionary and ethnocentric stance rather than any objective use case
None of those things are sex. Binary doesn’t mean boolean logic. Most of what you said is gibberish. Ethnocentric? I’m sorry, did you think evolutionary reproductive roles were ethnicity specific?
You’re making a categorical error by confusing variables. You can’t say variable X is _____ because variable Y, which is not X is _____.
I am -0.74 on the bimodal distribution
Saying that intersex people aren't female or male is actually very offensive.
It’s only offensive because people think of it as a binary. If sex characteristics were to be collapsed to a single "sex" bimodal metric (maybe 2-tuple of male/female percentile values), then it'd be just as height, the offensive part comes from idiots saying women shouldn't be tall or men shouldn't be short but not from the categorization itself because it is indeed accurate.
And way more useful for biological categorization than just doing the binary sex thing and having to defer to the physical attributes to derive any useful data for, say, medical purposes.
This has been my exact issue when discussing gender discourse. If we compare sexuality with sex we can see sexuality is a clear spectrum and people can fall anywhere between gay and straight, and it reflects their behavior and what they tend to find attractive. But with sex we can only plot results out in a few concrete outcomes. If there were a Kinsey scale for biological sex what would a 2 or a 6 look like? We have no language or examples to describe that.
nah some people change. and then you get aborosexuals
I do view sex as bimodal, but I'm not a scholar perhaps I'm using the words wrong. When I say that I mean it like... The statement "only women have breasts" is factually wrong because there are women without breast tissue and men with breast tissue, though if you take a hundred men and a hundred women and you compare their chests you'll find that over 95 percent (random high number) of the women have breast tissue where men don't.
By no means do I think that a woman without breast tissue is less of a woman.
Sex is not bimodal. Reply if you want to discuss.
@@Dr.Ian-Plect yes I do!
@@MrBloodcore Your reasoning is based upon criteria such as breasts. Breasts are a secondary sex trait, characteristics that develop as the individual matures. Primary sex traits are those characteristics that play a role in sexual reproduction, including gamete production (sperm and eggs). Namely testes, penises, vaginas etc.
Now, what _defines_ sex in biology, what allows accurate diagnosis of what reproductive role an animal will have, is gamete type produced. Not breasts or facial hair. Not chromosomes, hormones etc.
There are just TWO gamete types; small, mobile sperm, and large, immobile eggs. No third type is known to exist, and even in the case of an organism producing both, that still doesn't form a third category, because there is still just those 2 gamete types being produced.
Read much more detail here 'Biological sex is binary, even though there is a rainbow of sex roles' (I can't put a link here as it typically gets the comment deleted), just look it up online.
- that is a published scientific paper discussing this subject, and explaining the importance of defining sex by gametes. Please read it and reply...
@@Dr.Ian-Plect The difficulty in responding to older comments when it comes to this gender nonsense lies in that every once in a while I'm exploring different angles to make sense of the madness I'm seeing.
What I was probably aiming at was explaining how I observe someone's sex rather than what it factually is. though it's almost impossible to explain how exactly without writing an entire novel we humans are very good in recognizing what someone's sex is without doing a test to determine what someone's gamete type is.
Are you an actual doctor or do you just call yourself that?
@@MrBloodcore Yes, we all look at secondary sex traits to determine a person's sex, but they don't define sex.
I'm a PhD zoologist.
well done! but those that are capable of critical thinking knew this all along.
Yeah, that's not smug or arrogant at all.
@@13strong What could be more arrogant than calling someone arrogant, the epitome of projection.
@@AynRose 😂
@@13strong Nothing wrong with being smug or arrogant when one side keeps shouting that their position is correct when it clearly isn't. For example...those Flat Earthers proudly say that the Earth is flat and they think that they are right...but we people who know that the Earth is spherical can be smug and arrogant about the fact that we are right and Flat Earthers will always be wrong.
this video helped understand an awful lot much better. Helps when someone takes a realistic view using evidence like this
what evidence?
@@christinaisakoglou4427 Mathematical evidence. By the inherent nature of a bimodal distribution, those who fall further to the extremes are more of the indicated category than others of the other extreme. For example, if you have a trait like height measured between Giraffes and Elephants, you will find some elephants as tall as short giraffes and some giraffes as short as very tall elephants. But that doesn’t mean that the taller giraffe is more “giraffe-y” than a short giraffe. Nor that a shorter elephant is more elephant than a taller elephant. This also doesn’t mean there’s a bimodal distribution of Giraffe-ness to Elephant-ness within the two species simply because the measured trait height crosses over. Elephant and Giraffe are two binary categories within the comparison. An elephant never becomes a giraffe even if it shares traits with a giraffe like height, and vice versa. There is no inter-Giraffe-elephant hybrid based on height. You are either measuring the height of a giraffe or an elephant. Binary. Two categories.
Using the same logic on sex traits as opposed to the actual definition of sex, sure there are some men with feminine traits and some women with masculine traits. But unless you can magically switch the gametes you were born to produce, your sex is either big gamete or small gamete. Man or woman. Not middle ground. Just a lot of variation in the package it comes in.
@@kimmiewise1044 No, that's not what it means. The video misrepresents the reality a bit. Sex being bimodal means that the determination of sex relies on a bunch of different characteristics, not just reproduction, or XX and XY, hence you get a spectrum. The fact that the "you're more female or more male in the extremes" sounds stupid is because it is forcing the bimodal distribution into a binary one. Assuming that there are only two "real ones" plus some other variants... Which is not the case.
@@skyteus I don't think you understand what "bimodal" means. It means literally "two modes," meaning a univariate Gaussian mixture with two peaks at different places along the x-axis.
Nobody is arguing that there isn't variation in characteristics within and between males and females. The key point of the video is that individual bimodally distributed traits doesn't necessarily mean "sex" itself is bimodal as it isn't a quantitative class with a possibility for someone to be more or less male/female than another person in a metric sense.
@@kimmiewise1044 he does not use mathematical evidence, some of his conclusions are falsely drawn making me question the statistics classes he took in university
A quote from one evolutionary biologist is not proof. Do we know what reference is used to support what claim? That numbering system is useless if you don't show when you use a reference.
Male B here 😩
these videos are just perfect. thank you.
Sex may be binary, but the physical characteristics and expressions are not. Diversity within sex chromosomes though rare and/or genetic mutations that are outliers can't be overlooked and further proves that chromosomes, and gender are very separate. The two only relate when we apply sex to social categories.
I'm aware that the topic is covering sex not gender, but it is an interesting point to bring up especially given the climate. Also how is sex not bimodal when there is XX males syndrome and XY Females such as Swyer syndrome. They do exist somewhere in an overlap.
@@bigtoeflip One can tell you are new to the channel. He made thousands of videos about it and he have address all such arguments by giving also the sources. By i will made this comment to answer your last question around the bimodality of sex.
I will summarize it for you.
Many people are ignorant on the topic (this apply to both sides) and look at the problem only from a superficial level or enough to back-up some of their claims or ideas.
XX and XY are not the reason why we have the concept of Sex or why we divide in male and female. If in humans we would have hypothetically a more complex sex determination system as a standard evolutionary tendency, like:
WY===>Females WX===>Females XX===>Females
YY ===>Males XY ===>Males
The number of sexes would still be 2. The fact that there are 5+ possible chromosomical combinations doesn't mean there are 5+ sexes (notice that this is an actual sex determining system of the platyfish + you can also check Haplodiploidy). Some animals don't even have sex chromosomes and their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubated egg(ex. Croccodiles)...despite that we can still distinguish between the males and the females of that species.
To make you understand what sex is, you have to see sex as an emergent property. Sex is a category of biological systems organizzed towards the tendency to favour the potential production of a specific type of gametes (in this case we tend to divide between the common bigger and smaller gametes, in our case sperm and ova; this systems influence reproductive roles). Yes, this include young males and old females as they still have a verifiable system organizzed towards the production of ova or sperm (hence why some diagnosis are massively different on the basis of such fact; an infertile woman that produce 400 ng/dl will be a remarkable cause of concern compared to an infertile male with the same T production). Even the combination of the 2 sexes would still not be a new sex, as to be as such a new sex would require the production of a gamete that is completely different in function from the other 2 so much so to determine even an entire new reproductive role. Intersex are ambiguous cases, but they also have a stronger tendency toward one of the two sexes (even when it comes to "True Intersex" conditions), meaning that they are a form of variation of the 2 systems. In humans, male and female reproductive systems are antagonist of each others: one stop the functional development of the other (See "True Hermaphrodism" in humans - which, as far as historical data goes, is not actually a fully functional form of Hermaphrodism - where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue). We associate certain set of chromosomes, endocrinology, genitalia and other sexually dymorphic traits to a sex, because they are typical of a male or female system relative to our species due to evolutionary reasons. This still doesn't mean that having a female with a male endocrinological sex is a new sex: if anything this conflict between sex and endocrinological sex actually give us information of a potential malicious event. If it is not malicious, then you are a female with a male endocrinological sex, like others Female Animals that would have a Male endocrinological sex relative to us (see Moles).
Even if we consider certain DSD people neither Male or Female, still doesn't mean that such people are a new sex. Not fitting into the criteria of something doesn't necessary mean you are a new category of that classification. If Sex is defined by a system related to gametic production, In the hypothetical case that you have 0 biomarkers or traits relative to such criteria and thus you are a completely neutral being, the equivalence SEX=male,female,intersex it will still be misleading, as intersex people are not equal to a SEX (thus the equivalence would be SEX=Male,Female, hence the definition of sex you can see on biologyonline. com).
Yes, a bimodal distrubuition would imply that you are less male in respect of something since you would be saying that those traits define how male you are. If people are not less of a "male" for having less of a typical phenotypical trait or less of a "female" for the same reason, then you can only be a male or a female...a binary.
Thank you for my Ted Talk.
Right, some sex characteristics (height, hormone levels etc) are bimodally distributed. But sex classification itself is not.
There is a difference between gametes and zygotes as a category of sex (which is binary) and sex based characteristics, which also determine biological sex, like a uterus, testicals, hormone distribution genes etc. That’s why it‘s valid to talk in evolutionary biology about a binary, because in evolutionary biology all that counts is human procreation. In other fields of human biology it‘s not, in medicine that‘s fatal. And no a bimodal distribution of sex is not inherently judgemental. The question about „who is more a man“ is a social one ☝️. A bimodal distribution of sex is not a competition my dude.
For anyone who believes in the bimodel scale can you answer these questions for me.
1. Do you believe their are only 2 sexes (male and female)
2. Even in the rare cases of chromosomes mix up’s like XXY do you still believe those people with those conditions are still male or female
Not "believing" here, because that's bad science, but I'm considering it.
1. I'm exactly considering it because it displaces the strictly binary paradigm on biological sex, which does not fully stands on scientific evidence and for many, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, does not account for intersex people (which is estimated at 1.1±0.9%; that's around 88 million people in 2022), even if some could argue that they present a mix of male and female characteristics. Short answer: on pure genetics yes, on physiological grounds kinda yes, but on hormonal and anatomical grounds no. Shorter answer: no.
2. They are a challenge in medicine, specially in the fields of urology, endocrinology and reproductive health, to the point that each case is almost unique and individual. They are often assigned a gender at birth, even surgically, very frequently and even by pressuring the parents to chose one or the other, because the legal frameworks of multiple countries (through birth certificates) is outdated and insufficient. On the best cases the sex assignment surgery is done purely with the well-being of the infant in mind so as they don't have urinary or other health problems, but there's often a bias in the doctors' choice (it's easier to make a vagina than a penis). Short answer: depends on how much the anatomy and phisiology of the person is male-like or female-like. Very frequently it's neither; too hermaphroditic like or too undifferentiated. Shorter answer: no. We probably need an "unassigned" category in birth certificates. Easily amended with gender reassignment legal procedures, which are largely a norm in the western now.
@@rodylermglez so you believe there are only 2 sex’s male and female
@@megamillion2461 Did you even read? Tldr was no!
Male, female, intersex. Those three options should be in birth certificates going by scientific grounds. It should also read "sex", not "gender", because if it reads gender it's only telling me "this baby will be raised like a boy/girl" but not their condition at birth.
@@rodylermglez hmm did you see the video the person on this channel made about intersex people
@@rodylermglez
"Intersex" is not a 3rd sex.
>sex is binary, defined by the two, and only two, types of gametes that bodies can be structured for
Except science does not define sex solely by gamete types. It is also defined by internal and external genitalia, chromosones, and hormone levels. Intersex people's bodies are not necessarily "structured for" the type of gamete they produce. For example an intersex person with AIS might have a vulva and a vagina but have testes and a uterus. A person with Swyer syndrome could have no gonads *at all* while still having a uterus.
First of all it's not "science" it's biology that defines the sexes. And yes it does define it by the production of the gametes.
@Josh the Art Critic in biology, the female is the group that is designed to produce the large egg and the male is the individual that produces the smaller sperm in species that reproduce sexually. In humans females are girls and women and males are boys and men. The adults are the sexually mature males and females. Man and woman are biological terms. This is basic biology, no sources stated because for millions of years humans and our primate ancestors knew who was an adult male and female in order to reproduce and continue the species
@Josh the Art Critic yes, i know, thats what i said, because i am a biologist just clarifying for any who may read this thread of posts
@Josh the Art Critic
Seems you may both be wrong to each other, since you both seem to be speaking about very different things but unfortunately using the same words...
Checked your references, which have nothing to do with the point made by Agunatak.
As an intersex person, I may tell you that we do exist. I'm actually typing these words. Most of the intersex persons do not fit within the categories, aka binary sex, used to describe the biology of sexual reproduction. In this narrative, intersex people do not exist. But this is a narrative, and a useful one - but it is not the real world. Which doesn't mean that these categories are not valid for the job of describing sexual reproduction: but they defenitely are not pertinent to fully describe the variety of individuals who really exist, and live their lives in our society - thus, neither are these categories enough to organise a society too, even if, once again, they are defenitely useful.
Because sure we are biology, but not only biology, and our lives do not reduce to sexual reproduction.
The problem rises when we forget the multiplicity of uses and definitions we have, the multiples concepts that may inhabit a single word.
@@jayjee735 Your language is sloppy. Note that you wrote one sex is "designed to produce," particular gametes while the other "produces," particular gametes.
Also, for millions of years humans and our primates ancestors spent a lot of effort attempting to reproduce with those who weren't an adult male/female (whichever you would consider opposed for a particular individual). This is specifically because they could not tell who was or was not sexually mature and/or male/female purely by looking at the outside of a person's genitalia. This doesn't go away just because the incorrect guesses about compatibility and maturity failed to produce offspring.
Ok so what I’m hear is sex is binary but people characteristics (like hair, muscle mass, body hair, and so so) are bimodel
No, sex is a bimodal distribution comprised of many characteristics
@@skyteus It is controversial because your approach does not have any taxonomic value (expecially since it is inherently antroprocentric and many female animals may result to be basically "males" under your standard), meaning it will be intrinsicly arbitrary and a social construct as much as it is race (currently, for scientist race does not have any taxonomic value).
This without saying that you putting a person in one point of the bimodal distribuition rather than another will be also completely arbitrary as it will depend on how many traits you measure of a person and how many biomarkers you gonna consider (is a short woman more woman than a taller one?).
So saying it is a "scientifical definition" would be specious.
Even your average in the bimodal distribuition will mean nothing as you will have extreme variation also there if you give each trait the same value and insert there Women that are very Tall but produce a lot of extrogens, or women that are very short but are physically stronger or have XY chromosomes.
Notice that one of the most important variables that define where a person place on your graph will be if it have a system that favour the potential production of sperm or ova.
At this point, if all of them are women, you may as well use the normal classic classification and that's it.
But i need to make you some questions so you can see my point.
What determine if a trait is sex related or not?
Why an animal is male or female in the first place and how these constructs are different from other non-sex related classifications?
Second of all, are there traits that count more than others when putting people inside the spectrum? If so, why?
This makes intuitive sense, but what then is the sex of a person who never had either gamete? How do we determine the sex category in this case? Can a human be neither male nor female? Does such a person not have a sex?
Developmental biologists describe sex category not by the ability for one to produce sperm or eggs, but rather, the anatomy you have to support the production of small or large gametes. Males develop towards the production of small gametes; females develop towards the production of large gametes. You do not have to be able to produce the gamete in order to have a sex. Your sex affects many things about you, including skeletal structure, brain structure, how genes express themselves, and much more all without you being able to produce sperm or eggs.
@@ParadoxInstitute So it looks like bodily teleology makes the difference here (i.e., anatomical form determines sex function/purpose which then determines sex). And that's where things get muddy, at least to my understanding. If a person's anatomical "architecture" (as opposed to just gametes) is what determines their sex category, what are the parts of that anatomical architecture? The video mentions that a cancer patient losing his testes doesn't make him any less male. From this, can we infer that gonads don't determine sex category? (If so, then what else could determine SC if not gonads? And at this point, aren't we kinda picking and choosing anatomical parts to make SC, which seems to support the sex-spectrum/bimodal position?) Or is it the case that gonads do determine SC as long as the person had their gonads at one point in time (which would explain why the male cancer patient is still male even after losing his testes)? If it does come down to gonads, how do we make sense of a case where a person might have both female and male gonads and doesn't produce gametes? Or a case where a person never had any gonads at all? If it is the case that neither gonads nor chromosomes alone determines SC, then what is sex tethered to? As you say, sex (assuming the bodily-purpose definition stated above) affects many biological variables (skeletal structure, brain structure, gene expression, etc.), and given that brain structure is one of them, how are we to make sense of the few studies that found that the trans participants in the studies showed brain activity similar to that of the gender/sex they identify with? Could advocates of the spectrum/bimodal position argue that such studies suggest that some trans people's brains could inform/relate to their sex category given that SC influences brain structure (and what's more central to the concept of identity than the brain?), making SC even more amorphous? Finally, I read Alex Byrne's paper (linked below) in which he defined sex as you do (a definition I think makes more sense than other definitions I've come across), but I remember him writing somewhere in that paper that this "developmental/purpose" definition isn't airtight or something to that effect. Maybe the reason why it's not an airtight definition of sex is because it leaves open the question of what are the developmental markers (or how can we pinpoint the biological markers that definitively tell us the type of gamete that a body intended to produce). Please forgive the mini-essay----just trying to better wrap my head around this.
Link to Byrne's paper: philpapers.org/rec/BYRAWA
@@vega7204 Thank you for the response and the paper. I downloaded it and will read through. It's true that in some ways the definition of sex can be used in different ways for different contexts. Philosophically, there's a lot of interesting thoughts to be had. I think we often get in the weeds for how to determine sex category, especially in cases of mixed gonadal tissue for example. And in such cases, it's okay if someone doesn't fit neatly into the category--to understand their development, an analysis of their developmental pathway would be needed: looking at more things than just the gonads. For most people who develop, even those who develop with DSDs, the definition of SC remains clear though.
@@ParadoxInstitute How do the sex categories remain clear if both Male and female gonads are present in a single individual which neither produce gametes? It seems to me that the argument hinges entirely on at least the potential to produce gametes of one sex category or the other in a single individual.
Hell, even if one set of gonads actually produced gametes, but the other did not, the other set would still have the potential to do so.
If gamete production, or the potential to produce gametes, is not the deciding factor, then I dont see how the conclusion asserted in this video is true.
Awesome. This should be translated into 8th grade English.
It's not the X axis it's called Twitter 😛
I love your videos!
Yeah, well done!
The problem for most woke people that I see is they're conflating male with masculine and female with feminine. It's not that the male with a deeper voice and full beard and broad shoulders etc is more male than another man with a lack of these traits, but rather he would typically be more masculine. So it's masculinity and feminity that is a spectrum, not male and female or sex.
Masculinity and femininity are sex stereotypes. What they're conflating is secondary sex characteristics with sex itself.
Sex is a Homeostatic property cluster, right?
How does this explain chromosomes, gametes, genitals, all the things we use to describe sex that intersex people completely obliterate.
They do not completely obliterate. There is a lot of mysticism around intersex people. You probably were new to the channel at the time of your comment.
Many people are ignorant on the topic (this apply to both sides) and look at the problem only from a superficial level or enough to back-up some of their claims or ideas.
XX and XY are not the reason why we have the concept of Sex or why we divide in male and female. If in humans we would have hypothetically a more complex sex determination system as a standard evolutionary tendency, like:
WY===>Females WX===>Females XX===>Females
YY ===>Males XY ===>Males
The number of sexes would still be 2. The fact that there are 5+ possible chromosomical combinations doesn't mean there are 5+ sexes (notice that this is an actual sex determining system of the platyfish + you can also check Haplodiploidy). Some animals don't even have sex chromosomes and their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubated egg(ex. Croccodiles)...despite that we can still distinguish between the males and the females of that species.
To make you understand what sex is, you have to see sex as an emergent property. Sex is a category of biological systems organizzed towards the tendency to favour the potential production of a specific type of gametes (in this case we tend to divide between the common bigger and smaller gametes, in our case sperm and ova; this systems influence reproductive roles). Yes, this include young males and old females as they still have a verifiable system organizzed towards the production of ova or sperm (hence why some diagnosis are massively different on the basis of such fact; an infertile woman that produce 400 ng/dl will be a remarkable cause of concern compared to an infertile male with the same T production). Even the combination of the 2 sexes would still not be a new sex, as to be as such a new sex would require the production of a gamete that is completely different in function from the other 2 so much so to determine even an entire new reproductive role. Intersex are ambiguous cases, but they also have a stronger tendency toward one of the two sexes (even when it comes to "True Intersex" conditions), meaning that they are a form of variation of the 2 systems. In humans, male and female reproductive systems are antagonist of each others: one stop the functional development of the other (See "True Hermaphrodism" in humans - which, as far as historical data goes, is not actually a fully functional form of Hermaphrodism - where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue). We associate certain set of chromosomes, endocrinology, genitalia and other sexually dymorphic traits to a sex, because they are typical of a male or female system relative to our species due to evolutionary reasons. This still doesn't mean that having a female with a male endocrinological sex is a new sex: if anything this conflict between sex and endocrinological sex actually give us information of a potential malicious event. If it is not malicious, then you are a female with a male endocrinological sex, like others Female Animals that would have a Male endocrinological sex relative to us (see Moles).
Even if we consider certain DSD people neither Male or Female, still doesn't mean that such people are a new sex. Not fitting into the criteria of something doesn't necessary mean you are a new category of that classification. If Sex is defined by a system related to gametic production, In the hypothetical case that you have 0 biomarkers or traits relative to such criteria and thus you are a completely neutral being, the equivalence SEX=male,female,intersex it will still be misleading, as intersex people are not equal to a SEX (thus the equivalence would be SEX=Male,Female, hence the definition of sex you can see on biologyonline. com)
Yes, a bimodal distrubuition would imply that you are less male in respect of something as you are saying that those traits define how male you are (ignoring that all such traits you gonna pick are inheritly antropocentric, thus inconsistent in many other taxa). If people are not less of a "male" for having less of a typical phenotypical trait or less of a "female" for the same reason, then you can only be a male or a female...a binary.
Thank you for my Ted Talk.
Just love how the video is plagued with bad graphs that paint a strawman (only one is properly sourced, and it's a bad example) and it ends with a fallacy.
The idea of an hyper-male, lesser-man, hyper-female, lesser woman predates the bimodal hypothesis; people have questioned other's manliness/womanhood by the size of some organs since forever. Not defending this gross over appreciation/depreciation of bodies here, but maybe that sex is "lightly bimodal" probably fed our bias in the first place.
Sex is definitionally binary, and CAN ONLY be binary (unless natural reproduction suddenly, fundamentally changes).
Illnesses, deformities and injuries (or speaking the magical spell "I identify as [X]") CAN NEVER somehow create "a third sex".
Biological definitions (across ALL life- Humans don't get special rules) MUST be based on typical, healthy, reproductive individuals- Not on the super-rare exceptions, which would make ANY kind of definition 100% impossible.
EVERY human in history has had exactly ONE female biological parent, and a male biological parent. Egg, and sperm. Nobody was ever born from any "third option", or any "mid-point".
(And no, deliberate artificial interventions don't re-define NATURAL catagories; The fact we can gene-splice jellyfish DNA into rabbits, doesn't require re-fining "rabbit" to account for luminous fur. For the same reason that the existance of false teeth doesn't require re-defining human teeth as "sometimes made of plastic".)
Of course, there's ALWAYS a cacophony of injuries, diseases, malformations, freak circumstances, etc that can potentially complicate ANY natural process... But NONE of them can ever create a third sex (however politically-convenient that may be, for some people who's religious beliefs make them deny evidence-based reality)
So, basically, sex is binary but sexual characteristics are bimodal, yes? Or did I misunderstand?
You are correct. Certain sex-related traits are bimodal, and sex is binary.
@@ParadoxInstitute Question: by bimodal sex characteristics, you're just talking about the secondary sex characteristics, right? Primary sex characteristics like testes, uterus, SRY, and androgen receptors are all binary, right?
No, sex is bimodal. He is misrepresenting the argument.
You can’t say “there are only two genders” while acknowledging the existence of intersex people. It doesn’t matter how small the margin, if you want to definitively say that “there are only two genders,” the existence of a single intersex person would disprove your claim.
Yeah, people will just pretend like intersex people don’t count because they are inconvenient to their narrative.
@@chewchewtrain Mfer just didn't watch the video
It won't disprove anything. First we are talking about sex, second he talked about that in the video.
One can tell you are new to the channel. He made thousands of videos about it and he have address all such arguments by giving also the sources. By i will made this comment to answer your last question around the bimodality of sex.
I will summarize it for you.
Many people are ignorant on the topic (this apply to both sides) and look at the problem only from a superficial level or enough to back-up some of their claims or ideas.
XX and XY are not the reason why we have the concept of Sex or why we divide in male and female. If in humans we would have hypothetically a more complex sex determination system as a standard evolutionary tendency, like:
WY===>Females WX===>Females XX===>Females
YY ===>Males XY ===>Males
The number of sexes would still be 2. The fact that there are 5+ possible chromosomical combinations doesn't mean there are 5+ sexes (notice that this is an actual sex determining system of the platyfish + you can also check Haplodiploidy). Some animals don't even have sex chromosomes and their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubated egg(ex. Croccodiles)...despite that we can still distinguish between the males and the females of that species.
To make you understand what sex is, you have to see sex as an emergent property. Sex is a category of biological systems organizzed towards the tendency to favour the potential production of a specific type of gametes (in this case we tend to divide between the common bigger and smaller gametes, in our case sperm and ova; this systems influence reproductive roles). Yes, this include young males and old females as they still have a verifiable system organizzed towards the production of ova or sperm (hence why some diagnosis are massively different on the basis of such fact; an infertile woman that produce 400 ng/dl will be a remarkable cause of concern compared to an infertile male with the same T production). Even the combination of the 2 sexes would still not be a new sex, as to be as such a new sex would require the production of a gamete that is completely different in function from the other 2 so much so to determine even an entire new reproductive role. Intersex are ambiguous cases, but they also have a stronger tendency toward one of the two sexes (even when it comes to "True Intersex" conditions), meaning that they are a form of variation of the 2 systems. In humans, male and female reproductive systems are antagonist of each others: one stop the functional development of the other (See "True Hermaphrodism" in humans - which, as far as historical data goes, is not actually a fully functional form of Hermaphrodism - where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue). We associate certain set of chromosomes, endocrinology, genitalia and other sexually dymorphic traits to a sex, because they are typical of a male or female system relative to our species due to evolutionary reasons. This still doesn't mean that having a female with a male endocrinological sex is a new sex: if anything this conflict between sex and endocrinological sex actually give us information of a potential malicious event. If it is not malicious, then you are a female with a male endocrinological sex, like others Female Animals that would have a Male endocrinological sex relative to us (see Moles).
Even if we consider certain DSD people neither Male or Female, still doesn't mean that such people are a new sex. Not fitting into the criteria of something doesn't necessary mean you are a new category of that classification. If Sex is defined by a system related to gametic production, In the hypothetical case that you have 0 biomarkers or traits relative to such criteria and thus you are a completely neutral being, the equivalence SEX=male,female,intersex it will still be misleading, as intersex people are not equal to a SEX (thus the equivalence would be SEX=Male,Female, hence the definition of sex you can see on biologyonline. com).
Yes, a bimodal distrubuition would imply that you are less male in respect of something since you would be saying that those traits define how male you are. If people are not less of a "male" for having less of a typical phenotypical trait or less of a "female" for the same reason, then you can only be a male or a female...a binary.
Thank you for my Ted Talk.
@@chewchewtrain It won't disprove anything. First we are talking about sex, second he talked about that in the video.
One can tell you are new to the channel. He made thousands of videos about it and he have address all such arguments by giving also the sources. By i will made this comment to answer your last question around the bimodality of sex.
I will summarize it for you.
Many people are ignorant on the topic (this apply to both sides) and look at the problem only from a superficial level or enough to back-up some of their claims or ideas.
XX and XY are not the reason why we have the concept of Sex or why we divide in male and female. If in humans we would have hypothetically a more complex sex determination system as a standard evolutionary tendency, like:
WY===>Females WX===>Females XX===>Females
YY ===>Males XY ===>Males
The number of sexes would still be 2. The fact that there are 5+ possible chromosomical combinations doesn't mean there are 5+ sexes (notice that this is an actual sex determining system of the platyfish + you can also check Haplodiploidy). Some animals don't even have sex chromosomes and their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubated egg(ex. Croccodiles)...despite that we can still distinguish between the males and the females of that species.
To make you understand what sex is, you have to see sex as an emergent property. Sex is a category of biological systems organizzed towards the tendency to favour the potential production of a specific type of gametes (in this case we tend to divide between the common bigger and smaller gametes, in our case sperm and ova; this systems influence reproductive roles). Yes, this include young males and old females as they still have a verifiable system organizzed towards the production of ova or sperm (hence why some diagnosis are massively different on the basis of such fact; an infertile woman that produce 400 ng/dl will be a remarkable cause of concern compared to an infertile male with the same T production). Even the combination of the 2 sexes would still not be a new sex, as to be as such a new sex would require the production of a gamete that is completely different in function from the other 2 so much so to determine even an entire new reproductive role. Intersex are ambiguous cases, but they also have a stronger tendency toward one of the two sexes (even when it comes to "True Intersex" conditions), meaning that they are a form of variation of the 2 systems. In humans, male and female reproductive systems are antagonist of each others: one stop the functional development of the other (See "True Hermaphrodism" in humans - which, as far as historical data goes, is not actually a fully functional form of Hermaphrodism - where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue). We associate certain set of chromosomes, endocrinology, genitalia and other sexually dymorphic traits to a sex, because they are typical of a male or female system relative to our species due to evolutionary reasons. This still doesn't mean that having a female with a male endocrinological sex is a new sex: if anything this conflict between sex and endocrinological sex actually give us information of a potential malicious event. If it is not malicious, then you are a female with a male endocrinological sex, like others Female Animals that would have a Male endocrinological sex relative to us (see Moles).
Even if we consider certain DSD people neither Male or Female, still doesn't mean that such people are a new sex. Not fitting into the criteria of something doesn't necessary mean you are a new category of that classification. If Sex is defined by a system related to gametic production, In the hypothetical case that you have 0 biomarkers or traits relative to such criteria and thus you are a completely neutral being, the equivalence SEX=male,female,intersex it will still be misleading, as intersex people are not equal to a SEX (thus the equivalence would be SEX=Male,Female, hence the definition of sex you can see on biologyonline. com).
Yes, a bimodal distrubuition would imply that you are less male in respect of something since you would be saying that those traits define how male you are. If people are not less of a "male" for having less of a typical phenotypical trait or less of a "female" for the same reason, then you can only be a male or a female...a binary.
Thank you for my Ted Talk.
Being intersex doesnt put you between the peaks, you can be anywhere on the distribution if you're male female or intersex
You dont make bimodal distributions by overlapping 2 distinct graphs. You measure the whole population as a single data set then you observe the display of bimodal peaks. This is poor stats and poor maths
Trueeee
is it "bad" or "offensive" to be less male or female? is being less male a bad thing?
No because at the end of the day your still those beings
There is no less male or female, you are either one or the other.
@@AlquimistEd Congratulations, you missed the point completely.
@@theegginthepantry365 I didn't, it's just a moot point.
It's like asking if it is bad for things to fall upwards.
@@AlquimistEd You do not have to be "one or the other", its a failing and ignorance to assume people are strictly one or the other.
bloody fantastic!
I really don't understand why this is even a debate. Sex is a biological term and humans follow the same pattern as many other species on this planet. Physical traits have absolutely nothing to do with biological sex. One thing and one thing alone defines your sex: your sex chromosomes. XX and XY. That's it. Intersex people do not change this either. Also, I am well aware that gender is a totally separate thing which is why it's not being discussed in this video at all. The amount of people who will probably read this and roll their eyes is mind blowing to me. It would be like rolling your eyes at someone who tells you that the molecular structure of water is H2O.
Let's say you have a person with XY sex chromosomes but has a vagina, uterus, fallopian tubes, gonads, no breasts, and does not mensurate. This is an actual condition called Swyer Syndrome. Is this person a male or female?
Let's say you have a person with XX sex chromosomes but has a penis, testes, and other external body features present in typical males. However, they are generally infertile. This is an actual condition called Le Chapelle Syndrome. Is this person a male or female?
@@Frenchfrys17 The first person you described is a male. The second person you described is a female. As I said, physical characteristics (which include genitals) do not determine sex, only the chromosomes do. In the extraordinarily rare instance where there is a 3rd chromosome resulting in something like XYY or XXX, I admit my ignorance there. I'm not sure what the proper term for them is other than simply "intersex"
So, pretty much, "no, you're thinking of gender?"
And what about karyotype? This still doesn't explain what defines male and female
Karyotype refers to the entire set of chromosomes. In humans only your 2 sex chromosomes define your biological sex. If they're XY, you are male, and If they're XX you are female. Occasional genetic mutations do happen where the person ends up having something other than XX or XY, but those rare anomalies are just that: anomalies. No other physical traits such as height, body hair, muscle mass has any impact on this at all. This contracts with Gender which is of course a totally separate thing, and has nothing to do with biology.
"more/less male" or "more/less female" doesn't make sense. you just fall on a different part of the cluster of probability given many different categories eg. chromosomes, hormone levels, hormone response, etc.
Oddly enough, all this talk of sex being on a spectrum or being bimodal is sexist. In effect it reduces "true" maleness or femaleness to fertility or successful performance of one's reproductive role similar to the way that fathering a child (or a boy) was viewed as an ultimate proof of masculinity or women were only deemed true women if they had given birth. But being infertile does not make a person closer to the opposite sex. An infertile person is no closer to producing the opposite sex gametes than a fertile person. There are no degrees of maleness or femaleness. The entire notion that some females are more females than others or some males are more male than others is sexist.
this is something that people who very much want sex to be a binary fall victim to on their path to disavow reality and science. the peaks of a bimodal distribution simply are AVERAGES. even you must admit that males differ from one another in their expression of secondary sex characteristics. If you suddenly started taking excess testosterone, you would very much see changes in those metrics in BOTH directions (for males, see gynecomastia and shrinking of gonads) with some metrics even approaching average depending on your starting metrics.
@@snowballeffect7812 You might want to educate yourself on the difference between sex and secondary sex characteristics.
except that sex is bimodal
becuase sex isnt just defined by the gonads, but by a long list of other identifiers: the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, the type of gonads, the sex hormones, the internal genitalia (such as the uterus in females), and the external genitalia.
so yes some of these things can be binary, such as the gonads, but becuase sex isnt just determined by gonads you cannot argue that sex is binary becuase that assumes that everything else is also binary which is simply not the case
Not true. Sex /is/ defined by gametes. Female -> ova. Male -> sperm. That's literally how sex is defined, by small and large gametes. There's no third gamete, so there's not a third sex. No third sex, not bimodal but binary.
@@Steve-bn8nz except thats not the only thing that defines sex thats not how it works
@@sharktenko267 It seems you are using a different meaning of the word "sex". I'm using the definition used by biology. And for biology, sex is distinguished by the type of gametes that exist. You can only produce two types, small and big. The small one is called male. The big one is called female. That's why it's a binary. There's no slightly bigger but still smaller than the big one gamete or any other size of gamete or any other gamete with structural differences. Then it follows, there's not more than 2 gametes. If there's no more values, the bimodal graph doesn't work. The phrase "sex is binary" will be wrong if/when we find a third gamete, until then it will remain true.
@@Steve-bn8nz no in biology sex is determined by a multitude of things including gametes(chromosomes)
the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, the type of gonads, the sex hormones, the internal genitalia (such as the uterus in females), and the external genitalia.
sorry but sex isnt as simplistic as you want it to be
@@sharktenko267 You seem very reticent to google what I'm saying to verify it. Popular thing know as biological sex /is/ determined by chromosomes(chromosomal sex), genitalia, hormones and gonads(Phenotypic sex). Sex (as defined by biology) is either male or female for our species. Biological sex (even though sometimes it does mean the sex I keep explaining to you) tends to mean a different thing from the sex I'm talking about. When people (and biologists) say that sex is binary, they mean what I'm explaining to you. Please do google what I'm saying because you are very fixed on not understanding that there's more than one meaning to the word sex and debating without clear word definitions is certainly not ideal.
You’re making a lot of assumptions. One of them being that sex refers exclusively to gametes, and not a combination of chromosomes, hormones, primary, and secondary sex characteristics.
The genes in the sex chromosomes determine sex. Hormone levels and secondary sex characteristics are strongly associated with sex but do not define it. Since humans can only ever fulfill one of 2 roles in reproduction and not an intermediate role sex is binary.
There is a huge disconnect between how words are used in science vs regular people talk, sex is just about gamete production, everything else is incidental, but since this everything else occurs 99% of the time in a specific way people tend to confound them
Kaido
Sex is defined by gonads and gametes.
I think height was according to some data not bimodal but mound shaped, so a very wide normal distribution or smt, but I think that was a technicality or something. Also I am getting so sick of the sex is bimodal people it is amazing how far this stuff goes
Is Human Height Bimodal?
Mark F. Schilling, Ann E. Watkins and William Watkins
except sex is bimodally expressed. only an idiot would think endocrine effects are binary. it's mind-boggling that this needs to even be pointed out.
@@snowballeffect7812 sex isn’t bimodal, and its expression doesn’t change that
@@Query_8P all your response says is that you have no idea how sex is developed and expressed lol. do you think embryonic sells all have tiny little sex organs that are immediately expressed? is the endocrine system a joke to you? lol
@@snowballeffect7812 embryonic cells contain their developmental blueprints in their DNA, one very obvious gene being SRY on the Y chromosome, which among many other genes is meant to determine male development. Definitely not the only one but a very important one. Every single embryonic cell starts that way, from fertilization to being a blastocyst to being a full grown person, people without developmental disorders (ie DSDs) will develop one way or the other, and as is seen throughout the animal kingdom (which if you need the reminder includes humans) will have two sexes, male and female to facilitate reproduction. You don’t need a third one and there isn’t a third one.
Now what these people LOOK like is a different story! There are people who think that, even if you entire physiology is female you give birth to children you have a cervix etc. But you have more hair than average on your stomach that you’re “less woman”, even when women do also have body hair. It’s these sorts of things that aren’t really quantifiably male or female, but people act as of they are. Sure there are ranges in which some ATTRIBUTES of a sex are different from the other and that makes sense we’re a dimorphic species, and yes there being some overlap also makes sense because hormones and such “the endocrine system” isn’t one on off switch that simply happens and is influenced by so many variables that seeing them as purely a marker of sex would be short sighted! Think having a lot of adipose tissue and how it may make your testosterone levels rise if you’re female, putting you at risk of amenorrhea at a certain threshold. Are you then saying these women are more male than other women with less fat or less testosterone? No, because it’s simply a state of on/off, she is a woman, her problem even emphasizes that she is a woman, the only thing off here is her testosterone levels. It didn’t change her complete developmental pathway nor her entire blueprint. It’s a bit disingenuous to act like the endocrine system is on its own a marker of sex, and not simply something that is influenced BY your sex (it’s a separate thing from sex fyi); you could argue men need a certain type and concentration of testosterone to facilitate development of a male reproductive system, and if they don’t they might suffer from 5a-RD-2, but you knowing their development screwed up there and them suffering from a DSD, on top of us KNOWING this is a male with a developmental disorder, wouldn’t prove much for that case either;
I’m just going to say I know enough as both a graduated biologist as wel as a med student, to know that this new shit has nothing to do with science, no matter how badly people want to act as if sex is neither predetermined nor obvious in close to 100% of people. (Including the 99,997% of people with DSDs whose sexes are obvious)
@@Query_8P NBK10943 since you clearly have put a lot of effort into motivated research, perhaps you could put in just a little bit more effort into understanding sexual dimorphism in humans.
I would also suggest you read an embryology book (specifically endocrine effects and functions during development) and look up what epigenetics is.
"I’m just going to say I know enough as both a graduated biologist as wel as a med student" I pray for your patients assuming you pass your STEP exams. Good luck to you, too, kid. You are going to need it lol. I suppose you said you're currently a med student and simply have not had your lectures on embryology and sex differentiation yet. Let me know what the professors think of your theories once you do.
The problem with defining sex by gamete type is not everyone is born with the ability to produce gametes at all, and there exists individuals who have both gamete types. Ergo, sex is not a binary. Whether you want to call that "bimodal" or not is immaterial. What is clear is that human sex cannot be adequately defined as binary based on gametes.
What's more, waving away those born unable to produce gametes or born able to produce both as being "exceptions" is an admission that sex cannot be determined exclusively on gametes alone.
Many people are ignorant on the topic (this apply to both sides) and look at the problem only from a superficial level or enough to back-up some of their claims or ideas.
XX and XY are not the reason why we have the concept of Sex or why we divide in male and female. If in humans we would have hypothetically a more complex sex determination system as a standard evolutionary tendency, like:
WY===>Females WX===>Females XX===>Females
YY ===>Males XY ===>Males
The number of sexes would still be 2. The fact that there are 5+ possible chromosomical combinations doesn't mean there are 5+ sexes (notice that this is an actual sex determining system of the platyfish + you can also check Haplodiploidy). Some animals don't even have sex chromosomes and their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubated egg(ex. Croccodiles)...despite that we can still distinguish between the males and the females of that species.
To make you understand what sex is, you have to see sex as an emergent property. Sex is a category of biological systems organizzed towards the tendency to favour the potential production of a specific type of gametes (in this case we tend to divide between the common bigger and smaller gametes, in our case sperm and ova; this systems influence reproductive roles). Yes, this include young males and old females as they still have a verifiable system organizzed towards the production of ova or sperm (hence why some diagnosis are massively different on the basis of such fact; an infertile woman that produce 400 ng/dl will be a remarkable cause of concern compared to an infertile male with the same T production). Even the combination of the 2 sexes would still not be a new sex, as to be as such a new sex would require the production of a gamete that is completely different in function from the other 2 so much so to determine even an entire new reproductive role. Intersex are ambiguous cases, but they also have a tendency toward one of the two sexes (even when it comes to "True Intersex" conditions), meaning that they are a form of variation of the 2 systems. In humans, male and female reproductive systems are antagonist of each others: one tend to stop the functional development of the other (See "True Hermaphrodism" in humans - which, as far as historical data goes, is not actually a fully functional form of Hermaphrodism - where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue; even if Hermaphrodism exist in humans it doesn't mean that there are more than 2 sexes, it simply mean that such entity/individual is both the 2 sexes at the same time). We associate certain set of chromosomes, endocrinology, genitalia and other sexually dymorphic traits to a sex, because they are typical of a male or female system relative to our species due to evolutionary reasons. This still doesn't mean that having a female with a male endocrinological sex is a new sex: if anything this conflict between sex and endocrinological sex actually give us information of a potential malicious event. If it is not malicious, then you are a female with a male endocrinological sex, like others Female Animals that would have a Male endocrinological sex relative to us (see Moles).
Even if we consider certain DSD people neither Male or Female, still doesn't mean that such people are a new sex. Not fitting into the criteria of something doesn't necessary mean you are a new category of that classification. If Sex is defined by a system related to gametic production, In the hypothetical case that you have 0 biomarkers or traits relative to such criteria and thus you are a completely neutral being, the equivalence SEX=male,female,intersex it will still be misleading, as intersex people are not equal to a SEX (thus the equivalence would be SEX=Male,Female, hence the definition inside the dictionary on biology online)
@@NiTuJHGTkO If sex were to be defined in the way you claim, and sex determines the traits you claim it determines, then you're saying that the "anatomy to support the production of small or large gametes determines your skeletal structure, brain structure, etc" And that's absolute nonsense. Hormones during puberty are what determine those traits, but the anatomy you're referring to develops during the fetal stages.
What's more, there are people who lack the anatomy for both, and there are people who have the anatomy for both. Also while there are brain structures that are statistically more likely in one sex than the other, all possible variations of a given brain structure can be found in people of all physical sexes. Also, trans people happen to have brain structures that more closely align with what is statistically more likely from the sex they identity as.
Are you sure you fully understand developmental biology, cuz you cherry picked something and oversimplified it to a point that does not comport with the totality of developmental biology.
@@NiTuJHGTkO I see neither the term "determining sex" nor the term "defining sex" in your response. Rather, I see the terms "sex category" and "sex." I checked four times and even did a word search on your response just to be sure.
Furthermore, I neither used the terms "determining sex" nor "defining sex", nor does that response actually defend your thesis from my criticism.
Care to distract and back pedal further, or can I get back to listening to the music video "AMERICAN PIE if it were written by Shakespeare (Vocal Bardcore)"?
@@NiTuJHGTkO Mmm, no. The only one confusing here is you.
Since you again failed to actually address my actual criticism of your response, I'll simplify offer it to you in solitude so you won't get confused:
There are people who lack the anatomy you say defines, determines, or whatever-other-verbs sex. There are also people who have anatomy for both. Sex is not as simple as you think it is.
@@NiTuJHGTkO If there are "variants" that go against the definitions you use, then your definition is wrong. This is why only people whose understanding of biology stops at _basic_ biology think that it's so easy to define. People who understand _advanced_ biology know that _basic_ biology is only meant to give a general understanding and not a complete understanding of biology, and that in reality, the more you learn about anything in biology, the more definitions fall apart.
sex is not as simple as chromosomes if that is what you are implying. there is a difference between sexual determination and sexual development, although sexual determination is also problematic because the genes on sex chromosomes do not always accurately trigger the sexual development they were meant to trigger. also height is not a sexually dimorphic trait. sex generally and loosely encompasses primary and secondary sexual characteristics, hormones and chromosomes. which may or may not be typically male or female and this needs to be acknowledged. also this whole problem will be solved when we finally acknowledge the fact that we are not our body organs or biological characteristics. we are consciousness. furthermore, do you acknowledge that the human brain is also a sexually dimorphic organ?
Sex categorizes individuals solely on their reproductive function. Secondary sex characteristics are commonly affected by those phenotypes, and are observed to have different rates of manifestation on either one of them, but they can interlap because they also depend on a lot of other things. However there are only 2 gametes in human anatomy, there is not a third one, or an absence of both, and that is how sex is categorized.
@@AlquimistEd actually, sex is categorized phenotypically and genetically. the same way a blueprint is not a house, genetic code is not an organism. the environment and circumstances of growth have a huge impact on the expression of genes and epigenetics. While genetic sex can be arguably said to be a binary (barring Klinefelter's syndrome and other anomalies, which obviously do occur and immediately undermines the binary), phenotypic sex is absolutely bimodal and even you understand this, unless you're going to claim that all males are exactly alike with the exact same levels and expression of testosterone, estrogen and every other sex hormone as well as having the exact same metrics of secondary sex characteristics.
@@snowballeffect7812 sex is about reproductive function(of which there are only two), not about every physical differences between two distinct organisms, having higher levels of testosterone doesn't make you "more male" in a bimodal scale, plus you're demonstrating a lack of understanding of what a bimodal distribution graph even is, which, in simplification, is basically a way to observe that two *distinct* populations have some shared characteristics, the two populations being separated by sex in this case.
@@AlquimistEd you are simply wrong. sexual dimorphism affects many aspects of phenotypic expression besides reproduction. The only reason this is difficult for you to understand is because you are actively trying to ignore this fact. The same way an electric car has completely different manufacturing processes from ICE cars, you simply can't reduce it down to "one runs on electricity and nothing else is affected". All you have to do is go look up the endocrine system and how sex is expressed from the embryonic stage. to reiterate, you are simply wrong.
@@snowballeffect7812 again, you're conflating secondary sexual characteristics, with sex itself.
You keep repeating the same things, telling me I'm wrong, while ignoring this simple fact.
I'm not ignoring the differences in sexual development in any way.
You seem hell bent on trying to define things in a way that makes your argument work, but that's really just not the way they are.
Categorizing based on two distinct groups, which relate to sexual reproduction, is useful and makes sense.
Categorizing based on the individual, is not and does not.
A few thoughts. Having two “sexes” is a way for species to reproduce and create genetic variations in successive generations, which drives Darwinian evolution, at least on Earth (and we don’t have any other planets to compare it to). But that doesn’t mean that any species has to be locked into a strict binary. Some species can change from males to females or vise-versa, and there is no reason that any individual in these species couldn’t be both, or neither. What we don’t seem to see in Earth-based multicellular life is a true third sex that does something completely different from either male or female (please correct me if I’m wrong here).
The other thing we need to look out for is the fact that we are observing and defining ourselves. As social creatures, how does this affect our definitions of sex? Do we do the same thing with other characteristics, like race? Given the assumptions we’ve made about race that then turned out to be horribly wrong, I think we should proceed cautiously. For myself, I’m going to listen to someone when they tell me what sex they are, because I figure they know better than I do.
Stop lying. Humans don't control the 2 biological sexes. TG ideology is actually a new religion. God didnt create the two sexes, social constructs create your sex. Are you really this dumb?
I think sex is three-dimensionally bimodal with many different types of x-axis. There's an axis for neurology, another for femininity masculinity and so on. If we were able to analyse someone in that detail with good accuracy, everyone would have a unique three-dimensional bimodal shape.
None of the traits you have mentioned define sex, otherwhise males of a species that have a different distribuition of those traits compare to us are less male than us.
Many people are ignorant on the topic (this apply to both sides) and look at the problem only from a superficial level or enough to back-up some of their claims or ideas.
XX and XY are not the reason why we have the concept of Sex or why we divide in male and female. If in humans we would have hypothetically a more complex sex determination system as a standard evolutionary tendency, like:
WY===>Females WX===>Females XX===>Females
YY ===>Males XY ===>Males
The number of sexes would still be 2. The fact that there are 5+ possible chromosomical combinations doesn't mean there are 5+ sexes (notice that this is an actual sex determining system of the platyfish + you can also check Haplodiploidy). Some animals don't even have sex chromosomes and their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubated egg(ex. Croccodiles)...despite that we can still distinguish between the males and the females of that species.
To make you understand what sex is, you have to see sex as an emergent property. Sex is a category of biological systems organizzed towards the tendency to favour the potential production of a specific type of gametes (in this case we tend to divide between the common bigger and smaller gametes, in our case sperm and ova; this systems influence reproductive roles). Yes, this include young males and old females as they still have a verifiable system organizzed towards the production of ova or sperm (hence why some diagnosis are massively different on the basis of such fact; an infertile woman that produce 400 ng/dl will be a remarkable cause of concern compared to an infertile male with the same T production). Even the combination of the 2 sexes would still not be a new sex, as to be as such a new sex would require the production of a gamete that is completely different in function from the other 2 so much so to determine even an entire new reproductive role. Intersex are ambiguous cases, but they also have a stronger tendency toward one of the two sexes (even when it comes to "True Intersex" conditions), meaning that they are a form of variation of the 2 systems. In humans, male and female reproductive systems are antagonist of each others: one stop the functional development of the other (See "True Hermaphrodism" in humans - which, as far as historical data goes, is not actually a fully functional form of Hermaphrodism - where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue). We associate certain set of chromosomes, endocrinology, genitalia and other sexually dymorphic traits to a sex, because they are typical of a male or female system relative to our species due to evolutionary reasons. This still doesn't mean that having a female with a male endocrinological sex is a new sex: if anything this conflict between sex and endocrinological sex actually give us information of a potential malicious event. If it is not malicious, then you are a female with a male endocrinological sex, like others Female Animals that would have a Male endocrinological sex relative to us (see Moles).
Even if we consider certain DSD people neither Male or Female, still doesn't mean that such people are a new sex. Not fitting into the criteria of something doesn't necessary mean you are a new category of that classification. If Sex is defined by a system related to gametic production, In the hypothetical case that you have 0 biomarkers or traits relative to such criteria and thus you are a completely neutral being, the equivalence SEX=male,female,intersex it will still be misleading, as intersex people are not equal to a SEX (thus the equivalence would be SEX=Male,Female, hence the definition of sex you can see on biologyonline. com)
Yes, a bimodal distrubuition would imply that you are less male in respect of something as you are saying that those traits define how male you are (ignoring that all such traits you gonna pick are inheritly antropocentric, thus inconsistent in many other taxa). If people are not less of a "male" for having less of a typical phenotypical trait or less of a "female" for the same reason, then you can only be a male or a female...a binary.
Thank you for my Ted Talk.
@@creaomega2643 five months later and now I think sex is binary at its most basic. But the way it’s expressed epigenetically and hormonally isn't. An extreme example is Someone with XY chromosomes, who is 100% androgen insensitivity is a male who is form is more womanly than they would be if they had XX chromosomes.
Thank you. I wondered what the independent variable was on the bimodal graph, and now I see it's phenotypical traits, which is not the same thing as sex. It's upsetting to me because I'm transgender, and I don't like misinformation being spread.
Misinformation in this vid?
@@phr3ui559 No no... the misinformation that sex is bimodal. Sorry I wasn't clear.
dont be fooled by this video. the factor that can be placed on the x axis would be chromosomes and that would show sex as bimodal. another factor that could be placed on the x axis is hormone levels, this would also show that sex is not a binary.
@@progressinaction7309 Not sure I follow the chromosomal model given the discretization, nor the hormonal model given the notion that variance within a sex would then obviously apply, not to mention the lack of exclusivity in the choices here.
Nah. You lost me.
It's not about who is more female and more male. It's about the fact human karyotypes (which we use to help us to determine sex) can be combined in different variations while also manifesting in a variety of other ways beyond chromosomal sex: gonadal, hormonal, internal anatomy, external anatomy, and secondary sex characteristics can all vary during any point in time during a person's sex development (including during puberty). In fact, medical science today does not refer to the people inbetween Typical 46, XX Females and Typical 46, XY Males as "intersex," but rather Differences of Sexual Development (DSDs), which includes intersex.
There are DSD 46,XX Females who have XX Male Syndrome and are born with either ambiguous or completely unambiguous male anatomy and can actually even father children in some cases, despite having a 46, XX karyotype. However, any child they father will inevitably be female due to no Y-chromosome available from the father to pass on. A lot of people have a DSD but won't realize it until later in life when they either notice a health concern or it's discovered by doctors while the patient is coming in for something else. One man from Hong Kong was 66-years-old when he went to the doctors for abdominal problems and found out he was actually a female with Turner Syndrome and congenital adrenal hyperplasia. His abdomen hurt because he had an ovarian cyst.
The understanding and acknowledgement these variations happen in ways we're still trying to figure out even today does not mean people are able to change their sex, but rather shape their gender to fit the proper identity for themselves when their biology is too complex for the inflexibile binary model to properly and accurately represent.
Very rare exceptions don't break the rule, homie. Just because some people are born with 11 toes or fingers doesn't mean we change our taxonomic expectations. Sex IS binary. Plain and simple. Stop letting ideology delude you.
@@adamriedel5507 It's not about taxonomic expectations and you don't have to change anything. Keep sex on official documents as male/ female/ DSD (which includes intersex) and then add another category for gender, which is a spectrum because it's not biological but rather sociological.
The fact there is male, female, and then DSD in the middle already means sex is not binary. It's bimodal.
@@adamriedel5507 It's not ideology, by the way. It's science. Biological science says people can be male, female, or Difference of Sexual Development (DSD) female, DSD intersex, or DSD male. Just because DSDs are rare, doesn't mean they don't exist and don't deserve recognition.
Redheads are rare, too, but we still include red as a hair color on official documents because redheads exist no matter how rare.
No, DSD does not go in the middle. Almost all chromosomal abnormalities and DSD's still fall into the either-or categories of Male or female (XXY and YY are still male, X is still female, etc) and the only ones that don't are those that are organized to create and maintain both gametes, and they are hermaphrodites. Sex is not a spectrum, it is not bimodal. it is binary. This is a solid fact. @@MakingtheCase
@@MakingtheCase DSD is not an other category.
The prefeix "Inter" literally means "between the two" or among the two.
Intersex is between the TWO sexes. Sex is binary. Between does not mean 3rd category. Variation or ambiguity does not mean 3rd category of it self.
The same way you have numbers.
1 and 2. It's either a number or not a number. Binary.
1.2 1.3 and 1.5 existing does not mean it's a spectrum in being a number and not a number at the same time.
Wait then your problem lies with the very idea with Maleness and Femaleness
It means it's either masculine or feminine or both
Sexual features or traits
Categorising a bimodal view of sex as 'more' or 'less' male/female is just a false interpretation of a bimodal model. We can say 'More masculine sex characteristics' or 'More feminine sex characteristics' where more is quantatative not qualitative. Or rather, we can talk in definite terms about physically masculine and physically feminine traits, like bone density, hormone balance, epigenetic switching during development, or whatever other set of features we find best incorporate a bimodal view.
Pointing out that intersex people are often clearly defined at birth is just putting the cart before the horse - they're clearly defined because we're using a flawed model of sexing them - that is, we're looking at their external genitalia along with a binary distribution of sexes, and there are still individuals who can't be clearly sexed due to genital abnormalities. Now is there a problem with that categorisation in that context? Not particularly, it has utility. But science isn't really about utility, it's about what's *most correct*. You could use 3 as pi in a lot of cases, but if you're building highly sensitive machinery or trying to accurately describe the world, it's inadiquate. Likewise, categorising sex as binary rather than correctly as bimodal is just incorrect. Useful, but incorrect.
Sex is defined by reproductive function, not by bone density or hormone balance.
Thank you!
Some people have ovotestis. That puts them in the middle of the two sexes if you define sex by gamete type, which is what biologists do. In mammals, this phenotype has never been seen to stabilize in a population, but it's been found to exist in nearly all domestic mammals (and in humans). From this I'd say "bimodal" the best term to use.
@Josh the Art Critic Here are a few cases in humans of ovotestis. No human has tried both fathering children and giving birth, but several captive mammals with a similar ovotestis condition have done both, some even impregnate themselves: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5503104/
Here's a review of several studies showing that the occasional rabbit is capable of getting itself pregnant (that would be super annoying): www.researchgate.net/publication/313454996_Potential_autofertility_in_true_hermaphrodites
If they would fall under a new sex category they would produce something in between of sperm and eggcell with their "ovotestis" but they don't. Having different sex characteristics doesn't make a person less female or male. If we had a third sex or more, people with intersex conditions wouldn't be less than 1% of the human population and their new gametes would be part of the human reproduction. If they would be a "mix" between the sexes they would at least create two different types of gametes. That's also something that doesn't happen.
To say that intersex women and men are not female or male is also very ignorant and offensive.
Secondary sex characteristics and sex are not the same thing.
@@StatedCasually Having vestigial structures of the opposite sex inside you does not make you the opposite sex or both sexes. This patient is still a male, he has the full small gamete body plan.
If feels like you don't really understand the arguments you critique if you think the modern medical representation around bimodal sex discussions are about assigning a sex value score or making a third sex.
Okay, what are the arguments then?
Explain the traits that define (not determine) sex in a way it is consistent in all taxa and then justify its bimodality without implying that X individual are less close to the maxima of a particular sex.
Interesting. By limiting biological sex to gamete development, and ignoring the fact that human sexual development is more than simply the development of gametes, one can arrive at the answer one desired. 😂 It’s a massive fallacy. Because a specific part of human sexual development is binary does not necessarily mean that all of human biological sexual development is binary.
Any offense at bimodal variation is the result of the immense baggage that we have built into the social construct of gender.
Irony. The definition of sex *is* based in gamete development. You're the one trying to define sex in different terms that benefit your viewpoint. And 'gender' is an ideological concept that has nothing to do with whether sex is bimodal or not.
@@Mel-wn9gb No, I'm not limiting biological sex to one aspect of sexual development. Simply repeating the flawed argument doesn't make it true. It is a scientific fact that sexual development in humans is not comprised solely of the means of gamete production.
@@entspeak It's a scientific fact that sex means what gametes you develop, of which there are two. You're repeating the flawed argument that secondary sex characteristics equate to sex itself.
@@Mel-wn9gb Secondary sex characteristics develop AFTER birth, moron. Hush, now, the adults are talking.
Interesting, by changing the goalpost from sex to “sexual development” you can successfully make a strawman that sexual development and things that are not sex are not binary. The problem is, those aren’t the topic. What a male is, isn’t the development cascade resulting in a male.
You can’t claim sex is not binary when you’ve decided that you are no longer talking about sex.
I suggest you watch the video and consider the difference between things related to sex in humans, sex development, and what sex is.
I think he's just wrong about this. While there is no 3rd sex, there are people that do not fall into neat categories such as, strictly male or female.
@@makeshift2105 By what definition, because whatever it you're going to tell me, there's going to be cases that fall outside of it.
@@makeshift2105 No answer, gotcha.
@@makeshift2105 I think there's only one reason you didn't just answer me with a straight answer. I think it's intellectual cowardice. Don't worry, I see it a lot.
@@makeshift2105 Cheers!
@@makeshift2105 Fair.
Okay, there's so much wrong with this it took me 45 minutes to respond to your 5 minute video.
You can't add two bell curves which measure different things and it magically become a bimodal distribution. You can't just overlap "male heights" and "female heights" and end up stating that the overlap creates some kind of weird person with two heights and that's why bimodal distributions for sex don't work. You would actually add the values of each graph up, then display a new graph with the X axis defined as just "height". You do this like 5 times in the video and then claim that people think the overlap proves a bimodal distribution but nobody has claimed that because that would be unscientific and that's not how graphs work. Literal children know that.
You disprove your own point several times, where you admit that there's a normal distribution for height and that this could result in a bimodal distribution for height (which you don't do by just overlaying graphs, but I made that point already) but you then conclude that sex is binary because there's a most common outcome, but not that there's only two heights because those have a most common outcome. All women aren't 5 foot 4 inches because that's the most common outcome! You literally say that you can graph these things as a normal distribution then pretend that means that there's only one outcome because that's the most common outcome!
You state that there are only two gamete types, and this is correct, but then you claim that this is what determines sex, which isn't correct. The sex chromosomes are made up of genes that determine different sexual characteristics. This is where the bimodal distribution arises - which genes are active within a specific person's genome. While this is often determined by the chromosomes, because each gene is usually aligned with one particular chromosome, this isn't always the case. For example, the gene that has the biggest influence on determining sex is the SRY gene, which during meiosis can actually be translocated to the X chromosome by accident, resulting in someone with XX chromosomes who is physically male. Somebody with XX chromosomes and a female body can still be intersex because they still have genes that would normally define male traits which may or may not cause health problems down the line.
The X-axis, that you had so much trouble labeling because you only considered physical appearances for potential X-axis labels which you rightly determined as deeply offensive but then *still did*, is the distribution of sex-determining genes that have gone into making a particular person's genetic structure. While we expect most people to have the most common genes on their respective gametes, some people don't. There's 800 genes on the X chromosome and 70 on the Y. Any one of those being on the wrong gene could create an intersex person and they may never even realise it until the day they die.
So, this leads to the conclusion - have you been karyotyped? Do you know that you definitely have XY chromosomes, or do you just assume you do because you have a dick? How do you know you're not someone whose SRY gene got put onto an X chromosome and you're actually apparently chromosomally female? How do you know you're male at all? If your dick falls off tomorrow morning, are you no longer male? I would posit that even if you went to a doctor to check, even if all of your body parts flipped over in the night due to some weird science experiment, whatever the outcome of that was you would still feel like you're male. That feeling is all the proof that's required for the existence of trans people. Your completely unscientific and weirdly body-obsessed 5-minute video that fails to understand both sex and statistics isn't going to change facts.
As an intersex person: thank you.
@Josh the Art Critic sources are me and my research, Scientific American, real clear science, scientists. You know, science. Try using Google.
Now go bother the video maker for sources seeing as the totality of his sources are a Twitter thread and a source for the percentage of intersex people which is irrelevant unless you're trying to downplay the importance of something just because it's rare
@Josh the Art Critic a great percentage of intersex people refuses the term DSD because it means DISORDERS of sex development. We're intersex, not disorders, thank you.
@Josh the Art Critic anyway my intersexuality is not the point here, it's kinda disrespectful to ask that to an intersex person that you don't know. That's because it looks like you just want to search 5 minutes online if that condition is "enough" intersex or not when you know nothing about it.
Why are you bringing transgenderism into the disucssion? I have no idea why you think it has anything to do with sex
Biological sex doesn't have to be defined just by your sex category (the type of gametes you would produce). There are other biological components to our sexual identity such as XY Chromosomes (Some people have different sets ranging from X to XXY) and people with. XY or XX can have either forms of gonads or no gonads at all. Hormonal differences throughout life can also vary wildly and these are the main effectors of secondary sexual characteristics. You can have males and females that vary in all these different ways. people in the male sex category you describe can produce higher levels of the female hormone and vice versa. Chromosomes as I said before can vary and not adhere to binary rules, (Males can have XY and Females can have (XX). These are all biological characteristics that vary in humans. The only way to claim sex is binary is if you ignore all of those and only refer to the types of gamete production a person should have and that still has to ignore some ofthose intrasex people you mentioned. while the majority of these peoples bodies hint at a sex they would have been had the process gone fully one way, not all of them do and that remainder fits nowhere on a binary sex system. Thus a binary sex system cannot find a place for the people that do not fit with in it and I think we have to accept that sex is not binary for this reason above all others, its wrong to leave that albeit small number of people out of sexual categorisation from a scientific perspective.
I've already just proving you. You is try to say reproductively people are either producing ovaries or testicles. Well that's not true because I literally show different situations where people ovulate
What?
@@creaomega2643 eyeshadow different instances where there is true hermaphroditism. And the person is able to ovulate and also Father children. So they can reproduce both ways. So yes there are hermaphrodites who can reproduce both ways therefore are both sexes. This by the way doesn't give transgender people any right to anything. It's just a matter of biology
@@divestedkonservativekarame4269 If you actually have watch other videos in this channel he address this topic.
Hermaphrodism exist but not in humans.
Even the condition called "True Hermaphrodism" in humans is not actually literal functional hermaphrodism.
That condition (ovotestis) still lead to either a male or a female system because where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue.
In fact individuals with this condition are either male or female, in fact, while there are cases of females with ovotestis being able to give birth and males (only 3 in history) with ovotestis able to father children, there have been no cases where a person with ovotestis had the capability to produce sperm and give birth the same time (which imply the production of also ova).
What ovotestis people have is a bit of gonadal tissue of the other sex, which stop development due to the previous hormone i have mentioned...since again,male and female systems are antagonists of each other:one stop the functioning or development of the other
@@creaomega2643 yes I already did a video on this. I have the video explaining there was a case where a person was a true hermaphrodite. Who fathered a child and became pregnant. And had a child through being a mother. I also go into tell how this is not going to be common among these types of people. They're not going to do this that often because you have to remember think of it some women do not reproduce with men if they're not sexually attracted to so if someone was a hermaphrodite. They have to also be attracted to both sexes. Most people aren't attracted to both sexes. Therefore it's not going to actually happen. But these people are capable of doing it. It's just a matter of what do they want to.
@@creaomega2643 so yes people can reproduce both ways. They can produce sperm and ovaries. Capable of creating a child. In the same person. And I already proved this and that's why I'm saying that this guy is just putting out disinformation. Just because of transgender people here at like intersex people got nothing to do with trans okay. Transgender people were born one sex want to be the other sites. That's not being born both sexes
This seems oversimplified. If you reduce "Sex" to reproductive parts then yes, you can say that "Sex" is essentially binary. But, if you say that "Sex" is referring to the expression of sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) then suddenly you have a large number of X-axis graphs that could be made that start to become a more bimodal distribution. Then as soon as you start trying to encapsulate an individual and all of their hormonal expression axises, you get an even broader distribution. And lastly, you add gender and the psychological expression on top of the biological expression to get a full complete picture of each individual, then you definitely get a bimodal distribution.
I think the "bimodal" argument is addressing a real problem. Firstly, it clearly does not make sense to try and classify people in society into two binary boxes. However, as soon as you say "it's a spectrum," people interpret that to mean that it's an even spectrum which clearly isn't true. Not only is it not true, but the insinuation that it is true deconstructs the idea (and identity) of male/female men/women. By saying "it's bimodal," you maintain the recognition that male/female are describing (I.e. naming the concentrations of the distribution) while at the same time having a construct that includes other people on a "map."
Sex is literally defined by the reproductive parts. It is solely based on the reproductive functions of an organism. Of which in a sexually dimorphous species there are only two. Sex has nothing to do with gender expression, or personality traits.
The biological function of sex is reproduction. This may hurt your feelings-oriented worldview, but it's a biological reality that we are a sexually-reproducing species.
This is also true for a very large proportion of the animal kingdom - of which we are a part - and yet is not controversial.
What you're actually saying is that evolution isn't true, like any Creationist. Either that humans are not a sexually reproducing species at all, or that humans sexually reproduce through a "spectrum" or "variety" of gametes. Name the other gametes, or shut up.
What Sex you are, is determined by which of the two gametes your body is set up to produce
@@utdfortreble Then all you can really argue is that functional human gametes are binary. That doesn't make the sex of individual humans binary. The only way that would work if you defined male as can only produce sperm and female as can only produce ova. Everyone who never has been able to or is theoretically capable of producing both, depending on their hormonal balance due to differences in sexual development doesn't have a sex.
@@TagSpamCop Jesus. Irony aside. As he said. Reducing sex to reproduction only is meaningless. Plus, no one here is denying sexual reproduction in humans.
This video shows why the problem of using "male" and "female" as labels for the biological sexes. There are too many gender implications to those terms. Better terms would be "insemination physiology" and "gestation physiology." We understandably bristle at the idea that a man who loses his testicles is "less male" on account of that. But does he have "less insemination physiology"? Of course he does. Does a man who grows a thicker than average beard have more inseminator physiology than average? Of course he does.
TMM ! Cool to see you here, you got me off of religion. The gendered baggage of male and female does exist I will grant that, but could or should we strive for a world without that ? 🤔 I think yes. Unfortunately, many in the gender theory camp want to perpetuate gender as they see it as a means to identify themselves, which I see as inherently sexist. When we get rid of "I feel like a boy on the inside " or the opposite we get closer to a gender free world. That way we can keep scientific terms like male and female and not have to capitulate to a group that wants to change language to fit their ideology.
I’m sorry but that doesn’t make sense. The labels that we use for the sexes are fine. And a male physiology would work the same no matter how thick his beard is; or even if he has a beard at all.
@@AnthonyBSusan No it wouldn't, because beard growth is a part of what it means for male physiology to work.
@@TMMx What precisely do you mean by male physiology?
@@AnthonyBSusan All male genetic characteristics and male primary and secondary sex characteristics.
would this mean then that sex is a social construct?
No
@@AlquimistEd who determines what sex someone is? God?
@@rustyreview Their reproductive phenotype, ergo which is their function in reproduction, to produce eggs or sperm.
@@rustyreview Yes, God and evolution do.
@@rustyreview Also, what AlquimistEd said above is correct too.
What with the intersex 0.2% you are talking about? Aren't they indeterminate at this point?
No. Even intersex people tend to fall in the 2 sexes.
One can tell you are new to the channel. He made thousands of videos about it and he have addressed all such arguments by giving also the reliable sources.
I will summarize it for you.
Many people are ignorant on the topic (this apply to both sides) and look at the problem only from a superficial level or enough to back-up some of their claims or ideas.
XX and XY are not the reason why we have the concept of Sex or why we divide in male and female. If in humans we would have hypothetically a more complex sex determination system as a standard evolutionary tendency, like:
WY===>Females WX===>Females XX===>Females
YY ===>Males XY ===>Males
The number of sexes would still be 2. The fact that there are 5+ possible chromosomical combinations doesn't mean there are 5+ sexes (notice that this is an actual sex determining system of the platyfish + you can also check Haplodiploidy). Some animals don't even have sex chromosomes and their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubated egg(ex. Croccodiles)...despite that we can still distinguish between the males and the females of that species.
To make you understand what sex is, you have to see sex as an emergent property. Sex is a category of biological systems organizzed towards the tendency to favour the potential production of a specific type of gametes (in this case we tend to divide between the common bigger and smaller gametes, in our case sperm and ova; this systems influence reproductive roles). Yes, this include young males and old females as they still have a verifiable system organizzed towards the production of ova or sperm (hence why some diagnosis are massively different on the basis of such fact; an infertile woman that produce 400 ng/dl will be a remarkable cause of concern compared to an infertile male with the same T production). Even the combination of the 2 sexes would still not be a new sex, as to be as such a new sex would require the production of a gamete that is completely different in function from the other 2 so much so to determine even an entire new reproductive role. Intersex are ambiguous cases, but they also have a stronger tendency toward one of the two sexes (even when it comes to "True Intersex" conditions), meaning that they are a form of variation of the 2 systems. In humans, male and female reproductive systems are antagonist of each others: one stop the functional development of the other (See "True Hermaphrodism" in humans - which, as far as historical data goes, is not actually a fully functional form of Hermaphrodism - where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue). We associate certain set of chromosomes, endocrinology, genitalia and other sexually dymorphic traits to a sex, because they are typical of a male or female system relative to our species due to evolutionary reasons. This still doesn't mean that having a female with a male endocrinological sex is a new sex: if anything this conflict between sex and endocrinological sex actually give us information of a potential malicious event. If it is not malicious, then you are a female with a male endocrinological sex, like others Female Animals that would have a Male endocrinological sex relative to us (see Moles).
Even if we consider certain DSD people neither Male or Female, still doesn't mean that such people are a new sex. Not fitting into the criteria of something doesn't necessary mean you are a new category of that classification. If Sex is defined by a system related to gametic production, In the hypothetical case that you have 0 biomarkers or traits relative to such criteria and thus you are a completely neutral being, the equivalence SEX=male,female,intersex it will still be misleading, as intersex people are not equal to a SEX (thus the equivalence would be SEX=Male,Female, hence the definition of sex you can see on biologyonline. com).
Yes, a bimodal distrubuition would imply that you are less male in respect of something since you would be saying that those traits define how male you are(ignoring that all such traits you gonna pick are inheritly antropocentric, thus inconsistent in many other taxa). If people are not less of a "male" for having less of a typical phenotypical trait or less of a "female" for the same reason, then they are male or female...a binary.
Thank you for my Ted Talk.
@@creaomega2643 Yes, they are less male or female, it depends on where they fall on the spectrum.
@@exdetransitioner It is controversial because your approach does not have any taxonomic value (expecially since it is inherently antroprocentric and many female animals may result to be basically "males" under your standard), meaning it will be intrinsicly arbitrary and a social construct as much as it is race (currently, for scientist race does not have any taxonomic value).
This without saying that you putting a person in one point of the bimodal distribuition rather than another will be also completely arbitrary as it will depend on how many traits you measure of a person and how many biomarkers you gonna consider (is a short woman more woman than a taller one?).
So saying it is a "scientifical definition" would be specious.
Even your average in the bimodal distribuition will mean nothing as you will have extreme variation also there if you give each trait the same value and insert there Women that are very Tall but produce a lot of extrogens, or women that are very short but are physically stronger or have XY chromosomes.
Notice that one of the most important variables that define where a person place on your graph will be if it have a system that favour the potential production of sperm or ova.
At this point, if all of them are women, you may as well use the normal classic classification and that's it.
But i need to make you some questions so you can see my point.
What determine if a trait is sex related or not?
Why an animal is male or female in the first place and how these constructs are different from other non-sex related classifications?
Second of all, are there traits that count more than others when putting people inside the spectrum? If so, why?
wait isnt like 2% of the population intersex? not 0.2%.
No, and it's even lower, it's 0.018%. Fausto-Sterling was lying and categorising conditions not actually intersex, as such.
So since you admit that sex differences are bimodal, to truly know someone's sex would require you to test their DNA and verify their sex chromosomes (of course ignoring intersex variations). Right? Otherwise you would admit that sex categorization is primarily defined by phenotype rather than genotype, which would mean that sex is indeed bimodal.
You determine by looking at their genitals.
but then... in which category would you put an individual who doesn't produce any gametes?
Where would you put people with androgen insensitivity syndrome? They don't produce gametes, have female genitalia, but they generally have XY chromosomes. So... their gonadal sex is... uh... none? their primary and secondary sex characteristics correspond to that of a female, but their chromosomal sex is male...
@Danny G maybe I'll look into it, but also... they look like they're just full of sh it (i looked on their website)
@@random6033 Why? They are just sharing info in this case.
For me you are making assumption based on your bias
@@random6033to answer your first question we'd need to know the phenotype of the person. People with AIS are considered female (it's the refrigerator, broken refrigerator, not a refrigerator analogy).
Most of the things listed are classified as "secondary sex characteristics". most of them are used to guess the gender 9rather than sex)
But it's okay, you are interesting and challenging. 9and good faith)
This is a nonsensical argument. Binary means there’s two options. No variation. 0 or 1.
Bimodal makes the most sense. Because, each mode is comprised of sexual characteristics and the more you have, the more within that mode you are.
For example. If a male had his testes removed, he’d still be a male, but he’d move slightly within the mode, by not having all of the male characteristics. And let’s say he removed his penis and turned it into a vagina and then took hormones. Well, he might even change to the other mode at that point. Because the accumulation of characteristics of that sex have been removed and even aspects of the other sex have been introduced.
So, we can acknowledge each mode as being variant while also acknowledging intersex as being variant as well.
@@makeshift2105 right. And the idea is the binary means there are only and exactly only two things. Any variation makes it no longer a binary.
Bimodal makes the most sense because it accounts for two main modes and variations in between.
@@makeshift2105 right… so there are only two stars and no variation of stars in between the two stars and no third star. No star in between with characteristics of both stars
@@makeshift2105 you’re not getting it. Calling a star system binary suggests there are only two stars in that system. No more. No less.
Calling sex a binary means there are two sexes, no more no less.
I’m not saying each star can’t have its own characteristics. I’m saying there cannot be other stars in between the two stars.
A bimodal star system (which doesn’t exist obviously) would mean there are two stars melded together. And there are two distinct sections. The left and right stars. But in between is variable. There’s gray area and points of the star that are a mixture of both
@@makeshift2105 Sex is just defined as an accumulation of reproductive characteristics including but not limited to genitals, gonads, hormones, chromosomes, and secondary characteristics.
One mode contains the full and most “normal” set of characteristics. The other mode contains the other set of characteristics.
So lacking certain characteristics or having mixed characteristics between the modes, makes you intersex. You may be closer to one mode or another, but the distinction is that you’re not completely on one mode of sex.
To define sex strictly by chromosomes is nonsensical, because more exists than XX and XY. So bimodal sex is only reinforced by this because there is an X and Y mode, making sense why variations occur between the modes of X and Y. There is no Z though, or else it would be trimodal.
To say sex is defined by reproductive ability is also nonsensical, because that would mean females who cannot get pregnant for age or medical reasons wouldn’t be considered female and impotent males wouldn’t be considered male.
So, sex is defined by sexual characteristics. When this accumulation of traits deviates from the mode, it becomes intersex.
@@makeshift2105 that’s exactly my point. Sex is defined by this accumulation of characteristics. Whether or not it works.
Like a fridge is defined by the way it was built. And a freezer was defined by the way it was built.
What if you have a hybrid? Is it a fridge or a freezer? Maybe it’s something in between.
this is like a baby's understanding of what bimodal means. The only thing the peak is is an average. landing on either side does not mean anything except deviation from average measurements. If you're implying sex is in fact a binary, where is the threshold? What happens if I give a male excessive levels of T and upregulate their T receptors? What if that's done to a female? Clearly their phenotypes change. Why ignore these very easy and obvious examples?
let's take this question: what do hormones have to do with phenotypic expression? There is a reason this video cites one dude and not any scientific papers. You can easily aggregate various metrics into an index. the peaks are simply averages. What happens if you give someone excessive T or increase their sensitivity to it? Take a wild guess. Some of those metrics will obviously shift positions for that individual, some approaching the extremes in BOTH directions (see gynecomastia and reduction of external gonad size for males) and others may likely approach average depending on the individual's starting measurements. There's are reasons scientists accept the bimodal model for organisms that reproduce sexually: because it's simple, makes sense and is accurate to observations.
edit:
see video kT0HJkr1jj4 for a better, more accurate video with MUCH better citations.
This is from an actual biology textbook that anyone can freely read if you search NBK222286.
"During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female. "
"In mammals, once genetic sex has been determined and the fetus begins its development, the fetal environment, especially hormones, can result in significant modifications of the genetically based sex."
"An important point is that early embryos of both sexes possess indifferent common primordia that have an inherent tendency to feminize unless there is active interference by masculinizing factors (Grumbach and Conte, 1998)."
"It is known that a variety of autosomal and X-chromosome-linked genes, literally a cascade of genes that exert complex gene dosage balancing activities, are involved in testis determination. All major sex-determining genes have been shown to be subject to a dosage effect."
@@makeshift2105 They literally have because it's obvious. See cheng and kirkpatrick among literally everyone else. You even know this to be true intuitively, unless you're claiming that secondary sex characteristics are IDENTICAL between individuals. I am not sure how obvious truths like this can be so easily ignored by people who are actively and willfully trying to be ignorant. It's beyond flat-eartherism since you literally see and act upon the proof every day and every time you look at a person and presume their sex.
@@makeshift2105 you absolutely can change their sex lol. all you have to do is look up androgen insensitivity or Klinefelter's syndrome. you can pretend like you have done the research, but you clearly have not and simply are forcing your worldview onto others because reality makes you uncomfortable. all i can ask is that you get over yourself.
@@makeshift2105 They are just as lacking in supporting evidence as this one. This channel is for people who don't care about anything but their own politics and worldview. It has nothing to do with science whatsoever and that's why it provides zero cited works lol. Instead of looking up those disorders on this garbage video channel, why don't you do some actual research and cite published scientists?
"just like you people saying "sex is a bimodal distribution" without knowing how sex is defined" us people being biologists and medical doctors who literally defined the terms? lol. It's always so amusing to me how confident people are in their ignorance.
@@snowballeffect7812 What characteristics contribute to the presumption?
@@anon4854 what presumption?
If the category of sex is based on gametes and someone gets a type of cancer where their gonads are removed or are born without functional gonads, why are they not less male or female?
Their bodies are still geared towards the production of such gametes. If a woman gets a hysterectomy, she's still female. She doesn't cease to be female.
Removing testes from a male doesn't make him less male? Then why stop there for both sexes? Every one is indistinguishable but still either male or female sex, which is absurd.
Your argument makes no sense when considering that transgendered individuals are in essence erased with your simplified approach, sex is bimodal but gender identity is seperate of gamate and sexual characteristics. A trans individual is valid no matter what side of the graph, even if people become more feminine and masculine than they were and not counting intersex who exist in a bimodal distribution because XO is a intersex definition.
Androgen insensitivity syndrome exists XYX XXX and XYY exist sex is *not* binary because of the outliers. Like Klinefelter and triple X syndrome.
What has a metaphysical claim of identity got to do with material reality?
@@ambientjohnny what do hormones have to do with phenotypic expression? There is a reason this video cites one dude and not any scientific papers. You can easily aggregate various metrics into an index. the peaks are simply averages. What happens if you give someone excessive T or increase their sensitivity to it? Take a wild guess. Some of those metrics will obviously shift positions for that individual, some approaching the extremes in BOTH directions (see gynecomastia and reduction of external gonad size) and others may likely approach average depending on the individual's starting measurements. There's are reasons scientists accept the bimodal model for organisms that reproduce sexually: because it's simple, makes sense and is accurate to observations.
@@snowballeffect7812 None of the things you mention shift an individual from one sex to the other.
@@ambientjohnny Depending on when you start exposing an embryo to different hormones, you will absolutely end up with a completely different sex expression. I do not know how in this day and age with everyone on the internet you have the audacity to pretend like you know what you're talking about when you clearly have done zero research. Even if this wasn't part of my field of study, we are BOTH on the internet. You have no excuse for your laziness and ignorance, although I guess videos like this one can give people a false sense of intelligence and knowledge.
@@snowballeffect7812 Sex expression, phenotype, sex related traits, determining system is not necesaary = to sex.
You flex about knowledge but you have stronger misconceptions about the issue. But i already made a reply to you, so i won't go in depth with this one
this is hopelessly reductionist. what about the roles of Sry, Sox9, SF-1, Dax1, and Wnt4? What about XXY, and XXO? i suppose those are inconvenient ideas if your idea is to reduce ideas to simplistic black or white (girl or boy)
@@makeshift2105 why?
Oh, god. Here we go again
Many people are ignorant on the topic (this apply to both sides) and look at the problem only from a superficial level or enough to back-up some of their claims or ideas.
XX and XY are not the reason why we have the concept of Sex or why we divide in male and female. If in humans we would have hypothetically a more complex sex determination system as a standard evolutionary tendency, like:
WY===>Females WX===>Females XX===>Females
YY ===>Males XY ===>Males
The number of sexes would still be 2. The fact that there are 5+ possible chromosomical combinations doesn't mean there are 5+ sexes (notice that this is an actual sex determining system of the platyfish + you can also check Haplodiploidy). Some animals don't even have sex chromosomes and their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubated egg(ex. Croccodiles)...despite that we can still distinguish between the males and the females of that species.
To make you understand what sex is, you have to see sex as an emergent property. Sex is a category of biological systems organizzed towards the tendency to favour the potential production of a specific type of gametes (in this case we tend to divide between the common bigger and smaller gametes, in our case sperm and ova; this systems influence reproductive roles). Yes, this include young males and old females as they still have a verifiable system organizzed towards the production of ova or sperm (hence why some diagnosis are massively different on the basis of such fact; an infertile woman that produce 400 ng/dl will be a remarkable cause of concern compared to an infertile male with the same T production). Even the combination of the 2 sexes would still not be a new sex, as to be as such a new sex would require the production of a gamete that is completely different in function from the other 2 so much so to determine even an entire new reproductive role. Intersex are ambiguous cases, but they also have a tendency toward one of the two sexes (even when it comes to "True Intersex" conditions), meaning that they are a form of variation of the 2 systems. In humans, male and female reproductive systems are antagonist of each others: one tend to stop the functional development of the other (See "True Hermaphrodism" in humans - which, as far as historical data goes, is not actually a fully functional form of Hermaphrodism - where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue; even if Hermaphrodism exist in humans it doesn't mean that there are more than 2 sexes, it simply mean that such entity/individual is both the 2 sexes at the same time). We associate certain set of chromosomes, endocrinology, genitalia and other sexually dymorphic traits to a sex, because they are typical of a male or female system relative to our species due to evolutionary reasons. This still doesn't mean that having a female with a male endocrinological sex is a new sex: if anything this conflict between sex and endocrinological sex actually give us information of a potential malicious event. If it is not malicious, then you are a female with a male endocrinological sex, like others Female Animals that would have a Male endocrinological sex relative to us (see Moles).
Even if we consider certain DSD people neither Male or Female, still doesn't mean that such people are a new sex. Not fitting into the criteria of something doesn't necessary mean you are a new category of that classification. If Sex is defined by a system related to gametic production, In the hypothetical case that you have 0 biomarkers or traits relative to such criteria and thus you are a completely neutral being, the equivalence SEX=male,female,intersex it will still be misleading, as intersex people are not equal to a SEX (thus the equivalence would be SEX=Male,Female, hence the definition inside biomedical dictionaries such the one on biologyonline)
How is this reductionist?
Does this disprove that trans people can just change their genders?
I support them just for clarification but it seems like science says sex and gender aren't two different things.
Trans individuals, like everyone else, can express themselves and identify in any way they see fit. This video is specifically talking about sex category, not gender. Gender is often linked to sex, but it is not always the same thing. Gender is more about the set of behaviors, attitudes, and social roles associated with someone's sex. There are both biological and sociological components to gender. To understand the mixture depends on the specific trait being studied.
Understanding of gender is better covered in the study of psycho/sociology and linguistic descriptivism/prescriptivism
Understanding of sex is better covered in the study of biological taxonomy.
@@hexzyle here's a question, if gender is a social construct and social constructs can be changed or even abandoned, should we abolish gender? Do you think it puts us in cages? Expectations and "normal" behavior end up othering people and driving people to do things they wouldn't naturally do in order to live up to an artificial ideal. Would you support society abolishing gender?
People are bamboozled by words like intersex, bimodal and spectrum when they are not willing to turn the pages of a dictionary or do basic research.
is the dictionary usually where you do your genetic and anthropological research? lol. would explain a lot, actually.
@@snowballeffect7812 reread the comment, particularly the last four words. It might be the dictionary is somewhat beyond your capacity, as basic reading skills don’t appear to be your forte. Are you supercilious? Spoiler: yes.
@@denvan3143 So you're telling me, a doctor, to do my own research? So you've heard of cheng and kirkpatrik? What do you think would happen to an embryo if it's exposed to testosterone at different points of development? How do you think sex is expressed through development at all? You are telling me to doo my own research, yet you clearly have not even begun to think about how sex genes are expressed lmao.
@@makeshift2105 yes, several of them.
@@snowballeffect7812 oddly, my reply was somehow deleted. I won’t retype it, I’ll simply say it’s pretty lame to claim “I’m a doctor“ and think that carries any weight. If you were you would’ve made some reference to your experience and claim to expertise concerning what you’re talking about. So basically it’s like this: i’m the captain of the starship enterprise, give me a snappy salute and get your butt off my bridge. 😄
The very premise of trying to say that sex is binary is flawed. It's like racial blood quantum or ethnic partitioning.
Since this is about taxonomy, what you call something, it's squarely in the realm of philosophy. Taxonomy in species, for instance, might identify two animals as being the same species and then later decide they are entirely separate species. You are trying to make objective and normalize aspects of real-world organisms, which are not clear-cut and normalized. You are applying a purely ideological theory (binarism) to what is in reality chaotic and arbitrary.
Let's assume for instance there's a factory that produces only Coke or Pepsi in neat little cans. They're both colas and share a large portion of the same ingredients with each other. Surely there's a concentration of Coke ingredients that is considered the objective definition of what Coke is. Same with Pepsi. Theoretically, you could say these are perfectly identical every time. That's binary. 1 or 0. But that's not how it is in reality. There is a space between the two products where its definitions get messier. You have a specified range of concentrations in each product where even if it deviates, you still call it Coke or Pepsi. A 1.001, or a 0.025. The closer Coke gets to Pepsi, the more Pepsi-like it becomes, and vise versa. That value is never perfectly 1 or 0. So it's bimodal. It's only useful to us humans to say that they're binary, where reality really doesn't give a shit.
Even if we were to define sexes as being across these very strict tolerances, you can never get a perfect tolerance of a deviation approaching 0. To say there's a binary is to say there's a perfect recipe for human sexes, and the more strict it is, the more you start shutting out people from the definition of male OR female. The more the majority of humanity gets shut out of even your conventional definitions of sex. To say there's a quantized binary means that there is a 100% perfect male and 100% perfect female, which would mean taking one slice of time out of two very specific humans and then declaring that the recipe, to say that the gametes they produce must fall along strict lines with no deviation. The only difference here is that the two humps of bimodality, you're arguing, are discontinuous, that they never overlap. Which is of course ridiculous. By whose fucking rules? This is nigh religious reasoning, like you think reality has a backstop for human sex taxonomy because of some higher power. It's all about how you define the terms of the graph. Insisting that they're separate is *your* decision, not biology's.
It has to be *at least* bimodal, where the two modes are roughly defined along loose tolerances. You might define that as which group of gametes it produces, but those gametes are not perfectly representative of each other either. If a gamete is flawed so much that the genetics it produces are considered faulty, then what kind of gamete is that? Does a gamete require a perfect recipe? Reality doesn't give a shit if we think biology is binary. Biology is about the imperfect mechanisms that an organism has a guideline for, not a rulebook. It's only someone with an agenda that would say there's an objective way to have a body.
No one is saying there's an objective way to have a body. We call things what they are because of the criteria they meet. Is a racecar a pineapple? Why not? Are you me? Why not? The criteria for male and female are gametes within the human species. Our sexual characteristics can vary but saying that there's no perfect objective way for them to be all the "same" doesn't mean they're completely different from each other. I'm assuming you're human right? So am I. Are we exactly the same? Oh so then we must be completely different species! NO. Even if there are intersex people they don't disprove the binary. If you flip a nickle 5000 times it will land either heads or tails but sometimes it will land straight in the middle. Does this negate the binary of heads or tails? NO. Go cry about how reality isn't what you want it to be somewhere else
Wrong cope
@@hitoshura2800 lol, the comparison isn't like saying that two different people mean that every person is their own species, it means that humanity is not in a unary distribution. There is no objectively human person. You can flip a coin a million times, and it'll flip roughly along two sides but in any number of rotations. The side is a construct we came up with to describe the emergent properties of something that looks orderly to us. There's no God of Sides that determined what a Side is. It's just something we came up with because it was a useful descriptor.
@@SilentscufflE you're not saying anything profound or illuminating, I know they're social constructs but regardless of the existence of the words those things exist in physical material reality. They have a material referent. That material referent is observed and labeled, so yes there are objectively human people and the gametes are objectively binary and sex is real because we observe it. Labels are social constructs but there's a material referent for them, therefore they objectively exist.
Oh of course, relativism.....
The straw man here is that someone would be more male or more female. That is not even an implication. All it would mean if you are a short AMAB, have less body hair, have a hard time building muscle ect is that you are missing some of the more obvious characteristics associated with the socially constructed category that attempts to organize individuals via clusters of physical characteristics.
You can choose to feel invalidated by the fact that you have characteristics that move you farther away from the peaks of the two modes. Or you can acknowledge that nature creates variety for a reason and help create a world where short kings and hairy queens can love their variance.
While I see the bi-modal view in sex as useful. The more important factor for me is how we socially pigeon hole people as a result of these socially constructed categories, disregarding their agency.
A certain amount of how we interact with people needs to be up to them and what feels right for them. Trans people largely want our social categorization of gender to be just that “up to us”.
To add a sine wave looking graph and say that it’s binary is trying really hard to modify the concept of binary to fit your feelings.
It would be actually look more like a square wave with 90 degree angles.
If you have a characteristic that is normally associated with AFABs like ovaries or something and you’re an AMAB person due to your chromosomes that doesn’t change the fact that ovaries are generally an AFAB characteristic. Not as much as height, when accounting for these characteristics it makes sense to put the two modal peaks together in a way where they meet as opposed to separating them to make conservatives feel better.
Facts don’t care about your feelings lol just kidding. I had to.
No but for real like you can have these socially constructed concepts we know of as graphs touch tips or not. I don’t think either are necessarily wrong or tight but I think bimodal is more useful especially if we were to add a Z Axis layering these characteristics together to see what characteristics do and don’t touch tips.
Either way it’s up to us to decide which is most useful for science and society.
Since we get to decide that why don’t we stop leveraging which pictures we like better to justify dehumanizing marginalized people and painting them as mentally I’ll for existing since the dawn of time.
Y’all ever heard of Hermes and Aphrodites baby Hermaphrodite?
We’ve been here. You like us. Stop being jelly, take a shot and join the party, just be nice and respectful. 💋
I'm trying to figure out why the stance "theres to gamete types therefor two sexes exist" why use that definition if the biology of humans are far more complex?
@@makeshift2105 i figured as much however so much of our laws, cultures, and identity is dependent on phenotypes and physical representation. Time has passed since I made this comment and whilst biological refers to the study of biology understand that using this definition will literally rewrite how laws and cultures veiw sex and gender. Which is fine but...
@@MalTheMostTired Because you need to use distinct terms to describe distinct things? No one is saying that sex is the only thing that defines a human being.
but you didn't define binary sex. is it XX vs XY chromosomes? is it genitals? Testosterone vs Estrogen levels? the ability to reproduce? because if you start trying to define sex itself and exploring that, it also gets complicated and seems likely to be bimodal...
and a bimodal understanding of sex wouldn't equate to being "more/less male", just "having more/less 'average male' sex characteristics". that doesn't have to be viewed as a bad thing, we are just different and many are "outliers".
then the question is, where did this "average" data even come from and how accurate is it.
One can tell you are new to the channel. He made thousands of videos about it and he have address all such arguments by giving also the sources
I will summarize it for you.
Many people are ignorant on the topic (this apply to both sides) and look at the problem only from a superficial level or enough to back-up some of their claims or ideas.
XX and XY are not the reason why we have the concept of Sex or why we divide in male and female. If in humans we would have hypothetically a more complex sex determination system as a standard evolutionary tendency, like:
WY===>Females WX===>Females XX===>Females
YY ===>Males XY ===>Males
The number of sexes would still be 2. The fact that there are 5+ possible chromosomical combinations doesn't mean there are 5+ sexes (notice that this is an actual sex determining system of the platyfish + you can also check Haplodiploidy). Some animals don't even have sex chromosomes and their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubated egg(ex. Croccodiles)...despite that we can still distinguish between the males and the females of that species.
To make you understand what sex is, you have to see sex as an emergent property. Sex is a category of biological systems organizzed towards the tendency to favour the potential production of a specific type of gametes (in this case we tend to divide between the common bigger and smaller gametes, in our case sperm and ova; this systems influence reproductive roles). Yes, this include young males and old females as they still have a verifiable system organizzed towards the production of ova or sperm (hence why some diagnosis are massively different on the basis of such fact; an infertile woman that produce 400 ng/dl will be a remarkable cause of concern compared to an infertile male with the same T production). Even the combination of the 2 sexes would still not be a new sex, as to be as such a new sex would require the production of a gamete that is completely different in function from the other 2 so much so to determine even an entire new reproductive role. Intersex are ambiguous cases, but they also have a stronger tendency toward one of the two sexes (even when it comes to "True Intersex" conditions), meaning that they are a form of variation of the 2 systems. In humans, male and female reproductive systems are antagonist of each others: one stop the functional development of the other (See "True Hermaphrodism" in humans - which, as far as historical data goes, is not actually a fully functional form of Hermaphrodism - where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue). We associate certain set of chromosomes, endocrinology, genitalia and other sexually dymorphic traits to a sex, because they are typical of a male or female system relative to our species due to evolutionary reasons. This still doesn't mean that having a female with a male endocrinological sex is a new sex: if anything this conflict between sex and endocrinological sex actually give us information of a potential malicious event. If it is not malicious, then you are a female with a male endocrinological sex, like others Female Animals that would have a Male endocrinological sex relative to us (see Moles).
Even if we consider certain DSD people neither Male or Female, still doesn't mean that such people are a new sex. Not fitting into the criteria of something doesn't necessary mean you are a new category of that classification. If Sex is defined by a system related to gametic production, In the hypothetical case that you have 0 biomarkers or traits relative to such criteria and thus you are a completely neutral being, the equivalence SEX=male,female,intersex it will still be misleading, as intersex people are not equal to a SEX (thus the equivalence would be SEX=Male,Female, hence the definition of sex you can see on biologyonline. com).
Yes, a bimodal distrubuition would imply that you are less male in respect of something as you are saying that those traits define how male you are. If people are not less of a "male" for having less of a typical phenotypical trait or less of a "female" for the same reason, then you can only be a male or a female...a binary.
Thank you for my Ted Talk.
@@creaomega2643hank you, I have been arguing the issue of this system and It sounds more like a logical fallacy than actually logical: "if a human is born without one finger, it proves that the numbers of fingers are an spectrum" logic.(I also have seen some individuals claiming and agreeing that fingers is an spectrum)
Not only that, but the argument made to support its claim is literally just: hormones or dsd= "male can have sex traits of a female" and this is shown by hormones that by consequences creates a system of "more male, more female." Being more male would mean having more testosterone while being a female would mean having more estrogen.
Sex has been shown to be a reproductive system that is not limited just by gametes and chromosomes but a collaboration of both system.
On my view it's kinda dishonest how it brings the statistics numbers of people with dsd and mutation to back it up while ignoring people who were born infertile, blind, deaf and etc who is way more high than these deformity! There also been an emotional fallacy (unfortunately) that ended up making the head of these individuals making them live by "non binary" and feel uncomfortable with the "sex binary" system. These individuals of course are being used as fuels to back it up as a way to "protect their mental health"
And In the end an authority argument is made
Wait what? But they defined the intersex people as male or female based on what??
Many people are ignorant on the topic (this apply to both sides) and look at the problem only from a superficial level or enough to back-up some of their claims or ideas.
XX and XY are not the reason why we have the concept of Sex or why we divide in male and female. If in humans we would have hypothetically a more complex sex determination system as a standard evolutionary tendency, like:
WY===>Females WX===>Females XX===>Females
YY ===>Males XY ===>Males
The number of sexes would still be 2. The fact that there are 5+ possible chromosomical combinations doesn't mean there are 5+ sexes (notice that this is an actual sex determining system of the platyfish + you can also check Haplodiploidy). Some animals don't even have sex chromosomes and their sex is determined by the temperature of the incubated egg(ex. Croccodiles)...despite that we can still distinguish between the males and the females of that species.
To make you understand what sex is, you have to see sex as an emergent property. Sex is a category of biological systems organizzed towards the tendency to favour the potential production of a specific type of gametes (in this case we tend to divide between the common bigger and smaller gametes, in our case sperm and ova; this systems influence reproductive roles). Yes, this include young males and old females as they still have a verifiable system organizzed towards the production of ova or sperm (hence why some diagnosis are massively different on the basis of such fact; an infertile woman that produce 400 ng/dl will be a remarkable cause of concern compared to an infertile male with the same T production). Even the combination of the 2 sexes would still not be a new sex, as to be as such a new sex would require the production of a gamete that is completely different in function from the other 2 so much so to determine even an entire new reproductive role. Intersex are ambiguous cases, but they also have a stronger tendency toward one of the two sexes (even when it comes to "True Intersex" conditions), meaning that they are a form of variation of the 2 systems. In humans, male and female reproductive systems are antagonist of each others: one stop the functional development of the other (See "True Hermaphrodism" in humans - which, as far as historical data goes, is not actually a fully functional form of Hermaphrodism - where the concentration of Anti-Müllerian Hormone inhibit the functionality and further development of specific female or male sex characteristics and gonadal tissue). We associate certain set of chromosomes, endocrinology, genitalia and other sexually dymorphic traits to a sex, because they are typical of a male or female system relative to our species due to evolutionary reasons. This still doesn't mean that having a female with a male endocrinological sex is a new sex: if anything this conflict between sex and endocrinological sex actually give us information of a potential malicious event. If it is not malicious, then you are a female with a male endocrinological sex, like others Female Animals that would have a Male endocrinological sex relative to us (see Moles).
Even if we consider certain DSD people neither Male or Female, still doesn't mean that such people are a new sex. Not fitting into the criteria of something doesn't necessary mean you are a new category of that classification. If Sex is defined by a system related to gametic production, In the hypothetical case that you have 0 biomarkers or traits relative to such criteria and thus you are a completely neutral being, the equivalence SEX=male,female,intersex it will still be misleading, as intersex people are not equal to a SEX (thus the equivalence would be SEX=Male,Female, hence the definition of sex you can see on biologyonline. com)
Yes, a bimodal distrubuition would imply that you are less male in respect of something as you are saying that those traits define how male you are (ignoring that all such traits you gonna pick are inheritly antropocentric, thus inconsistent in many other taxa). If people are not less of a "male" for having less of a typical phenotypical trait or less of a "female" for the same reason, then you can only be a male or a female...a binary.
Thank you for my Ted Talk.
"Sex is not propertly definable, therefore it is binary and not bimodal" - This video's pathetic argument.
Why isn't this on PragerU? Is this a spin-off from the main channel? Not only is the visual style almost identical, the shoddy arguments are exactly identical. Why no mention of chromosomal differences? It's as if you're trying to direct our attention away from the actual determining factors for sex towards secondary, tertiary, quaternary features like breast size and voice pitch that are of minimal importance. Can't wait for your videos on why we should support the military-industrial complex and why antiracists are the real racists.
@Josh the Art Critic Lol. Your responses are incoherent. Do I have sources to say that the video's arguments are poorly formulated? Do I have sources to say that chromosomes determine sexual differences? Try reading my comment again before you waste my time.
@Josh the Art Critic What you're doing is the definition of sealioning. Respond to what I said or go bother someone else. I don't need to watch every video on the channel to criticise this one, and your expectation that I should is frankly weird. Your activity on this channel is already suspicious - 140 comments on 8 videos, on a channel that's only been around for a few months. I suspect you're one of the content creators, or the mother of one of them, and your defensiveness is getting the better of you. This conversation is not worth my time.
@Josh the Art Critic You're the animator, aren't you? The animation's very nice.
@Josh the Art Critic How would I know they were reuploads? And for what other reason would you be so defensive about them?
@Josh the Art Critic Which views of mine are you criticising? Which claims should I back with references? What am I 'making up'?
maybe look at the graph before making arguments like this. No one is saying anyone is less male or less female, there are a number of sex characteristics that are quantifiable and fall under male categories and female categories. You are conflating primary and secondary sex characteristics when the actual graph only charts primary sex characteristics. you can look at Pitch Interactive and find the graph Beyond XX and XY and find the Scientific American article on this for a better explanation of the graph. If sex were binary, there would be variation of primary sex characteristics. Binary code is 1's and 0's, it literally would not be binary if there were even a single 2 in there. The only other possibility is bimodal.
@@makeshift2105 its almost as if sex is a spectrum and not linear or binary
@@makeshift2105 sex is bimodal expressed as a direct result of the endocrine system being the way it is.
@@makeshift2105 LOL brilliant take. You should bring this position to other biologists and doctors. I'm sure exposing an embryo to different hormones will have no effect on their sexual development lmao. this is like a "gravity does not exist" level of flat-earther type argument. you are either trolling or are RELIGIOUS with this sex binary nonsense.
I thought the propaganda style was coincidental, but at 2:03 the dishonesty is clear. Sex is not a trait, you can not put it on a graph like this and say that it can’t be bimodal because you are ignoring the characteristics and definitions of the thing you are pretending to analyze.
He has another video that talks about the different variables that determine sex and why intersex is either male or female