Hello All Commenters, I received notice of a comment from James M in my substack in-box, yet his comment is not visible below. If anyone else has commented and that is not visible here, email me via my substack address which appears in the About me section of this substack. Hopefully it was just some one-time glitch regarding James' comment, and thanks for your comment James.
Thank you for laying out the glaring and frankly terrifying situation we are facing. This coordinated attack on reality and especially women and homosexual folks is outrageous and has crept in under cover of darkness. Thank you for describing it so clearly. How to fight this ideology is the biggest challenge now. It’s going to take a coordinated legal, educational, medical and societal effort to roll back this terrible mind-virus.
Thank you for this comprehensive article. Two young people in my own family, now 18 and 21, have been thoroughly indoctrinated into this cult thinking.
I have noticed how it has impacted their abilities to think in general, too.
They refuse to discuss the topic with me. I'm quite sure that this refusal is because it causes painful cognitive dissonance within them. They know my stance means that I am a bad person who must be feared and hated, which is at odds with their lifetime of experience of me as a kind person deeply concerned with justice for all living things.
Excellent, thorough and quite damning of the propaganda thrown at our kids in public education about gender and sex and their bodies. Beyond alarming, what a good expose on this crisis of lies vs reality.
This is about politics. The trans-propaganda tool they’re successfully using is redefining language. Biological facts have become collateral damage.
I note that Autogynephilia, defined as a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female, does not get a mention in the ‘inclusivity’ literature you cite. The term has been buried by the trans propagandists presumably because it conveys the wrong political message. Transvestism as a term for sexual arousal for men dressing in women’s clothing has also been effectively redefined- nowadays one would be forgiven for thinking it’s synonymous with trans-woman, and the sexual gratification component replaced by an educational or entertainment virtue.
But the most bewildering thing about it all is why so many otherwise sensible people have fallen for it, to the extent that they have become just as staunch advocates as the trans activists themselves. Is it social contagion? Mass hysteria? Or the sort of political indoctrination that the Nazi’s and Communists used so successfully? One suspects the social anthropologists of the future will be fascinated by it all.
I think that the attempted wholesale abolition of the recognition of biological sex serves various murky secondary societal roles, but the primary aim is almost certainly for the biotech and medical sectors to, in future, be guaranteed an ever expanding consumer base to whom to sell services and products including novel "gender identities" and subsequently, fertility treatments.
Excellent points Carol, please keep on sharing and speaking up. This has gotten to the metaphysical level, they are claiming there is some kind of soul that could be a different sex than the one they were born with. This is absolute nonsense and very dangerous to teach to children. There are two sexes, mammals are sexually dimorphic. There are only two gametes, egg and sperm. This is beautiful and simple and confusing children about this is wrong and disconnected from reality.
A depressing read. I'm in the Netherlands and don't have kids (yet) so I don't know how far it has spread here, but I know it's very present in politics and media already so I'm sure it's also in schools here. It seems incredible how fast and how comprehensively and aggressively these ideas have take over education, certainly in the US but from what I hear also in the rest of the anglosphere and I fear in (Western) Europe as well. How can we even hope to counter this? Thank you for at least trying.
Excellent work. This is really comprehensive and valuable. The more information there is published, of high quality like this, the better equipped will be those who are resisting and pushing back against the trans ideology.
Outstanding! Thank you, thank you, thank you for doing this!
Hey Carol, I have some material from Illinois that I submitted to the WDI website some time ago but it has not been posted yet. Should I send it to you?
Illinois has actually statutorily mandated the teaching of the so-called "National Sex Education Standards" statewide. I am researching possible legal action, as I believe the statute violates our State Constitution.
Great to hear from you Richard. I just emailed WDI to check in on additions to the Archive. I think it makes sense for me to incorporate your data in a document I send to them, and will let you know when I hear back. Will be in touch about legal actions, etc.
I just couldn’t rad all of this without vomiting! It’s time for a revolution in the public schools, in the blue blue states like Washington state
! Teachers who teach this crap should be summarily fired! There is no room for such ideological crap to be taught in a school in any school. It’s time that parents take the lead and demand true education, not propaganda. It is a total scandal and must be stopped. The only way I can think of is to vote for Republicans, who on the whole would probably not support this, ! Sad to say it’s the Democrats and so-called progressives who are indoctrinating children just like they did in China in the cultural revolution. With this kind of “education “we will have a bunch of sheep who will believe in anything and there goes our democracy.
I would pull my kids out of any school that promotes such utter garbage !
Doesn’t everyone get sick and tired about the navel gazing trans cultists? Do they ever think of any real problems in the world? Do they care that there are people in Gaza dying ?That there are people hungry and homeless in this country? That animals are mistreated?That there are wars going on in the world? Do they care about anything at all?Or do they just worry about being “ misgendered”?
Or that someone is not using their stupid pronouns? To me they appear like a bunch of spoiled whiners that want their own way , and that the world rotates around them!
This entire article is filled with appalling examples of grooming and shocking disinformation, but the following is probably the most blatant example of the grooming of innocent five year old children by those who surely mean to put them in harm's way, whether of perverts who wish, no doubt, to harm them in the short-term by molesting them - or the type of perverts who seek to profit from the confusion and dissociation that drives minors towards Gender Medicine in the longer term:
"A lesson for first graders in Illinois says that some people know their gender from their bodies, but others recognise their gender from *what's inside their hearts*". "We want to recognise the genders that people have in their hearts!".
Simply horrifying... Instructing children so young to take ALL adults at face value, including those who will lie in order to prey on them! I hope that any parents from the school district(s) concerned who have been made aware of that are able to sue.
We are starting something called the National Psychotherapy Association: https://nationalpsychotherapyassociation.weebly.com/. It proposes a reactionary approach to stopping social delusions like this. It is non-sectarian.
Thank You for these encyclopedic citations documenting the horrifying indoctrination of kids into this stupid and dangerous new state religion. I will share this and Your other resources with anyone newly "peaking".
BTW The doctor "assigning" sexes in "It Feels Good To Be Yourself" wouldn't have to guess if She/he just peeked under the diaper!
Wow. What an essay, what a thoroughly damning indictment of far too much of “Gender Ideology”. Though at a 78 minute read, I have to admit I’ve only skimmed much of it so far – the rest on the back burner waiting time for a more thorough perusal – but it seems to make some pretty solid points.
However, while I quite agree with much of what seems to be a common thread running through your essay – “a scientific mindset demands clear definitions”, “definitional chaos”, and “the gutting of rational definitions for sex-based words”, “male” and “female” in particular – I’m not sure that you realize that the definitions for the sexes that you apparently subscribe to – those of Dr. Stevens, in particular, i.e., “Biological sex is fundamentally defined by male and female reproductive anatomy” – are NOT at all those endorsed by mainstream biology.
Unfortunately or not, there are any number of definitions for the sexes that we might “reasonably” agree on. Too many don’t seem to realize that our definitions for categories – “male” and “female” in particular – are “socially constructed”. We can define them any way we wish – pay the words extra as Humpty Dumpty suggested – though some are better than others. Moses didn’t bring the first dictionary down from Mt. Sinai on tablets A through Z so there are NO definitions which carry the imprimatur or signature of Jehovah – Himself.
For example, in ancient times “female” meant “she who suckles” – by which Bruce Jenner and his ilk might qualify as such. And “male” and “female”, in the context of plumbing and electrical connectors, mean “has convex mating surface” and “has concave mating surface”, respectively, by which various transsexuals might "reasonably" be said to have changed sex:
Though rather risible that Wikipedia uses “gender” instead of “sex” to describe those – what a bunch of prudes – although they at least use “male” and “female” to denote the different types.
So our definitions are hardly cast in concrete or can be considered as “gospel truth” in any way, shape or form. Though there is some merit in Stevens’ definitions, not least because they comport with what might be called “folk-biology”. In addition to which, they’ve also been “promulgated” by “biologists” Emma Hilton, Heather Heying, and Colin Wright in a letter published by the UK Times. A fairly credible newspaper but hardly what one would call any sort of a peer-reviewed journal of biology, but to wit:
"Individuals that have developed anatomies for producing either small or large gametes, - regardless of their past, present, or future functionality - are referred to as 'males' and 'females', respectively."
However, those rather unscientific if not anti-scientific definitions of Stevens and Hilton conflict rather profoundly with the standard biological definitions which have, in fact, been published in various reputable biological journals – Theoretical Biology, and Molecular Human Reproduction (MHR) in particular – and which are, in fact, also endorsed by Oxford Dictionaries. To wit:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
Absolutely diddly-squat there in either set of definitions about “developed anatomies” or “reproductive anatomies”. By those biological definitions, the necessary and sufficient conditions to qualify as male and female is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless – a term which probably encompasses about a third of us at any one time.
You in particular might be interested in seeing that that MHR article is fairly popular on Twitter, being tweeted thither and yon by all and sundry -- to the general discomfiture and chagrin of various transgender activists, spectrumists, and assorted grifters, charlatans, and scientific illiterates:
But the bottom line is that, as you quite reasonably argued, “a scientific mindset demands clear definitions” – “amen” to that. However, it seems clear that the only reasonable and scientifically justified definitions for the sexes are those by which to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. Don’t think we’re going to resolve the transgender clusterfuck until we are prepared to draw a line in the sand – the MHR definitions being a rather “bright” if not lambent one – and let the chips fall where they may. And regardless of who might be “offended” by the logical consequences of those definitions.
The definition that you endorse, cited from Oxford dictionary, is actually pretty similar to the core definition put forth by people like Wright and every evolutionary biologist that I've heard comment on the definition, although they don't always use the term phenotype, and not always mentioning anisogamous. The definition you cite is quite concise and accurate. I think when conveying information of this sort to the general public, they are probably more interested in how these definitions apply to humans, in a fashion that they can relate to, so talking about about reproductive systems/organs makes more sense than the term phenotype which is a term that is unfamiliar to most people. Certainly for children introducing human sex by teaching the differences in anatomy (when age appropriate) will make sense.. Certainly by the time they reach high school and take biology class they should be able to grasp phenotype and anisogomy should be able to be understood.
What I find troubling is that there seems to be a fair number of people in the scientific community that have bought into the spectrum nonsense, or a variant of that, the multifactorial approach. And they are transparent about why they are doing it.
> "The definition that you endorse, cited from Oxford dictionary, is actually pretty similar to the core definition put forth by people like Wright and every evolutionary biologist that I've heard comment on the definition ..."
Sure, Wright's -- and Hilton's -- definition may LOOK similar to that standard biological one -- it actually encompasses gonads as something of an essential property. But when you look under the hood they're miles apart -- if not galaxies apart. Consider a more or less standard or foundational definition for "sex":
"sex: Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions"
Bit of a stretch to see how gonads of "past or future functionality" can be said to exhibit any "reproductive function" at all. Wright's and Hilton's definitions -- more or less endorsed by too many so-called biologists and philosophers -- explicitly repudiates that requirement.
Particularly galling that Wright has blathered on about the "Dangerous Denial of Sex" when he's just as guilty of that particular "crime". Though I see that Hilton at least has more or less walked back from that rather untenable position, and for which she is to be commended:
Hilton: "The definition of female is: of or denoting the sex that can produce large gametes. This not a matter of *observation*, this is a matter of *definition*."
A very good point that it is simply a "matter of definition", but there's a significant set of reasons for the standard biological definitions. Though one might suggest that her "can produce" is something of a case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: the definitions say "produces gametes" -- right now, not 10 years ago or in the sweet by and by.
And apropos of those "reasons", you might have some interest in my post which argues -- on the basis of an article in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Mechanisms in Science -- that THE essential property for the sexes is currently functioning gonads; no gametes, no sex:
> "What I find troubling is that there seems to be a fair number of people in the scientific community that have bought into the spectrum nonsense, or a variant of that, the multifactorial approach."
Amen to that.
Largely why I've been arguing that the strict biological definitions for the sexes must be used as a line in the sand in the face of those who would corrupt both biology and science in general for various ideological "reasons". Even if those definitions may have limited value for "social engineering" purposes. And even if they "offend" people who have turned the sexes into "immutable identities" based on some "mythic essences" -- as UK "philosopher" Jane Clare Jones once suggested.
But, more particularly, you might also have some interest in my open letter to an erstwhile reputable biological journal, Cell, which had asked, apparently in all seriousness, "Is 'sex' a useful category?":
Hello All Commenters, I received notice of a comment from James M in my substack in-box, yet his comment is not visible below. If anyone else has commented and that is not visible here, email me via my substack address which appears in the About me section of this substack. Hopefully it was just some one-time glitch regarding James' comment, and thanks for your comment James.
Thank you for laying out the glaring and frankly terrifying situation we are facing. This coordinated attack on reality and especially women and homosexual folks is outrageous and has crept in under cover of darkness. Thank you for describing it so clearly. How to fight this ideology is the biggest challenge now. It’s going to take a coordinated legal, educational, medical and societal effort to roll back this terrible mind-virus.
Thank you for this comprehensive article. Two young people in my own family, now 18 and 21, have been thoroughly indoctrinated into this cult thinking.
I have noticed how it has impacted their abilities to think in general, too.
They refuse to discuss the topic with me. I'm quite sure that this refusal is because it causes painful cognitive dissonance within them. They know my stance means that I am a bad person who must be feared and hated, which is at odds with their lifetime of experience of me as a kind person deeply concerned with justice for all living things.
It may be the reason that this crap is taught in schools is to make people believe lies , and then they can be more easily manipulated.
Need to add that these young people were publicly educated in Victoria Australia.
Excellent, thorough and quite damning of the propaganda thrown at our kids in public education about gender and sex and their bodies. Beyond alarming, what a good expose on this crisis of lies vs reality.
This is about politics. The trans-propaganda tool they’re successfully using is redefining language. Biological facts have become collateral damage.
I note that Autogynephilia, defined as a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female, does not get a mention in the ‘inclusivity’ literature you cite. The term has been buried by the trans propagandists presumably because it conveys the wrong political message. Transvestism as a term for sexual arousal for men dressing in women’s clothing has also been effectively redefined- nowadays one would be forgiven for thinking it’s synonymous with trans-woman, and the sexual gratification component replaced by an educational or entertainment virtue.
But the most bewildering thing about it all is why so many otherwise sensible people have fallen for it, to the extent that they have become just as staunch advocates as the trans activists themselves. Is it social contagion? Mass hysteria? Or the sort of political indoctrination that the Nazi’s and Communists used so successfully? One suspects the social anthropologists of the future will be fascinated by it all.
I think that the attempted wholesale abolition of the recognition of biological sex serves various murky secondary societal roles, but the primary aim is almost certainly for the biotech and medical sectors to, in future, be guaranteed an ever expanding consumer base to whom to sell services and products including novel "gender identities" and subsequently, fertility treatments.
https://youtu.be/tLXdoqXbC6k
Excellent points Carol, please keep on sharing and speaking up. This has gotten to the metaphysical level, they are claiming there is some kind of soul that could be a different sex than the one they were born with. This is absolute nonsense and very dangerous to teach to children. There are two sexes, mammals are sexually dimorphic. There are only two gametes, egg and sperm. This is beautiful and simple and confusing children about this is wrong and disconnected from reality.
A depressing read. I'm in the Netherlands and don't have kids (yet) so I don't know how far it has spread here, but I know it's very present in politics and media already so I'm sure it's also in schools here. It seems incredible how fast and how comprehensively and aggressively these ideas have take over education, certainly in the US but from what I hear also in the rest of the anglosphere and I fear in (Western) Europe as well. How can we even hope to counter this? Thank you for at least trying.
Excellent work. This is really comprehensive and valuable. The more information there is published, of high quality like this, the better equipped will be those who are resisting and pushing back against the trans ideology.
Outstanding! Thank you, thank you, thank you for doing this!
Hey Carol, I have some material from Illinois that I submitted to the WDI website some time ago but it has not been posted yet. Should I send it to you?
Illinois has actually statutorily mandated the teaching of the so-called "National Sex Education Standards" statewide. I am researching possible legal action, as I believe the statute violates our State Constitution.
Great to hear from you Richard. I just emailed WDI to check in on additions to the Archive. I think it makes sense for me to incorporate your data in a document I send to them, and will let you know when I hear back. Will be in touch about legal actions, etc.
I just couldn’t rad all of this without vomiting! It’s time for a revolution in the public schools, in the blue blue states like Washington state
! Teachers who teach this crap should be summarily fired! There is no room for such ideological crap to be taught in a school in any school. It’s time that parents take the lead and demand true education, not propaganda. It is a total scandal and must be stopped. The only way I can think of is to vote for Republicans, who on the whole would probably not support this, ! Sad to say it’s the Democrats and so-called progressives who are indoctrinating children just like they did in China in the cultural revolution. With this kind of “education “we will have a bunch of sheep who will believe in anything and there goes our democracy.
I would pull my kids out of any school that promotes such utter garbage !
I’m a cat..meow! My identity über Alles!
Doesn’t everyone get sick and tired about the navel gazing trans cultists? Do they ever think of any real problems in the world? Do they care that there are people in Gaza dying ?That there are people hungry and homeless in this country? That animals are mistreated?That there are wars going on in the world? Do they care about anything at all?Or do they just worry about being “ misgendered”?
Or that someone is not using their stupid pronouns? To me they appear like a bunch of spoiled whiners that want their own way , and that the world rotates around them!
Totally sick of them!
This entire article is filled with appalling examples of grooming and shocking disinformation, but the following is probably the most blatant example of the grooming of innocent five year old children by those who surely mean to put them in harm's way, whether of perverts who wish, no doubt, to harm them in the short-term by molesting them - or the type of perverts who seek to profit from the confusion and dissociation that drives minors towards Gender Medicine in the longer term:
"A lesson for first graders in Illinois says that some people know their gender from their bodies, but others recognise their gender from *what's inside their hearts*". "We want to recognise the genders that people have in their hearts!".
Simply horrifying... Instructing children so young to take ALL adults at face value, including those who will lie in order to prey on them! I hope that any parents from the school district(s) concerned who have been made aware of that are able to sue.
Sue them all!
These children of mass dysfunction will grow older only with hate and despair and "FREINDLESS"!
Outnumbered 10,000 to 1, they will be misfits and shunned like lepers'. How cool was school now?
We are starting something called the National Psychotherapy Association: https://nationalpsychotherapyassociation.weebly.com/. It proposes a reactionary approach to stopping social delusions like this. It is non-sectarian.
Thank You for these encyclopedic citations documenting the horrifying indoctrination of kids into this stupid and dangerous new state religion. I will share this and Your other resources with anyone newly "peaking".
BTW The doctor "assigning" sexes in "It Feels Good To Be Yourself" wouldn't have to guess if She/he just peeked under the diaper!
Wow. What an essay, what a thoroughly damning indictment of far too much of “Gender Ideology”. Though at a 78 minute read, I have to admit I’ve only skimmed much of it so far – the rest on the back burner waiting time for a more thorough perusal – but it seems to make some pretty solid points.
However, while I quite agree with much of what seems to be a common thread running through your essay – “a scientific mindset demands clear definitions”, “definitional chaos”, and “the gutting of rational definitions for sex-based words”, “male” and “female” in particular – I’m not sure that you realize that the definitions for the sexes that you apparently subscribe to – those of Dr. Stevens, in particular, i.e., “Biological sex is fundamentally defined by male and female reproductive anatomy” – are NOT at all those endorsed by mainstream biology.
Unfortunately or not, there are any number of definitions for the sexes that we might “reasonably” agree on. Too many don’t seem to realize that our definitions for categories – “male” and “female” in particular – are “socially constructed”. We can define them any way we wish – pay the words extra as Humpty Dumpty suggested – though some are better than others. Moses didn’t bring the first dictionary down from Mt. Sinai on tablets A through Z so there are NO definitions which carry the imprimatur or signature of Jehovah – Himself.
For example, in ancient times “female” meant “she who suckles” – by which Bruce Jenner and his ilk might qualify as such. And “male” and “female”, in the context of plumbing and electrical connectors, mean “has convex mating surface” and “has concave mating surface”, respectively, by which various transsexuals might "reasonably" be said to have changed sex:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/female#etymonline_v_5841
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_connectors_and_fasteners
Though rather risible that Wikipedia uses “gender” instead of “sex” to describe those – what a bunch of prudes – although they at least use “male” and “female” to denote the different types.
So our definitions are hardly cast in concrete or can be considered as “gospel truth” in any way, shape or form. Though there is some merit in Stevens’ definitions, not least because they comport with what might be called “folk-biology”. In addition to which, they’ve also been “promulgated” by “biologists” Emma Hilton, Heather Heying, and Colin Wright in a letter published by the UK Times. A fairly credible newspaper but hardly what one would call any sort of a peer-reviewed journal of biology, but to wit:
"Individuals that have developed anatomies for producing either small or large gametes, - regardless of their past, present, or future functionality - are referred to as 'males' and 'females', respectively."
https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1207663359589527554
However, those rather unscientific if not anti-scientific definitions of Stevens and Hilton conflict rather profoundly with the standard biological definitions which have, in fact, been published in various reputable biological journals – Theoretical Biology, and Molecular Human Reproduction (MHR) in particular – and which are, in fact, also endorsed by Oxford Dictionaries. To wit:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990
https://web.archive.org/web/20181020204521/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/female
https://web.archive.org/web/20190608135422/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/male
Absolutely diddly-squat there in either set of definitions about “developed anatomies” or “reproductive anatomies”. By those biological definitions, the necessary and sufficient conditions to qualify as male and female is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless – a term which probably encompasses about a third of us at any one time.
You in particular might be interested in seeing that that MHR article is fairly popular on Twitter, being tweeted thither and yon by all and sundry -- to the general discomfiture and chagrin of various transgender activists, spectrumists, and assorted grifters, charlatans, and scientific illiterates:
https://oxfordjournals.altmetric.com/details/2802153/twitter
But the bottom line is that, as you quite reasonably argued, “a scientific mindset demands clear definitions” – “amen” to that. However, it seems clear that the only reasonable and scientifically justified definitions for the sexes are those by which to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. Don’t think we’re going to resolve the transgender clusterfuck until we are prepared to draw a line in the sand – the MHR definitions being a rather “bright” if not lambent one – and let the chips fall where they may. And regardless of who might be “offended” by the logical consequences of those definitions.
The definition that you endorse, cited from Oxford dictionary, is actually pretty similar to the core definition put forth by people like Wright and every evolutionary biologist that I've heard comment on the definition, although they don't always use the term phenotype, and not always mentioning anisogamous. The definition you cite is quite concise and accurate. I think when conveying information of this sort to the general public, they are probably more interested in how these definitions apply to humans, in a fashion that they can relate to, so talking about about reproductive systems/organs makes more sense than the term phenotype which is a term that is unfamiliar to most people. Certainly for children introducing human sex by teaching the differences in anatomy (when age appropriate) will make sense.. Certainly by the time they reach high school and take biology class they should be able to grasp phenotype and anisogomy should be able to be understood.
What I find troubling is that there seems to be a fair number of people in the scientific community that have bought into the spectrum nonsense, or a variant of that, the multifactorial approach. And they are transparent about why they are doing it.
> "The definition that you endorse, cited from Oxford dictionary, is actually pretty similar to the core definition put forth by people like Wright and every evolutionary biologist that I've heard comment on the definition ..."
Sure, Wright's -- and Hilton's -- definition may LOOK similar to that standard biological one -- it actually encompasses gonads as something of an essential property. But when you look under the hood they're miles apart -- if not galaxies apart. Consider a more or less standard or foundational definition for "sex":
"sex: Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions"
https://web.archive.org/web/20190326191905/https:/en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sex
Bit of a stretch to see how gonads of "past or future functionality" can be said to exhibit any "reproductive function" at all. Wright's and Hilton's definitions -- more or less endorsed by too many so-called biologists and philosophers -- explicitly repudiates that requirement.
Particularly galling that Wright has blathered on about the "Dangerous Denial of Sex" when he's just as guilty of that particular "crime". Though I see that Hilton at least has more or less walked back from that rather untenable position, and for which she is to be commended:
Hilton: "The definition of female is: of or denoting the sex that can produce large gametes. This not a matter of *observation*, this is a matter of *definition*."
https://x.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1488523777042432008
A very good point that it is simply a "matter of definition", but there's a significant set of reasons for the standard biological definitions. Though one might suggest that her "can produce" is something of a case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: the definitions say "produces gametes" -- right now, not 10 years ago or in the sweet by and by.
And apropos of those "reasons", you might have some interest in my post which argues -- on the basis of an article in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Mechanisms in Science -- that THE essential property for the sexes is currently functioning gonads; no gametes, no sex:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/rerum-cognoscere-causas
> "What I find troubling is that there seems to be a fair number of people in the scientific community that have bought into the spectrum nonsense, or a variant of that, the multifactorial approach."
Amen to that.
Largely why I've been arguing that the strict biological definitions for the sexes must be used as a line in the sand in the face of those who would corrupt both biology and science in general for various ideological "reasons". Even if those definitions may have limited value for "social engineering" purposes. And even if they "offend" people who have turned the sexes into "immutable identities" based on some "mythic essences" -- as UK "philosopher" Jane Clare Jones once suggested.
But, more particularly, you might also have some interest in my open letter to an erstwhile reputable biological journal, Cell, which had asked, apparently in all seriousness, "Is 'sex' a useful category?":
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/is-sex-a-useful-category
"Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen"