The Social Construction of Sex

For some reason there seems to be an increasing trend where gender studies and sociology take precedence over actual sciences. I have nothing against these joke subjects spewing their ideas of gender in every which way possible, but I do have an issue when they start falsely dictating objective biological principles by saying that sex is socially constructed. This isn't the view of some radicals either. Just a quick google search will see your screen flooded with various articles on how biological sex is apparently a social construct. So now I'm going to analyse this perspective with idiotic articles from your typical feminist blogger, and then look at an exert from a serious website on sociology. Let's see the reasoning behind this blatant science denial starting with the views of a self professed 'queer leftie'.

And you thought this was going to be an argument based on science. Ha. Can't imagine what made you think a scientific argument would be backed up with scientific evidence. Here it turns out that ancient civilizations have a better understanding of sex than modern scientists. Funnily enough these ancient civilizations did not post their findings in scientific journals, but rather holy books, that aren't exactly known for testing scientific theory. To further argue that sex cannot be biological because it comes from a Eurocentric model is equally moronic. The concept of sex you're trying to refute is not a sociological idea, but a biological principle based on the idea that all humans are of the same species. In other words sex expression is universal in humans, and culture has nothing to do with your sex chromosomes.

Again, we believe in this so called 'Eurocentric' model because it's far more valid than those described throughout cultural history. This Eurocentric model can be objectively proved with falsifiable evidence rather than subjective opinion. That's more than just a claim, it's an objective fact. I know you don't have an understanding of biology because of the clear scientific illiteracy in this article, but you should at least be able to make a coherent argument. Turns out I'm the one who's going to have to fill in the blanks. Karyotyping for example is literally sampling chromosomes, and would therefore not be a separate method to measuring chromosomes.

It's certainly true that babies can be born intersex, however these intersex babies are a minuscule minority, and are therefore described as a genetic condition that shows a departure from a typical human body. The presence of these intersex babies at no stage disproves a sexual dichotomy, and in actual fact provides evidence that there is a clear binary considering these exceptions to the norm do not describe a trend. The reality is that sex is about as clearer binary as you can possibly get in nature. The actual statistics are widely debated, but even the source you provide claims that just less than 2% of babies have even the most subtle of intersex traits. The frequency of those born without conventional sex chromosomes, which is the condition this point is based around, are estimated to be one in every 1,666 births. Saying that this minute percentage disproves a biological model is like making the argument that humans cannot be naturally bipedal because of the frequency of wheelchair dependent users. It gets worse when you claim that genitals not assigning to chromosomal configuration are normal. In what fucking universe is less than 2% considered normal? This isn't a standard that's used to oppress transgender individuals, but rather a factual statement born from empirical data that has nothing to do with social constructs. Later comparing this to the rate of bisexuals is not evidence that sex is not biology based. This is just a terrible use of statistics, and even poorer reasoning.

Funnily enough you still haven't even attempted to explain how this clear dichotomy arises. Has it still not occurred to you that there's an alarming correlation that arises between chromosomes and the traits expressed within an individual? I just don't understand this argument that because chromosomes aren't explicitly sampled they cannot have an effect on the sex of an individual. However you then go one further and just assume that the chromosomal explanation is wrong without actually sampling the chromosomes yourself. Even by your own logic this doesn't provide evidence for your point. You could take an accurate guess of an individual's genetic structure by looking at their phenotype, but that would mean looking at their genitals. It's almost like doctors know what they're doing. This is like making the argument that even though you've been medically diagnosed with cancer, it can't possibly be true because you didn't do the diagnosing.

The reason a person can change their genitals is because of human engineering. Therefore this procedure is not proof that sex isn't inherently biological since you're manually manipulating a body to resemble the other sex. You can't pick and mix over what sexual characteristics you want when having this sex change, because biological sex is not a spectrum. For this surgery to even happen there would have to be a biological dichotomy to begin with. It doesn't matter if some random man claims a transgender individual is a certain sex, because his opinion is irrelevant to the objective truths of biology. This is a key point I wish you could get your thick skull around. I'm also not quite sure why this point is explicitly aimed at men. Maybe it turns out you do think there's a gender binary when it suits your argument. 

Another huge point that funnily enough never makes it's way into this argument is the idea that we also find this strict dichotomy of sexes occurring practically unanimously in the natural world. Surely you're not suggesting that the diversity of life on the planet has the notion of what gender is. Possibly an even bigger rebuttal to this whole argument would be the presence of sexual selection; or more plainly interspecific conflict between sexes. You ever wondered why men are taller and heavier on average than women? No, it certainly isn't by social construction, but an evolutionary process instead. Evolution, like life itself, requires two biological sexes to copulate and transfer genes onto the next generation. Again this is a process universal in nature, and critical to the natural world. It would be absolutely moronic to state that it was humans who socially engineered this process. Tell me this: If sex isn't a biological term then show me a man with XY chromosomes that can give birth.

I honestly don't know what the fuck you're going on about in the next few paragraphs, but absolutely none of it is relevant. It essentially follows the pattern of 'misgendering is discrimination', which is a subject completely unrelated to biology. Speaking of things unrelated to biology, here's a serious sociology based website, and their take on biological sex.

As shit as the previous article was, at least that had the knowledge to provide some evidence. Sure, the evidence was irrelevant, but at least that leftie queer understood that you do need evidence to back up a huge point. In fact for the huge point made in this article you don't just need some evidence, you need a fuck ton of evidence, and enough evidence to essentially rewrite hundreds of years of scientific research. Just because a fact may oppress people does not invalidate it. This sex dichotomy cannot be held to blame for the oppression of groups of people, as that blame should be targeted towards the bigots that use this information to harass certain individuals. This would be like denying the holocaust because that way of thinking would mean admitting the suffering of millions at some point in history. In short this is just plain denial. You can't just edit out the bits of biology you don't like whilst simultaneously preaching about the value of scientific truth.

This particular article was written in response to sex testing in the Olympics, which is a subject I've touched on before. If biological sex really is a social construct then please tell me why in the Olympics is it men that hold all athletic world records. This is due to the fact that many human traits are quantitative, meaning the environment as well as genetics is causing this variation. What your suggesting is that there is no genetic basis behind this variation, in which case all humans would be genetic clones, and we would not see this level of variation both in and between the sexes. There is a very noticeable rift between average traits in each sex, which simply wouldn't occur if what you're saying is true. Your claim would see human traits expressed like a bell shaped with quantitative variables such as height and muscle mass. This clearly isn't the truth, and you would be hard pushed to find a seven foot tall woman, whereas there are numerous men that fit this category. This disparity cannot possibly be attributed to the random variation you describe.

All in all I'm shocked by this level of flat out misinformation towards biological sex across the internet, and to me it's disgusting that this is now becoming an accepted way of thinking. It serves as yet another reminder that your personal thoughts have no bearing on objective truths. To reject the idea of biological sex is to reject the fundamental ideas of biology, simple as that. If this causes issues in the world of social justice then so fucking what. In a perfect world maybe reality would be just how you desire it to be, but this is the real fucking world, where objective facts take precedence over personal narratives. In my little bubble I had always falsely assumed this plain science denial was a radical argument that was widely rejected, so imagine my shock when I was given a firm wake up call to just how stupid so called academics can be. Instead of attempting to fine tune ideologies with objective facts we are now letting these ideologies manipulate science, which is a trend that cannot be allowed to continue.