[HN Gopher] Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think
___________________________________________________________________
Animal Sex Determination Is Weirder Than You Think
Author : dnetesn
Score : 53 points
Date : 2023-04-13 10:53 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nautil.us)
(TXT) w3m dump (nautil.us)
| justinclift wrote:
| https://archive.is/tETrm
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Throughout the history of biology, psychology, cognitive science,
| and neurosciences, there has been a constant back and forth
| between those who would exaggerate sex differences, and those who
| would understate sex-differences as purely social constructs with
| no affect on biology other than what is caused via experienced
| socializations. The truth is more complicated than any of those
| extremes.
|
| Important differences in biology exist at every level of
| description, from molecular pathways to large scale brain
| morphology, and yet! The differences by sex are often subtle, and
| heterogenous, and not consistent across species. Nevertheless,
| while the sex chromosomes have far-reaching effects on
| development, starting at the very beginning of the
| neurodevelopmental timeline of cell proliferation and migration,
| the formation and structure of synapses, and so on, its not the
| whole story.
|
| A too common way people differentiate sex from gender is to say
| that there is, on the one hand, biological sex, which they'll add
| is both real, binary, and unchangeable, and then there is gender,
| the infinitely mind-bending social construct. This framework is
| often draped with an aura of scientific impartiality. I want to
| stress to you that this framework is not scientifically
| justified. Not at all. Further it is patently harmful and
| trivialized the very real phenomenon of gender diversity.
|
| First, biological sex is not the same thing as chromosomal sex.
| The sex chromosomes only partially, and only indirectly influence
| physiological and brain development. Development is fundamentally
| a multilevel process integrating genetic, epigenetic,
| environmental, and experiential factors, all of which can lead to
| qualitative and quantitative differences in the expression of the
| sex phenotype. Differences in the timing and dosage of steroid
| exposures within an individual, can lead to any particular
| feature being more stereotypically masculine, feminine,
| androgenous, or other phenotype altogether. The result is a
| mosaic of features with high degree of overlap in those with XX
| and XY chromosomes.
|
| Sometimes this kind of effect pushes someone's actual attributes
| to be not as typical of their chromosomal sex. These traits in
| turn will influence the gender identity they feel most in tune
| with, and how they incorporate and react to the socialization of
| gender norms.
| flippinburgers wrote:
| You say all that but nonetheless most people fall into two
| categories.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Let us not confuse bimodal distribution with binary
| distribution. stats 101. There is considerable overlap in
| biological features that are regulated by sex chromosomes and
| sex hormones, such that there is considerable heterogeneity
| within each sex.
|
| Also these dismissals using 'but most people' are ironic; the
| exceptions disprove the rule of a binary, an imaginary binary
| that is then used to dismiss the rights and reality of sex
| and gender diversity. Its cake and eat it too thinking.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| FYI, I am a scientist that studies sex and gender in autism.
| lordloki wrote:
| You're a quack who's using very rare anomalies in sex to
| falsely conflate sex and gender. You are doing harm.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| you sweep 'anomolies' under the rug then act as biological
| reality of sex and gender is black and white.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Looking over the comments associated with your account, I'd
| say you're just a troll.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| I also find it interesting that the generally smart and data
| driven crowd at HN is so ideological driven when it comes to
| the reality of diversity in sex phenotypes, which are about 1%
| of the general population, and about 15% of those with autism.
| Guid_NewGuid wrote:
| Yeah the culture war seems to be seeping in everywhere and
| particularly badly on these topics as the bulk of comments on
| this article seem to show.
|
| At the boundaries even in humans this stuff gets really fuzzy
| and has real world implications for people who get barred
| from their careers or forced to undergo medical procedures to
| be more easily categorised[0][1].
|
| While it might be a rare scenario (between 0.08% and 1% seems
| to be Wikipedia's intersex estimates depending on definition)
| a system is only as good as its protection for the minority
| case.
|
| And from an intellectual curiosity standpoint this is kinda
| cool and interesting right? Like this breaks our lazy
| categorization and shows that the world is so much more
| intriguing than our dumb models.
|
| And instead of 'intellectual' and 'curious' discussion we get
| the equivalent of a Tennessee GOP rally about school
| bathrooms...
|
| [0]: https://apnews.com/article/europe-cape-town-africa-
| south-afr...
|
| [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone_regulations
| _in_...
| kleiba wrote:
| _Biologists use the word "female" to describe organs or organisms
| that produce eggs, and "male" for those that produce sperm;
| animals do not have socially constructed genders._
|
| Sad times when such disclaimers are necessary.
| pron wrote:
| That gender and sex overlap yet aren't identical is a
| relatively recent scientific discovery that many people haven't
| yet learned. It's helpful, therefore, to mention gender when
| discussing the related subject of sex.
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| They're describing a difference in sex vs gender. From the
| linked article:
|
| > _Gender [...] involves a set of behaviors and norms that
| shape how men and women act, prescribe how they ought to be,
| and specify what it means to be a man or a woman_
|
| > ... _Unlike in any other animal, gendered behavior in humans
| is wildly different across cultures_
|
| Sex needs a definition too:
|
| > _Sex appeared to be purely, simply genetic--until 1966, when
| a French zoologist discovered that the rainbow agama lizard
| did, in fact, rely on an environmental factor to determine sex_
|
| ...no need to regurgitate the "anti-woke" talking points on
| this one.
| rayiner wrote:
| The assertion that gender is "socially constructed" does
| merit the anti-woke talking point. Mammals have social roles
| based on biological sex: female penguins do one thing, male
| penguins do a different thing. Gender in humans isn't
| fundamentally different.
|
| Like everything else, humans have layered social and cultural
| constructs on top of sex and gender. For example, cultures
| have different ways of marking the transition from childhood
| to adulthood. But the fact that e.g. a bar mitzvah is a
| cultural construct doesn't mean that the behavioral and
| social changes accompanying puberty aren't rooted in biology.
| [deleted]
| antiterra wrote:
| I don't think you thought this through any further once you
| felt you had a somewhat rational construct that meshed with
| your comfort zone. Human behavior has massive amounts of
| variation even within a culture, both sex and gender traits
| inhabit overlapping bell curves. Is there a biological
| reason for why dresses are considered feminine in the US,
| and states are constructing laws restricting cross gender
| usage of them, but kurtas or sarongs are acceptably
| masculine elsewhere?
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| No argument here but I feel like you used penguins as an
| example knowing full well someone would respond with "oh
| yeah well penguins are well documented to exhibit
| homosexual behaviors!!"
|
| I mean of all possible mammals to choose as an example for
| your point (presuming in good faith that your actual point
| was as stated), penguin is an unusual choice. Maybe you
| just happened to have penguins in mind as an example of a
| mammal, I don't know.
|
| Oh, and by the way: penguins aren't mammals! Though I'm
| sure someone has already pointed that out, or at least I
| hope they did.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > Gender in humans isn't fundamentally different.
|
| It is fundamentally different.
|
| The range of behaviors that Humans have is fundamentally
| far, far more broad than animals, because we are much more
| intelligent creatures. Example from a few thousand years
| ago: Farming, Cooking food. More recent examples: Fixing
| cars, doing taxes. Most of what Humans spend their time
| doing these days are things that animals don't do in
| nature.
|
| Human cultures like to ascribe gender roles to most of
| these things, but in reality most of what people do doesn't
| have any implicit gender role associated with it, since
| it's pretty far removed from biological functions at this
| point.
|
| Even in nature, the things people and animals do doesn't
| always neatly align with gender roles. For example, child
| rearing or even bearing live young is sometimes done by the
| male, even though it's usually a female gender role.
|
| What's different between us and animals (as is usually the
| case) is our big thinky brains, and the things which follow
| on from that.
| 31337Logic wrote:
| It is at this point, I believe, that it is entirely worth
| reminding ourselves that humans are, in fact, animals.
| RajT88 wrote:
| It's usually worth reminding ourselves of. I'm not sure
| what you're getting at here though.
| bequanna wrote:
| The point I think the parent is trying to make is that
| there are now many people who see all of human behavior
| as some sort of construct vs. innate behaviors that exist
| all over the animal kingdom.
|
| In fact, very few behaviors are specific to only humans.
|
| We aren't that special. At the end of the day, we're just
| very clever mammals.
| gatlin wrote:
| They are getting at the point that as animals we can
| intellectualize all we want and will still have
| biological characteristics that fundamentally influence
| our behavior and culture.
| pron wrote:
| Research findings are not "intellectualization."
| Intellectualization is what those who don't actually
| research a subject do. However, I don't think anyone
| claims that there is are no innate biological effects on
| behaviour. It's just that its scope is hard to determine,
| and extrapolation one species to another has proven to be
| an unreliable means of making such determinations.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > still have biological characteristics that
| fundamentally influence our behavior and culture.
|
| I suspected as such. In my life, I've often heard this
| point trotted out to justify "Why men/women are good/bad
| at X thing", which is why I was asking what they were
| getting at, specifically. Even if they weren't getting at
| that, their comment doesn't add much by itself.
| xupybd wrote:
| >The range of behaviors that Humans have is fundamentally
| far, far more broad than animals, because we are much
| more intelligent creatures.
|
| This is a difference in scale not a difference of kind.
| strken wrote:
| This would be fascinating to explore outside the context of
| the culture war. To what extent is a penguin's social role
| learnt from other penguins vs biological? Do penguins
| raised in isolation or in small groups show more divergent
| sex-correlated behaviour than those raised in large groups?
| Would that mean they align behaviour based on what other
| penguins do?
|
| It would be interesting if male birds learnt how to put on
| more successful mate displays by watching other males, or
| if birds set their standards by those of the opposite sex
| they grew up around. Humans obviously do this, and I
| wouldn't be surprised if other primates did too, but which
| other animals might?
| burnished wrote:
| > ...Unlike in any other animal, gendered behavior in
| humans is wildly different across cultures
|
| The reason to bring it up was in the comment you replied
| to. This reaction seems very knee jerk.
| jghn wrote:
| > female penguins do one thing, male penguins do a
| different thing. Gender in humans isn't fundamentally
| different.
|
| Do you know this to be true for the set of *all* penguins?
| Or just most of them?
| xupybd wrote:
| It's an interesting concept that generalizations can be
| true without applying to every case. For example, the
| statement "humans have one heart" is generally true, but
| there are exceptions where people have had an additional
| heart surgically added to assist a failing heart.
| Similarly, while it's common to say that humans have ten
| fingers, there are variations where some people are born
| with more or less, or have lost fingers due to accidents.
| Eye color is another example where we can't make a
| universal claim about humans. Although brown eyes are
| common, the number of people with blue or green eyes is
| significant enough that we can't say all humans have
| brown eyes.
|
| So, when we say "humans have X," it doesn't mean every
| single human has X. Rather, it means that a significant
| enough number of humans have X for us to consider it a
| characteristic of our species.
| swalling wrote:
| It's not true that biological sex is completely
| deterministic in the behavior of non-human animals. For
| instance: there are gay penguins where two males will adopt
| eggs to hatch and raise chicks. Homosexuality and
| associated behavior changes are observed in a wide array of
| species. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_
| in_animals
|
| Conservatives trying to use biology to argue that gender
| and sex are fully equivalent is akin to 19th and 20th
| century attempts to use evolutionary theory to support
| racist social policies. It's not only wrong morally, it's
| bad science.
| rayiner wrote:
| If your homosexuality, which is biologically rooted, is
| associated with behavior changes, doesn't that support
| the conclusion that gendered behavior is rooted in
| biology rather than socially constructed?
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| Gendered behavior in humans _is_ different; it 's wildly
| different across cultures.
|
| > The assertion that gender is "socially constructed"
|
| Who asserted this? A straw man?
| mantas wrote:
| It's funny that many languages don't have this ,,gender vs
| sex" separation. For example in my native language there's
| just one word to describe man/woman option. Some people try
| to bend over and invent new terms. That doesn't play well
| with claiming that somehow this ,,gender vs sex" separation
| is not a new cultural phenomena.
| [deleted]
| paulddraper wrote:
| English didn't have it either until relatively recently.
|
| The current usage of "gender" was introduced by American
| psychologist John Money in the latter half of the 20th
| century.
|
| It's popularity in common speech was accelerated by "sex"
| becoming a synonym to "copulation," causing "gender" being
| used as a polite alternative.
|
| --
|
| But how is gender actually defined? Even now, the Oxford
| Dictionary: "gender: the male sex or the female sex"
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=gender+definition
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| Is Lithuanian your native language? Does this word not fit
| the defintion?
| https://www.techdico.com/translation/english-
| lithuanian/tran...
| mantas wrote:
| You're looking at a wrong word. The word man/woman option
| is ,,lytis". Both ,,gender" and ,,sex" was usually
| translated as ,,lytis". ,,Translytis" is just a term made
| of two words and describing a person who is such. English
| translation would be literally ,,transgender". And it's
| used for people who, well, transition.
|
| There's an attempt to call ,,gender" ,,socialine lytis"
| (= social sex). But doesn't make it sound like it's
| anything beyond socially constructed cultural phenomena.
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| > _English translation would be literally
| ,,transgender"._
|
| So you... _do_ have a word meaning "transgender?"
| mantas wrote:
| Or ,,transsex" if there's such English word? Word
| ,,translytis" is used specifically for those who
| attempted transitioning man<->woman.
| filoleg wrote:
| I think you misunderstood what they were saying. They
| were trying to say that their language doesn't have two
| separate words to describe gender/sex, it is just one
| word, as they don't separate those terms.
|
| That has nothing to do with the word "transgender"
| existing in their language (which I would bet exists in
| pretty much any widely-used language these days, most of
| the time as a borrowed word).
|
| Not sure of their language, but it is the same in
| russian, with the single word "pol" (pronounced as
| "pohl") used to refer to sex/gender.
| psychphysic wrote:
| I hear this reasoning often but never see it being applied in
| practice.
|
| For starters why are single sex sports and single sex
| changing rooms so controversial?
|
| Similarly if gender and sex are entirely distinct. Does that
| not mean that the trans community is the strongest supporter
| of traditional gender roles? Afterall what does it mean to
| change gender if differing social attitudes to gender ought
| be extinguished?
| mantas wrote:
| > For starters why are single sex sports and single sex
| changing rooms so controversial?
|
| Because men are much stronger physically due to genetical
| differences. Just check out top records in various sports.
| paulddraper wrote:
| You're in violent agreement.
| mantas wrote:
| [flagged]
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| Locker rooms? You see these exact talking points copy and
| pasted a lot, do they relate to this _specific_ article?
| psychphysic wrote:
| The article brings it up quite early on.
|
| It's introduction and parallel with sex means the article
| makes a wider point about a difference between sex and
| gender. I agree this article could have been written
| better without any mention of gender so as to avoid
| making an out of scope claim in a pop sci article.
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| Where does it mention locker rooms or "the trans
| community is the strongest supporter of traditional
| gender roles?" Did you read the article?
| seti0Cha wrote:
| Please stop using the "that's a talking point of the
| enemy" dismissal tactic. It's lazy and harmful to actual
| discussion.
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| Stop paraphrasing me, it's lazy and harmful to actual
| discussion. I pointed out _why_ it 's irrelevant.
| gatlin wrote:
| You asked a pointed question.
| tekla wrote:
| >For starters why are single sex sports and single sex
| changing rooms so controversial?
|
| It denies the different "gender roles"
|
| > Does that not mean that the trans community is the
| strongest supporter of traditional gender roles?
|
| Um yes? That's been a sticking point for quite a while.
| iagooar wrote:
| > animals do not have socially constructed genders
|
| Do people do?
| lenlorijn wrote:
| Yes
| burnished wrote:
| Consider the various expected roles of men and women across
| time and culture, specifically where those expectations
| change as a consequence of the culture changing.
|
| If people did not then you wouldnt really expect any
| differences that could not be better accounted for by
| environmental factors.
| mseepgood wrote:
| > animals do not have socially constructed genders.
|
| How would we know? Are we able to communicate with animals yet?
| rsynnott wrote:
| If you define socially constructed to mean a _human_ sort of
| society (which is probably how most people will read this,
| and the most reasonable way to read it), then they don't by
| definition.
|
| I suspect to some extent you could argue this either way for
| social insects, however; is their 'society' so biologically
| programmed in that the pseudo-gender identities it _appears_
| to create don't count?
|
| There are also some primates which have, if not societies,
| things which look suspiciously like societies, of course.
| Still, the statement is probably basically true, with a
| little fuzziness around the edges.
| burnished wrote:
| Probably just simple observation - if culture was an element
| then we would expect to see diverging behaviors in different
| groups. Wouldnt require communicating.
| krona wrote:
| Their behaviour could be grouped in ways not derived
| primarily by sex?
| red_trumpet wrote:
| The article links to another one[1], which might be boiled
| down to
|
| > [...] peacocks still do not have genders. And the reason is
| that peacocks do not have culture.
|
| [1] https://nautil.us/no-animals-do-not-have-genders-237938/
| ben_w wrote:
| Sad?
|
| No, it is just a consequence of complex reality butting up
| against a "common sense" (including the quote marks) derived
| from incorrectly assuming that words accurately and
| unambiguously carve up reality.
|
| If biologists instead used a different common definition such
| as "female == able to get pregnant, otherwise male" then birds
| would be all be male, and seahorses wouldn't be associated with
| the sentence "weird biology fact: the males get pregnant!"
|
| See also: "There's no such thing as a fish", and "how many
| moons does the Earth have?"
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| Back when I was taught Biology in school, "female" meant
| "having the larger gamete".
| rsynnott wrote:
| Huh, is this actually universal? I'd have guessed there'd
| be at least one or two exceptions.
| krisoft wrote:
| There are no exceptions to it if you make it the
| definition. Which is what the comment of BuyMyBitcoins
| says was taught to them.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Yep, fair enough, if it's a strict definition. You could
| potentially then have weird edge cases in the other
| direction, though; if the same sex chromosome layout in
| related species X and Y leads to different sexes due to
| the size of the gametes (especially if the size of the
| gametes was pretty similar to start with), that seems
| very odd/confusing.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| It looks like there are cases where the size of the
| gametes are identical. But when this happens they don't
| refer the organism's sex as "male/female" and instead use
| "+/-". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isogamy
|
| Going a step further I found this: >Depending on the
| group, different mating types are often referred to by
| numbers, letters, or simply "+" and "-" instead of "male"
| and "female", which refer to "sexes" or differences in
| size between gametes.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mating_type
|
| So it does seem to be a strict definition and anything
| outside of the strict definition is given an alternate
| identification scheme.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Here's a fun edge case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ind
| otyphlops_braminus#Reproduc...
|
| All individuals of this snake are female (presumably
| 'female' here is defined relative to other snakes) and
| reproduce parthenogenetically (sic?). By your definition,
| these wouldn't have a sex at all, presumably.
| [deleted]
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| Strange, I was taught that sex that determines whether a
| sexually reproducing organism produces male or female
| gametes.
|
| You're describing anisogamy. Large males are sexually
| selected for in elephant seals because they can fight off
| other males, but small males are sexually selected for in
| spiders for they can mate with the female quickly while
| avoiding being eaten.
| paulddraper wrote:
| And that's the definition used in the article. (Where "egg"
| = "larger gamete")
| flippinburgers wrote:
| Birds are not mammals. Fish are not mammals. Mammals on the
| other hand have males that impregnate the females.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Someone forgot that the platypus exists.
| flippinburgers wrote:
| The exception is not the rule.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Abstractions are useful, this is true, but the exceptions
| are a reminder that they are not reality, they are just a
| categorization we overlay on top of reality to help us
| understand it. Their utility is contextual.
|
| Your abstraction ignores all the sterile men and women
| too, by the way. That's because it is a particularly bad
| one.
| icehawk wrote:
| someone forgot the echidna exists
| ben_w wrote:
| Producing a more complicated definition with a special case
| for mammals vs. not mammals doesn't really add anything,
| even if it weren't for the platypus or the echidna being
| further examples of things not working like that.
|
| Biology is messy, the boundaries are messy, the words we
| use are merely for our own benefit to simplify a messy and
| complex reality.
| flippinburgers wrote:
| Messy edge cases doesn't mean let's just throw everything
| away.
| ben_w wrote:
| I didn't ask you to throw anything away.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| > If biologists instead used a different common definition
| such as "female == able to get pregnant, otherwise male" then
| birds would be all be male, and seahorses wouldn't be
| associated with the sentence "weird biology fact: the males
| get pregnant!"
|
| "Common definition"? I don't think so. If it was my post-
| menopausal wife would now be a man
|
| I very much doubt that common-sense folks "assum[e] that
| words accurately and unambiguously carve up reality" either.
| Is it likely that a grown-up has never had a discussion about
| whether something was blue or green, or whether something is
| a fruit or vegetable?
| ben_w wrote:
| > "Common definition"? I don't think so. If it was my post-
| menopausal wife would now be a man
|
| I didn't say it was a _good_ definition :)
|
| In fact, the very point you're making here is also commonly
| brought up whenever someone uses this _common_ definition
| to try to argue against trans issues, which is how I know
| it 's _commonly used_.
|
| I rather hopped that me saying "birds would be all be male"
| would be a hint that I didn't hold this definition in high
| regard.
|
| > whether something is a fruit or vegetable?
|
| Tom-ah-to, to-may-to, but either way I really need to
| figure out how to use it in a fruit salad.
|
| Sure, almost everyone has had such an argument; but I've
| noticed many tend to say "it's common sense" and stop
| listening from then on.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| I think you're straw-manning the "common sense" view.
| "Unable to get pregnant" is actually _not_ a common
| definition of "male", afaics
| ben_w wrote:
| At worse, nut-picking rather than straw-manning. This
| specific (bad) definition comes up a lot, though it's
| certainly possible I've mistaken frequency of observation
| for frequency of beliefs.
| garte wrote:
| I'm impressed: the article is about the rich diversity of
| different sexes in nature (it does not even go into gender) but
| all you are getting out of it is some anti-woke sentiment?
|
| Could you please re-read the article and at least absorb the
| complexity of sex and biology in nature in general? At least be
| a bit amazed how little we seem to grasp about reproductive
| processes even on a biological level. And then maybe even feel
| the need a little to reflect how the article might mean that
| you're not living in such "sad times" but (maybe) the opposite.
| okokwhatever wrote:
| [flagged]
| giantg2 wrote:
| "(a system that's distinct from our diverse gender identities)"
|
| Please don't take this the wrong way, this is a genuine question.
| Is there an explaination somewhere of what purpose gender
| identities serve and what benefits that provides (ie why don't
| animals need them)? Aside from reproduction, I don't see how
| gender would really influence anything.
| capableweb wrote:
| > ie why don't animals need them
|
| Is there a reason to believe it doesn't exists in animals as
| well? Homosexuality is common in many species, are some
| individual animals in those species more prone to homosexual
| "relationships" than others? If so, maybe those animals are
| feeling some sort of expression by their gender identity based
| on their preference.
|
| I'm guessing gender identities serve the same purpose as
| individual expression, just to be self-expressive.
| dahfizz wrote:
| I thought gender and sexuality are totally independent?
| sorokod wrote:
| Depends on when you had that thought
|
| https://www.websters1913.com/words/Gender
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| What does gender have to do with sexuality have to do with
| gender?
| paxcoder wrote:
| [dead]
| thejackgoode wrote:
| Sexual dimorphism exists to split evolutionary pressure and
| allow a species to both survive (conservative) and adapt to
| (risky) a changing environment.
|
| Human gender identities are several layers on top of this
| evolutionary foundation. In theory, they are needed to help
| socially indoctrinate people to what is now a successful meta
| model of behavior.
|
| They are progressively converging in terms of gender roles
| difference, not only because of societal and ideological
| changes of the last century, but as well because there are less
| severe crises, so that less of adaptive behavior is required.
| [deleted]
| bell-cot wrote:
| Human society. Animals are also "adults" or not without
| reference to a local legal age of majority or government ID,
| move across borders without going through Customs, pay no
| taxes, subscribe to no ideologies or religions, die without
| death certificates being issued, etc.
| DoctorOW wrote:
| Gender identity is a subset of identity as a whole, something
| animals don't have the self awareness for. Pretty much every
| term for referring to someone in human society is influenced by
| gender.
| harpiaharpyja wrote:
| Why does this article even mention gender?
|
| It's completely unrelated to the topic at hand. Every mention
| of it is in some parenthetical jammed into the article with no
| logical flow.
| debacle wrote:
| Much of this "sex in nature is super complicated, actually"
| content is driven by the push for gender ideology in humans.
| VeninVidiaVicii wrote:
| It seems to be worth saying, considering the climate.
| Recently I was a teacher assistant in a genetics lab, and an
| undergrad student lodged a complaint against the professor
| for talking about some of this very same stuff, ie,
| biological determinants of sex. But the prof was quite
| oblivious with no idea about the current culture wars.
| ben_w wrote:
| As gender dimorphism can influence external characteristics, I
| assume it can also influence personalities. If animals have any
| senses of identity (I think at least _some_ non-human animals
| do) or beliefs about what their bodies "should" look like
| (passing the mirror test at least weakly implies so), then
| likewise.
|
| How much any of this is present in different species, and how
| much the range of personality traits can diverge from the other
| traits, I wouldn't want to even guess.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I understand that. Then is this just an inherent cultural
| need for labeling of in-groups vs out-groups, or potential
| mates vs non-mates? In today's world, there's very little
| restriction on gender, and most of those restrictions do not
| change based on changing gender. For example, I can shave my
| legs and identify as a man, woman, or some other gender, but
| how does that change what I can and can't do?
| ben_w wrote:
| You're asking the wrong person.
|
| When I first read about the topic in the newspaper aged
| about 13, noticing the existence of trans women despite the
| existence of sexism (transitioning to man comes with a pay
| rise, transitioning to woman with a pay cut) was enough by
| itself to make me realise that there was a deeper issue,
| but not to understand it.
|
| For myself, I don't have any sense of gender identity; if
| we lived in a magical otherworld where waking up surprised
| to find yourself gender-flipped was just a thing that
| happened and not a sign of non-consensual invasive surgery,
| if we lived in that world and I woke up gender-swapped, I
| don't think I'd care.
|
| It's like asking if I prefer Pepsi or Coke: whatever, to me
| all the sweetened carbonated phosphoric acid drinks with
| hints of caramel are much the same. Likewise with gender:
| bits on the inside, bits on the outside, whatever, don't
| care.
|
| The fact that people are willing to go through invasive
| surgery, even though (unless you're literally a lab rat)
| it's form without function, is the second thing that tells
| me that there are powerful drivers besides in/out groups.
|
| But what those _are_? I 'm the wrong person to ask.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "(transitioning to man comes with a pay rise,
| transitioning to woman with a pay cut)"
|
| Do you have some details on this?
| ben_w wrote:
| On the gender pay gap?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap
|
| Or did you mean something else?
| version_five wrote:
| I'll probably get flagged - I see it more like being a goth or
| a skater or whatever. Identity is something people like to have
| generally, it's normal, but somehow it gets politicised in
| certain cases. I don't think a relationship to sex has to enter
| into it, it's more like a justification maybe?
| butterNaN wrote:
| It gets politicized because there is real-world
| discrimination if one's not under the normative curve, which
| is a political issue.
| bluGill wrote:
| Sexual dimorphism means that the two different sexes can
| specialize on their niche. What the niche is can be very
| different (male seahorses give live birth) between species, but
| the one that doesn't have to do something can focus more one
| something else. You can have one guard the young and thus get
| more camouflage or other defense - while the other parent will
| hunt food and thus get more hunting abilities. There are many
| other examples in nature where the differences in behavior are
| and advantage to both (even if one clearly has the worse life
| overall it is an advantage to the species)
| cs02rm0 wrote:
| Gender identity was synonymous with sex.
|
| Today it seems to have morphed into something on a spectrum
| from being synonymous with sex to having no meaning at all. It
| seems worth avoiding for the sake of discussions around sex.
| tlogan wrote:
| The reason gender roles have evolved differently can be
| attributed to the costs associated with reproduction for each
| sex. In our species, females tend to bear significantly higher
| reproductive costs than males. For example, men have the
| ability to father multiple offspring simultaneously, whereas
| women must devote substantial time and energy to pregnancy and
| childbirth.
|
| These disparities in reproductive investment have contributed
| to the development of distinct gender roles over time.
| paulddraper wrote:
| That, and other physical differences.
|
| Men are on average larger and stronger, making them more
| capable of manual labor.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It seems this is also a blocker to integrating sports. It
| seems the whole trans people playing on whatever team would
| be moot if we didn't have sex/gender discriminate teams.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Do you mean biological purpose? This may be the wrong question
| to ask; gender is arguably to a large extent part of _culture_,
| which is more or less the stuff that we've built on top of
| biology.
|
| There's no _biological_ reason that ancient Celtic women were
| allowed own property while contemporary ancient Roman women
| were a literal possession of their father or husband and
| ancient Greek women weren't really allowed leave the house;
| that was _culture_. (Simplified example, btw; there were edge-
| cases where Roman women were essentially emancipated, say, and
| Celtic and Greek practices differed dramatically by region, but
| even within a pretty restricted time and area of the world
| there were massive differences in how this all worked)
| giantg2 wrote:
| I understand that historically. However, I would argue that
| those restrictions were actually by sex as changing gender
| was not really an option back then. Even if one tried, I
| assume most cultures would still enforce those ideas based on
| sex.
|
| We have very few restrictions on gender today, and the ones
| we do have still tend to exclude transgender individuals
| (combat roles, some levels of some sports, some bathrooms).
| So I'm having trouble understanding in general what a
| tangible benefit would be. For example, what changes for a
| man that dresses to look like a woman if they say they are a
| man vs they say they are a woman (or some other identity)?
| Are all the physical attributes and actions the same? If
| someone wants to be a specific gender that's fine, but does
| that actually change anything they could or couldn't do as
| their prior gender in today's world?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Quite a few places have gendered dress codes (still!),
| among other things. And you appear to be talking mostly
| about the US and similar countries, much of the rest of the
| world is different.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yeah, I am mostly taking about US and similar countries.
| But changing gender in one of those other countries would
| likely be moot, right?
|
| Hmm, I haven't really seen gendered dress codes aside
| from schools (which could/should be rewritten to be
| gender neutral) or the "entertainment" industry (which is
| likely to descriminate regardless of dress code).
| rsynnott wrote:
| > But changing gender in one of those other countries
| would likely be moot, right?
|
| Things are more complicated than you might necessarily
| expect:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_rights_in_Iran
|
| (It's not just Iran; a number of countries, often
| extremely conservative countries, have _some_ form of
| cultural recognition of non-gender-normative people.
| Hijira in India would be a more complex example.)
|
| > Hmm, I haven't really seen gendered dress codes aside
| from schools (which could/should be rewritten to be
| gender neutral) or the "entertainment" industry (which is
| likely to descriminate regardless of dress code).
|
| Ever been in a non-casual office?
| ramblenode wrote:
| > I assume most cultures would still enforce those ideas
| based on sex.
|
| Hijra is a third gender used by people in India that was
| first documented several thousand years ago [0]. There are
| similar third genders in other Southeast Asian countries.
|
| Galli: a priest/priestess in Hellenistic Greece and Rome
| that wasn't considered to be man or woman [1].
|
| Muxe: third gender of Mexico that may have pre-dated
| Spanish colonization [2].
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)#History
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galli
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muxe
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| Humans are relatively unique when it comes to sexual
| relationships. We're very developed and our social roles are
| hugely important. It's not crazy to think that there are
| aspects of our sexual identities that don't appear in other
| animals. We're not unique in being unique. Consider our
| relatively close relative, the bonobos, in which they're all
| bisexual sluts.
|
| Gender is sort of a natural thing in human identities, even if
| it is a social construct. Intersex individuals are a pretty
| good piece of evidence of this. People born with ambiguous
| genitalia. Doctors often pick which one to go with and will do
| surgery to make it so. They often "get it wrong" and the
| individual will later feel they are the wrong gender WITHOUT
| necessarily knowing they were intersex at birth.
|
| Gender can be a social construct and still have biological
| intrinsic factors behind it. It doesn't need to arise from a
| purpose per se. it doesn't NEED to have biological intrinsic
| factors either.
| Spivak wrote:
| > They often "get it wrong" and the individual will later
| feel they are the wrong gender WITHOUT necessarily knowing
| they were intersex at birth.
|
| You see a similar phenomenon with trans people too. By a huge
| margin trans people know they're the wrong gender at age 5-6
| well before they have any idea what boys vs girls even means.
| And it can't be they go with whatever people say they are
| because otherwise they wouldn't reject it. It's not something
| socialized. The expression is cultural -- boys have short
| hair, girls wear makeup, but the identity is fixed.
|
| It's not really all that surprising in hindsight but humans
| seem to have an internal sense of their gender that's
| independent of their chromosomes. I mean if you swapped my
| body or did some weird gene therapy I would still _know_ I 'm
| a woman.
|
| Trans folks seem to just be people for whom the firmware
| doesn't match the hardware. It's not even up there with the
| weirdest human things and now that we don't stigmatize it as
| much we're seeing that it happens wayyy more often than we
| thought it did.
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| Hmm wow that does not match my expectations but the average
| age of gender dysmorphia beginning appears to be about 6
| years old for adult trans individuals. I would have
| expected a closer tie to puberty but it would seem you're
| closer to the mark.
| pron wrote:
| https://nautil.us/no-animals-do-not-have-genders-237938/
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Aside from reproduction, I don 't see how gender would
| really influence anything._
|
| In a modern society where food comes prepackaged in
| supermarkets (or delivered), there is police on tap, and the
| most hostile thing is perhaps somebody swearing at you from
| road rage, maybe not.
|
| In historical societies up to very recently it played a huge
| role in lots of post-reproduction things, considering how raw
| physical force, stamina, stature, etc. is a huge advantage in
| battle, hunting, threat avoidance outside the house, law
| enforcement, demanding manual labor, etc.
|
| This means that sex automatically leaks into societal roles.
| Doesn't matter is some societies, out of some historical
| peculiarity or out of necessity used women instead, or both men
| and women, for some of these roles, as the physiological
| tendency pushed towards the conventional setup as having an
| advantage (an army of women would be trivially defeated in hand
| battle by an army of men, for example), and so the general
| trends seen globally, in thousands of unrelated cultures
| followed it.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > In a modern society ... maybe not.
|
| True in a way...but I fear that your outlook on modern
| society is far more flattering than the reality. Even in the
| "best" little niches of modern human society.
| _pigpen__ wrote:
| "Animals don't have socially defined gender." Perhaps, but they
| can definitely have have socially defined sex. Clownfish live in
| hierarchical units. The dominant fish is an aggressive female.
| When she dies, the next dominant male will change sex and assume
| the role. If that isn't social I don't know what is. (And that's
| one example there are at least a dozen species of fish that can
| change sex due to external factors.)
| mach1ne wrote:
| Richard Dawkins wrote in the Selfish Gene that across the animal
| kingdom, females and males can be distinguished by the fact that
| females always have larger sex cells. (E.g. eggs versus sperm)
|
| This could be slightly off-topic since I can't read the article.
| justinclift wrote:
| https://archive.is/tETrm
| belter wrote:
| [flagged]
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Then it will still lay eggs just the same.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > (Biologists use the word "female" to describe organs or
| organisms that produce eggs, and "male" for those that produce
| sperm; animals do not have socially constructed genders.)
|
| From early in the article.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| This is the usual definition.
|
| It's not a conclusion, it's by fiat.
| firstlink wrote:
| An article about sex selection which has to stop and explain
| _multiple times_ that biological sex exists and is different than
| gender just might be written for the wrong audience.
| howdysam123 wrote:
| [flagged]
| soundsabout wrote:
| >is trans genderism increasingly effecting human politics &
| economies? ... yes
|
| While I think it's an interesting question, I am not sure what
| this means. I can list plenty of other things that are
| temporally-localized that are more likely to explain an
| increase in diversity of sexuality and gender in modern
| societies, but I am more curious how transgender folks are
| affecting* economies.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| Only a tiny minority of human beings are transgender. Even in
| cultures where the concept of a third gender is celebrated, it
| is a rare phenomenon.
|
| Canada is the first country to provide census data on
| transgender and non-binary people: "Of the nearly 30.5 million
| people in Canada aged 15 and older living in a private
| household in May 2021, 100,815 were transgender (59,460) or
| non-binary (41,355), accounting for 0.33% of the population in
| this age group."
| zug_zug wrote:
| As a woke person, I consider these important questions.
| karmakaze wrote:
| Although many species of jellyfish have some capacity to reverse
| aging and revert to a larval state, most of them lose this
| ability once they reach sexual maturity. However, Turritopsis
| dohrnii appears to be the only known species able to repeatedly
| revert back into a larval stage even after sexual reproduction.
|
| If the above could be combined with the weird sex determination,
| then you could have a single organism that grows as one sex,
| reverts, then grows as a different sex, repeat.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| now _there_ is a triplet of nouns that can be read in two ways..
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