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[Heartofice]

37 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I don't know what you mean by "sympathetic." I believe sex is binary because I think it makes sense to believe that, not because I think Colin Wright is hot (although he is) or that Luana Maroja is wicked cool (she might be). 

I sense a difference between you and I on the issue of association; that is, the movements or media with whom people are perceived to be aligned with. For myself, I no longer worry very much about that kind of thing; instead, I try to focus on the ideas people put forward. Keeping that model in mind, I can agree with, say, Colin Wright on the binary nature of sex, and disagree with him on pronoun usage. If he gives a talk to Moms for LIberty, I still feel the same way about both positions. I try to separate the message from the messenger, and hopefully I am successful more often than not. Others can pursue a different path, but that's mine.

I think you kind of have to accept that the media landscape right now is incredibly polarised and it’s very rare for one person to be able to talk to both sides of the room because the incentive is toward polarity.

If someone like Wright or Dawkins speaks to more right wing outlets it’s probably a mix of being invited on by them because it helps their agenda to discuss certain issues, and  inversely left wing outlets might blacklist the same people because they absolutely won’t touch a topic with a bargepole or find opposing views dangerous, or don’t want to be associated with talking to people with opposing views. 
 

We just have to take all that into account. It’s not as if the sources cited from the other side of this conversation have been all that unbiased or fair minded either. 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

 

23 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Well I'd say most scientists believe sex is binary,

I'm not going to search a whole bunch of scientists for the nuance of their language use, but I did stumble upon this post by Jerry Coyne. 

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/08/17/sex-is-not-assigned-at-birth/

And, lo and behold, his post uses some qualifiers when talking about sex: "a nearly complete binary," and "almost completely binary."

In the comments, someone argues that bimodal is the better description to fit the data than binary. And Coyne agrees! He says his main beef is when people say that sex is on a spectrum.

(the x-axis of a bimodal distribution can be thought of as a spectrum, though, so it's not completely wrong. it's just an incomplete picture, as "spectrum" doesn't give people an idea about what options are more pervasive than others)

Language, attention to detail, and a desire to communicate effectively with people are all really important here. I humbly suggest that insisting on binary without further explanation or qualification, is not the most productive hill to die on.

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

 

I'm not going to search a whole bunch of scientists for the nuance of their language use, but I did stumble upon this post by Jerry Coyne. 

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/08/17/sex-is-not-assigned-at-birth/

And, lo and behold, his post uses some qualifiers when talking about sex: "a nearly complete binary," and "almost completely binary."

In the comments, someone argues that bimodal is the better description to fit the data than binary. And Coyne agrees! He says his main beef is when people say that sex is on a spectrum.

(the x-axis of a bimodal distribution can be thought of as a spectrum, though, so it's not completely wrong. it's just an incomplete picture, as "spectrum" doesn't give people an idea about what options are more pervasive than others)

Language, attention to detail, and a desire to communicate effectively with people are all really important here. I humbly suggest that insisting on binary without further explanation or qualification, is not the most productive hill to die on.

Well that is what I’ve been saying. That’s why the conversation keeps moving in to Gametes because that is the primary binary we are talking about. Secondary sexual characteristics are bimodal. If people keep talking past each other it’s because they seem to be talking about different things when they say sex, and they often just merge it in with gender as well. 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

Well that is what I’ve been saying. That’s why the conversation keeps moving in to Gametes because that is the primary binary we are talking about. Secondary sexual characteristics are bimodal. If people keep talking past each other it’s because they seem to be talking about different things when they say sex, and they often just merge it in with gender as well

Obviously there are profound and ancient reasons behind the gamete binary. No human would be here to contemplate the nature of sex if not for genetic recombination via sexual reproduction!

But still, it's worth asking, why is it not also important to consider the many other aspects and dimensions of sex, sexuality, and gender? Why should they be subordinate to gametes in discussions about human life?

I mean, most people on this forum don't want to limit sexual intercourse to reproduction, right? The conservatives who prioritorize baby-making over pleasure can be said to keep every other aspect of sex subordinate to its primeval ultimate function of binary gamete bonding.

I don't think that you're doing that here, by the way. But the question of "why gametes as most important aspect of sex to focus on in discussions of human living" is a pertinent one to ask.