Science Shows Sex Is Binary, Not a Spectrum

 GENDER REASSIGNMENT HAS LIMITS (SOURCE: independent.co.uk)

In October 2018 a leading US Newspaper well known for its leftist bias, The New York Times ran an article by Anne Fausto-Sterling, a professor of biology (who should thereforer know better) at Brown University, arguing that biological sex is not binary. The piece joined a long succession of outraged media criticizism of the recent Department of Health and Human Services’ recently leaked memo, which proposed legally defining sex as either male or female, and also triggered the usual social media shitstorm from liberals and snowflakes claiming that our sex is defined by 'feelings'; and not by biology.

From a scientific perspective, the HHS’s definition is absolutely correct. Biological sex refers to whether we are female or male, based on our anatomy and reproductive functions. The concept of sex is, by definition, binary.

Fausto-Sterling’s piece points to the existence of intersex people as evidence that this isn’t the case. Certainly, research has shown that as many as 1 percent of the population may have some intersex characteristics, intersex being a medical condition denoting that an individual possesses anatomy characteristic of both sexes, such as a combination of vulvar and testicular tissue. Statistically speaking, even if this is correct, (the proven number with interesex characteristics is far lower so that one per cent figure is based on estimates of the number of undiagnosed cases,) it means that the vast majority of us fall into one category of sex or the other.

We are therefore faced with a question of whether a statistically rare occurrence should be considered typical. An common analogy used to illustrate this is the fact that most of us have 10 fingers. There exist individuals who possess fewer or more than 10 digits on their hands, but this hasn’t called for a re-conceptualization of how many fingers a human being has.

Fausto-Sterling makes a big thing of how, earlier this month, one of the far left's favourite hate figures, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, banned gender studies programs. Orban is regularly referred to as “far-right” by the academic community and mainstream print and broadcast media for stating that the government “[does] not consider it acceptable ... to talk about socially constructed genders rather than biological sexes.” Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen additionally pointed out that gender studies “has no business in universities” due to being “an ideology, not a science.”

Most people will agree that is a down to earth, common - sense approach, and nothing at all to do with the far right ideologies of tyrants.

Indeed, gender—whether we subjectively feel male or female—is biological, not a social construct and to argue it is flies in the face of well established scientific knowledge. Ironically the supporters of gender studies tend to be the same people who scream "DENIER" when anybody questions the very dodgy science that supports the Climate Change hysteroa. An extremely large and consistent body of scientific research has shown that gender is the result of prenatal hormone exposure, even in the case of intersex individuals, as opposed to adults and society imposing gendered norms on unsuspecting children from the moment they leave the womb.

After describing “the process of gender socialization,” the piece goes on to say that “[f]etal hormones also affect brain development.” How would it be possible for hormones to affect the developing brain in utero, but not the expression of this brain development, which manifests as sex-typed differences in interests, personality, and behavior when the child is born? Such pseudo science is total bollocks.

The piece also references the work of psychologist John Money, which contradicts Fausto-Sterling’s very thesis. Not only have Money’s ideas pertaining to gender identity been widely discredited, but they also demonstrate how gender is biological. Many have surely heard of the unfortunate case of David Reimer, a Canadian man whom Money surgically reassigned as female after Reimer lost his penis in a botched circumcision as a child. Money believed that Reimer could be successfully socialized to live life as a girl.

Upon reaching puberty, however, Reimer rejected his brainwashing (no other word for it,) and chose to live as a male. Tragically took his own life at the age of 38 having become a profoundly unhappy person due to the wxperiences inflicted on him in childhood by well meaning, but ideologically driven academics. Reimer’s case conforms the innateness of gender—that one’s sense of being male or female is not learned or a question of choice but is embedded.

It isn’t necessary to redefine “sex” in order to facilitate the acceptance of people who are different. Pushing for social change for the sake of change, as advocates of cultural marxism do, only leads to misguided policies and unnecessary confusion for the public.

Going beyond Fausto-Sterling’s twaddle and the propaganda of the Gay BLT political actvists, this argument has been extended to include the transgender community, with its proponents contending that transgender people defy male and female categorization, and offer proof that sex and gender are a spectrum. But the true meaning of the term “transgender” means that a person identifies more as the opposite sex than their birth sex, which still operates within a framework of sex being binary. There have, throughout history, been men who live as women and women who live as men.
 
We can, and should, advocate for the rights of intersex people and those who do not fit typical gender norms, while at the same time acknowledging these scientific truths. And for those small number who genuinely have physical characteristics of both sexes, medical science is now able to go some way at least towards eliminating confusion.

France leads celebrity pushback against '#MeToo'

In the months since allegations of sexual abuse against US movie mogul Harvey Weinstein first emerged, Hollywood stars have been falling over themselves to condemn him, other 'ladies men' in the industry and express their support to those who claimed to be victims of sexual predators. The witch hunt has spread beyond Hollywood first to politics, then business and now the hysteria has reached such levels all men are being condemned. The unanimity of the response has been and astounding example of what the french call Le pensée unique, the single idea. At the Golden Globe awards last Sunday, an entire galaxy of stars came out wearing black in solidarity with victims and those who resisted the demands for conformity were subjected to the obligatory hate campaign.

This week veteran French actresses and 1960s / 70s sex symbol Catherine Deneuve, took a different view.
Deneuve was the most high-profile of 100 prominent French female celebrities who signed an open letter criticising the #MeToo social-media campaign, and related drives to expose sexual harassment in France and elsewhere.

The Hollywood and mainstream media campaigns, the Le Monde letter said, had gone beyond exposing individual perpetrators, and had unleashed a torrent of "hatred against men and sex". Add to that the usual noise from London's metropoilitan leftie screechers who, supported by the usual suspects, The Labour Party, Unite Against Fascism, The Anti - Nazi League, the Gay BLTs and the tesicularly deficient progressive wing of the Conservative Party responded with their own Pavolian hatefest. The people can be relied on to unfailingly respond to the trigger signals.
"Puritanism" was running rampant "like in the good old days of witchcraft", the French feminists argued, stating that the freedom of men to pester was "essential to sexual freedom".

Around the world - but mainly among the liberal elites of east and west coast USA, the shock of dropping jaws striking the ground registered two point five on the Richter scale and a tsunami of outrage swamped social media. In France itself there were some strong reactions - both for and against - but the response was not front-page news and most people simply gave a gallic shrug and said "Qu'importe".
Those different reactions say a lot about the different ways feminist view the world in the Anglosphere and Southern Europe France and the US. "It's hard to imagine a US movie star not being comprehensively pilloried" for signing such a letter, says Emily Yoffe, contributing editor for The Atlantic magazine. And that is a key point; the Politically Correct Thought Police who patrol the internet might get their knickers in a twist and start raging about diversity when someone complains about immigrant refusing to integrate but there are many aspects of diversity followers of the pensée unique are just not willing to tolerate.

The French women are not the first to break ranks from the politically correct consensus.
In an interview for Business Insider, Matt Damon, star of the highly successful Bourne franchise  drew plenty of virulent ctiticism for expressing quite mild concerns about the conduct of the #MeToo movement. He said that the majority of men in Hollywood were not involved in sexual misconduct but this is not not gaining attention.
"We're in this watershed moment, and it's great, but I think one thing that's not being talked about is... the preponderance of men I've worked with who don't do this kind of thing," he said during an interview while promoting his new film Downsizing.

Many social media users condemned the actor for suggesting not being a sexual predator was an accomplishment although that is a ridiculous distortion of what he meant.
It is not the first time Damon has commented on sexual abuse following rape allegations against Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein. Last week in an interview with ABC News Damon said groping and rape were two different things and shouldn't be treated the same.
"There's a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right?" Damon told ABC'S 'Popcorn' with Peter Travers "Both of those behaviours need to be confronted and eradicated, without question, but they shouldn't be conflated, right?"

Criticizing the politically correct zealotry of the #MeToo campaign may be taboo in the USA and Britain, so why can such views as are expressed in the letter to Le Monde accepted with so little fuss in France? One reason, according to Anastasia Colosimo, a political commentator who lectures in Sciences Politique in Paris, is author of "Les bûchers de la liberté," (The butchers of Liberty) and is an enduring influence in France of 1960s-type feminists, steeped in the free-wheeling ethos of the time.
"A key aspect of the struggle of the 1960s was the need to remove any guilt attached to feminine sexuality," she says. "Women openly said they had the same craving for sex as men."

The signatories of the letter also include writer Catherine Millet, 69, best-known for a 2002 memoir detailing her sexual history in graphic detail. Among the others are Catherine Robbe-Grillet, the author of sadomasochistic stories, and Brigitte Lahaie, a 1970s porn star turned talk-show host.
These older feminists see the drive against harassment, which gathered steam in 1990s America, as a threat to the sexual revolution their generation has achieved. They accept the need to fight rape and workplace harassment. But in their view, says Ms Colosimo, activists who put such dangers at the heart of the modern feminist struggle promote a view of women "as victims and helpless objects of male desire rather than free agents".
This contrasts with the Anglosphere where the feminist movement has been completely hijacked by ugly, hairy - arsed, man - hating lezzas who are prepared to condemn Harvey Weinstein although he has not yet been convicted of anything, but simultaneously defend Muslims who rape and sexually exploit white girls, "because Multiculturalism."

The pushback is not just in France however, ridiculous claims from the gaggle of squawkers in Hollywood and other sectors of the celebrity circus have alienated more level headed commentators. Novelist Margaret Atwood has criticized #MeToo, from a different angle, her provocative article is published in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper. The lifelong feminist is singing, if not quite from the same songsheet, certainy from the same songbook as she complains that a broken legal system which permits media witch hunts rather than ensuring due process is observed, thus negating the legal rights of those against whom allegations have been made but as yet no charges have been laid.

We saw a similar trend in Britain after the crimes of DJ and TV presenter Jimmy Savile were exposed in 2013 after a police investigation into evidence of his prolific sexual abuse of under age and vulnerable people had been in progress for some months. While rumours had circulated about Savile's behaviour for years, as was the case with Harvey Weinstein, those who should have acted closed ranks to protect Savile because his carefully constructed public image made him a cash cow for their media companies and charities.
As soon as the Savile story gained traction , though he was safe from legal action having died in 2011, multitudes of attention seekers started to make #MeToo style allegations against male celebrities most of which were not supported by any evidence at all. And as in the latest outburst of politically correct madness names of the accused were made pubic before any legal process was initiated. The legal rights of those accused have been ignored by the very people who usually scream most loudly about "rights".

American novelist Lionel Shriver, is also sceptical about the motivations of those jumping on the #meToo bandwagon. Unanimity in Hollywood, she suggests, is result of risking ostracism by going off-message: "Given the nature of social movements these days, if you have reservations you keep your mouth shut."In the social media age, Shriver adds, "You have one position that's acceptable and everyone piles on to it. If you express a dissenting opinion, you're going to get slaughtered."
This has not deterred Shriver, who fully supports the Deneuve line and regards #MeToo as a "witch-hunt". "We're losing the distinction between serious sexual assault and even rape and putting a hand on a knee," she says. "It's as if someone finding you attractive is an insult. I beg to differ: I'm complimented if someone is attracted to me. The only question is: am I allowed to say no?"

Last year another major French actress, Fanny Ardant - born in 1949 - went so far as to say that the campaign against sex pests was redolent of fascism. Fascism is an accusation that has been levelled at the forces of politically correct authoritarianism in other contexts too, and with good cause.