Politicians, pundits, and even a few scientists argue that whether our bodies make eggs or sperm is all we need to know about sex. He argues that females are defined by the production of these gamete cells, forming biologically distinct binary pairs, and that our legal rights and social potential should arise from this division. is a man. Women are women. Simple.
At last year’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Republican congressional representatives resented the candidate’s refusal to define “woman,” and decided to define the term themselves. They came up with ‘Weaker Gender’, ‘Mother’ and ‘No Tully Wacker’. Underlying these claims is that human sex is dependent on a biological binary to produce either sperm or eggs.
This is bad science. Gamete production does not adequately describe animal sex biology, nor does it define female or male.
The animal kingdom is not confined to one biological binary in terms of how species make gametes. Scientifically speaking, animals that have the ability to produce eggs are generally called “females” and animals that produce sperm are called “males”. Although most animal species fall into the “her two types of gametes produced by her two versions of the reproductive tract” model, many animals do not. Some worms produce both. Some fish start producing one type and then switch to another, while others keep switching throughout their lives. Some lizards have gone extinct en masse. Among our fellow mammals, who are not free-wheeling due to the twin constraints of lactation and birth, there are various relationships between gametes and body fat, body size, muscle, metabolism, brain function, etc. .
Sperm and eggs are important, but they’re not the whole biology, and they don’t tell you everything you need to know about sex, especially human sex.
Let me be clear, I’m not arguing that differences in sex biology aren’t important. they do. Nor am I arguing that reproductive physiology is not an important aspect of all animal life. For example, humans are mammals, and the details of pregnancy and lactation require physical differences that shape human physiology, society, and experience. Even so, however, most body systems are extensively overlapped between producers of large gametes (eggs) and small gametes (sperm), and the physiology and physiology associated with the birth and care of offspring. Behavioral patterns are not universal across species. For example, in many mammalian species, egg producers perform most of the care of infants. However, in some species, sperm producers are, and in very few species, they produce lactation.
In short, animal gametes can be described as binary (of two different kinds), but the physiological systems, behaviors, and individuals that produce them are not.. This reality of sex biology is well summarized by a group of biologists who recently wrote:
Humans have been found to exhibit a variety of biological and behavioral patterns related to overlapping and divergent sex biology. Egg and sperm production are biologically and socially associated with individual parenting abilities, household tendencies, sexual attractiveness, interest in literature, engineering and mathematics proficiency, or propensity for gossip, violence, compassion, and the senses. It won’t tell you everything (or most). Identity, or love and competence in sports. As such, the physiology of gametes and gamete production is only part of the overall human life. A wealth of data and analysis supports the claim that human sexuality is so complex that the binary and simplistic description of human sex biology is either completely wrong or substantially incomplete. increase.
For humans, sex is dynamic, biological, and cultural, engulfed in feedback cycles with our environment, ecosystems, and multiple physiological and social processes.
Therefore, someone should say that “the sex of an organism is defined by the type of gamete (sperm or egg) that carries the reproductive function,” and that legal and social policies should be “grounded in the characteristics of the body.” They aren’t really talking when they claim to be. On gametes and sex biology. They argue for specific political and discriminatory definitions of what is “natural” and “correct” for humans, based on the misrepresentation of biology. Over the past few centuries, this process of biological misrepresentation has denied women rights, legitimized legal and social misogyny and injustice, legitimized slavery, racism and racism, It has been used to enforce various forms of discrimination and prejudice. Today, disingenuous claims of what biology is are being developed, limiting a woman’s physical autonomy, targeting her LGBTQIA+ people broadly, and most recently attacking the rights of transsexual and transgender people. doing.
Given what we know about the biology of animals as a whole and of humans, attempts to express human sex as a binary based solely on what certain gametes produce are not about biology. , which seeks to restrict who society considers to be a complete human being.
This is an opinion and analysis article and views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily Scientific American.
