The Gender Spectrum Has Nothing To Do With Reproduction: Deconstructing Reactionary Attacks On Enlightened Gender Discussion
A Reactionary Fake-Out In Debates On Gender..
In nearly every discussion of sexuality and gender, in media and social media spaces, we are almost always treated to a key simplistic reactionary attack on the evolved concept of the Gender Spectrum - an attack representing one of the biggest whoppers of a strawman argument in human history.
It centers on the completely inaccurate and irrelevant claim that because nearly all plants and animals only have offspring through males and females breeding, no person can be anything other than just male or female, and therefore other genders don’t exist. The endlessly repeated and blaring mantra of this argument "There are only two sexes!" is the irrelevant fencepost on which the strawman is arranged.
Note: In a strawman argument, the naysayer erects a facade (like a scarecrow in a field) with the ‘strawman’ being a pretend claim the naysayer falsely suggests his opponents are making, but they are in fact, not making at all (usually an outrageous or obviously false claim). Then the naysayer beats up on the facade that he, himself, simply made up out of nowhere to make it easy for him to falsely attack his opponents (as one would beat on a scarecrow with a stick).
The ‘Reproduction’ Strawman
In this case, the strawman that reactionaries erect is the utterly false pretense that people arguing for a gender spectrum (often confusingly described as a “sex spectrum”) somehow don’t recognize (or deny) the basic male-female reproductive binary in nearly all multi-celled species on Earth. The actual fact is that, of course, almost everyone explaining the gender spectrum recognizes the quite obvious reproductive binary.
But they are not talking about reproduction of offspring, they are talking about the multitude of other gender functions which ‘epigenetics’ create in each individual after conception. (Note: For a quick primer on epigenetics see: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2020.0111 )
Gender & Sexuality Serve Multiple Purposes Beyond Mere Reproduction
People explaining the gender spectrum are talking about the myriad outcomes that arise after sperm and egg meet, to develop in billions of individuals into complex physical gender biologies and behaviors, which serve a multitude of other legitimate purposes for individuals, and the human species, that have nothing to do with reproduction.
And in over 10% of individuals, these traits actually seem to steer any given human population toward lower reproduction, possibly to avoid overpopulation under environmental stressors. The most concrete suggestion of this is in homosexual development (see the fourth reference link below) but there are also other cases such as intersex development, and asexuality, which minimize reproduction, or even make it impossible.
(We need to rethink the idea that intersex cases are simply “accidents” or “anomalies” when something deeper that serves the human species in a different way, may be happening by evolutionary design.)
Human Sexuality, Even More Complex Than Bonobos
We know quite well from crystal clear examples like the Bonobo (a chimpanzee relative with highly complex sexual behaviors used to facilitate social interaction) that sexuality and gender serve far more diverse purposes than mere reproduction.
And it is patently obvious that the human species has even more complex sexual and gender roles and behaviors, nearly all of which serve key societal and species functions (such as mitigating industrial-age male social and political dominance) which are just as important as, and totally removed from, reproduction.
So this erroneous accusation, that those of us explaining the very real gender spectrum, somehow don’t grasp the reproductive binary (when we do, but at the same time place that function within a greater landscape of evolutionary purposes) is complete nonsense designed to make it easier for sexually paranoid reactionaries (and political/clickbait opportunists) to simplistically attack gender spectrum analysis.
The More Clear & Effective Gender Spectrum Terminology
Note that almost all of us explaining the “spectrum” now call it a gender spectrum (not a “sex” spectrum) specifically to avoid getting mired in the tar wolf of the absurd and inaccurate “sex is only for reproduction” discussion, which has nothing to do with what we are talking about.
Science On The Gender Spectrum
Here are 8 links to various peer reviewed papers and studies, which show in many different ways, how epigenetics drive a wide spectrum of physical gender differences - a spectrum which includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, nonbinary, trans and intersex people, in a broad segment of human population that represents upwards of 10% of us.
Epigenetics Is Implicated in the Basis of Gender Incongruence: An Epigenome-Wide Association Analysis https://frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2021.701017/full
Neural Network of Body Representation Differs between Transsexuals and Cissexuals https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0085914
Genetics may explain up to 25% of same-sex behavior, giant analysis reveals https://science.org/content/article/genetics-may-explain-25-same-sex-behavior-giant-analysis-reveals
Prenatal stress as possible aetiogenetic factor of homosexuality in human males https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7428712
Beyond XX and XY: The Extraordinary Complexity of Sex Determination https://scientificamerican.com/article/beyond-xx-and-xy-the-extraordinary-complexity-of-sex-determination
Prenatal endocrine influences on sexual orientation and on sexually differentiated childhood behavior https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091302211000240
Does Gender Leave an Epigenetic Imprint on the Brain?
https://frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2019.00173/full
Sex redefined https://nature.com/articles/518288a
This is just a small sample. Readers could spend weeks, even years, tracking down and reading other such legitimate and credible research. To anyone who actually looks at the full body of science, there is quite obviously a Gender Spectrum.
And reactionaries who have irrational sexual and/or political hang-ups (often full-blown paranoia about the sexual ‘other’) from right wing evangelicals, to intolerant left wing radical feminists who are irrationally terrified of losing women’s rights to trans ‘competition’, seem as incapable of seeing that spectrum, as the color blind are to seeing the hues in a rainbow.
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Eric Brooks is a full time grassroots environmental, economic, and social justice organizer, who has spent much of his life in expansive realms such as the theatre, and big cities like San Francisco, learning to understand, and not be backward about, differences between human beings.