I don’t mind the message of the song, but the song itself…? Meh.
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I’ll save y’all some arguing time:
“There’s no science that shows gender is anything but binary"
oh look a bunch of science showing exactly that
"There’s no science that shows gender is anything but binary"
so much science look at it all
"There’s no science that shows gender is anything but binary"
my God it’s full of science
"There’s no…”
repeat forever
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You’re actually replying to @doogly there not me there, but I would say it depends on exactly what you mean by ‘choice’. Whatever the impact non-biological factors have on sexuality, they’re not a choice in the way '‘what kind of sandwich will I have for lunch today?’ is a choice.
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Not Science; NAVY! Even better than science 
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I have a feeling that eventually capitalism will drag politics by the nose into the world of spectrum-reality; businesses will see the economic advantage to knowing a patron’s sexual identity and more broadly cover the range in the gender check-off box.
That spectrum isn’t just people diagnosed with autism and everyone else though. The majority of people on that spectrum wouldn’t be characterised with any developmental or psychological ‘condition’, we’re talking about numerous different personality traits and aptitudes (all of which have genetic components), which in certain concentrations correspond to autism (so the theory goes), but are otherwise relatively evenly spread among a population. It’s quite different from what we’re discussing here, which is chromosomal dimorphism, and its impact on primary and secondary sexual characteristics, and a tiny percentage of biological differences that don’t fit in with that binary which only occur in very rare cases.
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Sorry, caze, but it really is time for you to read the SA article; the editorial is failing you.
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At it’s simplest, the argument seems to be a biological version of, “All lives matter”.
Some examples from the linked article and comment section:
There is no such thing as “women’s’ rights. There is also no such thing as “equal rights,” because this phrase constructs the idea of rights as something granted by government or society to groups.
Equal rights do not depend on biology.
[D]on’t base the case [for women’s rights] on science, because by so doing your notion of “equality” becomes vulnerable to future discoveries in science that may actually reveal some of those “innate differences.” (emphasis mine)
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which article? it’s an entire issue with 13 different articles mentioned in the editorial.
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Sorry, typo; I simply left off the “s”. Read the magazine, however, because you’re failin’ =) .
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I’m really not, I can pretty much guarantee there’s no earth shattering revelations in there that will change my world view, it sounds like a bunch of stuff I’m mostly already aware of from a quick glance (and I no longer have a SciAm subscription so I can’t read them online).
Just because it’s a small percentage doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. I don’t think it’s unimportant. It is a small percentage though, and it’s not a spectrum.
You seem to have a different view of what constitutes a ‘spectrum’ than others. Can we chalk it up to different definitions and drop the issue?
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Most people have some sympathy for public health arguments in situations like this. I would assume that you are cool with campaigns in favor of safe sex i.e. propaganda that encourages condom use, since this does actually does save lives. Similarly most people are in favor of either strongly encouraging or even forcing people to get vaccinated, depending on the extent of the public health threat. There were of course other angles besides ‘discourage gay sex’, such as aggressively identifying people with AIDs or other diseases and then quarantining them, but if the situation had been one where people could actually just choose some other form of attraction it would have been perfectly reasonable to encourage that. It just doesn’t work that way.
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Sorry, but there is variation over a range, therefore it IS a “spectrum”.
Word redefinition fail. Nothing about “spectrum” implies “even distribution”.
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The irony is that I know of a LOT of trans women who work in the games industry. My husband frequently gets emails along the lines of “Dan Smith in Accounting is now Deborah Smith. Please adjust all documents and correspondence accordingly.” And mostly everyone goes “Oh, okay.” and mostly remembers to get it right.
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complex nonlinear systems are usually very sensitive to small differences, the complex of human society and biology is certainly a complicated and nonlinear system. I’m not aware of any research that definitively rules out a role for biological differences in shaping human society, if you’ve got something specific I’d love to read it.
Not to be mean but comparing an airfare booking site to the complexities of biological sciences isn’t really apt. The fact of the matter is if their feelings hinge on the science keeping outdated models as part of their system to make valid predictions/observations of the world then maybe it’s on you to deal with them and not on the scientists digging into the models themselves. It’s something that really irks me as someone who’s dealt with this issue from the POV of physics where every jerk that doesn’t like general relativity or quantum field theory (basically creationists all) goes bananas when I told them deal with it, that life is messy at the scales of th very small and very large. It’s like there’s an ape-like urge to smash facts until they fit our emotional grasp of them.
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You seem to have a different view of what constitutes a ‘spectrum’ than others. Can we chalk it up to different definitions and drop the issue?
I’d be fine with that (it’s a boring argument if nothing else), but I will say…
a spectrum is usually defined as a scale between two points, with measurements made in even variability (if not continuous) in between those two points. a scale where close to 99% of all instances occur at either of the two extremes does not seem to fit that definition, it’s stretching the analogy to put it mildly. the incorrect use of this seems to be occurring in order to exaggerate the incidence of these edge cases, there should be no need to exaggerate though, as a larger number isn’t a requirement for promoting equality. the number could be smaller and we should still be promoting inclusivity and equality.
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There’s a lovely bit in Patrick O’Brian’s Post Captain where Captain Jack Aubrey, currently between ships, has rented a place in the country and employed several former crew as servants. When the ladies of the parish attend a social event there, they surreptitiously look for the signs of chaos and squalor they expect in a male-only household; their glee quickly turns to disappointment and disapproval as they discover the place is spotless, a state of affairs they condemn as deeply unnatural.
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