A few months ago, I made a video called “trans women are not biologically male,” in which
I detailed why biological sex is a social construct, how it is an inaccurate and outdated
classification system, and how it harms trans people.
To the surprise of nobody, that video got a bunch backlash.
So I thought I would expand on some of the points, address some of the criticisms, and
let’s be honest -- probably not get anywhere and probably have a very similar backlash
to this video.
But hey, I gotta try, right?
So, if you haven’t seen that video, go watch it.
I’ll link it in a card up here and down in the description.
It’ll be like a pre-requisite to this video, and I’ll try not to cover too much of the same stuff.
So, biological sex.
If thousands of trolls on Twitter are to be believed, it’s an objective, scientific
fact that is inherent in nature.
But, if scientists are to be believed, it’s a human-made classification system for sorting
organisms based on their reproductive abilities.
When people say that biological sex is objective or is a fact -- what they really mean is that
the stuff that biological sex describes is objective.
Like, there are multiple scientific models for understanding biological sex, but the
most widely agreed upon one has 5 criteria: genitals, gonads, hormones, secondary sex
characteristics, and chromosomes.
These 5 things are measurable.
They are facts.
You can look at a person and measure these things.
But the fact that we group all five of these together under one classification system called
“biological sex” -- that’s our own invention.
That’s a human-made model for understanding and classifying bodies.
In nature, these 5 traits exist, but we as humans have decided to lump them all together
and call them one thing.
That’s the thing that we have constructed.
Like, chromosomes themselves are not social constructs, but deciding to call XX chromosomes
“female” and XY chromosomes “male” is a social construct.
Now, I’m not saying that classifying things is wrong or that we shouldn’t try to understand
bodies at all -- but I do think we could do it better.
So I’m simply questioning if our current model of classification for biological sex
is the most up-to-date, relevant, useful model out there.
Science evolves.
Frameworks and systems we used just decades ago have changed fundamentally since then.
It’s our job to be skeptical and change our frameworks as our society changes.
And society is changing.
We’re becoming more aware of and educated about intersex people and trans people, and
that’s fantastic.
But with this new awareness and knowledge, we might need to shift the language we use
and readjust the old frameworks that we designed before we had this awareness and knowledge.
So, when I say biological sex is a bad classification system, what exactly does that mean?
Like what in particular am I criticizing?
Basically, our traditional understanding of biological sex says that there are only two
groups, and everyone fits neatly into either one or the other.
When you ask people who support this framework how we sort people into these two groups,
the answers are varied.
Lots of people say it’s by genitals -- people with penises are male, people with vaginas are female.
Other say it’s by chromosomes -- people with XY are male, people with XX are female.
Others say it’s based on perception -- someone who looks like a woman is female, someone
who looks like a man is male.
The truth is, there are biological ways of determining someone’s sex, and then there
are the ways we actually do it in real life.
The Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, published
in 2003, says that sex is a distinction based on the type of gametes produced by an individual.
Gametes are reproductive cells -- under this traditional definition, males produce sperm
and females produce eggs.
So that’s a biologist’s way of determining the sex of a person or organism -- but we
don’t test everyone’s gametes at birth.
In fact, we don’t even test chromosomes.
A doctor simply looks at the baby’s genitals and makes a determination based on whether
it looks like a penis or a vulva.
The reason for that is that it’s a quick, easy way of making an educated guess about
other aspects of the baby.
If they have a vulva, they probably have ovaries, XX chromosomes, and will develop female secondary
sex characteristics at puberty.
However, an educated guess is still a guess.
Doctors don’t test your gametes as soon as you’re born.
Plus, there are other kinds of biological sex.
That same dictionary also lists chromosomal sex, endocrinologic sex, gonadal sex, sex
hormones, morphological sex, and nuclear sex.
These translate roughly into the 5 categories I mentioned earlier: genitals, gonads, hormones,
secondary sex characteristics, and chromosomes.
Now, let’s say you’re a doctor and you want to determine someone’s sex.
You see that they have “female” genitals, you measure their hormone levels and see that
they have high levels of estrogen and low level of testosterone, you see that they’re
short and don’t have a lot of body hair, and they have breasts.
You might conclude that this person is female.
But, if you investigated a little further, you would find that this person has XY chromosomes,
and they don’t have ovaries.
The person is a trans woman.
They have traits of being both a female and a male under the traditional definition.
So what do you classify them as?
Better yet, how do you treat them?
Do you treat them like a female patient and give them the same medical advice you would
give any other woman?
Or do you treat them like a male patient and give them the medical advice you would give a man?
The truth is, our medical system is awful at dealing with trans people right now.
Lots of doctors don’t know what to do with us.
Trans people are largely out there figuring out their own health problems because so many
doctors are confused by the very concept of us.
Medically speaking, people assigned male at birth and people assigned female at birth
tend to have slightly different medical needs.
But the reasons for those different medical needs aren’t always the same.
For instance, the American Cancer Society recommends that people with prostates talk
to their doctor about being tested for prostate cancer around age 50.
That means the recommendation applies to cis men, but not cis women.
However, it also applies to trans women, but not trans men -- and it may apply to non-binary
people as well.
And this is assuming that nobody has had a prostate removed because of cancer already
-- because a cis man or trans woman could possibly not have a prostate if they had previously
had a prostatectomy.
So in this case, the relevant information the doctor needs to know is: Do you have a prostate?
But, the American Cancer Society also recommends that people who have breasts be tested for
breast cancer starting at age 45.
And breasts are something that a lot of trans women develop after starting hormone replacement therapy.
There are also a lot of trans men who have breasts who never have them removed.
So the breast cancer screening recommendation can really apply to a wide range of people:
cis women, trans women, trans men, or non-binary people.
In this case, the relevant question to ask is: Do you have breasts?
And here’s the problem with our current binary view of biological sex.
If someone walks into your office and fills out a form and checks M or F, you as a doctor
are going to make some assumptions about them -- and they are going to have to correct you
to ensure that they get the best care possible.
It’s even possible that the M or F that’s on their ID or health insurance doesn’t
match what’s going on with them biologically.
Lots of trans people transition medically or physically before going through any kind
of legal process.
So yeah, trans people can explain their whole situation every time they go to a doctor.
They can explain that they’re not really M or F and they might need care that’s relevant to both.
And the doctor can then try to help -- assuming they’re not a transphobic asshole.
Or, we could just ask people simple questions about their body and their health and then
give care based on those questions.
Do you have a prostate? Yes.
Do you have breasts? Yes.
Great. Now you can give that person proper healthcare.
And this doesn’t even solely apply to trans people.
Cis people sometimes have hormone imbalances, and they have surgical procedures for other
medical reasons done all the time -- like, for example, some cis women have had their
breasts removed because of cancer.
Asking thorough, relevant questions ensures that proper care can be given regardless of
gender or medical history.
Dividing people into male and female is done for simplicity.
You ask one question and you get multiple answers.
You see M or F on the paper, and you know a whole lot of information real quick.
But that shortcut only works for cis people.
That simplicity comes at the cost of excluding trans people.
It excludes us from the medical system and others us even further.
It would be so easy to just ask more specific questions -- to skip the shortcut of asking
people if they’re male or female.
And even though recently people have begun to recognize that sex and gender are different
things, we all still have the association that female = woman and male = man.
So it’s not surprising that many trans people find that the terms “male” and “female”
cause them a lot of gender dysphoria.
So calling a trans woman “male”, or calling a trans man “female”, or calling a non-binary
person either of those terms, can really hurt them.
And I know that some people are gonna say that trans people should just “toughen up”
or “get used to it”, but I think that’s overlooking the very real presence of gender
dysphoria -- which isn’t something trans people can just get over.
Instead of forcing trans people to use language that causes them distress, we could just as
easily adjust our language to not cause them distress in the first place.
And talking about male and female from a linguistic perspective, I think it’s important to remember
that even if you learn to separate sex and gender in your head, male and female still
have heavy connotations of gender with them.
In fact, in everyday language, tons of people use male and man interchangeably, just like
they do with female and woman.
Most people even use male or female as the adjective form of man or woman.
Like, you probably wouldn’t say women lawyers or women engineers -- you’d probably say
female lawyers or female engineers.
Or you might use them interchangeably.
I don’t think it’s surprising that trans people feel excluded from this.
If there’s one trans woman in a group of 50 women who are doctors, and you’re using
the “trans women are male” line of thinking, then you couldn’t call them female doctors.
Like it clearly drives a wedge between cis women and trans women and only works to draw
arbitrary distinctions between them.
It’s a linguistic way of othering trans women.
Like, when people say that “The Future Is Female” are they only talking about cis women?
Are they just talking about cis women and trans men?
Do they mean that the future only belongs to people with vaginas?
I mean, it was called a “feminist slogan” and meant to be empowering for women, but
it’s a very trans-exclusionary term, given traditional definitions of male and female.
What I think they meant, is that the future belongs to women, but they used the common
adjective form of women which is just female.
When you say the Future Is Female, do you mean the future includes trans women?
Because then you’re saying trans women are female.
Or are you saying that the future doesn’t include trans women?
Because then you’re just intentionally excluding trans women.
It’s impossible to ignore that these words are connected and can’t be easily separated.
Female implies woman, woman implies female.
Keeping the traditional definition of female means continuing to make trans women an abnormality,
something unusual and different and weird.
Being trans inclusive means recognizing that we should not be calling trans women “male”.
Calling a trans woman “male” implies to most people that she’s a man, which is inaccurate.
Plus, asking if someone is male or female in this context is really just asking them
what their genitals are -- which seems like a question that’s a little too invasive
to ask people most of the time.
Like if you manage to convince everyone that sex and gender are different, asking a trans
woman her sex is basically just asking her what’s between her legs.
It’s a polite way of getting private information about someone.
And also, if that trans woman had had bottom surgery, she probably wouldn’t fit into
traditional definitions of male or female and wouldn’t know what to tell you.
Like, if she has XY chromosomes, a vagina, and feminine secondary sex characteristics
-- what sex would she be?
Because by the reproductive definition of male/female, she doesn’t produce sperm or
ovum, so she’s kind of neither.
But by the broader definition of sex that includes chromosomes and genitals and secondary
sex characteristics, she’d kind of be both.
Would she just have to respond to the question by saying neither?
Or both?
It’s just a bad classification system that millions of living breathing people don’t fit under.
Oh, and I didn’t even mention intersex people -- so let’s talk about that now.
Intersex people are people who are born with sex characteristics that mean they don’t
fall neatly under our traditional categories of “male” or “female”.
There’s a lot of ways this can manifest itself, and many of these ways have been given
medical names and called “Disorders of Sex Development” or “DSDs”, but many intersex
activists fight against this terminology because it needlessly medicalizes intersex people’s identities.
You may have heard the terms “Hermaphrodite” or “Hermaphroditism” used, but these are
widely considered to be outdated, inaccurate, and hurtful words.
So please don’t use them to refer to intersex people.
Anyway, there are a lot of possible intersex conditions, and some of them have names, and some don’t.
Let’s go over a few of them real quick.
Some people just have one X chromosome, and this is called Turner.
Some people have two X chromosomes and one Y chromosome: this is called Klinefelter.
Some people have one X chromosome and two Y chromosomes.
Some people have three X chromosomes.
In fact, most people who have XYY or XXX don’t even know that they have it because it doesn’t
present many obvious symptoms.
We like to think that we know everyone we see on the street is XX or XY, but the fact
is we really don’t.
We don’t test for chromosomes at birth, and so it’s entirely possible that you don’t
have the chromosome configuration that you think you do.
There are also a lot of other possible chromosome configurations, but some intersex conditions
have more to do with the production of hormones.
For instance, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia or CAH affects the production of androgens
-- a “male” sex hormone.
In people with XX chromosomes, the effects can vary wildly.
Some grow up with a functioning vagina and are capable of getting pregnant and giving
birth, while others can develop ambiguous genitalia or even a fully-functioning penis.
There’s also Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or AIS, which affects the body’s ability
to recognize androgens.
This can range from mild, to partial, to complete AIS, and the effects can vary.
People born with XY chromosomes who have mild AIS are usually raised as male and have no idea.
Partial AIS can result in people with XY chromosomes having ambiguous genitalia, and so sometimes
they’re raised as male, sometimes as female.
And complete AIS for people with XY chromosomes can result in them having a vagina, clitoris,
and breasts -- and they’re usually raised as female.
There are all sorts of other intersex conditions, those are just a few of the most common.
Now you might be saying, “But isn’t being intersex extremely rare?
Doesn’t the male/female binary make sense most of the time?”
And the answer is no, not really.
Estimates for the amount of intersex people in the world vary, but the United Nations
Free & Equal Project says that approximately 1.7% of people worldwide are born intersex
-- about the same percentage as people with red hair.
That might sound like a small percentage, but think about that in terms of population.
The US has around 320 million people, so 1.7% of that is still over 5 million people.
That’s not an insignificant number of people.
If we have a system for classifying humans into one of two groups that leaves out 5 million
Americans, it’s not a very good system for classifying people -- it’s missing a lot of people.
Globally, there are about 7.5 billion people.
1.7% of that is over 127 million people.
Which, again, is not a small number of people.
If you put them all in the same place, you’d have about twice the population of the UK.
And it’s likely that that percentage is a low estimate, since most people don’t
have their chromosomes tested at birth.
There are a lot of people out there right now who are intersex to some degree, but they
have no idea.
And the male/female binary makes us ignore those people and push them to the fringes
of society.
They’re often treated as anomalies, “defects”, or outliers, which is really dehumanizing.
They’re just people trying to live their lives, and it’s not their fault that our
binary classification system excludes them.
And people do awful things to try and uphold this binary at the expense of intersex people.
Intersex infants often undergo invasive surgeries that they cannot consent to that leave them
sterilized or with genitals that they don’t want when they grow up.
These are often called “corrective” or “normalizing” surgeries, and tons of intersex
people and human rights organizations are speaking out about them.
In 2014, Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said, “medically
unnecessary and irreversible surgeries and sterilizations continue to be performed on
intersex children without their informed consent, causing lifelong harm.”
In 2015, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report called Human
Rights and Intersex People, and they said, “Medical professionals may be quick to propose
‘corrective’ surgeries and treatments aiming to ‘normalise’ the sex of the child
even when such surgeries are unnecessary and merely cosmetic.
This raises serious questions as to how the consent of parents is sought
and under what premise.”
Basically, they were saying that parents are often pressured into consenting to these surgeries
for their children under the premise that it’s necessary -- but it’s usually not.
Unnecessary and harmful surgeries are a reality that intersex people have to deal with in
the US and in many other countries.
But the only reason that people even see a need to “fix” intersex people in the first
place, is because we have a classification system that doesn’t include them.
So we made up this male/female system and are now forcing people into that system through
surgery that they can’t consent to.
It makes no sense.
Upholding the male/female binary only serves to further stigmatize and harm intersex people.
So what we have is a binary system in a world that is very not binary.
Tons of trans people who have medically or physically transitioned in some way don’t
fit our traditional definitions of male or female.
Tons of intersex people don’t fit our traditional definitions of male or female.
So maybe instead of clinging onto old traditional systems, we should update those systems to
function better in the modern era with all of the scientific knowledge that we have now.
We can describe people’s physical attributes, their hormones, their genitals -- all of that
-- without calling them male or female.
It’s not a hard change if it’s a change you’re willing to make.
If you’re willing to alter your language a little bit to be more accommodating of intersex
and trans people, then you’ll find that it’s actually pretty easy to do so.
We can be inclusive while also being accurate.
I’m not asking for anyone to ignore biology, I’m simple proposing what I think is a better
way of talking about this stuff.
Plus, having a society that believes in only two sexes causes us to build anti-trans and
anti-intersex things into that society without even realizing it.
One easy example of this is the body scanners used by the TSA.
These scanners require the operator to select “male” or “female” before the person
enters the scanner.
The operator just has to look at the person and guess what their genitals are based on
their appearance.
If they select female, the scanner looks for breasts and doesn’t look for a penis.
If they select male, the scanner looks for a penis and doesn’t look for breasts.
Now, obviously, you can’t always tell someone’s genitals just by looking at them -- which
is a pretty obvious flaw in this design -- but the worst part of it is that some trans and
intersex people just can’t go through body scanners without getting flagged.
If you have a penis and breasts, the body scanner doesn’t know what to do with you.
You’re probably going to get a pat down.
So this technology causes us to treat trans and intersex people unfairly, and I don’t
know what else to call that besides anti-trans and anti-intersex.
I don’t think it was made with malicious intent, but it was made by people who thought
that everyone fits into traditional definitions of male or female -- and that’s simply not true.
Now, I’ve run into a lot of people who ask, “If male and female is just an arbitrary
classification system, why is it inherent in nature that you need a male and female to reproduce?”
The thing is, for humans, you don’t need a “male” and “female” to reproduce.
Either of those could be infertile for one reason or another.
There are certain males and females who cannot reproduce.
What you need for reproduction is one person who can produce functioning sperm, and one
person who can produce functioning ovum.
Our decision to call people who usually can produce sperm “male” and people who can
usually produce ovum “female” is a system that we invented.
And you don’t stop being female if you can’t produce functioning ovum.
Women who’ve gone through menopause are still women and still female -- even if they
can’t reproduce.
So “male” and “female” aren’t solely about reproductive ability.
And we have the language to describe reproduction without saying male or female.
Now, in other animals, there are actually quite a few species that don’t even need
a male to reproduce.
These animals, like the whiptail lizard, can reproduce through a process called parthenogenesis.
I’ll link to some articles below where you can see more animals that reproduce this way.
Even though sexual reproduction is favored evolutionarily for a lot of species, it’s
not the only method of reproduction out there.
And that’s everything I wanted to cover.
If you have a genuine criticism of my stance, feel free to tell me about it in the comments.
But for some reason, I feel like we’ll probably be drowned out by people screaming about how
I don’t understand science or reproduction or biology or whatever -- even though I’ve
just spent an entire video explaining these concepts.
Like I did a little tweet thread about this topic, and all of the replies and quote tweets
were just insults or asking if I know how babies are made.
And yeah, I’m aware of how reproduction works.
So saying that I don’t understand reproduction really doesn’t help the conversation.
Like I acknowledge that chromosomes exist and that sperm fertilizes ovum, and people
just ignore that and pretend that I don’t know what I’m talking about because it makes
for an easier insult, and then they don’t have to actually engage with my argument.
But it makes it really hard to have a discussion when the internet just wants to shout insults
all the time and not actually discuss ideas.
It’s disappointing, and frustrating.
I’m hoping that this video was thorough enough to address all of the concerns out
there, but let me know if you have any other questions -- and maybe we could talk about
this some more in another video.
Anyway, I put all my sources in the description, as well as some links to additional readings,
and I linked to a few intersex activists who I think you should check out.
Thanks so much for watching, and I’ll see you next time!