After the advent of DNA testing, many anthropologists and archeologists were embarrassed because skeletal remains were missexed.
Even my A&P textbook had this garbage in it. It claimed racial difference in the skull and sex difference in the Hip bones. But it’s bullshit. The most reliable way to sex a skeleton is with DNA.
‘The Mismeasure of Man’ by Gould is a fascinating history of bio-determinism and psudoscientific attempt to measure it.
The most reliable way to sex a skeleton is to be interested in what they’re interested in, and not say stuff like “ay, babey, you’d looked better with more meat on those bones!” Otherwise, just ride the vibe and see where the mood takes you.
Archaeologist here, maybe it’s just new wave training but widely taught that it’s not an easy task to sex skeletons on morphology alone.
Sure some features appear more commonly amongst men and some more commonly amongst women, but there is considerable overlap.
Pelvis are generally identifiable, but the bio-archaeologists I know prefer to say the skeleton displays female characteristics without providing a definitive biological sex. They have to have some great evidence before claiming for certain.
Also fun fact, you can’t measure this morphology when there’s still skin and muscle fucking attached.
Complete tangent- I’m not up on the new lingo, is sex your presentation to the world, whether you’re xx or xy, or something else? Because I’ve been seeing quite a bit of conflation between sex and gender lately and it’s left me confused.
So an intersex person might one day discover that their gender doesn’t reflect their sex, but their sex has never actually changed, right? Or if someone were to receive full and adequately administered treatment for their gender dysphoria, their sex wouldn’t change? Just trying to completely peg down any edge cases.
To be clear, humans should be allowed to live comfortably in their own skin. Not jaqing off, just trying to become fully informed.
An intersex person is typically assigned a gender at birth, but so is everyone else. Being intersex just means you aren’t biologically male or female (though I think this might also include people who have sex chromosomes that develop as though they were the other binary sex, but I’m not an expert). Most intersex people don’t typically know they are intersex, and thus they would count as cisgender so long as they identify as the gender they were assigned at birth and transgender if they do not. Thus, if someone had, say XY chromosomes, but was assigned female at birth, they would probably be cis if they identified as female.
However, trans can be a bit of a self-identifying label, and thus someone in that situation might just as well consider themselves trans. There’s a lot of different definitions for trans. Many non-binary people would consider themselves trans since they don’t identify as their assigned gender at birth.
Long story short, gender is complicated. Sex doesn’t change (put a couple asterisks here), but gender is super flexible (also asterisks here.)
Well intersex could be either, both or none. Some are born with something that looks like a vagina and has balls inside of them so they think they are biologically a woman until they try to have kids and it isn’t possible or are together with someone who knows what a vagina “should” look like or it looks kind of like a penis but everyone is a bit unsure. It is a big grey zone, I don’t know if you can even call them biologically anything, if biologically means having one type of genitals. I am not sure if bilogical means anything either way (for intersex). It depends what you want to actually know, if you want kids then no, no biologically kids. But that could be true for someone who is what you would call biologically man or woman any ways.
So yeah one day they may discover they can’t have kids or that they also have balls inside of them, or they have no balls or they have a mix of both or none. Before (and still in some countries) did the parents pick a gender and then a lot of surgery happened to make it look like a typical penis or vagina.
But it is an interesting topic, what is even sex? What do you wish to actually know? Because if it is about kids then sex doesn’t matter instead it would be better to just ask “can you produce x” ( depending on what you produce). Not everyone who is “biologically” can produce what you need anyways. I know many who needed to get a sperm or egg donator (or both) to have kids.
The definition of sex, and where it bleeds into gender or doesn’t. I felt like I had a complete understanding of the difference between sex and gender, but there were a few months, a while back, where the terms were used interchangeably and I began to subtly question whether I actually understood them.
Now, several months later, I thought to ask in a relatively neutral space. You guys confirmed that I just happened to see many people misusing words for a bit, which I appreciate.
My advice is to do what you’re doing here, which is learn… But to remember to meet people where they’re at.
By these definitions, with sex relating to biological things, you might be tempted to tell someone they can’t just “decide” their sex, by this definition. Don’t do it.
Not saying you would, but resist the urge to get into a semantic argument. Just ask the specific people what they mean by these words when they say them, and roll with it. Prioritize understanding over being understood.
This advice goes for anything, but this is a particularly spicy meatball.
This is excellent advice that I wish I could immediately incorporate into my being. You’ve described alchemy, as far as my technical but inarticulate ass goes. I hope to be able to do this in person some day.
Just to add to the excellent responses, even “biological sex” may be complicated, because you can argue based on different criteria. At birth, genitalia is a relatively accessible and unintrusive way to sex humans, but even at birth other criteria may be available, like a chromosomal analysis. There are also genetic tests, which are closely related to chromosomal sexing, but are not the same. Also, from embryogenic and hormonal evidence you could try to make your case. Most people would comply with all of those, but some people don’t.
Absolutely, and the level of hair splitting you can get into is maddening. It almost seems worth discarding the word entirely, in the world’s current state, as it relates to people.
i have yet to see any convincing reason for keeping the concepts of sex and gender, even scientifically it’s not useful as you can just actually specify the properties you’re basing it on instead and thus be more accurate.
like, not all “women” have a womb, or breasts, or the same levels of estrogen, etc etc… So if you use the term “woman” or “female” you’re inevitably going to be inaccurate, whereas if you instead say “people with XX chromosomes, a functional womb, and breasts” you’re now actually precisely explaining what group of people you’re talking about.
No, I don’t agree. I concur in the personal level if it’s bothering you, but a scientist, who is the guy that wants to use that data, will find useful what the statistic mean by “male” or “female”. There are statistical differences between both groups. That’s very useful.
I think of it as relating to “operative definitions” when doing research.
What are we using sex to describe? Labels are descriptive, not prescriptive. It is important to distinguish chromosomal sex in some contexts, or certain traits associated with SRY activation - but ultimately it’s a category that is useful sometimes but doesn’t ultimately govern reality.
Literally no one takes philosophy of science classes lol.
But as a trans man, I am “male” in some presentations. My body processes things differently on testosterone, in ways that may make it appropriate for me to be classed as male in some contexts. There are other contexts where I need to be treated under the “female” healthcare umbrella - eg, gynecological care.
But for the context of my day to day life - what use does the appellation “female” have to me? What useful information about my reality does it give to you? We can be materialists, but our words aren’t material.
After the advent of DNA testing, many anthropologists and archeologists were embarrassed because skeletal remains were missexed.
Even my A&P textbook had this garbage in it. It claimed racial difference in the skull and sex difference in the Hip bones. But it’s bullshit. The most reliable way to sex a skeleton is with DNA.
‘The Mismeasure of Man’ by Gould is a fascinating history of bio-determinism and psudoscientific attempt to measure it.
The most reliable way to sex a skeleton is to be interested in what they’re interested in, and not say stuff like “ay, babey, you’d looked better with more meat on those bones!” Otherwise, just ride the vibe and see where the mood takes you.
Archaeologist here, maybe it’s just new wave training but widely taught that it’s not an easy task to sex skeletons on morphology alone.
Sure some features appear more commonly amongst men and some more commonly amongst women, but there is considerable overlap.
Pelvis are generally identifiable, but the bio-archaeologists I know prefer to say the skeleton displays female characteristics without providing a definitive biological sex. They have to have some great evidence before claiming for certain.
Also fun fact, you can’t measure this morphology when there’s still skin and muscle fucking attached.
I mean I get it. Impossible to tell without skeletal boobs.
What about sexing a pope?
Dig up their corpse. Put it on trial.
Take them to dinner first and see if y’all click
Most anthropologists and archaeologists are too old for that.
Well, I guess you’d check under his skirt or whatever you call it.
Complete tangent- I’m not up on the new lingo, is sex your presentation to the world, whether you’re xx or xy, or something else? Because I’ve been seeing quite a bit of conflation between sex and gender lately and it’s left me confused.
Typically, “sex” is used in reference to biological characteristics, and “gender” to sociological ones.
So an intersex person might one day discover that their gender doesn’t reflect their sex, but their sex has never actually changed, right? Or if someone were to receive full and adequately administered treatment for their gender dysphoria, their sex wouldn’t change? Just trying to completely peg down any edge cases.
To be clear, humans should be allowed to live comfortably in their own skin. Not jaqing off, just trying to become fully informed.
An intersex person is typically assigned a gender at birth, but so is everyone else. Being intersex just means you aren’t biologically male or female (though I think this might also include people who have sex chromosomes that develop as though they were the other binary sex, but I’m not an expert). Most intersex people don’t typically know they are intersex, and thus they would count as cisgender so long as they identify as the gender they were assigned at birth and transgender if they do not. Thus, if someone had, say XY chromosomes, but was assigned female at birth, they would probably be cis if they identified as female.
However, trans can be a bit of a self-identifying label, and thus someone in that situation might just as well consider themselves trans. There’s a lot of different definitions for trans. Many non-binary people would consider themselves trans since they don’t identify as their assigned gender at birth.
Long story short, gender is complicated. Sex doesn’t change (put a couple asterisks here), but gender is super flexible (also asterisks here.)
Well intersex could be either, both or none. Some are born with something that looks like a vagina and has balls inside of them so they think they are biologically a woman until they try to have kids and it isn’t possible or are together with someone who knows what a vagina “should” look like or it looks kind of like a penis but everyone is a bit unsure. It is a big grey zone, I don’t know if you can even call them biologically anything, if biologically means having one type of genitals. I am not sure if bilogical means anything either way (for intersex). It depends what you want to actually know, if you want kids then no, no biologically kids. But that could be true for someone who is what you would call biologically man or woman any ways.
So yeah one day they may discover they can’t have kids or that they also have balls inside of them, or they have no balls or they have a mix of both or none. Before (and still in some countries) did the parents pick a gender and then a lot of surgery happened to make it look like a typical penis or vagina.
But it is an interesting topic, what is even sex? What do you wish to actually know? Because if it is about kids then sex doesn’t matter instead it would be better to just ask “can you produce x” ( depending on what you produce). Not everyone who is “biologically” can produce what you need anyways. I know many who needed to get a sperm or egg donator (or both) to have kids.
The definition of sex, and where it bleeds into gender or doesn’t. I felt like I had a complete understanding of the difference between sex and gender, but there were a few months, a while back, where the terms were used interchangeably and I began to subtly question whether I actually understood them.
Now, several months later, I thought to ask in a relatively neutral space. You guys confirmed that I just happened to see many people misusing words for a bit, which I appreciate.
People play real fast and loose with these terms.
My advice is to do what you’re doing here, which is learn… But to remember to meet people where they’re at.
By these definitions, with sex relating to biological things, you might be tempted to tell someone they can’t just “decide” their sex, by this definition. Don’t do it.
Not saying you would, but resist the urge to get into a semantic argument. Just ask the specific people what they mean by these words when they say them, and roll with it. Prioritize understanding over being understood.
This advice goes for anything, but this is a particularly spicy meatball.
This is excellent advice that I wish I could immediately incorporate into my being. You’ve described alchemy, as far as my technical but inarticulate ass goes. I hope to be able to do this in person some day.
Just to add to the excellent responses, even “biological sex” may be complicated, because you can argue based on different criteria. At birth, genitalia is a relatively accessible and unintrusive way to sex humans, but even at birth other criteria may be available, like a chromosomal analysis. There are also genetic tests, which are closely related to chromosomal sexing, but are not the same. Also, from embryogenic and hormonal evidence you could try to make your case. Most people would comply with all of those, but some people don’t.
Absolutely, and the level of hair splitting you can get into is maddening. It almost seems worth discarding the word entirely, in the world’s current state, as it relates to people.
i have yet to see any convincing reason for keeping the concepts of sex and gender, even scientifically it’s not useful as you can just actually specify the properties you’re basing it on instead and thus be more accurate.
like, not all “women” have a womb, or breasts, or the same levels of estrogen, etc etc… So if you use the term “woman” or “female” you’re inevitably going to be inaccurate, whereas if you instead say “people with XX chromosomes, a functional womb, and breasts” you’re now actually precisely explaining what group of people you’re talking about.
No, I don’t agree. I concur in the personal level if it’s bothering you, but a scientist, who is the guy that wants to use that data, will find useful what the statistic mean by “male” or “female”. There are statistical differences between both groups. That’s very useful.
I think of it as relating to “operative definitions” when doing research.
What are we using sex to describe? Labels are descriptive, not prescriptive. It is important to distinguish chromosomal sex in some contexts, or certain traits associated with SRY activation - but ultimately it’s a category that is useful sometimes but doesn’t ultimately govern reality.
Literally no one takes philosophy of science classes lol.
But as a trans man, I am “male” in some presentations. My body processes things differently on testosterone, in ways that may make it appropriate for me to be classed as male in some contexts. There are other contexts where I need to be treated under the “female” healthcare umbrella - eg, gynecological care.
But for the context of my day to day life - what use does the appellation “female” have to me? What useful information about my reality does it give to you? We can be materialists, but our words aren’t material.
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