Thread by @FondOfBeetles

This is an excellent analysis of an article typical of the genre seeking to deny the material reality of sex. @lecanardnoir

https://twitter.com/lecanardnoir/status/1380783805250801665

This photo is key to Andy’s analysis.

“But which of them is male and which is female? They look different with different wing markings, but unless you are a lepidopterist, it is unlikely you know – and if this was a new species no-one would know.”

“So, our knowledge of the sexes of each individual is non-existent. We do however know that one will be male and the other female.”

“We will have to be patient and observe which one lays the eggs – that will be the female. As a sexually dimorphic species, we can then use a shortcut to tell which is male and female from the differential wing colourings and flight behaviour of each.”

Andy clearly lays out two different concepts, often conflated, often deliberately so.

Ontology - “What is a sex? How many sexes are there? And how do we characterise a sex?”

Epistemology - “How do we recognise the sex of an individual? What features indicate sex?”

DSDs are “often seen as an ontological threat to our understanding of sex rather than an epistemological problem. That is, there is a claim that such congenital conditions lead to a need to redefine what a sex is and its characterisation (often expressed as “sex is a spectrum”).”

“Instead it is a medical/biological problem of knowing what sex someone (or a butterfly) is when the usual secondary sex characteristics may be ambiguously formed.”

Anyway, enough, I don’t want to divert traffic from Andy’s piece. Go read it!