It bothers me to see how many people are saying stuff like “I thought Bill Nye was supposed to be the science guy, he’s buying into this SJW cuck libtard stuff! Science says there are only two genders!” in response to Bill Nye covering gender and sexuality on Bill Nye Saves the World.
…Like, did they even listen to what he said? Have they read any peer-reviewed literature about the subject? Is their understanding of “gender” limited to a middle school understanding of X and Y chromosomes? Bill Nye addressed chromosomes, hormones, genitalia and secondary sex characteristics when talking about how some of us don’t fit into the male/female sex dichotomy, and brought up psychology and neuroscience when talking about gender and its difference from sex, and also sexuality. The actual science of sex, gender and sexuality across the animal kingdom and across human behaviour is far more interesting than “lol nope science says there are only two genders.”
It honestly makes me angry when people say “lol I thought this was about science” whenever a scientist says something about topics like gender, sexuality, climate change or evolution that annoys someone. You can’t just pretend science is on your side when your understanding of science is based on a grade school textbook.
Also, why is it only gender people seem to have a problem with? Yeah, basic school textbooks will talk about XX and XY chromosomes and the male and female reproductive system, but they’ll also talk about how humans have five fingers on each hand and how the eye works when everyone knows some humans are born with six fingers on each hand or born blind. Textbooks will talk about how our body metabolises fats, but nobody would say “lol no sorry science says otherwise” at someone (like one of my secondary school classmates) who had a rare disorder who couldn’t metabolise fats. We accept that sweeping statements about human biology are generalisations. Sure, there are limits – no humans have wings or feathers, that would go against science – but we all accept some level of human diversity outside the basic-level textbooks – diversity that’s described well in the advanced medical textbooks. So why is it people only apply this logic to gender and not other differences in human biology?
I think part of it could be the backlash against postmodern nonsense which suggests everything is opinion and science is no more objective than art, which is a blatantly anti-science attitude. But the idea that sex, gender and sexuality aren’t totally binary isn’t just postmodern gender theory, it’s actual science with empirical evidence to back it up.
He has a bachelor’s degree in science, he is barely qualified, and none if the stuff he said is backed up so 🙂
Bill Nye has a bachelor’s degree, sure. He’s not a scientist. He’s spent a lifetime studying and explaining science, though. To say he’s “barely qualified” is a bit of an insult to him, don’t you think? In any case, it’s irrelevant. Bill Nye isn’t an expert on the neuroscience or psychology of gender, and that’s not his job. He’s a science communicator – his job is to explain the science as best as he can and get people interested so they can look further into it. (Note that nobody calls Bill Nye “barely qualified” when he talks about non-controversial subjects like planetary science or chemistry, even though he isn’t an expert in those fields either.) So let’s see what the actual experts say, shall we?
Neurological basis for transgender identity, showing that certain brain structures that tend to vary in males and females tend to be correlated with someone’s gender identity rather than their biological sex:
Gizewski, E. R.; Krause, E.; Schlamann, M.; Happich, F.; Ladd, M. E.; Forsting, M.; Senf, W. (2009). “Specific cerebral activation due to visual erotic stimuli in male-to-female transsexuals compared with male and female controls: An fMRI study”. Journal of Sexual Medicine. 6: 440–448
Savic, I.; Arver, S. (2011). “Sex dimorphism of the brain in male-to-female transsexuals”. Cerebral Cortex. 21: 2525–2533
Rametti, G.; Carrillo, B.; Gómez-Gil, E.; Junque, C.; Zubiarre-Elorza, L.; Segovia, S.; Gomez, Á; Guillamon, A. (2011). “White matter microstructure in female to male transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A diffusion tensor imaging study”. Journal of Psychiatric Research. 45: 199–204.
I’ve limited myself to scientific and medical sites here, but note also that the concept of gender (as opposed to sex) is deeply rooted in cultural ideas and even language as well as biological and psychological ones, so when it comes to gender, looking at culture and society is just as important as looking at science. And there we see that while every culture does link sex with gender and includes “male” and “female” gender categories, a great number of different cultures have had gender categories beyond that. That suggests that gender is linked to sex but by no means the same! You can find out more about that in the video I linked. (And no, I don’t think “attack helicopter” or “galaxy” is a real gender. But that doesn’t mean “non-binary,” “genderfluid” or “agender” isn’t, since those terms can be defined by their relation to being psychologically or culturally male or female. They’re “linked to sex, but not the same” as I described earlier.)
The vast majority of people fall close to one of two ends of the sex or gender spectrum, and there are good biological reasons for that. But it’s also an undisputed fact that various people do not fit exactly into the male or female sex category biologically and many more people don’t fit exactly into the male or female gender category psychologically. Just because these are a small minority of people doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Just because most of our physical or neurological traits cluster close to one end or another of the spectrum doesn’t mean the spectrum – and anyone in the middle of it – doesn’t exist.
Like I said earlier, any simple science textbook will tell you that humans have five fingers on each hand, but everyone knows that some humans are born with six fingers. When we say humans are one of two sexes and that sex matches a psychological phenomenon called gender, we understand that that applies to the majority of human individuals, the same way we understand that saying humans have five fingers on each hand or two kidneys does. Why is it that we can accept the existence of people whose number of fingers or kidneys or other details of their anatomy doesn’t match the average, yet people who don’t fit into the extreme ends of the sex or gender spectrum have their existence denied?
“Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s six kids have been in the spotlight for their entire lives (and for their three biological children, since they were literally in their mother’s womb). Maddox was born on August 5, 2001 and adopted by Jolie on March 10, 2002. Zahara was born on January 8, 2005 and adopted by Pitt and Jolie on July 6, 2005. Shiloh, the couple’s first biological child, was born on May 27, 2006. Pax was born on November 29, 2003 and adopted in March 2007. Brangelina’s youngest kids, twins Vivienne and Knox, were born on July 12, 2008.“
I was reading through one of those clickbait articles (this one on MSN and I can’t find an author), but I was struck by the use of language. Instead of addressing Shiloh’ s gender identity at all, they simply used language which avoided gender for any of the kids and I thought that was kinda neat. All the other celebrity kids articles used gendered terms like she, he, daughter, son, etc. Right now it is Shiloh’s business who they are and it was nice to see it presented as a non issue and in a way that didn’t even draw attention to it. The only reason I noticed is that I am aware how much of an issue it was a few years back in the media with all kinds of articles speculating.
I’ve been seeing some posts that are basically “fuck Bill Nye he only has a Bachelor’s degree and isn’t a REAL scientist” and like… guys. That’s not what being a science communicator is about. I’m not just talking about Nye here.
Science communication is a whole field of its own. You can be the most brilliant, qualified research scientist on the planet and have no teaching skills whatsoever. The ability to synthesize complex information and then explain it in simple, accessible language is not easy, and the more you know about a subject, the more difficult it is. Making scientific concepts available to the general public is really important work – work that active researchers are rarely able to undertake.
Say what you will about individuals, but please don’t dismiss the entire field of science communication and start parroting conservatives with the “um you should have a Ph.D before you should be allowed to talk about science”. Accuracy is key, obviously, but don’t throw educators under the bus, jfc.
also, a PhD is hyper specialized, almost to the point of not being able to talk to normal people about your work anymore. for example, I have a PhD and consider myself an expert on the N400 component of the human ERP waveform, specifically with respect to visual words. like … does anyone think that would help me explain … anything he talks about? it’s technically under the umbrella of neuroscience, but it’s so narrow that I actually only need to know the bare minimum about neurons. lol.
so, if he had a PhD, it would not really qualify him to talk about anything with more authority except a very, very narrow band of topics – and everything else would still be at about the level of the bachelors. thus, he would essentially have the same qualifications he has now for most everything he talks about.
weirdly, there is research from med schools that having heart specialists and lung specialists (for example) teach *each other’s specialties* is better for student outcomes. you know that annoying teacher who just would not give a straight answer? about anything? that’s what happens when you know too much and lose perspective on the Main Points.
Look everyone knows Nye is good at his job. Let’s be real – the only reason people are accusing him of being unqualified now is because he acknowledged that gender and sexuality are spectrums and transphobes want to use any flimsy excuse to discredit him.
i’m concerned about boys with mental illnesses and eating disorders and abusive relationships and sexual assault survivor stories and self-harming tendencies who never get the attention or care or help they need because all of those things “don’t happen to men” or because “all men are horrible monsters” and i just wanna say if you’re a boy and you’re struggling with something hard, your gender doesn’t diminish or dismiss your struggles or make them any less significant or difficult and i love you and i’m here for you
t h a n k
throwback to when someone very important to me was told he was faking his debilitating eating disorder because “cis men don’t have those” (((:
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 