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Understanding Biology? Biological Essentialism

Jensen, Robert
http://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/18/understanding-biology-%e2%89%a0-biological-essentialism/

Publisher:  CounterPunch
Date Written:  18/02/2025
Year Published:  2025  
Resource Type:  Article

Anyone who has critiqued, or even dared to question, the ideology of the transgender movement likely has been accused of being a "biological essentialist." It's common in these debates for people to use the terms sex (a matter of biology) and gender (a matter of social norms) in confused and confusing ways. More on that later. Let's start with the comment about essentialism, which many people assume to be a very bad thing, even if they don't define it clearly.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

There are two human sexes, along with a very small percentage of people born intersex, with what are now called DSDs (differences of sexual development). Human reproduction requires male and female gametes, sperm and ova. Gamete size (sperm are small, ova are big) is a coherent marker of one's role in reproduction, and hence of one's sex. When it comes to reproduction there is no third sex, nor is sex on a spectrum. If that's essentialism, then basic biology is essentialist.

Discussion of gender takes us out of biology and into the many different ways that societies have developed norms and roles for male and female, creating expectations and/or demands for behavior based on definitions of masculinity and femininity.
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