Rex Kerr
1 min readJan 6, 2025

--

So, there's a problem here: much of sex is about as socially constructed as water is. Which is to say: not at all.

Sex is an incredibly basic part of biology. Gender might be to an extent, but it's nothing like sex.

So this epistemology has to be done with considerable finesse or people will--rightfully--look at it with the same level of scorn as young-earth creationism.

One can meaningfully speak of the social constructions around sex and also note that biology revels in breaking every rule you try to make for it, just to prove that it's not physics. But unless you very, very carefully delimit things it will start sounding like the earth is 6000 years old and that the only thing different about the developmental cascades typically initiated by X and Y chromosomes is the cis-heteronormativity of Western culture.

I don't think that leads anywhere good.

--

--

Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

Responses (1)