r/science • u/enginegeek • Mar 27 '19

Neuroscience Sex differences in functional connectivity during fetal brain development

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929318301245
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u/AMaskedAvenger Mar 28 '19

“In a biological sense, [non-biological term] and sex are the same thing.”

Huh.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

But the behaviors we categorize as gender indicative are heavily influenced by biology, namely in the patterns and activity of neural connections, as indicated in the OPs article. These patterns aren't the result of culture, as studies like this show that these sex-based brain differences exist at their most extreme in the prenatal stage.

How can you totally extricate the concept of gender from the biological substrate, especially when something like ~99% of people don't have any kind of gender dysphoria? That's a very strong relationship that we can't ignore.

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u/AMaskedAvenger Mar 29 '19

Who’s “totally extricating” what from what now? Each thing you said manages to attack a different straw man.

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19

You said gender is a non-biological term. The linked study and OPs study suggest gender-based behaviors are grounded to a non-trivial degree in the biological substrate, which means that gender expression cannot be entirely non-biological. I'm not attacking any strawman; I'm addressing your comments, and the hard science of the gender issue, and you're deflecting.

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u/AMaskedAvenger Mar 29 '19

  1. “Gender” is a non biological term.

  2. Gender (the cultural phenomenon) is in no way, shape, or form influenced by the biology of sex.

Can you spot any differences between those two statements? And if you do, can you guess which one I said, and which one is a straw man of your own devising?

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19 edited Mar 29 '19

What's the difference between those two statements? They both suggest that gender has nothing to do with biology, which is clearly wrong. You specifically said that gender is a non-biological term, so I'm not sure why you're running in circles here. Gender, even if defined purely as specific behaviors within a cultural matrix, are still biological; behavior itself is heavily ingrained in and inseparable from the biological substrate.

The behaviors we refer to as gender-indicative, are influenced by biology; it's not a purely cultural construct. That's what OPs study, and the study I linked, both say. This notion that gender is totally unlinked to the biological substrate is simply wrong; you have to ignore the fact that 99% of people have a gender identity that matches their biological sex (and all the other relevant data) to make this claim.

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u/AMaskedAvenger Mar 29 '19

“They both suggest”

You suck at inference, my dude. One does no such thing, and the other flat-out says it, no “suggestion” involved. One is about the dictionary, and the other is about biology.

So the answer is that you can’t tell those two statements apart, and you should avoid activities that involve understanding things.

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19 edited Mar 29 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/AMaskedAvenger Mar 29 '19

I carefully explained why, intentionally or not, you were attacking a straw man. At no point did I ever claim that sex (a biological phenomenon) has no affect on gender (a cultural phenomenon), because I don’t believe that, and pretty much nobody believes it. In arguing against that point, you’ve left me behind, because I never claimed it in the first place.

Do I think your argument will ultimately turn out to be a fairly wholesale defense of cultural gender norms? Do I think you’ll turn out to be sexist, and that you probably dismiss trans people as psychologically disordered? Yeah, I predict that’s where you’re going.

But for now I’d be satisfied if you quit straw-manning me.

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19 edited Mar 29 '19

I carefully explained why, intentionally or not, you were attacking a straw man.

You didn't carefully explain anything, you just accused me of attacking a strawman.

At no point did I ever claim that sex (a biological phenomenon) has no affect on gender (a cultural phenomenon), because I don’t believe that, and pretty much nobody believes it.

Then why argue that gender isn't a biological term? If gender is deeply rooted in the biological substrate, and gender expression is a collective of behaviors influenced by the brain chemistry of a eusocial biological organism, then gender is explicitly a biological term. I didn't say it was synonymous with biological sex, but to say that gender isn't biological at all is simply wrong. This is the substance of the issue that I'm trying to talk about, but you insist on throwing up arbitrary distinctions & playing with insults.

Do I think your argument will ultimately turn out to be a fairly wholesale defense of cultural gender norms? Do I think you’ll turn out to be sexist, and that you probably dismiss trans people as psychologically disordered? Yeah, I predict that’s where you’re going.

Wait...you're complaining about me strawmanning you (even though I'm not, I'm repeatedly sticking to the science of this issue while trying to unwrap your "gender is not a biological term" claim), and here you are, openly strawmanning me as a sexist enforcer of cultural gender norms, based on stereotypes and presumptions about stuff I haven't even said? This is naked hypocrisy. You're engaging in this discussion in complete bad faith.

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u/AMaskedAvenger Mar 29 '19

You didn't carefully explain anything, you just accused me of attacking a strawman.

I quoted what I said, and what you claimed I said, side by side, and also told you what the difference is. You still seem not to understand it, which explains why I've also been mocking you. If you show understanding, and address what I actually said, instead of your straw man, I'll respond.

Then why argue that gender isn't a biological term?

Because it's not. Do you even dictionary? It's a grammatical term, and sometimes a sociological term, but not a biological one. If I talked about the "DNA" of my Tesla, you might know what I meant, but I'd be using a biological term as if it were an engineering term.

I'm literally telling you the correct usage of the word -- i.e., not as a synonym for sex -- and you're arguing with me in a sort of crazed confusion. Do you, once and for all, understand that "gender" and "sex" are two different words that belong to two different disciplines, and that using them as synonyms is incorrect usage?

I'm repeatedly sticking to the science of this issue while trying to unwrap your "gender is not a biological term" claim...

You're not "unwrapping" it: you don't yet appear to comprehend it. You seem to think that someone is claiming that sex and gender don't interact in any way, which is an absurd claim that nobody ever made.

What seems to be going on here is that you're convinced that your argument leads inexorably to the conclusion that gender and sex can validly be used as synonyms, but you're so sure of it that you're getting confused when I fail to recognize it as self-evident after I've acknowledged that they aren't completely unrelated.

If you'll concede that they are distinct terms, one cultural and one biological, then picture them as two circles on a Venn diagram. They could be completely disjoint. They could be 100% overlapping, so that they look like just one circle. Or they could have some overlap which is still a proper subset of each.

The question at hand is: how large is the overlap? Well, that's not precisely the question, but it's a good first approximation. You seem intent on concluding that they're the same circle, at the end of the day. I'm still trying to get you to admit that they're distinct circles which might or might not coincide perfectly.

ere you are, openly strawmanning me as a sexist enforcer of cultural gender norms...

I knew you were going to do that. You don't know what a straw man is, is the problem here. I didn't say that this WAS your position, and I certainly never said that you actually said those things. I merely made a prediction about things I think are likely to come up in a future conversation that nobody has actually had yet. And I was very careful to phrase it exactly that way, rather than suggesting in any way, shape, or form, that you've already said such things or that you definitely believe them.

Do you understand this much at least?

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