Judith Butler explains why water is not H20: we can tell that the glass contains water without checking it contains hydrogen or oxygen. https://t.co/JXuzSw3Nrh
— Alex Byrne (@byrne_a) April 1, 2025
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From that LRB article:
There are two significant problems with using gametes to define sex. First, no one checks gametes at the moment of sex assignment, let alone at conception (when they don’t yet exist). They are not observable. To base sex assignment on gametes is therefore to rely on an imperceptible dimension of sex when observation remains the principal way sex is assigned. Second, most biologists agree that neither biological determinism nor biological reductionism provides an adequate account of sex determination and development. As the Society for the Study of Evolution explains in a letter published on 5 February, the ‘scientific consensus’ defines sex in humans as a ‘biological construct that relies on a combination of chromosomes, hormonal balances, and the resulting expression of gonads, external genitalia and secondary sex characteristics. There is variation in all these biological attributes that make up sex.’ They remind us that ‘sex and gender result from the interplay of genetics and environment. Such diversity is a hallmark of biological species, including humans.’
This is, in short, nonsense. Jerry Coyne has debunked this stuff ad nauseam – here, for instance, or here.
And here's his take on the Butler LRB article.
Added:
I don't know if Butler was ever smart – but the LRB used to be. Now it runs garbage like this. It is genuinely incredible how gender ideology has turned so many into desperate clowns https://t.co/wVWWtnQawa
— Hadley Freeman (@HadleyFreeman) April 2, 2025
Mick Hartley 
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