Gamete Identity Theory

Can a man have a penis?

Quick note. This post is just to clarify a niche issue in the debate about sex and gender. I'll be using terms I’ve already defined in my post Biological Sex, and will write freely without too much concern for making it accessible to a non-scientific audience. Normal service will resume after this post! 

Idea: people’s intuition about how to identify and classify human males and females is supported by science. The attempt to replace this with theoretical ideas from biology may be unhelpful in the battle against gender identity ideologues. 

Across nature, males produce small gametes called sperm, and females produce large gametes called eggs. Due to its consistency, gamete size can be used for sex classification (ie, whether an animal is male or female). There are no gametes intermediate in size, and each sex can only produce one type of gamete. Scientists have also theorised that sexual dimorphism may have evolved due to the emergence of anisogamy (ie, differences in gametes). Due to these properties, gamete size has become a rhetorical tool used by people who wish to challenge Gender Identity Theory and its claims that sex is socially constructed and can be changed.   

I don’t have a problem with the ‘gamete argument’ when it is used as a proxy for the real, underlying biology. The problem I have is how this rhetorical tool is sometimes used. I’ve seen it used in a way that reduces the complexity of the biology of sex to this single feature, elevates gamete size above equally important parts of the biology, and treats this component in an absolutist, ideological way. I’ll illustrate the first two problems using the most extreme example I can think of. 

A gene will consist of a mix of four types of nucleotides linked together in their 1000s. Some disorders of sexual development (DSD) can result from a single error in one of these nucleotides, and this error may make the individual infertile. The human genome is about 3,000,000,000 nucleotides long, with ongoing research how much of this is actually functional. So, after millions of years of evolution and billions of nucleotides just one error can make an individual an evolutionary dead end because they can’t reproduce. And I'm meant to believe single nucleotides like this will be less of a defining feature for either male or female biology than gamete size? 

From single nucleotides to genitals and everything in between, anything that male or female biological sex is functionally dependent on is a defining feature. One of these features is anisogamy until science unambiguously shows this is the functional origin of the rest of the biology. Until it does this, the functional origin of the biology of sex is reproduction, and an organism’s sex-specific phenotype is the evolutionary endpoint for this functional goal. Various hypotheses have been put forward why sexual reproduction evolved. 

I need to clarify what my aim is with the post Biological Sex and related posts. I’m interested in contributing to the discussion about how to challenge Gender Identity Theory. But who is my intended audience? I’m not interested in the fools, charlatans, and ideologues you might find on Twitter or within Humanities departments. I’m not interested in contributing to theoretical and academic arguments about whether anisogamy is the cause or consequence of sex-specific phenotypes across the whole of nature. I’m interested in helping ordinary people who want to make scientifically valid statements about the biology of sex in humans. 

Gender identity ideology wants to medicalise vulnerable children because they don’t conform to gender stereotypes. It wants to put male rapists in women’s prisons, make women’s sport redundant by the inclusion of males, and ruin the lives and careers of those that challenge it. I want to speak to people who may be confronted by someone in an organisation that’s been captured by this ideology. They need arguments that are scientifically valid and reflect their intuition. 

I think their intuition is that the biology of sex is complex and too difficult to change. And they are correct. Their intuition is that a human male can be identified by having a penis. And this is correct. Their intuition says that rare occasions where facial hair, breasts, and genitals can’t be used to classify the sex of someone doesn’t change whether these things are part of some general design. And this is correct.  If you’re someone who thinks these things then science has generated textbook-level knowledge that supports your intuitions. The words and concepts you need are defined in my post Biological Sex; they are genotype, phenotype, natural selection, biological function, and variation, etc. 

Those of us that are trying to challenge Gender Identity Theory have to appreciate that because our opponents are unreachable by evidence and reason this is primarily a political battle. That is, a power struggle to prevent one group securing rights and power over others. As with all political battles messaging is important for reaching those that are open to your viewpoint. The true statement that human males can be identified by a list of physical features that includes having a penis is clear and intuitive. I've seen people involved in this debate, including scientists, say that genitals etc aren’t sufficient to classify males and females but gamete size is. This isn’t helping. It’s particular contradictory when people who claim to be on the same side like to ask politicians and others, “Can a woman have a penis?”. Well, can a man?

The average person has no idea what a gamete is, or its hypothesised position within the evolution of males and females. If someone ever needs to challenge Gender Identity Theory, they don’t have to immediately use the terms I defined in my post Biological Sex but at least they’ll know they exist, fit their intuitions, can be used by themselves and others if needed, and are a much stronger argument than presented by gender identity ideologues.  

Finally, in the post Biological Sex I put function as the driving force behind the biology of sex and, again, I think this will appeal to people’s intuition. Absolutist claims about the theorised importance of gametes are a weaker argument, I’d say, and feel like an attempt to replace Gender Identity Theory with a Gamete Identity Theory. The tldr for the post Biological Sex is that the scientific explanation for the biology of sex is so far ahead of anything else that it’s the only practical option for decision making. I prefer this rationale over anything that claims certainty. 

In summary, academic arguments about the role of anisogamy within the emergence of the human male and female phenotype are redundant for using these phenotypes as a means to identify and classify biological males and females. And they don’t change whether these phenotypes represent biology that is binary and immutable. The intuition of ordinary people is correct on this issue, and this intuition is required to gather support to challenge Gender Identity Theory.

NB. This post was prompted by my subscriber ‘Steersman’ who commented on the post Biological Sex. It’s worth looking at those comments as they have lots of citations and present some alternative views.