Sex is Not Binary

We are so often faced with misinformation about sex, namely that it is binary, that we are posting here some of our favorite resources on that topic.

This is a RadioLab episode called Gonads: X&Y which is about how sex is more than chromosomes and much more complex that XX or XY.

This is a Scientific American articled called Sex Redefined: The Idea of 2 Sexes Is Overly Simplistic, and the title certainly sums it up well. For a more technical approach consider this Nature article, Genetic Mechanisms of Sex Determination.

This video from Human Rights Watch and InterAct illustrates the conditions intersex people and the parents who advocate for them experience in terms of pressure to conform, even via surgery, to binary notions of sex.

Here is National Geographic’s Gender Revolution Issue - some of it is behind a paywall, but the Discussion guide is not.

We also recommend The Gender Wheel by Maya Gonzalez and her children’s book by that name.

All of these only scratch the surface, there are a lot of great materials out there for those willing to explore.

For those concerned that there is a “trans agenda” or that women are being erased and have to be defended by undermining transgender and intersex people, well… It is not clear that there is anything we could say. But - you might be interested in the connections between anti-trans feminism and the Christian right which is described in this article, A Room Of Their Own: How Anti-Trans Feminists Are Complicit in Christian Right Anti-Trans Advocacy.