One of the interesting things about supposedly progressive newspapers like The Guardian and The New Statesman is that, while their politics pages are often resolutely transphobic, and quote “science” as proof that trans women are “really” men, their science pages are generally supportive of trans folks.
Why might that be? Well, possibly it is because the understanding of science possessed by the White Feminist clique that does all of the political stuff is seriously lacking.
In view of which, here, from last weekend, is a little history of the concept of “sex chromosomes”. I was pleased to discover that the fact that the whole X/Y thing is simplistic nonsense was known right from the start. What’s more, the idea that X and Y chromosomes are vital to determining sex gained currency because it was championed by a man, whereas the more nuanced view was championed by a woman scientist. Which makes it even more ironic to see anyone who disputes that a Y chromosome is the ultimate arbiter of masculinity called a Dupe of the Patriarchy.
It also makes perfect sense that the sex chromosome idea was favored by eugenicists, because like the TERFs they have an obsession with biological determinism.
All of this comes from a book called Sex Itself: The Search For Male And Female In The Human Genome, by Sarah Richardson, which clearly I need to read. I was particularly amused by this observation from the New Statesman article:
Richardson points to several different groups as responsible for digging genetics out of its chromosome-determining rut: criminal psychologists, clinical physicians and, above all, feminists, whose interrogations of gender and sexuality (often from outside the scientific academy) created an important body of empirical evidence.
Feminists, responsible for persuading scientists to have a less essentialist view of gender? Oh dear. Anyone would think that TERFs aren’t very good feminists.
One of the reasons the TERFs annoy me personally (as opposed to being annoyed on behalf of other people) is that the more I’ve come to know about them the more I’ve realised they are of the ilk of Arts Majors who are under the impression a little popular science reading will permit them to fully understand a scientific topic. They then ponificate about it as if that reading gives them the weight of someone who has worked in the given field for years, making extrapolations that are simply unsupported by any evidence but which do support their prejudices. But they then deny the ability of scientists to come to rational moral and ethical positions, because well they are scientists. As you may guess I did a science degree and while I have never been a scientist I know enough to know the limits of my knowledge. I clearly also have a bit of a thing against a certain kind of arts major.