Good to hear.
As I wrote it, I realized it might be useful to do a blog on it.
Best,
G
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]>
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Subject: Re: TOK Psychology Prof Removed From APA Discussion After Saying There Are Only 2 Genders (*Newsweek*)
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Cool! Thank you for clarifying that. :-)
/ Lene
On 21-05-2021 10:44, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx wrote:
When my cultural anthropologist friend and I dove into this, we realized that “binary” is not the right term.
The sexes are bi-modal. This allows one to see clearly both that yes, there are two primary sexes and yes they are biologically important and different attractor states. However, sex is not exclusively binary in the sense of chess squares being either white or black or a gun firing or not or a flip of a coin. Unlike these single variable either/or examples, sex is made up of many different components, such as genetics, hormones and anatomy. In theory, a single ambiguous case could make an exclusive binary assertion “wrong”. Thus, given that some times coin flips land in cracks, and thus don’t give a clear answer are not binary without exception. I share this because we went round and round on this a bit until I realized that I meant bimodal. Once framed as such, he quickly agreed.
Since everyone knows there are cases where sex is ambiguous, I don’t think anyone thinks sex is binary in the strong sense. Yet, once you allow a bit of grey, which bimodal does, then debates can be appropriately framed.
Best,
Gregg
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Lene Rachel Andersen - Nordic Bildung
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Subject: Re: TOK Psychology Prof Removed From APA Discussion After Saying There Are Only 2 Genders (*Newsweek*)
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If there is no binary with regards to sex, why do trans people need hormones?
And how does anybody know which hormones would be the right hormones?
/ Lene
On 20-05-2021 22:39, Diop, Corinne - diopcj wrote:
Yes! I am an artist not a scientist, but I thought in science if something is disproved even once then it's out.
So, the professor who keeps insisting on the absolute binary is probably seen as unscientific and counter to progress being made (i.e., his colleagues got tired of dealing with him).
It's true that the vast majority of people are either XX or XY, and that most people are perfectly happy to go along with the gender norms as determined by society (especially if they are male or want to succeed in a predominantly male system), but the fact that there is a statistically significant quantity of outliers means the binary theory is: Wrong.
It should give pause to wonder why this is increasing! But having this diversity might be beneficial to humanity in the long run.
Same with neurodiversity-- Elon Musk just came out as Asperger's...
Corinne
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Bradley H. Werrell, D.O. <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2021 9:48 AM
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Wow.
" The international total prevalence (of hypospadias) increased 1.6 times during the study period (1980-2010)"
Hypospadias Prevalence and Trends in International Birth Defect Surveill...
We report on the prevalence and trends of hypospadias among 27 birth defect surveillance systems, which indicate...
I would venture to agree that there appears to be endocrine disruption of extraordinary magnitude occurring, which merits epidemiological study. Every course of action which dismisses such a conclusion is clearly ignorant.
Thank you, Lene. Interesting discussion.
Bradley
Bradley H. Werrell, D.O. - This email is private and copyrighted by the author.
On Thursday, May 20, 2021, 06:11:02 AM MST, Lene Rachel Andersen - Nordic Bildung <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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There is the possibility that the more birth control pills women consume, the more estrogen will end up in nature and--hypothetically--more boys will be born with hypospadias. The condition is becoming more frequent.
Best,
Lene
On 20-05-2021 14:18, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx wrote:
Thanks for this, Corinne.
This discussion reminds me of a series of lectures that I co-presented with a cultural anthropologist on the nature of sex and gender. He took the position of significant sexual and gender fluidity. I granted that but argued that one could clearly “overshoot” and that distinct biological sex (i.e., male and female) is a foundation of primate biology (note, as this article on fish clearly shows, sex in nature is far more complicated). The class concluded with the idea that there is a clear bimodal distribution in male and female primate body plan, but there are clearly many dimensions and it was not a sharp dichotomy. Moreover, the social construction of sex and gender in different societies has shown huge diversity. And even here there is significant trends and patterns that have some “truths” that transcend the “mere” social construction. What emerged were questions of how to understand sex and construct gendered roles and identities that fostered flexibility, honored our nature(s), and cultivated well-being.
Best,Gregg
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Diop, Corinne - diopcj
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2021 5:44 PM
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Subject: Re: TOK Psychology Prof Removed From APA Discussion After Saying There Are Only 2 Genders (*Newsweek*)
Hi all,
While I support the professor’s right to say what he wants, it seems standard to acknowledge that intersex is a real thing. In fact, depending on what data is used it is statistically as prevalent as being a twin.
There is an uptick in college-age students who identify as non-binary for a variety of reasons including-- there is now the realization that reactionary surgery to “fix” a baby isn’t a good idea; it is more socially acceptable to embrace and identify as intersex; there are statistically more intersex babies being born.
Sex Redefined: The Idea of 2 Sexes Is Overly Simplistic - 2018
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH – 2017
The Increasing Prevalence in Intersex Variation from Toxicological Dysregulation in Fetal Reproductive Tissue Differentiation and Development by Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals - 2016
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5017538/
Are hasty operations on intersex children becoming a thing of the past? - 2020 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jul/14/intersex-children-hasty-operations
There is a movement to consider how language and labeling affect people, so the concept of DSD is changing from Disorders in Sex Development to Differences in Sex Development.
I was super-busy during the week of Mother’s Day contributions so I hope this will count!
(I work full time and usually cook dinner, but that is another story about assumed gender roles.)
Corinne
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Michael Mascolo <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2021 12:57 PM
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Hi Nicholas and All:
I want to respond to the Staddon issue, the likes of which seems to be increasing over time. You will recall that Staddon was ousted from a list serve for a posted entitled, "d "Hmm... Binary view of sex false? What is the evidence? Is there a Z chromosome?”
Nicholas had a lot of thoughtful and passionate responses to this issue. I want to reply as best as I can. Nicholas writes:
gender, on the other hand, is totally fluid, role depedent, and as such resides well within the Person-Culutre plane, whereas sex is in the Animal-Mind plane, that seems a fairly obvious distinction to me that no one argues.
The statement that “gender is totally fluid” is a strong one. But what does it mean? And is it true? What evidence exists to support this assertion? What would it mean to say that gender is “totally fluid”? Well, here’s one version: It must mean that there are no constraints on one’s gender identity, that it can change within individuals along a dimension (or not) according to…well, what? Whim? Circumstance? If this is so, then why do I experience my gender identity as stable? Why don’t I change it? Doesn’t the stability of gender identity for man people suggest that any strong notion that “gender is totally fluid” cannot be true? How can something be totally fluid, yet stable for many many people?
It would seem that this assertion must be modified somewhat. A more reasonable statement might be that gender is fluid — but not totally fluid. In making this seemingly minor adjustment, it becomes possible to see that there is both stability and variation in gender identity — both within and between people. And when we make that observation, we can begin to ask: What accounts for the stability and variation?
To address this question, we need a clear conception of what we mean by gender, a clear conception of the nature of the constraints that govern human development, and clear methods for assessing the sources of stability and variability. In my view, the best contemporary models of human development are epigenetic ones — these maintain that anatomical and psychological structures emerge from the mutual influence of genes and embedded environments. That is — that genes and environments are inseparable as causal processes in development. They affect each other in complex ways.
Note how prevailing concepts of gender — the ones that suggest that gender and sex are separate and independent processes — goes against the core of the epigenetic approach. If it is true that anatomical and psychological structures emerge through the mutual influence of genes and environments, then there is not psychological process that is not a product of relations between genes and environment. If this is so, it is simply incoherent to say that psychological or social gender is independent of biology or sex.
But this is what is often asserted — that gender is “socially constructed” and sex is “biological”. One doesn’t have to go very far to gain prima facie evidence that sex and gender are not independent — and thus that “gender” is not simply unconstrained and “totally” fluid. That evidence is in the transgender experience itself. When very young children — 3 year-olds — begin to reject their assigned gender (mostly biological males, as I understand it), they do so very much against the social grain. Against all social experience, they claim an opposing gender. How could this be possible if gender were unconstrained, "totally fluid”, or independent of biology or biological sex? The very phenomenon of early-onset transgender experiences suggests that such experiences are not simply “socially constructed” (that terms remains undefined in most popular accounts). The idea that a young child may experience the self in terms of a gender that is opposed to the assigned one even suggests that there is something constrained and biologically canalized about the experience and meaning of gender itself — otherwise, how could we even begin to explain such processes?
The moment one begins to look at the arguments and data on issues of gender from outside of an ideological perspective, one cannot help but see deep contradictions. The idea that gender is socially constructed or totally fluid contradicts the early onset of stable transgender experiences. We are told that gender is socially constructed, but that people are able to choose their own gender. That is a contradiction. We are told that gender is independent of sex, when modern epigenetic theory suggests that biology and environment are never independent processes — that is a contradiction. We are told that gender and sex are distinct and independent, yet our very concepts of masculine and feminine have their social and historical origins in biological distinctions and dispositions. The literature that suggests that biological differences between XX and XY individuals bias psychological development to move along different pathways is overwhelming — as is the evidence attesting to the importance of the socio-cultural systems (within which biological processes function) in the development of gender-related processes.
The issue is more complex than any simple set of distinctions is going to suggest to us. We should resist reductive explanations — whether they reduce complex behavior downward to biology or upward to culture.
My Best,
Mike
Michael F. Mascolo, Ph.D.
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On May 17, 2021, at 7:53 PM, Nicholas Lattanzio <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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I mean, he had to be totally tone deaf to the current cultural climate to try and use science to argue something as fluid as gender. This issue is still too often conflated as to how many sexes and genders there are. Even in what you shared above there are references to mainly biological sex, which, scientifically speaking there are at least 4 or 5 of (even though they are mainly genetic abnormalities they are still regarded as separate sexes); gender, on the other hand, is totally fluid, role depedent, and as such resides well within the Person-Culutre plane, whereas sex is in the Animal-Mind plane, that seems a fairly obvious distinction to me that no one argues.
Let us also keep in mind that he was only removed from a listserv, not a position, meaning that the consensus amongst his immediate peers was that they did not want to hear him speak on these points in such a manner, which he apparently had done one too many times.
The way I see it, if someone wants to identify themselves as a male or a female or nonbinary or fluid, it doesn't concern me (literally, it is not a concern of mine to have). For all I care people can identify as (and I have met and worked with many who do) wolves, vampires, elves, etc., I honestly wouldn't take issue with people identifying as donut or a chair, why make it a big deal? This is a discussion of gender, which needs to be firmly disentangled from sex, as the two are really only related so closely through history with gender emerging from the roles those of the male or female sex were by and large stratified to in the same way that races and ethnicities have been. Gender is so much more than that. If there is an issue to be had here, it is with the reasoning through which one tends to identify with particular genders or really the way they construct their identity to begin with. For example, I cannot tell you how many patients I have worked with who are so determined to have dissociative personality disorder, but who clearly do not (and I mean clearly - quoting movies verbatim). It is intensely frustrating to work with these individuals if I am fixated on them coming off of their ludacris act, but when I started to ask what must they think and feel about themselves to want to be so severely mentally ill? And in that question lies functional and purposeful answers about what I have called the Identity Crisis in today's world. People are starved of identity, from which they have been misconstrued to find meaning and purpose in some identity instead of learning to find their identity and pull meaning and purpose from it. It is in this pursuit of identity for the sake of identity that postmodern sensibilities find their faults, and modernism is for sure to blame.
I am not saying that gender identity is to the extreme of those feigning multiple personalities, nor am I saying it is merely a manner in which they can stand apart or find a group to connect to (though this is an integral part of any role). What it is is people finding themselves in an ever complexifying and diversifying cultural wasteland. To fight this is the modernist's last ditch effort to maintain control over younger generations that don't hold the same value to science as older ones, for brutishly formed scientific enterprises exactly like this.
I am a White male. That is a scientific fact with regard to my race and my sex. There's no argument to be had there.
I like to cook, I like to act, I love to play sports and video games, I also do yoga classes (led by women and almost exclusively with women) 3-4 times a week, yet I retain my roughly 90% heterosexuality. I could easily choose to identify as non-binary or something else and I would pretty easily be able to assume such a role because I am already playing it, that I am playing it as a White male seems to be what makes the difference (i.e., no one has trouble with me identifying as a male, but I guarantee there would be aversion, even faintly, to my identification as something not male); exactly what that difference is and why it is I'm not too sure, but that it has to do with power, privilege, and ultimately Culture is certain, and in that sense a bit sickening to think how deeply programmed that root aspect of my place in the world as a social creature is.
When Dr. Staddon learns how to be a social being then he can get off of his self-mandated high horse and join the rest of us in this muck from which meta-modernism arises and transcends both identity/culture and animal/mind. If only it were so easy for all of us to be so sure of ourselves, but then again being sure of oneself to such a degree has always been the easy, unquestioning way of the living fool. The suffering and pain of those skeptical transformations he refuses to acknowledge will only leave himself behind in that regard.
Regards,
Nicholas G. Lattanzio, Psy.D.
On Mon, May 17, 2021 at 7:50 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
This is an interesting story. Although I don’t know John Staddon well, I have had some correspondence with him.
Best,
Gregg
From: Ken Pope [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: May-15-21 7:51 AM
Subject: Psychology Prof Removed From APA Discussion After Saying There Are Only 2 Genders (*Newsweek*)
Newsweek includes an article: "Neuroscience Professor Removed From APA Discussion After Saying There Are Only Two Genders” by Julia Marnin.
Here are some excerpts:
[begin excerpts]
A neuroscience professor was ousted from the American Psychological Association's (APA) email discussion group by vote after suggesting that there are only two genders as well as past concerns over his posts, the College Fix reported Friday.
Psychology and neuroscience professor John Staddon at Duke University was removed from the APA's Society for Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology (SBNCP) Division 6 listserv and was notified via email by the group's presidential trio who said use of the forum was a "privilege," in the statements republished by the National Association of Scholars (NAS) on April 30.
"It is sad that an audience of supposed scientists is unable to take any dissenting view, such as the suggestion that there really are only two sexes," Staddon said in reply to the notification of his removal from the division's group before allowing NAS to publish the email exchange. "Incredible! I don't mind having one less distraction, but I think you should really be concerned at Div 6's unwillingness to tolerate divergent views."
His post that "tipped the scale," according to Staddon, was titled "Hmm... Binary view of sex false? What is the evidence? Is there a Z chromosome?" Staddon told Newsweek he created the post on April 15.
"Science, real science, can and should be isolated from politics. Science has values, to be sure—curiosity, honesty, openness to debate, adherence to empirical facts, and so on—but they are not, and should not be, political," he wrote to Newsweek.
"Most of my comments have been devoted to that fact. I might add that a sense of humor would help."
Staddon said he received the email that declared his removal from the division's group on April 23. It was written by Indiana University Bloomington provost Jonathan Crystal, who is a professor of psychological and brain sciences, on behalf of the division's presidential trio.
"The division leadership has received complaints about some of the posts that you have sent to the division listserv," Crystal wrote, who attached a link to SBNCP's 2019 code of conduct in the email.
"I do not want to get into the particulars of the range of complaints over the years, but I will note that a number of members of the executive committee and others have voiced concerns publicly on the listserv in an attempt to make you aware of how readers of the list might view some of the posts," Crystal added before writing that the executive committee voted to remove Staddon's email address from the listserv.
"I can find nothing that should be considered personally offensive," Staddon said after perusing through old emails.
Newsweek reached out to Crystal for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication.
"This incident just illustrates the current inability of some scientific communities to tolerate dissent about issues related to sex and race. Psychology and sociology seem to be especially flawed in this respect." Staddon wrote in an email to the College Fix.
<snip>
On April 22, he wrote an article for Psychology Today that discussed APA guidelines and criticized the organization for compromising "both scientists and practitioners."
"For the scientists, freedom of speech and inquiry are prerequisites. The APA should certainly advocate for those and for the highest research standards," he wrote in the article.
NAS published the emails between Staddon and Crystal under "Cancel Culture in the Sciences: A Case Study," as part of the organization's broader effort "to counter cancel culture in higher education," according to the editor's note.
<snip>
Staddon has done recent theoretical research on operant conditioning, memory, timing and psychobiological aspects of ethical and economic philosophy, according to his Duke University scholar page.
He has authored six books and written more than 200 research papers.
Newsweek also reached out to the APA for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.
[end excerpts]
Ken Pope
Ken Pope, Melba J.T. Vasquez, Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas, & Hector Y. Adames: Ethics in Psychotherapy & Counseling: A Practical Guide, 6th Edition (publication date June 2021—John Wiley & Sons currently accepting preorders & faculty requests for evaluation copies)
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