Is Sex a Spectrum?

You can’t escape it. It’s there wherever you look, on social media and video sharing sites, and in newspapers, magazines, blogs, and once-respected scientific journals. They all have posts about sex being a spectrum and not a binary. There are biologists on YouTube, influencers on TikTok, and academics in prestigious journals, who say the old ideas about male and female are wrong. Many make claims about recent discoveries in biology or give examples from other cultures or even other animals. The definition of sex is now said to be ‘complicated’; so complicated that it’s not possible to tell whether someone is male or female. Significant numbers of people believe it. You may have had a discussion or even an argument about it.

Can it be true? Do we now have a new understanding of sex? Is sex a spectrum?

Let’s look at the facts.

Our sex is an important, unchanging, inherited feature of our bodies. Sex refers to the reproductive function of our bodies. There are two sexes, male and female, and one of each is needed for reproduction. Our genetic material contains the instructions to build a type of body which is either a male or a female body. There are no other categories of body.

Each of the two body types has evolved to produce either male or female sex cells. These sex cells, called gametes, can be small and mobile, called sperm, in which case the person with that body type is male. These sex cells can be large and immobile, called eggs, in which case the person with that body type is female. There are only two types of sex cells, so there are only two sexes, and there are only two body types associated with producing the two types of sex cells.

You are either an egg body type or a sperm body type. These two sexes are so deep-rooted in evolution that they first occurred over a billion years ago before animals even existed.

People might be too young, too old, infertile, or have differences in their development, so they don’t produce sex cells, but the patterns in development are so strong that they still have recognisably male or female bodies. You are female because you are a female body. A female body is the type which has evolved to produce eggs. You’re male because you are a male body. A male body is the type which has evolved to produce sperm. In counterarguments, people often say ‘biological sex’ as if there is another type of sex other than biological. It’s not necessary to say ‘biological sex’ because all sex is biological, just like it’s not necessary to say ‘wet rain’.

You don’t have a body; you are a body.

When people say sex in humans is binary, they mean there are two sexes, male and female. There are no other sexes. This is a fact which has been known and understood throughout human history. Saying sex is a spectrum makes as much sense as saying rainbows are made of pure black and white. The sex-as-a-spectrum statement is an audacious example of ‘If you’re going to lie, tell a big one’.

Sex is defined by your body type and determined by the genetic information on your chromosomes. It’s an important distinction. Chromosomes contain the collected instructions, within your cells, to produce your sexed body. Your genes are the Ikea instruction booklet, and not the table or chair, whose pieces are in the flat-pack box. It is possible to have a set of instructions which is missing a page, has an extra page, or has a page from a different Ikea product. It’s also possible to miss a piece or add an extra piece when you are building it if the instructions get confused. Genes can move, genes might not work, but bodies almost always end up clearly recognisable as male or female. The genes within your chromosomes determine what sex your body is, but your sex is defined by your body type.

Given that simple, previously wholly accepted, universal definition of sex, what arguments are used to say sex is somehow a spectrum?

One of the common sex-is-a-spectrum arguments is based on individuals with so-called intersex conditions. Despite the name, people with intersex conditions are not somewhere between the sexes. These are people born with genetic conditions which have caused differences in the development of their sexual features. Sex is simple; there are two of them. Development of the features of sexed bodies, however, is complex.

Examples of people with different development are:

1. People may have typically female genes and yet have atypical genitalia. They may have an enlarged clitoris and their vagina may be closed. The most common cause is congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), where people lack an enzyme to make a hormone, which results in increased levels of hormones which are usually higher in males. People with these conditions may have serious health problems, including kidney issues. They are clearly girls.
2. People may have typically male genes yet have atypical genitalia. They may be boys with no penis or the opening in the penis may be at the base rather than the end. That doesn’t stop them from being boys. In some cases, they may have complete insensitivity to androgens, the hormones which promote growth and development, and develop as girls.
3. People may have typically male or female genitalia but differences in sex development. One type is boys with Klinefelter syndrome, which is where a boy is born with an extra X chromosome (XXY). Children with Klinefelter syndrome are boys. Another type is girls with Turner syndrome, which is where a girl is born with a missing X chromosome. The girls are often short and infertile. They are still girls.
4. People may be female with typical external genitalia, but develop without a womb. This is called Rokitansky syndrome. They are clearly girls.
5. In very rare cases children may have sex characteristics typical of girls and boys, such as having one testicle and one ovary. Most have the genetics typical of females yet have a gene which normally appears on the Y chromosome which has moved onto their X chromosome.

There are many conditions which can cause the development of the body to be different, but that doesn’t change the fundamental truth that there are only two sexes. The sex-as-a-spectrum promoters are attempting to make a simple subject obscure, unclear, and unintelligible.

Human development is complex. The genes in a single human cell are six feet long when uncoiled. There are tens of thousands of active genes producing proteins which act and interact in complex ways. There are many conditions that result in differences in the development of the anatomy of sexual features. In almost every single one the person clearly has a male or female body. Men and women with these sometimes serious and debilitating conditions can object to being talked about as if they are neither male nor female. They have developmental differences which have nothing whatsoever to do with identities.

These ‘edge cases’ don’t disprove that there are two sexes. Just because a coin has an edge, and might occasionally land on it, doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as heads or tails.

Your sex can’t change. That’s what people mean when they say that sex is immutable. These genetic conditions are also something you cannot choose or change. Can an Ikea table be turned into a chair? No, because it’s already been built and however you customise it, it remains recognisably a table.

Another of the sex-is-a-spectrum arguments is that there is a spectrum of masculine and feminine traits. These rely on sex stereotypes and are not an individual’s sex. Men are not men because they are masculine. They are men because they are a male body type. Women are not women because they are feminine. They are women because they are a female body type.

It is as possible to be a little bit female as it is to be slightly pregnant.

There are only two sexes in humans, and your sex is something you inherited and then developed into your sexed body, and which has a reproductive function. No amount of wish-fulfilment can change it. Sex is most definitely not a spectrum.

Reliable sites:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/differences-in-sex-development/

More sites?

https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/sex-is-not-a-spectrum

https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-origins-of-two-sexes

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Photo by Pavlo Kochan on Unsplash