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This article is gunk, and I mean gunk, in more ways than I can count. It's mostly an exercise in category error after category error, with a few logical ones thrown in for good measure. Most of the research cited is totally legit; it's the conclusions she draws from it that are bogus. The clincher is the conclusion, which packs numerous logical errors and misleading connection made of the course of the paper together: "While this is a small overview, the science is clear and conclusive: sex is not binary, transgender people are real." Transgender people can be "perfectly real" while sex remains binary, which is why many trans-gendered people feel compelled to transition to the opposite sex. Sex can remain an ontological binary, as it continues to be treated, even as the characteristics of one are present in the characteristics of the other in individuals. No evolutionary biologist could possibly do without categorically binary concepts of male and female; even our understanding of "exceptional" cases that do not fit the categories cleanly are best understood in terms of the categories. The list goes on. One could write an article citing almost all of the same studies this one cites to make the argument that sexual binarity is a deep structural principle of biological and behavioural worlds. S.A. gets fuller and fuller of BS pop science. One wonders whose job would have been on the line had he not published something like this. |