Nature recognizes that sex and gender are neither binary nor fixed

[GoodTaste]

I don't understand the phrase "that sex and gender are neither binary nor fixed" - Sex is defined as "the state of being either male or female" and human beings as a whole comprise of two parts: males and females - Can we call humans "binary" (binary is involving two things/parts)? As for gender, male and female (and should transgender be considered here?) Here is a mess for understanding...

How to correctly understand the phrase?

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The researchers noticed that male participants’ typical immune response to infection differed from that of female participants, which could explain the more severe disease often observed in men. (Nature recognizes that sex and gender are neither binary nor fixed.)


Source: Nature 28 AUGUST 2020
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00502-w

 

[jutfrank]

The bold sentence is saying that sex and gender are not binary—that there are not only two sexes and two genders.

I can understand that this sounds to you like a very strange thing to say. Suffice to say, this is a subject of considerable controversy in Western culture, and has been for several years. Let's not get into it here.

If you want to know more, here's a link to a Nature article from 2015: https://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

 

[SoothingDave]

This is very complicated politically.

"Nature" here refers to the magazine. The editors are placing a disclaimer here to attempt to avoid controversy from fanatics.



The research clearly shows that there are differences between how men and women respond to the disease.


But they can't say that because a lot of people get upset if you say there are two biological sexes and there are differences between them.


Therefore, they attempt to say two contradictory things at once.

"Here are differences between the two sexes that might be important in how we handle a very real infectious disease."


And


"Of course there are not just two sexes and of course there are no biological differences between them."


It's Orwellian doublethink.

 

[jutfrank]

"Of course there are not just two sexes and of course there are no biological differences between them."

Well, Nature's official line is not that there are no biological sex differences. Just that the idea of only two sexes/genders is unsupportable.