Rediscovering Pema

[Lori Dee ✅]

I am not convinced.

There were, and are, proponents who believe that race is a social construct. An anthropologist did a multi-decade study and has published several essays on this. What he found was interesting.

Forensic anthropologists can identify the race of a skeleton by measuring the size of bone structures. They are classified into three very general groups: Caucasian (European), Asian, and African. He explains how evolution caused the bone structures to develop.

He expanded his research to include IQ Test results, body measurements, international crime data, genetic studies, and medical data such as hormone levels.

What he found is that many "traits" that were considered "stereotypical" have some basis in biology, and are not a result of some social construct.

That leads me to believe that the same is true of gender identity. That there is some yet undiscovered biological connection. Researchers at MIT and other institutions were investigating various things like genetics, hormonal influence of mothers upon fetal development, and so forth. Then a certain bigot in the White House shut down funding for such research. I guess he doesn't want to be proven wrong: that there is no such thing as "gender ideology" and that gender is a biological fact.

[Pema]

Lori, can you provide names/links for those race-biology studies? The consensus of current mainstream research is that race is not biological and that there are no biological correlations between traits and assigned races. The most prominent proponents of the theory have largely been shunned by their peers as far-right eugenicists.

In fact, just looking very quickly, this is near the top of Wikipedia's (very long) page on Race (human categorization) 🔗 [Link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_​(human_​categorization)/]:

"Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society."

If there's something new and credible, I'd love to know more about it.

[Lori Dee ✅]

Lori, can you provide names/links for those race-biology studies? The consensus of current mainstream research is that race is not biological and that there are no biological correlations between traits and assigned races. The most prominent proponents of the theory have largely been shunned by their peers as far-right eugenicists.

In fact, just looking very quickly, this is near the top of Wikipedia's (very long) page on Race (human categorization) 🔗 [Link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_​(human_​categorization)/]:

"Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society."

If there's something new and credible, I'd love to know more about it.

His essays are not new. Many have criticized his writings as "profiling," but I did some research on his claims and found his research solid. I think the issue is that some people fear that if this were true, somehow race would define a subspecies of humans. And that could be easily weaponized by bad actors. So they reject any subject that remotely hints in that direction.

We have a similar situation within the transgender community. The fear is that if a biological connection to gender identity can be found, then bad actors could use that to target people suspected of being transgender, whether they are or not.

It is important to understand that even in genetics, a given outcome is not guaranteed. It only implies a potential for a certain outcome, not something definitive. Some people are opposed to determining the sex of a child before birth. Others worry about genetic manipulation, etc., etc.

Note, as I stated, this view is widely considered to be pseudoscience and is rejected by the mainstream scientific community, so I won't post the link here. I'll send it to you via PM. Let me know what you think.

[Pema]

Thank you. I look forward to seeing it. As a born and trained scientist, there aren't many things that the scientific community agrees is pseudoscience that I wind up finding very credible. It usually involves sloppy assumptions and methodology, and the scientific method (usually) works pretty well. But I'm always interested in being surprised.

Meanwhile, there's *tons* of stuff out there about the lack of correlation of genetics with what we call "race" - and even how to define what "race" is.

On the gender side, I'm not sure how we reconcile a biological origin with the cultural variations of gender expression, just one example being the Bugis people of Indonesia who have 5 genders. As @Asche has so eloquently said:

I think just about everything said about gender, and even most of the research, is pure BS, but it's part of the world I have to live in, sort of like the current US administration, so I can't just ignore it.

I don't feel any differently, really, and I'm *very* interested in research that clarifies it. I just have yet to see any.

We are not born biologically into membership in any religion or political party or sports fandom. By whatever mechanism, whether innate or acquired, we all discover within ourselves deep, strongly held values that (I hope) inform and guide how we live our lives. We find people who share those values and associate and identify with them to the point where we adopt the label of the group. We can experience that profound sense of identity without it having a genetic basis and it can still be as valid as any other aspect of our identity. To require that it be attached to any physical attribute makes as much sense as believing that you have to have red hair to love classical music.

Nobody has to play along with "prove to me that your experience is valid in a game where I get to make the rules." We're more complex and more interesting than that, and I think that's a good thing.

[Lori Dee ✅]

I agree with what you are saying.

I am not saying there is a biological connection with gender expression. I believe there may be a biological connection (cause? potential?) with gender dysphoria. People experience it in many different ways, react to it in many different ways, and to many different degrees. I think that gender expression is related to that degree (or lack of) dysphoria, and the obvious environmental factors that would allow or disallow that expression.

[Pema]

I believe there may be a biological connection (cause? potential?) with gender dysphoria.

There may. I just haven't seen anything indicating that there is. I'm open to seeing it when it arrives.