Opinion
Premier Scientific Journal Nature Takes on ‘Climate of Fear’ Surrounding Research on Sex and Genr
From Heartland Daily News
“These articles are using phrases like ‘a person’s sex assigned at birth’. I find that phrase amusing. I don’t think sex is assigned at birth. Biological sex is a fact. It’s not assigned. It’s observed.”
Nature, one of the world’s premier scientific journals, has acknowledged the importance of studying sex and gender differences and officially denounced the “climate of fear and reticence” that is stymying research on the topic.
To that end, the journal in May launched “a collection of opinion articles” on the topic to be published over the coming months to foster honest and courageous discussions on a topic that many scientists shy away from due to fears of professional and personal repercussions.
“Some scientists have been warned off studying sex differences by colleagues. Others, who are already working on sex or gender-related topics, are hesitant to publish their views,” read the editorial introducing the series.
“…In time, we hope this collection will help to shape research, and provide a reference point for moderating often-intemperate debates.”
Headlines that kicked off the series include “Neglecting sex and gender in research is a public-health risk,” “Male–female comparisons are powerful in biomedical research” and “Heed lessons from past studies involving transgender people: first, do no harm.”
What the collection of articles represents and whether it will ease tensions surrounding this area of research remains to be seen.
Jeffrey Mogil, a neuroscientist and pain researcher at Mcgill University, as well as the co-author of one of the articles in Nature’s sex and gender series, told The College Fix there is an effort underway in biological research to do away with or minimize the importance of the concept of sex and sex as a binary variable.
This is problematic, Mogil said in a recent telephone interview, because sex in mammals is “either binary or it rounds to binary and in doing so it always has been useful and continues to be and any conception of it that isn’t binary would then impose practical difficulties on how science is done.”
Moreover, he noted, discarding the notion of binary sex in mammals would set back important advancements in how many biomedical researchers now do their work.
“There are sex differences in all kinds of traits that we’re interested in and where we didn’t know they existed,” Mogil said. “The reason we didn’t know they existed [is] because until extremely recently, essentially all biology pre-clinical experiments were done with males only.”
“Since regulatory agencies, funding agencies, have demanded that people start using both sexes [in research],” he said, “lo and behold, we’re finding sex differences.”
“We’re finding that what we thought was the biology of a thing was only the biology of the thing in males and the female biology is completely different,” he added.
“This is in our minds,” he said, “an incredible scientific advance and that advance is at risk of stopping and reverting if, you know, people start to believe…dividing animals into males and females is inappropriate.”
Although Mogil stated he did not know how Nature made editorial decisions regarding the selection of articles for their sex and gender collection, he said that he felt the article he and his co-authors wrote was intended to defend the status quo against those “advocating…either that gender is much more important than sex or that sex is more complicated than people have made it seem.”
The College Fix reached out to a senior communications manager from Springer Nature in early June regarding the selection process for the series, as well as how sex was presented in some of the other commentaries, but did not receive a response.
Daniel Barbash, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell University, was more skeptical than Mogil of Nature’s sex and gender op-ed collection when he spoke to The College Fix in a late-May phone interview.
Although he said he generally held a positive view of the article Mogil co-authored and appreciated that it explicitly stated “there are only two sex categories in mammals,” he noted that he also felt the authors of other commentaries in the series were to some extent “further conflating sex and gender.”
“There’s little things that sometimes give the game away,” he said. “These articles are using phrases like ‘a person’s sex assigned at birth’. I find that phrase amusing. I don’t think sex is assigned at birth. Biological sex is a fact. It’s not assigned. It’s observed.”
“[For] the vast majority of humans, from the moment they’re born,” he said, “there is zero ambiguity whether they’re a male or a female.”
Furthermore, the “overall tone” of the collection, Barbash said, was that “there needs to be more research on gender variation and that there is more complexity to biological sex than a binary.”
According to Barbash, neither of these notions are “universally accepted” among biologists.
He said he believes the series has “the potential to drive funding agencies and other agencies that are involved in the intersection between politics and research in a particular direction that I don’t think would always be helpful.”
“I don’t think any serious biologist would deny that sex is a hugely important factor in both basic research and in biomedical research,” said Barbash. “Of course, any study on the effect of drugs should be tested separately in males and females, otherwise it’s a hugely confounding factor if you ignore that.”
Yet, he said, “the notion that we need to do the same thing for gender…is really not supported,” and may not be very feasible.
“Half the population is male and half the population is female,” Barbash said. “We see all kinds of estimates for gender nonconforming and transgender individuals but, no doubt, they’re much less frequent than males and females.”
On account of this, he said, even if research questions regarding gender divergence and transgender individuals are worthwhile, “it would be problematic, for example, to necessitate that all NIH studies of humans include males, females and gender nonconforming individuals or transgender individuals.”
However, he said, he feared “this series of articles could have that kind of impact in influencing policy.”
Originally published by The College Fix. Republished with permission.
Dan McTeague
Carney launches his crusade against the oilpatch
Well, he finally did it.
After literally years of rumours that he was preparing to run for parliament and being groomed as Justin Trudeau’s successor.
After he, reportedly, agreed to take over Chrystia Freeland’s job as Finance Minister in December, only to then, reportedly, pull back once her very public and pointed resignation made the job too toxic for someone with his ambitions.
After he even began telegraphing, through surrogates, an openness to joining a Conservative government, likely hoping to preserve some of his beloved environmentalist achievements if and when Pierre Poilievre leads his party into government.
After all that, Mark Carney has finally thrown his hat into the ring for the position of Liberal leader and prime minister of our beloved and beleaguered country.
And, as I’ve been predicting, the whole gang of Trudeau apologists are out in force, jumping for joy and saying this is the best thing since sliced bread. Carney is a breath of fresh air, a man who can finally turn the page on a difficult era in our history, a fighter, and — of all things! — an outsider.
Hogwash!
This narrative conveniently ignores the fact that Carney has been a key Trudeau confidant for years. As Pierre Poilievre pointed out on Twitter/X, he remains listed on the Liberal Party’s website as an advisor to the Prime Minister. He’s godfather to Chrystia Freeland’s son, for heaven’s sake!
Outsider?! This man is an insider’s insider.
But, more importantly, Carney has been a passionate supporter and promoter of the Trudeau government’s agenda, with the job-killing, economy-hobbling Net Zero program right at its heart. The Carbon Tax? He was for it before he was against it, which is to say, before it was clear the popular opposition to it isn’t going away, especially now that we all see what a bite it’s taken out of our household budgets.
Even his course correction was half-hearted. In Carney’s words, the Carbon Tax “served a purpose up until now.” What on earth does that even mean?
Meanwhile, EV mandates, Emission Caps, the War on Pipelines, tax dollars for so-called renewables, and all of the other policies designed to stifle our natural resources imposed on us by the activists in the Trudeau government? They’re right up Carney’s ally.
Plus his record at the Banks of Canada and England, his role as the U.N.’s Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, and his passion projects like the Global Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), and its subgroup the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), point to a concerning willingness to achieve his ideological goals by even the most sneaky, underhanded routes.
Take, for instance, the question of whether we need to “phase out” Canada’s oil and gas industry. Politicians who want real power can’t just come out and endorse that position without experiencing major blowback, as Justin Trudeau found out back in 2017. Despite years of activist propaganda, Canadians still recognize that hydrocarbon energy is the backbone of our economy.
But what if oil and gas companies started having trouble getting loans or attracting investment, no matter how profitable they are? Over time they, and the jobs and other economic benefits they provide, would simply disappear.
That is, in essence, the goal of GFANZ. It’s what they mean when they require their members – including Canadian banks like BMO, TD, CIBC, Scotiabank and RBC – to commit to “align[ing] their lending and investment portfolios with net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century or sooner.”
And Mark Carney is their founder and chairman. GFANZ is Mark Carney’s baby.
In truth, Mark Carney is less an outsider than he is the man behind the curtain, the man pulling the strings and poking the levers of power. Not that he will put it this way, but his campaign pitch can be boiled down to, “Trudeau, but without the scandals or baggage.” Well, relatively speaking.
But the thing is, it wasn’t those scandals – as much of an embarrassment as they were — which has brought an unceremonious end to Justin Trudeau’s political career. What laid him low, in the end, was bad policy and governmental mismanagement.
To choose Mark Carney would be to ask for more of the same. Thanks, but no thanks.
Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
Daily Caller
Opinion: Trump Making ‘Sex’ Great Again On Day One Of Presidency
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Megan Brock
One day into his presidency, Trump has taken significant executive action to preserve the integrity of the sexes and root out gender ideology from the federal government.
Throughout his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump promised to affirm the unique distinctions of the two sexes, male and female, and reverse the spread of gender ideology that was pushed during the Biden administration. Trump kept that promise Monday by signing an executive order (EO) titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government,” which defends the integrity of the sexes by mandating the federal government apply “clear and accurate language” that includes requiring the use of the term “sex” over “gender.”
“My Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,” the EO states.
“When administering or enforcing sex-based distinctions, every agency and all Federal employees acting in an official capacity on behalf of their agency shall use the term ‘sex’ and not ‘gender’ in all applicable Federal policies and documents.”
Trump’s order defines male and female as “immutable biological” classifications, noting that “sex” is not synonymous with the term “gender identity.”
“‘Sex’ shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. ‘Sex’ is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity’,” the EO states.
“Gender Identity” is a term used by transgender activists to describe an individual’s imagined sex. Transgender activists believe a person’s imagined sex is as real as their physical sex, and should hold equal weight in society and law.
For example, in April 2024 the Biden administration expanded Title IX regulations, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, to include “gender identity,” giving men claiming to have a female “gender identity” full legal access to women’s sports and private spaces. A federal judge recently struck down the expanded Title IX regulations in a lawsuit filed against the Biden administration by six states, including Tennessee.
Transgender activists often use the terms “gender” and “gender identity” interchangeably.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) described how these terms are used synonymously in their gender medical guidance, called the Standards of Care version 8 (SOC 8), which is routinely used by medical associations, governments, and insurance companies in the U.S. and abroad to create policy driven by gender ideology.
“Depending on the context, gender may reference gender identity, gender expression, and/or social gender role, including understandings and expectations culturally tied to people who were assigned male or female at birth,” the SOC 8 states.
“Gender identities other than those of men and women (who can be either cisgender or transgender) include transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, gender neutral, agender, gender fluid, and “third” gender, among others; many other genders are recognized around the world.”
This muddying of language is found throughout medical institutions including The National Institutes of Health who define gender as “A multidimensional construct that encompasses gender identity and expression, as well as social and cultural expectations about status, characteristics, and behavior as they are associated with certain sex traits.”
The Trump administration acknowledged how the corruption of language by transgender activists has had an “corrosive impact” on American society, stating: “The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system,” in the EO. “Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.”
The term “gender identity” was popularized in the 1960s by controversial sexologist John Money, whose most high-profile experiment involved advising parents of a boy whose penis was damaged in a botched circumcision to cut the rest of it off and raise him as a girl. At age 15, the boy — who was raised as “Brenda” — discovered the truth and rejected further hormone treatments. He eventually committed suicide at age 38.
Gender ideology believes a person’s sex can differ from their “gender identity,” rejecting the long-established scientific understanding of biology that there are only two sexes based on the fact there are only two types of reproductive cells — sperm and ova.
The very concept of “gender identity” creates the possibility of changing one’s sex — a biological impossibility — through medical interventions, therefore creating a demand for medical sex reassignment interventions.
WPATH defines “gender identity” in the SOC 8 as “a person’s deeply felt, internal, intrinsic sense of their own gender,” whereas the Trump administration defines it as “A fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality.”
The EO further explains that because “gender identity” is wholly subjective to the individual, it cannot be used to replace the objective reality of sex.
“‘Gender identity’ reflects a fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex,” Trump’s EO states.
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