Book Review: Sex is a Spectrum

 

Image: the cover of the book is a black background with large words- sex is a spectrum- colored in rainbow gradient positioned on their side (extending vertically rather than horizontally.) in small white letters between the words is "the biological limits of the biggest" and "agustín fuentes"

I come from a generation wherein discussions of gender often highlighted the importance of differentiating gender from sex. In these conversations we would often discuss diversity within gender, while also at least partially conceding that sex was binary, with the exception of an often ill described or tokenizing inclusion of intersex individuals. Many of us knew things were more complicated, but we needed a simplistic argument in order to fight for our rights, be they feminist, lgbq, trans rights, etc. More recent understandings of biology have shown that sex is a lot more variable than once assumed. This made sense to me, but I often didn't have the education or ability to confidently argue things one way or the other. This has become especially difficult with how algorithms have become so horrifically bad at nudging folks towards accurate information, making one's attempt at research through a highly monetized search engine often futile. Furthermore, much of the discussion around sex is dominated by archaic patriarchal structures within sciences or by bad faith actors with no scientific credentials who defend dated and debunked ideas about sex and gender. I went into Agustín Fuentes' book Sex is a Spectrum with high hopes but realistic expectations. This book surpassed both of them.

Fuentes is a biological anthropologist and primatologist who writes in extremely enlightening ways on these topics. I enjoy thinking and learning about evolution, including how it affects the human species psychologically and anthropologically. Unfortunately, I often go into readings with gritted teeth, wondering if I'm going to encounter something useful or something ridiculous. Some ideas of what constitutes evolutionary adaptation/advantage are dominated by people with highly archaic, patriarchal, racist, and other oppressive ways of thinking. Examples include men who argue that rape is an biological imperative of men, men who argue that the reason violent and abusive men exist is because women choose them for procreation, and a wide gamut of racist and xenophobic beliefs about evolutionary contributions of various peoples. Fuentes not only broke from these sorts of traditions, but brought many new ways of thinking about humans into my worldview. It was very refreshing to see someone make statements in the realms of evolutionary anthropology and psychology that both criticize more oppressive mainstream misconceptions while also bringing newer information (at least to me and mainstream thinking) to the table.

Some might expect this book, despite it's clear focus on biology, to lean on of gender/queer theory a lot, but there is very little of it therein. It is a matter of fact book about what biology, anthropology, primatology, and cultural histories tell us about sex in human beings. It is refreshingly grounded in hard science while also being accurate and honest in terms of what statements can be made with higher levels of certainly. Furthermore, Fuentes writes in a style that can actually be read by a wide audience. He also has condensed a massive amount of argument and information into a rather short book. Basically, this book is accessible and readable which feels more critical than ever given how this topic is treated in the world these days. 

Fuentes hits all of the topics that I've run into or questioned myself regarding the biology and (false) binaries of sex. These include everything from primate evolution, chromosomal variation, gender expression, sex assignment at birth, secondary sex characteristics, hormonal variation, environmental and cultural influence and interaction with biology (and vice versa,) behavioral differences between sexes and genders, diversity within sexes and genders in a variety of categories, and so on. 

Within these topics, Fuentes' makes many well supported arguments. There are multiple ways that sex binaries are defined, ranging from chromosomal variation (which most of us never know we have,) physical growth and development, behavior and psychology, expression (or not) of bodily functions, and so on that very rarely fit into two distinct categories. Intersex individuals are not aberrations or afterthoughts, but normal parts of human sex variation and have a wide variety of traits and expressions. Dividing humans into two binary sex categories results in reductive, inaccurate, and all around bad science and medicine due to the massive variability and overlap of attributes tied to sex. Sex and gender are biocultural (meaning culture and environment interact with and influence biology and vice versa) which causes variability across the globe. There is much variability across sex in all primate species and humans are no exception. The helplessness of human infants resulted in evolution of cooperative, (bio and non) family structure that is not in line with archaic ideas many have about gender and family. There are no "male brains" and "female brains" (an argument I have unfortunately seen some trans folks latch onto) and the variability, diversity, and overlap in brain function cannot be applied to one sex or another. There are other well argued points, but you get the picture. 

It is important to state that Fuentes is not at all making the argument that there are no differences between humans of various genders and sex assignments. I found the discussion of things like aggression and violence to be particularly interesting. He does not argue that everyone is the same and that patriarchal imbalance with abuse and violence does not exist. Rather he argues that claiming that this is a purely biological trait that men are predisposed to have is dangerous and inaccurate. Cultural influence combined with a variety of factors play into this far more than human sex biology alone does.

In the last section of the book, he speaks specifically about some of the topics where folks attend to onto binary thinking the most: Sexuality, family composition, medical research and practice, cardiac disease, organ transplants, pregnancy and birth, sports (wide ranging in and of themselves,) restroom assignment, and so on. He very clearly discusses where studies have shown differences and how well we are able to say where those differences come from. You may have already heard that it's not nature versus nurture, but how these two things interact. His discussions on the biocultural nature of sex took this idea to a new level for me as his emphasis on both biological and anthropological research really shows how damaging these binary categories are in many situations. 

Things in life are generally far more complex than we like to admit and sex is no exception. There are much better ways to categorize people than along and inaccurate binary. For instance, all humans have testosterone in different amount and it can be more appropriate to categorize people based on testosterone levels than on sex.

I could continue blathering on, but I will stop here because I want everyone to go read this book. An optimistic take would be that people from a variety of belief systems, if willing to open their mind just a little bit, would be able to take in this book and be changed by it. I've been changed by it. 

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph. 

Book Review: The Great Betrayal

Image: the cover of the book is a light cream background that fades into an image on the lower third of the cover. The image shows a large crowd of people, some holding up large blue or cream tarps or signs (I cannot tell as they are small) facing down two large camel colored tanks. Across the top in black is "the great betrayal," below that in red is "the struggle for freedom and democracy in the middle east." Below that in black is the author's name: Fawaz A. Gerges.

Due to being a basic white USAmerican, my education regarding the wide variety of countries and occurrences throughout the Middle East is meager at best. Despite deliberately seeking out information about the struggles I did know about, I often felt as if I couldn't trust what I was reading in the media and didn't know where to start outside of it. As a result, I cannot claim to be an authority or middle east scholar that can judge if this text is a perfect historical argument and narrative. However, I can speak as someone who has lacked a foundation on these issues, and sought out a book that could meet me where I am. Fawaz Gerges' The Great Betrayal: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in the Middle East very much does that. 

Gerges mentions in the introduction that he wrote this book to offer an explanation to his students and others who wonder why there is so much struggle and instability across the middle east. Fitting with this goal, the text is accessibly written and does not contain excessive academic jargon just for the sake of it. This book also has enough repetition from chapter to chapter that it could be assigned in classes as a whole or in parts. The organization also helps with the flow of the book in general as it covers a massive amount of history and information in a few hundred pages.

A goal stated by Gerges was that he wanted to break from the paradigm of focusing on middle eastern struggles by looking solely at leaders of various states. This is one of the things that appealed to me most. While Gerges does speak in detail about various leaders and other authoritarian organizing, he also spends about half the book discussing grassroots and other movements of the people of these countries. If you've ever spoken to leftists, you will often find frustration in being lumped in with the wrong group. Anarchists do not appreciate being lumped in with liberals or authoritarian left movements, all of which are highly variable within themselves. Western media makes the same mistake with "the middle east," often lumping entire countries together. If we do get more focus on a single country, the movements inside are often not covered except for the most violent such as ISIS, leading to highly prejudiced assumptions about the rest of the public.

Gerges also stated a desire to break from the other end of the spectrum- the paradigm of blaming colonialism or western intervention for all unrest throughout middle eastern countries. It is undoubtedly something that has played a massive role over time, but one still ends up erasing individual differences and the diversity of movements throughout these areas by solely looking at the west.

Egyptian history dominates a decent amount of this book. We learn a lot about the history of leaders there, the Arab Spring uprisings, and so on. This decision seems to be in part because this history offers a decent window into how colonialism, authoritarianism, popular movements, and so on interact, which does require a lot of specialized info to fully understand. I'm not sure if it is also because Gerges' knowledge may be more specialized in regards to Egypt than other middle east countries. We also learn how central western support of Israel and the resulting Palestinian genocide are to struggles throughout the rest of the middle east. The mistrust of the USA and other western powers who aid in the destruction of Palestine also leaves the door open for other nations like China to become involved as alternatives. The reach of the book spreads out much more as the it progresses and we learn about governments and popular movements throughout Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and others.

A prominent and well supported argument throughout this text is that Western colonialists and local state leaders and actors seeking authority and control (rather than a functioning system that served its people) created breeding grounds for extreme Islamist movements to take hold. Even when more leftish leaning rulers- who created things like social programs to support the public- were in office, the corruption and authoritarianism that they implemented ended up souring the public view of these regimes and associating their politics with oppression. European colonialism, western invasions and wars, neoliberalism, and capitalism led the public to see "democracy" or western "aid" as mere smokescreens for exploitation. The problem being that, most of the time, the "democracy" offered by these powers wasn't democratic at all.

Consistently crumbling governments that did not serve the people made diverse Islamist movements more attractive. Some of these movements implemented social support and cooperative structures, showing the ability to do so without the corrupt state. At the same time, as some more oppressive fundamentalist movements became empowered, they often became more violent and extreme. It was wild for instance to read about how even Osama bin Laden eventually found ISIS to have moved in too extreme a direction for his tastes. Many extremist groups would start either in or adjacent to the government and then split off when the impossible task of altering authoritarian structures became clear. These struggles kept systems fragile and constantly crumbling. The religious elements throughout these histories exist in both dynamics of the oppressed and the oppressor in complicated ways.

When relating many of these issues specifically to the USA, Gerges does well showing how the "democracy" the USA claims to promote is a lie. Both Republican and Democrat leaders have behaved similarly in their violent and oppressive relationships with middle eastern countries. This is what makes many democrat/liberal reactions to Trump very frustrating to me at times. While Trump and the rest of his fascist regime are undoubtedly the worst, the utter silence from many liberals as soon as they get their candidate in office is abhorrent. The deportations and wars continue while they claim that their vote saved the day and everything is fine now and that just voting blue again will take us back to an imaginary land where immigrants are safe and muslims are beloved. At least when Republicans are in office, some of these people are willing to fight.

The remainder of the book is predominantly about the people's movements for liberation, where they have succeeded, and where and why they often fail. The structures people are up against outside of their countries, within their governments, and surrounding extremist movements are extremely difficult to resist. However, that has not stopped people from fighting. Gerges covers a lot of ground showing that there have been advancements even when faced with such adversity. He captures the resilience and passion of people often erased in these histories. This feels more important than ever regarding the new level of genocide being faced by Palestinians for instance. Gerges wraps up the text with ideas about ways forward which center the populace rather than authoritarian rulers or authoritarian Islamist groups.

Things I would have appreciated that this book lacked would have been some sort of graphic giving a timeline of events. Because Gerges skips back and forth in time a bit, I would find myself going back and rereading parts to remember what we'd covered. Now, it is worth noting that my somewhat impaired memory is below average, but I think having a reference graphic to quickly flip to could really boost the book's utility.

I also disliked his occasional characterization of movements in a violent/peaceful dichotomy. For instance, he describes the Arab Spring as a peaceful movement of people in the streets. In comparison to a revolutionary war with guns and bombs, he'd be correct. But, to portray them as if they were using a single tactic like marches and not a wider variety which included property destruction and so on is misleading. Like any successful movement, there were a wide variety of tactics involved that cannot be put into a binary box. There is no one right way to protest.

Overall this book gave me a good overview of many occurrences throughout the Middle East that I've craved to understand better. I have flags on almost every page to return to as a reference. I appreciate what Gerges has done here in making information about such struggles accessible.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: Multispecies Assemblies

image: the cover of the book has cream and teal stripes going across the top and bottom. On top in black is the title and on the bottom is eva Meijer's name. In the center is an illustration of a tropical scene with palm trees and a mountain in the distance. I'm the center an elephant drinks from a pond wherein fish swim. There are many rabbits lounging around or hanging out across the ground in the rest of the image.

I've long been a big fan of Eva Meijer's work. Her books about animal language and communication are some of my favorite in terms of scholarship regarding the lives of other animals. As a result, I was excited to see this book coming out, especially from the independent press of VINE sanctuary. 

Multispecies Assemblies is an act of both practicality and imagination. It involves thinking far outside of the box about how we can have participatory relationships with the rest of the natural world. Well this book went a little too far outside certain boxes for me at times, I still found the exercise itself to be brilliant. One of my biggest issues with animal liberation action and philosophy is that humans are often making decisions without truly thinking about what other animals want and experience. We tend to make decisions on how we feel about what we know. Even in many animal advocacy scenarios, there is a power dynamic that attracts people that do more harm than good at times. This is of course not unique to animal advocacy. Any sort of anti-authoritarian structure can attract those willing to exploit it. In the case of other than human animals, many on both sides of the divide will take advantage of the fact that the animals are not able to have a seat at the table.

In this book, Meijer asks us to imagine what it would be like if other beings did have a seat at the table. She offers strategies and many examples of what that may look like. The book is grounded enough that it is clear she is not saying we should have a round table discussion with fishes and trees anytime a decision needs to be made, as if that were possible. Rather, she takes steps to find ways to include others so that they cannot be forgotten in the conversation. 

There are many examples where the author discusses how to make sure everything from a river to a bird can be included as much as possible in the decision making about their lives. She discusses how human representation will of course be necessary in these conversations. Yet, she also make sure to offer ways that we can best step aside and decenter ourselves.

One thing she mentions having learned from VINE Sanctuary is that humans making decisions should be in proximity to those who they are making decisions for. For instance, if decisions need to be made about what will happen to a wetland area, the discussion should be had while that area is in view. Decisions about an animals life should involve proximity to that animal. As long as oppression is out of sight it is much easier to excuse it. People forced to stand in a slaughterhouse would have a much harder time defending what is going on there, then if they were simply in an aisle at the grocery store. It is easier to defend our fast fashion purchases at a discount rack than it would be while standing in the middle of a sweatshop. 

Where this book didn't fully work for me is how the author at times seemed to streamline the abilities and experience other species a bit too much. She seems to discuss plants and other parts of nature as having "cognition" and communication similar to animals. This is something that I found a bit frustrating. Meijer quotes from Braiding Sweetgrass (wherein the author asks trees for permission to kill them, but didn't mention this with animals, I assume because most animals tend to give a pretty emphatic and undeniable "no.") Plants also propagate from being killed and eaten among other things which would make suffering and pain completely incompatible evolutionary flaws common across far too many species for it to be a leftover maladaptive mutation. Plants are not communicating and having experiences of suffering like we animals do. We can discuss the importance of the natural world without needing to make them like us. Furthermore, this goes against the book's thesis as this is an anthropocentric action. 

The elevation of plants and other natural structures to a false similarity with ourselves can also backfire. It can cause people open to the idea of considering other animals languages and experiences to distrust the author due to incorrect information and misuse of terms like cognition regarding plants. It can also give ammunition to the dishonest strawmanning that anti-animal sentiment brings up where people claim that plants have feelings and thus farming/exploiting animals is the same. Aside from the fact that it takes exponentially more plants in order to farm animals, nobody truly believes that stepping on grass is the same as kicking a puppy. 

The other thing I found missing at times from this, which may be due to the limitations of the length of the essay, is the reality that these assemblies there will undoubtedly result in disagreements rooted in the way the natural world is as a whole. A balanced ecosystem has a wide range of creatures including animals that prey upon other animals. I am sure that a hawk has a different view than the vole on how things should go. Think of the debate around feral cats and the ecosystem imbalance that occurs as a result of humans introducing them.

I think that Meijer's scholarship regarding animal languages would have made this an extremely interesting direction to go in. I would like to hear an expansion of how to resolve conflicts about wounds that occur throughout nature that involve suffering but are simultaneously necessary/unavoidable. Without addressing this, the book can come off as a little naive, which has not been my experience with Meijer's other work.

I have said before that I often have the biggest, most detailed criticisms of authors that I like the most. I suppose I'm holding Meijer to a higher standard here than I would another precisely because I admire her work so much. The existence of this book in and of itself is quite a feat. Even trying to tackle the idea of having a cooperative interaction that goes beyond multiple species is the kind of progressive thinking I think we need in this world. These are the kind of discussions we need to be having. So, my criticisms are attempts to join the conversation, not silence it. I recommend this book wholeheartedly and I hope it starts a great many conversations and how we can resolve conflicts. Decentering the human is more important than ever in a dying world. 

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.