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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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Of course you can use sex and gender as synonyms but that leaves you with a weaker model that is unable to explain much of the variance that you see in how people act vs how they differ biologically.

An analogy I made previously is that this is like Byzantine theologians trying to make a distinction between the "nature" and "essence" of Christ to let him be simultaneously human and divine. To buy into their framing that there's a real distinction here (rather than just something pseudointellectual they made up to keep themselves in a job) is to already concede the debate.

I would contend that the correct answer when a Monophysite tries to draw you into a debate on homoousios is to tell him "That's a bullshit concept, you're making words up for distinctions that don't exist due to ideological motivation, Jesus was just Some Wierd Guy acting wierd, not a male performing the gender role of God". Likewise, I would contend that the correct answer when a trans theorist tries to draw you into a debate on gender is to tell him "That's a bullshit concept, you're making words up for distinctions that don't exist due to ideological motivation, Emerald Treespirit is just Some Wierd Guy acting wierd, not a male performing the gender role of a woman".

Of course you can use sex and gender as synonyms but that leaves you with a weaker model that is unable to explain much of the variance that you see in how people act vs how they differ biologically.

It doesn't leave you with a weaker model, it leaves you with a better model, because "man acting wierd" correctly predicts what happens when you put them in female prison, whereas "performing the social role of a woman" does not. The POOR predictivity of your model recently cost the Scottish premier her job.