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Sex binary & scientific consensus

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I removed the recently added paper by Goymann et al. which was used to support the male or female gametes definition in the lead section. This source actually starts off by acknowledging that Biomedical and social scientists are increasingly calling the biological sex into question, arguing that sex is a graded spectrum rather than a binary trait. Leading science journals have been adopting this relativist view.

Despite the authors themselves disputing this characterization of sex, it's clear that scientific consensus itself is moving more toward a non-binary definition of sex. The Goymann paper is an opinion essay, whereas ideal sources per WP:MEDSCI include:

recent, authoritative review articles [...] statements and practice guidelines issued by major professional medical or scientific societies [and] widely respected governmental and quasi-governmental health authorities [...] textbooks, [or] scholarly monographs.

The need for recent, high-quality sources is especially true where scientific consensus is evolving. The three sources cited for the current lead sentence are more than five years old (one is already 25 years old). The definition in the lead is due for an update IMO, especially in regard to intersex characteristics, which are not mentioned in the current article at all. For example, a 2023 practice guideline from the American Medical Association states:

Sex is a characteristic often externally assigned to individuals to describe their assumed genotype and/or phenotype. These physical traits, however, are made up of many diverse components. Many people mistakenly think of sex categories as unchanging and exclusively male or female, but a landmark study demonstrated that about 1 in 50 live births present with variations in chromosomes, gonadal structure, hormone levels, internal sex organs, and/or external genitalia that differ from the expected ideas of male or female. This is referred to as being intersex or having DSD [...] For anyone, regardless of gender identity, sex characteristics may vary over time for diverse reasons, such as surgeries, health conditions, or non-pathological bodily changes (e.g., menopause). [1] —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:53, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does the AMA guideline take non-human organisms into consideration? That 25 year old source in the lead sentence clearly considers non-humans. Plantdrew (talk) 17:03, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The 25 year old source is the textbook Life: The Science of Biology, apparently the 6th edition from 2000. There is a 12th edition from 2020. It discusses sex in the most general sense as the reproductive strategy of most eukaryotic life, which is a good match to the scope of this article. Social interpretations of sex and human DSDs are not the main topic. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 21:20, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The AMA citation is from an "issue brief" about "best practices for sex and gender diversity in medical education", and I wouldn't interpret this as something representing something like an official AMA definition of the topic more generally. A best practice for something like education (which is not WP:Biomedical information) is not the same thing as a practice guideline (i.e. clinical guideline).
Goymann et al of course draw attention to the relevance of the claim they are arguing against to establish the basis for their article and show they are not rebutting strawmen, but even so, note that they say "biomedical and social scientists", not evolutionary biology, zoology, and other relevant biological fields. When they mention leading science journals "adopting" said view, they then go on to only cite a journal's news feature, an editorial, and letters, not peer-reviewed papers or statements of journal policy. Their citations go back 10 years to 2015, and Fausto-Sterling (as she points out in her letter to Nature) and a few others have been saying this since the early 1990s. As noted Goymann et al is not a very strong source, but this means that the idea there has been a significant change recently is likewise weak. There's thus no reason to think that, say, 5 years is too old to use as a source.
Nothing's really changed since the RfC on the definition - as then, medical sources are usually specifically about humans and about how to classify and treat individual humans, and thus some emphasize intersex variations. But this article is primarily not about humans, so building a definition around them is anthropocentric and WP:UNDUE. Crossroads -talk- 22:09, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe we need something in the lead to point people to Sex assignment or related articles. As in "Yes, there's a biological spectrum in things like size and color – but gametes really are binary." WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For example, we could expand on the current sentence "In sexually dimorphic species, including most birds and mammals, the sex of an individual is usually identified through observation of that individual's sexual characteristics, though any individual's observable traits might not closely match the average characteristics for their sex".
If we think it necessary to really hammer it home, we could add an example: "For example, if the average male is larger than the average female in a particular species, it is usually still possible to find a male that is smaller than some of the females." WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:13, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed that well-sourced information could be added about overlap between sexes and intrasexual variation. Still, how much there is of either of those varies by trait and species, which would also be worth noting. Some species are way more dimorphic in size than humans, and other traits can starkly differ too like plumage in many birds - 'binary' differences aren't just in gametes necessarily. Crossroads -talk- 02:18, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks for the thoughtful responses. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 09:28, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are in fact broader questions about the idea of a term "sex" as a cross-species biological category. As a matter of fact, most of the sentences in the lead are scientifically inaccurate. See "No universal differences between female and male eukaryotes: anisogamy and asymmetrical female meiosis" by Gorelick et. al 2017. For example, it is not correct to state that "organisms that produce smaller, more mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm) are called male" or that "organisms that produce larger, non-mobile gametes (ova, often called egg cells) are called female", despite this being the 'common' and 'accepted' view.
As @LokiTheLiar mentioned below, there is a greater need for discussion of alternative views of "sex" in the biological sciences. I haven't followed the literature in a while, but some of the relevant citations from when I did included:
I recall anticipating the release of a paper on sex eliminativism, and it appears to be published now [1]. Katzrockso (talk) 19:19, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I tried updating the definition in a similar way a while ago and got similar pushback. I think that finding a few good sources which clearly apply a broader definition of sex to non-human animals would really help. Loki (talk) 18:28, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Katzrockso: Those are definitely useful and approaching what I'm looking for. I was hoping for something more authoritative than exploratory journal articles, though. The issue with those sources is that it's going to be hard to challenge a consensus built on textbooks and other clear representations of the mainstream with early explorations of an alternative paradigm. Loki (talk) 19:37, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As explained in the last RfC, there is a clear discrepancy between the term "biological sex" as used in medical science and "biological sex" as used in the evolutionary sciences. That only one sense is being represented here is an issue, in my opinion. I think some of the approaches mentioned in that discussion with regards to expanding the article to a broader concept article may be warranted. As it currently states, there is no article on Wikipedia that documents or reflects the usage of the term in the medical sciences (let alone the social sciences). There is a recent literature almost invoked by Sarah Richardson's analysis of sex in "Sex contextualism". To present the (contested) evolutionary biological concept of sex as the only legitimate understanding and meaning of the term is disparate with existing literature and actual practice.
The idea that referring to the human-aspect of sex is WP:DUE is precisely begging the question against historical and sociological analysis of the concept - it assumes that biological definitions appears ex nihilo and have no historical background. It is not unanimously agreed that it is case that the understanding of "biological sex" in the evolutionary sciences simply neutrally draws from established facts about biological, rather than complicated and historically specific developments of biological understanding (see 2018). Katzrockso (talk) 20:00, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It has not been established that medical science in general is not in alignment with non-human biological fields on this matter. Yes, sources questioning it are usually human- or medical-focused, but they are still a small minority of medical sources relevant to sex, as far as has been demonstrated anyway. We should go by things like medical textbooks to gauge what those fields overall think.
The history of a scientific concept cannot be used to (explicitly or implicitly) call into question the mainstream scientific view as it is today ("unanimous" agreement is not needed). In the end, what matters is what the mainstream view is in the relevant field(s). While it is true that some academic articles exist questioning current definitions and usage of sex, such articles clearly acknowledge they are arguing for a novel view and against the mainstream. That is all well and good as part of the scientific process, but we do not represent such things out of proportion to their acceptance. The number of articles as well as secondary sources endorsing the mainstream view (such as through usage) is far greater.
Theories of things like "sex eliminativism" have already received criticism from academics such as biologists (see [2]). As for Heller 2018, that paper seems to largely have to do with sociological usage (as in the sex-gender distinction); its weight in biology must be limited because the author would be far outside their expertise (imagine the shoe on the other foot, a biologist writing in a biology journal calling some fundamental sociological concept into question). Crossroads -talk- 20:35, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The name of the article is "sex", not "biological sex", despite the fact that the article focuses on the concept of biological sex as used in the evolutionary sciences. @LokiTheLiar in the RfC cited the American Anthropological Association, the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control, the American Psychiatric Association, The National Academies of Medicine, the journal Nature, among other textbooks. The journal Cell also recently changed their guidelines on the concept of sex. The idea that it is a small minority of relevant academic sources that have an alternative definition or understanding of the concept of "sex" is not supported by any balanced evaluation of the literature; some of these are the major academic institutions for entire fields of research (anthropology, psychiatry, etc). There is certainly a mainstream view in evolutionary biological science - on that we agree. However, the overall literature on the topic presents a very different question.
This is why Goymann et. al state "Biomedical and social scientists are increasingly calling the biological sex into question, arguing that sex is a graded spectrum" and that "Leading science journals have been adopting this relativist view" and that "A widespread misconception among philosophers, biomedical scientists and gender theorists – and now also among some authors and editors of influential science journals – is that the definition of the biological sex is based on chromosomes, genes, hormones, vulvas, or penises, etc." and "One reason for this misconception of the biological sex lies in biomedical practices, in which mammalian sex chromosomes or sex-associated phenotypes are widely used to define sex".
With regards to the point surrounding literature positioning itself as a "novel view", most of the literature on the topic presents itself as in opposition to common understandings in society (the sexual binary) or the various definitions of sex provided in different literatures.
Griffiths and Spencer are responding in their roles as philosophers of biology, which is an area of expertise that is particularly pertinent here, but completely lacking in the article. Katzrockso (talk) 21:25, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
About your comment above that it is not correct to state that "organisms that produce smaller, more mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm) are called male", can you name any species in which the females produce gametes that are both smaller and more mobile than the males of that species? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:39, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't personally know of any species that meets that criteria, but I read the statement from the lead as indicating "organisms that produce smaller gametes" AND "produce motile gametes" "are called male". The alternative reading "organisms that produce smaller or more mobile gametes are called male" is nonsensical and equally unsupported by scientific literature and would lead to the conclusion that there are gametes that are both male and female, as it is possible for an organism to produce a gamete that is motile (thus male) and is larger (thus female). Katzrockso (talk) 03:38, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, when the gametes can't be distinguished as by size and motility, they're called plus/minus instead of male/female. It is still a strict binary, because there is never an intermediate type of gamete.
It sounds like your concern could be resolved by rearranging the sentence: "By convention, organisms that produce sperm (smaller, more mobile gametes) are called male, while organisms that produce ova (larger, non-mobile gametes, often called egg cells) are called female."
It reverses cause and effect, but explanations of potentially unfamiliar words aren't expected to provide details about edge cases. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:54, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is factually inaccurate, the only 'universal' difference between sperm and ova are size, which is true by fiat (they are defined as such). There are non-motile sperm and motile ova, as described in the Gorelick et. al paper:

Eggs are often immobile and lack flagella, although so are many sperm. At least eight animal phyla include species in which sperm lack flagella, and instead move via pseudopodia or are not independently mobile (Morrow, 2004). These include at least one chordate family, freshwater elephant fish of the Gymnarchidae (Mattei, 1991; Morrow, 2004). Furthermore, metazoan eggs can be mobile. Rabbit eggs travel close to 20 cm from the ovary down the fallopian tubes to the uterus, at times as fast as 1 cm h–1 (Harper et al., 1960). By contrast, rabbit sperm travel a relatively short distance following ejaculation. This is probably true amongst most mammals and birds, where eggs travel farther and faster than sperm that have been deposited in the female reproductive tract. Similarly, angiosperm and conifer sperm are completely non-motile, lacking flagella and pseudopodia, and are only transported in pollen grains and by (phallic) elongating pollen tubes (Chamberlain, 1935; Mauseth, 2009).

Discussion of motility should be struck from the lead unless there is a better way to word it. Katzrockso (talk) 06:07, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Motility can be removed, if you wish, though it's generally the case, and hay fever sufferers might dispute the idea that pollen isn't a form of motility. I don't see any examples in that quotation of a motile egg paired with a non-motile sperm. The point of the sentence, after all, is that defining male/female by their gametes is simply the convention ("by fiat", in your language). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:15, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we might unfortunately be in the least convenient possible world here:
1. There's a bunch of big deal mainstream sources who talk about an expanded/multifactorial definition of sex, but many of them are either clearly talking about humans or ambiguous.
2. There's also a few reliable sources that talk about an expanded/multifactorial definition of sex unambiguously in animals, but a lot of those are early or exploratory.
3. Meanwhile the majority of big mainstream sources that talk about sex in animals use an old gamete-based definition.
Unfortunately I think we might just have to wait this situation out, and let the newer definition permeate a bit more. (That is, unless you can find sources in zoology/non-human biology of comparable heft to the WHO or the National Academies of Medicine that use a multifactoral definition of sex. I'm confident that eventually it'll permeate but I'm not confident yet that it has already.) Loki (talk) 03:51, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I largely agree with your evaluation of the state of affairs when it comes to the common usage of the definitions of sex in different disciplines. One fundamental issue, as noted/hinted at in the McLaughlin et. al article above (I can't recall the actual language in the paper, it has been a year since I read it in depth) is that this concept of sex is largely applied/used in fields of biology like evolutionary biology, cell biology and other laboratory sciences. In fields like ecology, ethology, etc, phenotypic definitions are absolutely necessary for sex as gamete production is not observable in the field. I can't cite references at the moment due to time constraints, but I can try to find specifics later.
What I don't agree with is the fundamental presumption that the correct referent of an article on "sex" for Wikipedia is exclusively the focus on the evolutionary biological understanding of sex. There is a copious sociological, historical, philosophical, anthropological, etc literature on the concept of sex and as it currently stands there is not an article on Wikipedia for this content to exist.
Sociologists, historians, anthropologists, medical experts, etc all produce valuable knowledge that any self-respecting encyclopedia would like to include. All of these disciplines also produce knowledge on a concept they consider "sex". I consider it an incredible oversight that as it currently stands very little of this disciplinary output is currently housed on Wikipedia or is spread between a myriad of different articles with varying levels of accuracy (the best example for where this content currently exists on Wikipedia is the article on the so-called sex-gender distinction which is largely just a list of definitions and bare exposition of a particular discipline's view as exposed in popular media). Wouldn't a balanced article include a section on the concept of sex in biology, the concept/understanding of sex in sociology, etc? That seems like a logical understanding of WP:DUE and WP:BALANCE to me. As it currently stands, I find this article to be a gross violation of WP:DUE in every possible understanding of the policy/guideline.
I wouldn't be opposed to moving this page to "Biological sex" and creating a new article in its stead but that also seems incredibly difficult for a topic as disputed as this in the GENSEX space. Katzrockso (talk) 05:39, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"creating a new article in its stead" What scope do you suggest? Dimadick (talk) 05:59, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
An article on "sex", as broadly understood by different academic disciplines. Katzrockso (talk) 06:12, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are you thinking about a set index article? That would create, e.g., sections on "Sex means sexual intercourse" and "Sex means gamete donated during sexual reproduction" and "Sex means libido" and "Sex means sex role" and "Sex means assigning an individual to a sex" and so forth. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:19, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, I am not. Ironically despite many other issues like basic accuracy, the article on Sex–gender distinction does it quite well under the "Definitions" header. Katzrockso (talk) 06:26, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest resisting the temptation towards species-centrism in this article.
A quick trip to Google Books indicates that "sociological sex" finds not much, and almost all of that about sexual behavior (sex drive, sex role, sexuality...), rather than what makes one half of the species be male and the other half female. Since this article is about the difference between males and females, all of that is off topic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:04, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am not suggesting any species-centrism, but rather a faithful following of WP:DUE:

Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources

A balanced survey of the significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources would look considerably different. Katzrockso (talk) 06:11, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A balanced survey on the topic of the article (which is currently "anisogamous sexual reproduction requires male and female", not "all the stuff people use the word sex for") probably wouldn't look considerably different. I think you need to think more about the difference between Wikipedia:Article titles and scopes. Just because the article is presently called sex doesn't mean that anything called sex belongs on this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:22, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This essay quite clearly explains the issue here:
"Ooooh, so everything called by that name goes in this page, right?
Usually, this only happens with polysemous words whose meanings are still closely related"
I would contest that "sex" is a great example of a polysemous word whose meanings are closely related. Katzrockso (talk) 18:18, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As for the sociology of sex, I was trying to avoid having to dig into my references, but the discussion really kicked into gear back in the 1990s in response to William Zimmerman and Candace West's work Doing Gender. One very influential piece within the sociological milieu was this work by Hood-Williams "Goodbye to sex and gender", The Sociological Review, 1996. You can find much more work in this vein, especially in some recent issues of The American Sociological Review. Katzrockso (talk) 06:21, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ridgeway, Cecilia (2024), "Diversifying Gender Categories and the Sex/Gender System", Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 50
@WhatamIdoing I believe this is one of the articles I was thinking of. But I also recall there being another review on the subject recently in this journal, but I may be thinking of the APA.
For reference, the Annual Review of Sociology is a highly prestigious journal in the field. Katzrockso (talk) 06:34, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've skimmed through the 1996 paper. His argument against the biological facts of sexual reproduction is that ancient authors didn't know much about human anatomy, so therefore the concept of having two human sexes is permanently suspect. Also, Herculine Barbin existed, and therefore we're supposed to think that any combination of gametes will produce a baby, because sex isn't real. I stopped shortly after that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:36, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are more than welcome to disagree with the argument (however ridiculous of a caricature you present it as), but it is a "significant viewpoint that ha[s] been published by reliable sources". There is an extremely voluminous literature on this topic - I think my saved files (I had hundreds if not thousands of articles/books saved at one point) went kaput with my old computer, otherwise I would starting listing them off. This isn't to prove any point but the size of the literature being completely ignored at the moment.
Anne Fausto-Sterling is classified as a 'sexologist' by Wikipedia, but she actually started her academic career in developmental biology first and her research is broadly influential in various disciplines, especially the social sciences. Katzrockso (talk) 06:49, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure they're very influential people in the field of sociology, and have interesting things to say about how humans think about family formation and interpersonal relationships, but what have they said about that's influential on the subject of sexual reproduction? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They have a lot to say about the concept of "sex", which is obviously fraught with many different understandings/meanings. That "sexual reproduction" is the only valid referent is not obvious not accepted by this literature. Let me quote a section of 2018 here:

pt: If the conceptualization of sex is imperfect, is it imperfect as an ordinary conceptualization or as a scientific one? For you, must we get rid of the idea of two sexes or rethink it?

afs: The big problem with the term sex in both common and scientific usage is that it has many meanings. These are usually not clearly defined in discussion or in print, which leads to people talking at cross purposes, applying conclusions based on the idea of sex in one sense to the idea of sex in some totally other sense. So it is not so much that I want to throw away the word as I want to use it with specific, carefully defined meanings. As a biological term, we should mostly use it to discuss reproduction at the cellular and dna level. Even here there are many types of sex, but these can be corralled so as to have a sensible discussion. When, however, we begin to use the term as shorthand for a huge variety—ranging from the physiological to the psychological—of sex-related differences (not even, strictly speaking, clear dimorphisms), we run into serious difficulty. (This is not even to mention what happens when we use the word to mean lovemaking or sexual intercourse.) In these circumstances, I think the term is best dropped in favor of naming the specific phenomenon under discussion. So, for example, instead of asking if there is a sex difference in voting patterns, we can ask whether men and women, on average, vote differently, and we can add in other characteristics such as race, class, age, and so on, to such an analysis without being pushed immediately into a deterministic account of our findings.

Fausto-Sterling also makes more clear delineations of a lot of the terminology in her book "Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World", which I think is a very good introduction to the literature. It is not that I am seeking to simply delete all the content in the article as it stands, but rather broaden the scope.
A proper historiography of the development of views on the concept of "sex" in the social sciences would require at a bare minimum a discussion of these texts, in my opinion:
  • Sex and Gender by Robert Stoller
  • History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault
  • Sex, gender and society by Anne Oakley
  • The Traffic in Women by Gayle Rubin
  • Sexing the Body by Anne Fausto-Sterling
  • Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
And there are dozens of other relevant texts I could list, Monique Wittig's "The Category of Sex", Delphy's "Rethinking Sex and Gender", Moira Gatens' "A Critique of the Sex-Gender Distinction" come to mind quickly as some of the ones I have gone back to over the years. Katzrockso (talk) 07:06, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The point isn't whether "sexual reproduction" is the only valid referent. The point is that "sexual reproduction" is the only relevant referent for this article. Not for "sex" – for the topic of this article, no matter what the title of the article is, was, or may be in the future. This article is about sexual-reproduction-by-asnisogamy-requires-two-types. That editors have historically called this page "sex" and thereby caused an endless series of "but I want my kind of sex to be the One True™ Sex on Wikipedia" to end up here instead of on an article about other kind of sex is unfortunate but does not change the subject of this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:17, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Actually this is a good point - this leads me to believe that the article should be moved to another name; perhaps "Sex in evolutionary biology". The current title clearly fails WP:CRITERIA for recognizability, WP:PRECISE, WP:NPOVNAME, and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. What do you think @LokiTheLiar? Katzrockso (talk) 20:08, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also pinging other participants in this discussion @Crossroads @CycoMa2 @Sangdeboeuf for comment Katzrockso (talk) 20:11, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely think that whatever's going on here is not reflective of the concept of "sex" across all fields it's used in. I don't really think the current article should be moved to another name. Rather I think this article should be broadened in scope to encompass other uses of the concept of sex. Loki (talk) 20:54, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What I am proposing is the creation of a broad concept article at Sex that links to more specific pages on the concept in different contexts. I think the current material in the article can be summarized and included in such a broad concept article. I think there is also a strong policy-based argument that the current name is inappropriate for the content housed in this article - as pointed out by @WhatamIdoing, the topic covered by the article is narrow in focus and specific to the understanding of "sex" by evolutionary biology and other related biological fields, and that deserves its standalone article on Wikipedia. I think there is a good point that adding other concepts/understandings of "sex" to this article would dilute its value to readers of the encyclopedia who might seek information on a particular concept.
Such a broad concept article could include a section on the dispute over the term, including papers like the Guymann et. al paper. Katzrockso (talk) 22:10, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It hasn't been established that the mainstream definition in fields like medicine or even social sciences, as shown in broad-overview secondary sources like textbooks, differs significantly from the biological definition. A smattering of things like theoretical monographs or statements from American organizational websites don't carry nearly as much weight. "Sex in evolutionary biology" fails WP:NPOVNAME and WP:POVFORK because it implies all these other fields, even other parts of biology, are talking about something fundamentally different.
Also, biology is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. If you search the scholarly literature, the vast majority of research on sex is in biology. The more appropriate field-specific article would be something like "sex in sociology", but we already have articles like sex assignment, sex-gender distinction, woman, and so on; some such content is already in those articles and they can be improved. Crossroads -talk- 22:12, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here are some secondary sources from textbooks that demonstrate the view in the field of sociology:
to Sociology 3e:

Sex refers to physical or physiological differences between males and females, including both primary sex characteristics (the reproductive system) and secondary characteristics such as height and muscularity.

Another textbook I checked was Sociological Theory by George Ritzer [8th Edition]. The relevant excerpt is here:

Interactionist The most currently elaborated sociological understanding of the origins of gender difference comes from ethnomethodology’s analysis of gender as an accomplishment. Ethnomethodology (see Chapter 11 ) posits that institutions, culture, and stratificational systems are maintained by the ongoing activities of individuals in interaction. When this idea is applied to gender, it produces the understanding that “people do gender”— or what is called in shorthand “doing gender.” West and Zimmerman’s 1987 article “Doing Gender,” the now classic statement of this position, is perhaps the most cited work in recent feminist sociological theory. Its starting point is in distinguishing among sex, sex category, and gender. A baby is born with some configuration of biological sex (which may be more or less clear). On the basis of what the adults attending to the birth interpret as its sex, the baby is assigned to a sex category. After that assignment, everyone around the child and the child itself over time begin to do gender, to act in ways considered appropriate to the sex category designation. The question of how everyone knows what is appropriate is resolved in ethonomethodology by the principle of accountability : People do not just act in any way they choose; people in interactions hold other people “accountable” for behaving in ways that are expected or useful or understandable. That is, people “manage conduct in anticipation of how others might describe it on a particular occasion” (Fenstermaker and West, 2002:212). Thus, gender is constantly being produced by people in interaction with each other as a way of making sense of and letting the world work.

Sociology: The Core states:

Sex refers to whether one is genetically male or female and determines the biological role that one will play in reproduction.

Sociology (9th Edition) by Giddens and Sutton states on page 424:

Since the development of feminist theories and ideas in the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, sociology has operated with a basic contrast between sex and gender. Sex can mean sexual activity, as in to ‘have sex’ with someone, but it can also refer to physical characteristics, such as the female uterus and male/female genitalia, that distinguish the ‘female sex’ from the ‘male sex’. Gender, by contrast, concerns social, cultural and psychological differences between men and women that are shaped within the social process and involve relations of power. Gender is linked to socially constructed norms of masculinity and femininity and is not a direct product of biology. As we have seen, some people feel they have been born into the ‘wrong’ physical body and may seek to ‘put things right’ by transforming it.

None of these discussions in reliable secondary sources can be equated with the use of the term in the article Sex, they are all obviously inconsistent. Your response here also erroneously assumes that the definition provided in this article is the only possible "biological" definition.
I disagree with your contention that "the vast majority of research on sex is in biology", due to my previous knowledge of the literature in fields other than biology. The guideline WP:PRIMARYTOPIC states:

A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.

I do not think that this requirement has been demonstrated for the concept of "sex" as used in evolutionary biology Katzrockso (talk) 23:54, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW I do agree that refusing to incorporate what appears to now be the most common definition of sex used in medicine at all is a problem, and suggest we should probably at least mention it. Loki (talk) 06:10, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that "the most common definition of sex used in medicine" is Sexual intercourse.
Different fields of medicine have different needs. Reproductive medicine is ultimately going to be focused on gametes. Pediatrics is going to start with external genitalia. Endocrinology would love to talk about hormones. But none of them will tell you that these factors are more important than the gamete for the purpose of sexual reproduction. It's either a sperm or an egg, no matter what the body looks like or functions like or feels like.
The concept here is something like "So, Sexual reproduction exists; that means we need to have an article about what the Sex in sexual reproduction is, and we need to have an article about what the Reproduction in sexual reproduction is, and...". I don't care what the article is called, but there should be an article on that subject, and not on the subject of which factors one takes into account when assigning individual humans to a category. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:54, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think sex classification is fundamentally more central to medicine than sexual intercourse - I mean from a literal standpoint 'sex' exists as a means of identification in every medical chart and actual NIH policy is "Sex as a biological variable" [3] (this is where Sarah Richardson's work is relevant [4] [5]).
I realize this may come across as if I am dumping names and links and books at you, and I genuinely don't intend to do that. But I am trying to emphasize that there is a robust research program in the social sciences on this concept ("sex") and it is presumptive to just dismiss it all as irrelevant.
I completely agree there should be an article on such an important topic; "Sex in evolutionary biology" is a perfectly good target for such an article. What I was suggesting above was retargeting the current article "sex" to a discussion of the understanding of the concept in different disciplines and then having WP:CFORKs like "Sex in sociology", "Sex in medicine", etc. I think tens of thousands of words could be written on "sex in medicine" in a legitimate Wikipedia article. Katzrockso (talk) 07:15, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Tens of thousands of words" means you're writing a book instead of an encyclopedia article.
If you want to write about "sex in medicine", then you probably want Sex assignment, Sex differences in humans, or Sex differences in medicine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not writing a book nor do I have particular interest at this specific time to write such an extensive Wikipedia article, I'm just explaining the extent of the relevant encyclopedic material. None of those articles cover the relevant material in a comprehensive way, nor do they cover the concept of "sex" in medicine, but rather related topics. Katzrockso (talk) 19:52, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Did anyone notice this part in the source?
Biological sex is defined as a binary variable in every sexually reproducing plant and animal species. With a few exceptions, all sexually reproducing organisms generate exactly two types of gametes that are distinguished by their difference in size: females, by definition, produce large gametes (eggs) and males, by definition, produce small and usually motile gametes (sperm). CycoMa2 (talk) 16:30, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also pay attention to the conclusion of the source:
CONCLUSION: DENYING BIOLOGICAL SEX ERODES SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS AND TRUST IN SCIENCE
It is clear that the biological definition of the sexes cannot be the basis for defining social genders of people, as forcefully pointed out by the philosopher Paul Griffiths.[8] Likewise, the socio-cultural, and thus anthropocentric, construct of gender cannot be applied to non-human organisms.[7] There is a red line that separates humans with their unique combination of biological sex and gender from non-human animals and plants, which only have two distinct sexes – both of which are either expressed in the same or in different individuals. As much as the concept of biological sex remains central to recognize the diversity of life, it is also crucial for those interested in a profound understanding of the nature of gender in humans. Denying the biological sex, for whatever noble cause, erodes scientific progress. In addition, and probably even worse, by rejecting simple biological facts influential science journals may open the flood gates for “alternative truths.”
This source reads more like addressing concerns about people misunderstanding certain concepts than, oh a new consensus is merging. CycoMa2 (talk) 16:33, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I assume that Goymann et al's POV about what constitutes biological/reproductive sex is exactly why that editor removed it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They present their position as in opposition to an emerging contingent of medical practitioners and social scientists presenting an alternative definition or understanding of the term 'sex', and explain their belief that this is an inappropriate change:

Biomedical and social scientists are increasingly calling the biological sex into question, arguing that sex is a graded spectrum rather than a binary trait. Leading science journals have been adopting this relativist view.

and

the attempt of influential science journals to re-define sex is done for a laudable cause

and

A widespread misconception among philosophers, biomedical scientists and gender theorists – and now also among some authors and editors of influential science journals – is that the definition of the biological sex is based on chromosomes, genes, hormones, vulvas, or penises, etc

@Sangdeboeuf cogently pointed out that they clearly believe that there is significant group of people that they are opposing, not some small insignificant minority. And I believe it is obvious they are correct in this evaluation. Katzrockso (talk) 19:59, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’m not gonna say anything else at this point. I am a bit busy with classes, finishing up my final semester in college.
Just felt I needed to say at least one thing here. CycoMa2 (talk) 16:39, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that the Guymann et al piece has one particular viewpoint is not under debate here. Katzrockso (talk) 17:49, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "Best Practices for Sex and Gender Diversity in Medical Education" (PDF). Issue Brief. American Medical Association. May 2023. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 20, 2025.

Misconceptions

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I'm wondering whether we could produce a useful section on misconceptions about sex. For example:

Misconception Fact Example
Sex is immutable trait. Although the sex of a human individual does not change, sex is not inherently immutable. Some species change sex.
Clownfish
Clownfish change sex as they age
Males have Y chromosomes. Although human males always have Y chromosomes, this is not true for all species.
Rooster
Biological male with no Y chromosome

and so forth, through all the usual misconceptions (or, sorry, "non-biological views of sex"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:24, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I guess:
The article Evolution of sexual reproduction has a section on questions.
Okay this time will be the last thing I comment here for a while. Have to do assignments. CycoMa2 (talk) 16:54, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That feels like it might be better suited for a separate article, but whether it's a section or an article I do support it. Loki (talk) 20:55, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It might be better to mention such things in prose and interspersed where appropriate; I think a table like this might run afoul of MOS or at least attract complaints, since it's unconventional at least. Crossroads -talk- 22:14, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some biologists do not agree that it is properly to refer to an individual organism as possessing a sex, rather only the haploid cells themselves (sperm and ova), so in their view it would be a category error to state "Although the sex of a human individual does not change".
"human males always have Y chromosomes" is also another false statement in any sense of the word. One could more accurately speak about the SRY-gene as "determining" sex, but human sexual development is incredibly complicated and has been studied for decades. Katzrockso (talk) 00:00, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can you give an example of a human disorder in which an affected individual does not have a Y chromosome at all, and still produces sperm? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:46, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
XX male syndrome is the relevant topic. No known cases have reported production of sperm (it is a remote possibility that there exist XX males that have translocation of the AZF), but I don't think that's relevant. Is the claim here that XX males are not males? I don't think that is concordant with usage in reliable secondary sources. Katzrockso (talk) 01:00, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See the lead of the article: "those with the condition are sterile". See the body of the article: "In all reported cases, individuals have been sterile, with azoospermia (no sperm in the ejaculate)". These individuals are not able to reproduce sexually. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:54, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that is correct and what I just stated. Katzrockso (talk) 03:15, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Under the model that sex only exists in the context of sexual reproduction, individuals that are unable to reproduce sexually do not have a sex. They might have the appearance of a sex, but not an actual sex. (The same is true for the "only cells can have a sex, not whole individuals" model you've mentioned.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:52, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are more than welcome to believe that and I think it is a much more coherent argument than some I have seen in the past, but I don't think this is reflected scientific consensus. Essentialism about "sex" appears to be the common notion in the scientific literature, otherwise scientists wouldn't use the terms "infertile males" or "male infertility" which under your model here is a contradiction.
Do you think that this understanding of "sex" is established scientific consensus among biologists? Katzrockso (talk) 05:17, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Infertility implies some (albeit limited) capacity for reproduction. Total sterility is not the same thing. The difference between the two is why modern doctors are told not to call people 'sterile', because that's hope-destroying (especially when it's accurate).
The term "sterile male" might be used to describe an individual that was previously fertile. For example, in the Sterile insect technique, fertile males are made sterile through radiation exposure.
I think that the idea that individual organisms that can't reproduce are part of the environment rather than a source of genes for the next generation is widespread in evolutionary biology. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:34, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then do a search for male and azoospermia, but it quite evident in any cursory reading of field research that reliable scientific sources do not stop referring to an organism as "male" if it is no longer capable of producing sperm. You are more than welcome to hold such a view (it is one espoused by Paul Griffiths and is an internally consistent concept of "sex"), but I don't think it is reflective of the concept as used and understood by reliable scientific sources.
Also, back to the original topic and onto the other "misconception", wouldn't your concept of "sex" above imply that an individual that undergoes orchiectomy is no longer "male" as they are no longer capable of producing sperm? If you are to take the understanding of sex as defined by gametic production, then it is strictly not correct to say that "the sex of a human individual does not change". Under Paul Griffith's view here [6], "In a sense all complex multicellular organisms ‘change sex’ because they do not have a sex at conception and must develop one as they grow to reproductive maturity". Katzrockso (talk) 06:52, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AFAICT the mainstream view is that current production of gametes isn't necessary. A male horse is male through its life, including when it is too young to produce sperm and after it has been gelded. It's only when it is never able to produce any gametes that evolutionary biology sees that horse's contribution to the next generation as being a food source for predators rather than genes contributed to offspring. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:42, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that in mathematical models of evolutionary biology, an individual that does not sexually reproduce may be considered to not be a part of the "male population" or "female population". I don't think that sterile animals are considered to be sexless by ethologists, ecologists, zoologists or other related disciplines, but I will consult with some of my colleagues on that matter. Katzrockso (talk) 23:42, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, it is strictly not corrected to speak of an "individual" having a Y chromosome, that is a category error. Cells can have a chromosome, people cannot; Mosaicism Katzrockso (talk) 01:06, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If people have cells, then people have whatever is inside the cells, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:55, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This would depend on reliable sourcing showing that these misconceptions really are misconceptions, and are significant - and particularly good sourcing on what is factual. I agree with @Katzrockso that “human males always have Y chromosomes” is debateable (and if we’re going to be labelling something as a misconception, a general correctness won’t do; this is unlike in the lead where general correctness is appropriate and nitpicks aren’t helpful) due to some DSDs and other cases where it’s mainstream and conventional to describe a body as male or female if it has followed a male or female developmental pathway and that pathway stops short of actually producing gametes. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 06:44, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's mainstream and socially conventional to assign a sex to all humans, but in the model of "gamete production determines sex", a person with a DSD that completely prevents gamete production does not have a sex, even if their doctors assign one to them or can say which sex the individual would be without the disorder. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Sex." listed at Redirects for discussion

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The redirect Sex. has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 November 19 § Sex. until a consensus is reached. ArthananWarcraft (talk) 19:30, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]