Jezza Donovan

Queer,Writer, Actor, Creative soul in Brighton & Hove. Work for @Genderintell I do work that supports LGBTQ+ people all over the UK. I love TENKO.

[Daniel Lismore @daniellismore]

Richard Dawkins Built His Career on Variation. Then He Decided Sex Was the One Exception.
Eye colour is on a spectrum. Height is on a spectrum. Skin colour is on a spectrum. Hair colour is on a spectrum. According to Richard Dawkins and the argument now circulating in his name, sex is somehow the one trait in human biology that breaks this pattern entirely. Binary. Fixed. No variation allowed.

This is a strange position for an evolutionary biologist to take, because variation is the entire foundation of his life's work.

The Man Who Wrote The Selfish Gene Forgot About Genetic Variation - Dawkins built his reputation explaining how variation drives evolution itself. Mutation, recombination and chromosomal variation are the raw material natural selection acts on. He has spent decades explaining this to the public. Yet when it comes to sex chromosomes specifically, the argument suddenly becomes that there are exactly two configurations and nothing else exists.

That is simply not true. XX and XY are the most common configurations in humans. They are not the only ones. XXY, XYY, XXYY and X0 all occur naturally and produce living people, some of whom go their entire lives without ever learning their own karyotype. These are not edge cases invented by activists. They are documented chromosomal variations that have been in medical literature for over a century.

The Body Does Not Read From the Same Script Dawkins Is Using

Around 1.7 percent of people are born intersex. That is roughly the same proportion of the population born with red hair, a trait nobody describes as a hoax or an ideology.

Some intersex people are born with ambiguous genitalia. Some have internal reproductive organs that do not match their external anatomy. Androgen insensitivity syndrome produces people with XY chromosomes and a fully female body, because their cells cannot respond to testosterone at all, regardless of what their chromosomes say. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia produces the reverse pattern. None of this fits into two boxes. It was never designed to.

The Brain Was Never Part of His Argument. Why? The biggest gap in the binary argument is the brain, and it is the part that gets skipped every time.

The genitals differentiate in the first two months of pregnancy, under one hormonal cascade. The brain differentiates separately, in the second half of pregnancy, under a different hormonal environment entirely. Two distinct biological processes, on two different timelines, that do not always produce matching outcomes in the same person.

This has been documented in Nature, in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, across more than two decades of peer reviewed research. Zhou et al found brain structure differences in transgender women as early as 1995. Kruijver et al confirmed it in 2000 using neuron counts rather than volume. Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab confirmed it again in 2008. None of this is fringe. None of it is recent. It has simply never been part of the argument Dawkins is making, because it falls outside the field he is actually trained in.

An Evolutionary Biologist Talking Outside His Lane… Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist. His career has focused on natural selection, gene-centred evolution and population genetics, largely studied through birds and insects. Developmental biology, embryology, endocrinology and neuroscience, the specific fields that actually study how sex develops in the human body, are not his field.

That does not make him wrong by default. It does mean his authority on this specific question is borrowed rather than earned, in exactly the same way a heart surgeon's opinion on astrophysics would carry intellectual weight without being the right person to ask. The actual specialists in this question, the embryologists and endocrinologists and geneticists who study human sex development for a living, have published findings that directly contradict the binary he is describing

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

@sacha_coward Samesies

[Joss Prior ❤️🌈Female-Coded Energy🌈❤️ @joss_prior]

The LGBTQ community has a long and spicy history of ignoring laws made by the beige brigade to target us or attack our freedoms.

Trans people are going to choose where we go and where we pee.

Being mediocre about it will only fuel defiance anyway.

[Kelly @broadwaybabyto]

Not a drag queen. Not an immigrant. Not a trans person.

A white “religious” man who claimed he could cure people who were gay.

They accuse others so you won’t suspect them.

Never forget it.

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

Glimmer

[Carla Denyer @carla_denyer]

(... which is more than Reform, by the way)

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

Take a few minutes to read this whole thread, some excellent questions… and some ACTUAL facts! Remember them?

[Aidan Comerford @AidanCTweets]

Hi @hannahsbee

In 2022, the UK media reported that it was anticipated that "1000 families" (sic) would sue the Tavistock GIDs clinic, and the case would be filed within months. To date, there is no case. As you are somewhat of an expert, and a journalist, can you explain this?

[Laurie Penny @PennyRed]

Gender testing at the Olympics was introduced in 1936 under the Nazis.
In the 60s, female athletes had to strip naked for inspection.
Women in sport have endured a century of humiliating body policing. Why?
Because their accomplishments violate sexist standards of womanhood.

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

Exactly…

[SpeakOutSister @speakoutsister]

Thalidomide was released on the market in 1957 and removed in 1961 when the severe harm it caused in pregnancy became widely known.

That's 4 years.

Puberty blockers have been in use since the mid 1980s, that's 40 years.

Where's the evidence of harm?

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

👏👏👏👏👏

[Dawn Butler ✊🏾💙 @DawnButlerBrent]

I haven't even got anything on my lanyard!

I'm just wearing it to wind up the minister.

#PMQs
#lgbt
#solidaritymatters

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

Yep… we DID say… bizarre that I’m
enjoying something in the torygraph but there we are…

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

I could name names… but I won’t bother right now…

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

This!!

[Serious trans vibes Comics @AssignedMale]

Wildest things that came out of the Cass Report on trans healthcare

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

This piece from @freddymcconnell is definitely worth your time, have a read.

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

Drop what you're doing, and read the best piece on the Cass review, by @freddymcconnell:

"Hilary Cass’s proposals are mostly common sense. She must reject anti-trans bias with the same clarity."

https://t.co/Eb3i83FrzW

[Allison Chapman @AlliRaine22]

🚩When reports throw out studies on HRT and Puberty Blockers solely because they lack being blind it's bad science and transphobic.

It's literally IMPOSSIBLE to have a double blind study for HRT/Blockers because people will notice if they are going through puberty or not.

[Stonewall @stonewalluk]

The Cass Review, an independent review of gender care services for children and young people, has been published today after almost four years. We know that elements of the review and how it is covered in the news may cause concern for trans children and young people and their loved ones.

What is important, above all, is that trans and gender-diverse children get the quality healthcare that they need and deserve. The Cass Review can play a vital role in achieving this aim, if its recommendations are implemented properly.

Many recommendations could make a positive impact – such as expanding provision of healthcare by moving away from a single national service towards a series of regional centres, while recognising that there are many different treatment pathways that trans children and young people might take. But without due care, training or further capacity in the system, others could lead to new barriers that prevent children and young people from accessing the care they need and deserve.

We urge NHS England and policymakers to read and digest the full report and consider Dr Cass' plea "to remember the children and young people trying to live their lives and the families/ carers and clinicians doing their best to support them. All should be treated with compassion and respect."

We will publish further analysis of the Cass Review and the questions it raises later today.

Sending love and solidarity to the trans community. Please take care and reach out for support if you need it:

@switchboardLGBT
@MindlineTrans
@MindOutLGBTQ
@YoungMindsUK
@TheProudTrust
Childline

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

Yup

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

STARTED to infect? WTAF Maitlis and Goodall here showing how they are nowhere near as intelligent/perceptive as they think they are, but they’re CONVINCED they are those things… which is what makes them so dangerous…

[The News Agents @TheNewsAgents]

“The extent to which trans people have become the butt of the joke in Westminster speaks to a level of transphobia that’s started to infect British political debate.”

Listen on @GlobalPlayer
https://t.co/SdyBDl7qyY

@maitlis | @lewis_goodall

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

This ❤️🏳️‍⚧️

[Politics For You @PoliticoForYou]

BREAKING 🚨🚨🚨

Multiple journalists, children’s authors, politicians and TV presenters manage to avoid jail time for their roll in the murder of Brianna Ghey.

[Jezza Donovan @jezza_donovan]

@JackDunc1 I LOVED that show! It was a large part of my sex Ed… the voiceover/dubbings were brilliance x