Agustin Fuentes on Why Sex is a Spectrum

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In his new book “Sex is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary,” Princeton biological anthropologist Agustin Fuentes makes the case that among animals, including humans, sex variation and reproductive biology is far more complex and fluid than we think. We discuss why many of the assumptions about male and female differences are more cultural than biological, and what intersex earthworms and fish that switch sexes can teach us about gender and sex. Guests: Agustín Fuentes, anthropologist, Princeton University; his latest book is called "Sex is a Spectrum" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:33.3	You know, over the last couple of decades, many of sciences understandings about biology, particularly our attempts to simplify the complexities of living organisms, have fallen to empirical evidence.
1:40.3	Brains, genetics, development, evolution, it's all more dynamic and complex than anyone could have imagined.
1:48.2	In a new book, Princeton Biological Anthropologist Augustine Fuentes brings new scientific understanding of human reproductive biology and sex variation to demolish most of the old men are from Mars, women are from Venus-type
	...

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