Science Salon

Is our gender something we’re born with, or are we conditioned by society? In The End of Gender, neuroscientist and sexologist Dr. Debra Soh uses a research-based approach to address this hot-button topic, unmasking popular misconceptions about the nature vs. nurture debate and exploring what it means to be a woman or a man in today’s society. Shermer and Soh discuss: If you are transitioning to a different gender, but the word “gender” is largely meaningless biologically, then what are you transitioning to and what is the point of hormone therapy and surgery? the 1990s push to find biological basis of homosexuality so it’s not a “lifestyle choice” and how this trend has been recently reversed, the problem of putting ideology before science, cognitive creationism on the left (evolution from the neck down), why biology is not destiny, cancel culture, sex and gender, percentages of the population of LGBTQ, what you identify as vs. who you’re attracted to, individual behavior vs. collective labels, sexual orien