Argument from the beard

Well, aren't we caught in a hairy situation. Consider the well-groomed idea of “the beard argument.” While it might seem like a close shave, it's not just a matter of brushing down the grain to glean the truth.

Invoking intersex individuals to debunk the male-female binary does indeed have a whiff of the continuum fallacy. This is like saying you can't tell the difference between a clean-shaven face and a full lumberjack beard just because there's a blur of stubble and goatee in-between. It's neglecting the fact that most people still distinctly fall into the 'clean-shaven' or 'burly beard' categories, or in this case, male or female.

So yes, there's more to the question than just splitting hairs. But be careful not to let the razor's edge of logical discussion nick your understanding of the complex and layered nature of this topic. Do the nuances make the bigger picture irrelevant? Or is the bigger picture still unabashedly grinning back at us - beard, stubble or smooth cheek notwithstanding?

Maybe. Depends on what they mean by that.

If their point is that the binary in biological sex isn't a true binary, because there are people who don't neatly fit into the two main categories based on their accepted definitions, that would be a valid claim.

If their point is that there's no meaningful distinction between males and females at all, I could see that being an example of the continuum fallacy. There are a finite number of intersex conditions that have been identified, I want to say 28, which have been classified as male-type or female-type. You could argue that some of those classifications are arbitrary, but that argument doesn't expand outward.