[Tweet from @/fozmeadows: “human gender and sexuality are very much like animal taxonomy, in that both look structured and simple on the surface, but once you start investigating, it turns out there’s actually no such thing as a fish despite the fact that we all know what a fish is, and that’s okay”]
As a biologist, that is a fantastic comparison.
We talk about “fish” (which, cladistically, do not exist, there is no monophyletic group of “fish” that simultaneously includes all organisms we understand to be “fish”-like while also excluding, say, humans) because, despite the utter fiction that is fish, it’s still a useful label when we talk about certain features that “fish” tend to have in common.
