Credentialed Fictions and the Sex Binary

Abstract The sex binary can be a useful idealization in scientific models; a fiction helpful for sorting people into two categories to investigate the possible mechanisms driving the differences we observe. However, attempts to say that the sex binary is anything more than that are misguided. Alisa Bokulich’s account of credentialed fictions will help substantiate this point to articulate a more nuanced view of the fictional sex binary in modeling terms. I will argue that, despite often treating it as such, the sex binary is not an approximation of biological sex nor is it explanatory.