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Goal is to integrate ‘gender into all branches of research to boost accuracy,’ ‘generate innovative, equitable and inclusive findings’

International scholars concluded a five-year “equity” project by determining the concept of “gender” cannot be defined but should be incorporated into all aspects of scientific research nonetheless.

Funded by the European Union, their research was part of a project called GENDER-NET Plus. Launched in 2017, it brought together scholars from various countries to overcome “challenges in achieving gender equality and gender mainstreaming in research and innovation.”

Their final report “Integrating gender analysis into research,” published in The Lancet in July, summarized the scholars’ thoughts on “how to best integrate both sex and gender into studies ranging from social sciences, humanities, and health research.”

“Over the last two decades, there has been growing recognition … that sex (a biological variable) and gender (a sociocultural variable) influence research and research outcomes,” they wrote.

“Consequently, it has become increasingly important to integrate considerations of sex … and gender into all branches of research to boost accuracy, provide high-quality science, improve reproducibility and generate innovative, equitable and inclusive findings,” the researchers wrote.

The scholars pointed out that the National Institutes of Health in the U.S., as well as its Canadian counterpart and the European Commission, all have begun “outlining expectations that sex and gender be integrated in funding submissions and provided some guidance on how to do so.”

Still, they concluded that more work needs to be done to ensure “the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of intersectional sex and gender integration [are] promoted across the entire range of research endeavours.”

However, the scholars also refused to provide an exact definition of gender. Instead, they wrote that each research team should define it for themselves.

“Though tempting, creating a single ‘centralized’ authoritative voice (e.g., guidelines) were thought to run the risk of being dogmatic/political and contrary to scientific freedom and debate,” they wrote.

“Defining and documenting gender was found to be complex, challenging, and was approached in diverse ways in the funded studies …” they wrote. “In [some] cases … it was noted that care should be taken to avoid suggesting that ‘sex’ is a simple binary; doing so misrepresents the diversity of humans.”

In other cases, social science researchers considered “class, race, poverty level, ethnic group and age” in their definitions of gender, according to their report.

“Definitions of ‘gender’ in these studies emphasized that unequal power relations between dominant (e.g., white cisgendered) and underserved (e.g., older, substance using, migrant) groups and individuals, required thoughtful methodological choices,” they wrote.

MORE: NIH kicks out scholars critical of gender identity from ‘sex and gender’ event

A leader of Do No Harm, a U.S.-based organization focused on ethical medical practice in line with the Hippocratic oath, called the researchers’ conclusion “illogical.”

“How do you implement something that cannot be defined? Given a lack of scientific evidence to support ill-defined gender ideology, it is simply illogical to continue allowing it to shape or define American institutions,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, board chair of Do No Harm, told The Fix in an emailed statement Thursday.

Goldfarb said pushing “gender theory” is a waste of educational resources. He is a former associate dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

“Educators should be solely focused on factual, scientific evidence in their teaching. The delusion that gender is malleable and distinct from sex is disproven and dangerous when pushed on minors who may be confused or vulnerable,” he told The Fix.

“Many European countries have taken steps back from gender theory, and in England a transgender youth clinic was closed because of a lack of evidence for the experimental interventions they were performing. Why should any professor be teaching a disproven theory?” Goldfarb said.

Most of the scholars involved in the GENDER-NET Plus project were European and Canadian, but one member of the advisory board, Londa Schiebinger, (pictured) is a professor at Stanford University. Her contribution to the project was on computer science and the role that gender plays in its study.

Schieberger did not respond to several requests for comment from The Fix via email. The Fix also contacted several other project leaders by email recently, but none responded.

In a keynote presentation to GENDER-NET Plus in 2022, Schieberger said incorporating gender into research is important because there are problems with “unintentional bias” even in “algorithms” and “software systems.”

For example, an MIT study found facial recognition programs performed better on men’s faces than women’s and on lighter skinned people than those with darker skin, she said. Additionally, “the system cannot recognize transgender faces often, especially during periods of transition,” Schieberger said.

GENDER-NET Plus concluded in 2023 with a total of “13 transnational research projects integrating a gender dimension.” These included a study about “gender difference” in immunotherapy side effects for cancer patients and research on “overcoming the entrepreneurial ecosystem gender divide,” according to its website.

The project also provided free trainings to help researchers and institutions embrace “gender equality in research, innovation, and higher education.”

The European Union spent 3.8 million euros (about $4.1 million) on the project, according to the grant agreement.

MORE: Evolutionary biologists reject ‘white, male’ framework, embrace ‘queer’ DEI research

IMAGE: GENDER-NET Plus/YouTube

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