This edition of Forthright Radio features Princeton University Anthropology Professor, Agustín Fuentes. His research focuses on the biocultural, delving into the entanglement of biological systems and the social and cultural lives of humans, our ancestors, and a few of the other animals with whom humanity shares close relations. Trained in both zoology and anthropology, his early work looked at the behavior and ecology of humans and other primates, and their patterns and trends in social organization. In the early 2000s, he added a focus on human biological variation, and the use – and misuse – of those patterns and processes in the context of race/racism and sex/gender.
Among his books, which we discuss in our interview with him, are his most recently published in 2025, SEX IS A SPECTRUM: THE BIOLOGICAL LIMITS OF THE BINARY; as well as his earlier, RACE, MONOGAMY, AND OTHER LIES THEY TOLD YOU; and THE CREATIVE SPARK: HOW IMAGINATION MADE HUMANS EXCEPTIONAL.
Articles, etc. pertinent to this conversation:
Politics, Not Biology, Is Driving Legal Efforts to Classify Sex https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-trump-administrations-legal-argument-to-classify-sex-is-bad-biology/
This is not the time to step back from diversity, equity, and inclusion https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz9026
Sex, Biology, And Sports: Data And Context Matter https://americananthro.org/present-tense/sex-biology-and-sports-data-and-context-matter/
An initial report of circa 241,000- to 335,000-year-old rock engravings and their relation to Homo naledi in the Rising Star cave system, South Africa https://elifesciences.org/articles/89102
How America’s First Nonbinary Minister Created True Equality in the Newly Born United States https://lithub.com/how-americas-first-nonbinary-minister-created-true-equality-in-the-newly-born-united-states/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
Human rights court says Caster Semenya did not get fair hearing in seven-year sex eligibility rules fight https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6485335/2025/07/10/caster-semenya-trial-athletics/?searchResultPosition=1
Caster Semenya: ‘I’m Still a Woman’ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/books/review/caster-semenya-the-race-to-be-myself.html?searchResultPosition=8
19 States Sue to Block White House Plan to End Gender-Related Care for Minors https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/us/states-lawsuit-kennedy-gender-care-hospitals.html
Health workers decry hasty House bills to ban gender-affirming care for children: ‘They hurt people’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/17/house-bills-ban-gender-affirming-care-children
3 Democrats Signed on to Marjorie Taylor Green’s Bill Criminalizing Trans Youth Care https://www.them.us/story/marjorie-taylor-greene-trans-gender-youth-care-bill-pass-criminalize
They’re doing to America what they did to Christianity https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/nov/23/america-christian-evangelical-discrimination-immigration excerpt from this essay by Bill McKibben:
…Doug Wilson, the self-taught pastor who co-founded Pete Hegseth’s denomination has insisted that it was a mistake to let women vote. (He also teaches that sex “cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party”, because “a man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”)….
Judge orders Montana DMV to issue driver’s license to youth who applied as nonbinary https://montanafreepress.org/2025/12/05/judge-orders-montana-dmv-to-issue-drivers-license-to-youth-who-applied-as-nonbinary/
How Monogamous Are Humans Actually? https://nautil.us/how-monogamous-are-humans-actually-1253734/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
Humans rank above meerkats but below beavers in monogamy league table https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/dec/10/humans-rank-among-leading-monogamous-mammals-study-finds
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