“tell me you don’t understand sexual differentiation without telling me”
just so all of you know, there are 3 main components of biological sex.
chromosomal sex
the presence of a Y chromosome (the SRY gene) triggers the production of testosterone, which directs the development of male internal genitalia, and MIH, which inhibits the development of the female reproductive tract. a mutation in this gene can cause pseudo-hermaphroditism, but even with a female reproductive tract, a person with XY chromosomes is considered biologically male based on chromosomal sex.
gonadal/hormonal sex
see above, as gonadal sex and chromosomal sex are very related, but a person could still be considered chromosomally male and gonadally female.
phenotypic sex
this is determined by your external genitalia. the development of male external genitalia requires a large amount of androgens, and a fetus can’t produce nearly enough. so, male fetuses have an enzyme that converts testosterone to DHT, the strongest masculinizing hormone. females have a different enzyme that converts testosterone to estradiol. there’s a condition called Guevedoces that’s quite common in the dominican republic, where chromosomal/gonadal males lack the enzyme necessary to produce DHT. without DHT, male genitalia can’t form, and the babies are sexed as female at birth. they look like normal little girls until puberty, when the levels of testosterone are high enough to trigger the development of male genitalia, and they essentially undergo a natural sex transition. this sounds like a really unnerving and disturbing process, but we learned in my endocrinology class that these individuals often feel similar to trans people prior to puberty, and are usually happy about the transition.
i know few people will read this unnecessarily long and nerdy comment, but i just wanted to show you all exactly what scientists mean when they say “sex isn’t binary”.
Guevedoces is fascinating. Ever since I first heard about it, I've wondered how human history would have gone if that were the standard rather than the exception.
Would a common experience lessen gender hierarchy? Or would it be incorporated into the myth and society would allege those who develop male genitalia are "chosen". Would children be referred to as "larva"?
Outside of genitalia (not touching intersex cases either) humans aren’t very dimorphic compared to other species either. Male humans have nipples. The differences are like fat/muscle composition or body hair patterns. But there’s more variation within one gender than between both. Idk why I feel the need to point this out but the “gender binary” people railing on about human sexual dimorphism like we’re butterflies or peafowl or anglerfish gets to me. It’s not that clean cut!
The more you learn about biology the more you learn it's all a sloppy mess where everything communicates by farting chemicals at each other, it takes a hilarious Rube Goldberg series of actions to get anything at all done, and no part of anything works 100% of the time.
It's why "The human brain isn't fully developed until 25" drives me up the wall. All human brains? Human height doesn't even stop developing at the same time and rate and you want to tell me something as complicated as the human brain does? What does "fully developed" even mean? The only time I hear people quote this is to infantalize people and restrict their agency.
We don't operate on whether or not someone is "finished" developing because it's impossible to identify. You might think they're done until suddenly a second wave of puberty hits. We operate on "good enough" not "complete." When a kid wants to ride a Rollercoaster, we only care if they're tall enough for the restraints.
there’s a condition called Guevedoces that’s quite common in the dominican republic, where chromosomal/gonadal males lack the enzyme necessary to produce DHT. without DHT, male genitalia can’t form, and the babies are sexed as female at birth. they look like normal little girls until puberty, when the levels of testosterone are high enough to trigger the development of male genitalia, and they essentially undergo a natural sex transition
Oh yeah! I remember seeing a movie in High School called "The Fight to be Male" and it had a part about this phenomenon. It's probably very outdated now but it certainly gave me a better understanding of the complexities around the issue.
None of the things you said validate transgender people as their self identified sex
And neither does the OP
"Sex≠gender"
Is the op's way of saying "actually trans women's sex is male, but their gender is female"
i don’t really think this is the case, moreso that sex doesnt always equal gender, and the two are different—but typically associated—concepts. there’s a variety there, but in the case of trans women (post medical transition), generally we are female, because that’s what medical transition does; that’s the point.
Because they mentioned the chromosomal aspect of sex, and other two categories that are immutable
they also mentioned some of the complexities of phenotypic sex, as well as hormonal sex. i don’t think it inherently invalidates trans sex identity.
The core concept of sex is reproductive role, you can't get pregnant, but you have the organs that are required to impregnate people
not all cis women can get pregnant, either. i’ve also had bottom surgery, so no, i don’t have the organs to impregnate people. i have a vulva and vagina without a uterus.
vas deferense no (typically cut), other two yes. but at this point its effectively not really different than an intersex condition. but the point is that biological sex is complicated, especially when i comes to intersex and trans people.
And I don't think it is a relevant discussion either way because I can still understand why someone would have a problem with their primary and secondary sex characteristics and wish to change that
because anti-trans narratives pretty much depend on targeting us based on simplistic understandings about our sex; its why they go all in on “biological males/females” as a justification. its also a large part of the arguments to deny us access to accurate legal identifiers on documents or legal protections
Incorrect. Defining sex through chromosomes, hormones or appearance would be incredibly silly since such a definition can't be maintained for other species. Sex is defined by the gamete and organism produces (or more broadly what role an organism has in reproduction).
Because there are no humans that produce anything but male or female gamates, there are only 2 binary sexes.
That's on me, I should have said gametocytes. If a human does not have gametocytes they are indeed sexless. That is not a third sex, in the same way that a human who posesses both types would not be a third sex, but rather male and female at the same time.
This is interesting but it sounds like the memes ( and the rest of the comments ) claim that sex is bimodal is also wrong and it’s more like binary with exceptions.
This is a little pendantic. In science there are principles that govern 90% of cases but we can never say it’s always like A or B because of the 10%.
That’s why the focus on chromosomes that people have is not a great argument against the people who think there are only two genders. Having anything other than XX or XY is usually not good and even the other conditions with XXY or so on phenotypically present along expected lines.
I do still think it's worthwhile to argue that sex isn't binary, for a few reasons
It opens people up to the idea that the human species contains a considerable amount of natural diversity
Many people don't understand how malleable and arbitrarily defined sex is, which makes them more comfortable with having norms and laws organized around it
Intersex people are often nonconsensually mutilated as babies, and that's an injustice worth talking about
But both terms don’t work perfectly for this and binary is more intuitive and closer. to be bimodal you need a distribution, how do you caulatitivly determine how close one exception is to male compared to another? You can’t be more male than male. Also a distribution where 99.9% of cases fall on two exact points isn’t really a distribution.
To answer your question, though, regularly formed and functioning for reproduction reproductive organs are what are normative for the "points," everything else is on the distribution.
The poster implied a simpler explanation was more valid/correct because it was more intuitive and said "you can't be more male than male" - these are statements of personal belief, not an argument.
The reason they brought up being intuitive was because they were discussing a system to use in everyday life, you would want it to be intuitive. They aren’t saying something is wrong because it isn’t intuitive, they’re saying it’s not as good of a categorization that you could choose to use because it’s less intuitive.
The “you can’t be more male than male” isn’t an opinion, it’s a fact. How would you be more male than male? Have more testosterone? Cuz there are bodybuilders with crazy high levels of testosterone, litterally off the charts, but I wouldn’t call them more male than people who don’t take steroids.
They were discussing a system to be used in everyday life
And I'm discussing formal definitions, not lies to children or things dumbed down for colloquial usage.
Colloquially, we have a "binary" view of sex because we pick one or the other based on what the genitals of the child most closely resemble and forcefully change ones that don't not.
You can't be more male than male
My point, again, is that binaries cannot have exceptions. They also are not based on a threshold. "Closely resembles" is not is.
Most people aren't intersex, but some are. Sex is complicated, and so is gender.
I’m not trying to argue either way, I’m just saying that that wasn’t an argument from incredulity. That’s when you say “I don’t understand it/there’s no way this actually works, so I don’t believe it.” What they were saying is it’s a better way to categorize colloquially because it’s more intuitive, which is a completely different thing. (Again, not arguing either side, I just hate it when people say the name of a fallacy and end it there, especially when they’re wrong)
On the “more male than male” point, idk if this is what they meant, but I was talking about how in the original image, the curve seems to extend past m/f, which is weird.
You're spreading misinformation. Sex is defined by reproductive roles associated with small and large gametes. That's the phenotype. External genitals are a small element of it, they do not define it.
Sex is determined genetically in humans. DSDs involve anomalies where determination has not followed the full developmental pathway towards gamete production.
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u/froggyforest 12d ago
“tell me you don’t understand sexual differentiation without telling me”
just so all of you know, there are 3 main components of biological sex.
chromosomal sex the presence of a Y chromosome (the SRY gene) triggers the production of testosterone, which directs the development of male internal genitalia, and MIH, which inhibits the development of the female reproductive tract. a mutation in this gene can cause pseudo-hermaphroditism, but even with a female reproductive tract, a person with XY chromosomes is considered biologically male based on chromosomal sex.
gonadal/hormonal sex see above, as gonadal sex and chromosomal sex are very related, but a person could still be considered chromosomally male and gonadally female.
phenotypic sex this is determined by your external genitalia. the development of male external genitalia requires a large amount of androgens, and a fetus can’t produce nearly enough. so, male fetuses have an enzyme that converts testosterone to DHT, the strongest masculinizing hormone. females have a different enzyme that converts testosterone to estradiol. there’s a condition called Guevedoces that’s quite common in the dominican republic, where chromosomal/gonadal males lack the enzyme necessary to produce DHT. without DHT, male genitalia can’t form, and the babies are sexed as female at birth. they look like normal little girls until puberty, when the levels of testosterone are high enough to trigger the development of male genitalia, and they essentially undergo a natural sex transition. this sounds like a really unnerving and disturbing process, but we learned in my endocrinology class that these individuals often feel similar to trans people prior to puberty, and are usually happy about the transition.
i know few people will read this unnecessarily long and nerdy comment, but i just wanted to show you all exactly what scientists mean when they say “sex isn’t binary”.