and stars are enacting the trans agenda to turn Hydrogen into Helium
Everytime I wake up in the morning, it’s because the light of a star has made me woke. Coincidences? I THINK NOT!
We also know elements can’t change to a different element through any kind of reaction or anything that would be absurd. I’m tired of these woke scientists.
Have you tried alchemy?
Alchemy started as a hastily invented way to disguise a piss-drinking fetish that got way way out of hand.
I keep reading about how they don’t have enough helium supply. Is everything fake news?
There’s plenty if you want to go get it from the sun
I’m just a Helium atom living in a Hydrogen atoms universe.
Wow, way to be another Atomist propagating more Hydrogenism lies!
Down with the hydriaechy!
I have a question for kind of the whole thread in general, regarding the gametes discussion. Isn’t it the case that a human is born with all the eggs they’ll ever have? So like if you aren’t born with any, you’ll never make any later? And if so, isn’t the only way to produce eggs to become pregnant with a child and make their eggs for them?
e: I’m getting the impression that this comment is interpreted as a transphobic argument. To be clear, I don’t think sex is binary, and that even if it were, it would have no bearing on gender.
I’ve added a link to the discussion which inspired the question.
Update: It’s possible for an intersex person to have both eggs and sperm, so I think that definition of sex as a binary collapses on itself, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovotesticular_syndrome (I’m not sure I agree with characterizing any kind of intersex as disordered, but I also don’t know enough about it to make a strong argument and also I didn’t write the page.)
Are you asking leading questions?
There’s a comment chain in this thread focused on the definition of sex as producing one of two gametes, which leads to pointing out that some people produce no gametes, which is countered by saying they could potentially produce them in the future or if they didn’t have a particular condition, etc. Normally I would post this kind of question directly to someone, but the same stuff is being said so many times that I’m not sure which one to reply to, hence creating a new comment chain.
Basically I’m thinking that defining the female sex by ability (or potential ability) to produce eggs might be faulty on the grounds that no one produces eggs. Or that only a person pregnant with a child who will be born with eggs can be said to have achieved femaleness by this definition. Or maybe the baby is the one making the eggs, so the only way to be female is to have produced eggs prior to birth. I’m not really sure of the details regarding when the eggs develop or who’s really responsible for them, I’m just pretty sure they’re there at birth and it’s interesting to think about.
The term that might help you is “oogenesis”.
Essentially once cells have begun dividing following fertilization some are set apart as germ cells. These are the cells that eventually become gametes. The thing is, like I tried to mention in my last reply to that guy, it isn’t strictly chromosomes that determine what these cells become in humans. Lots of genetic transcription and translation factors, hormones and hormone receptors, ligands and so on are involved. Sometimes those cells don’t even make it into the gonad, they die, and are absorbed by the embryo’s body.
This is why sex isn’t a binary, there is a spectrum of outcomes following gametogenesis, including a lack of gametes. Statistically it is most likely for a person who is born XX to have primary and secondary female sex characteristics. But that doesn’t mean people who fall outside of that aren’t also “biologically” women. If you define a woman as someone that is born with eggs, you deny womanhood to millions of people that would otherwise be considered a cis-woman by outdated standards.
That person stated one argument and then kept changing it, eventually arguing that we just weren’t understanding his words. Either he’s willfully ignorant and pushing a definition that is not taught in American universities, or he has an agenda. And the refusal to acknowledge the 30+ comments telling him he is wrong really suggests that there is an agenda.
I’m pretty sure they have an agenda, yeah. I just wanted to think about the premise on its own terms, like how one might think about the definition of a fish? I feel like it’s both personally enriching and better equips me to respond to such arguments. Even though I don’t think they’ll listen to anyone, I don’t think anyone’s responses to them were a waste of time because I really feel like I’ve learned a lot from reading them, and I’m sure plenty of other people did too, so thank you for your labor.
No agenda here other than scientific accuracy. I’ll recommend you read this [peer-reviewed and written by a biologist] paper (Why There Are Exactly Two Sexes), which explains the sex binary:
Across anisogamous species, the existence of two—and only two—sexes has been a settled matter in modern biology
Here I synthesize evolutionary and developmental evidence to demonstrate that sex is binary (i.e., there are only two sexes) in all anisogamous species and that males and females are defined universally by the type of gamete they have the biological function to produce—not by karyotypes, secondary sexual characteristics, or other correlates.
The commenter you’re responding to is sadly confused. Nobody (or at least certainly not me) is saying that “a woman is someone that is born with eggs” or that “chromosomes strictly determine what these cells become”. They’re trying to misinterpret what the scientific consensus is, and I would be wary of their agenda. Reading papers like the one I linked is a much better source than the inaccuracies of the commenter you’re responding to. If reading papers isn’t your thing, here’s another quote from biologists elsewhere in the thread:
In animals and plants, binary sex is universally defined by gamete type, even though sexes vary in how they are developmentally determined and phenotypically identified across taxa.
That’s the point of differentiating between sex and gender. Sex is indeed binary, there are exactly two gamete sizes. Gender is what captures everything on top of that base.
Sex encompasses everything about the body including external and internal organs, hormones, (facial) hair, voice (level), body height, … none of which are binary. Reducing it to gamete size makes it meaningless
Those are sex phenotypes
And that’s what sex means in the context of sex vs gender. Are you new to the concept that words have different meanings in different contexts? This isn’t about evolutionary biology.
Well, no. People just misunderstand what sex means in that context. You can’t disentangle sex vs gender from evolutionary biology.
This is an “either I’m stupid or everybody else” moment and I let you decide on your own.
Words don’t have inherent meaning but get meaning by the people who use it in the context they do. It’s an collective and context sensitive process. I remember how in one linguistics lecture (typology), we differentiated prepositions from postpositions whereas the syntax prof was like “I don’t care if the preposition is before or after”.
Also: Judith Butler discusses your gamete definition as utterly irrelevant in this context in Who’s Afraid Of Gender so it’s not that they aren’t aware. That’s all the hint I give you.
Judith Butler is one of those people that, when you find yourself agreeing with her, you should sit back and really consider how you arrived at that conclusion. She’s not always wrong, but she’s very wrong on a lot of stuff, including the gamete definition. Here’s one example:
You may see elsewhere in this thread where I point out the difference between sex determination and sex definition, which is mentioned in that link:
Here she conflates “determination” with “definition”, a bad move for someone as smart as Butler.
The gist of the article is:
Butler should have done her homework.
You could have engaged with my argument but instead you send an article that willfully ignores my argument as well and sprinkles in enough transphobic talking points to speak to the right while still presenting as rational and reasonable. Trans women in prisons commit far less assaults than prison warts but sure, they are the problem.
Anyway, I stand corrected. It’s not only you but you and some random blogger who are stupid. Enjoy your fruit salad with tomatoes, avocados and pumpkin until you start to consider that not every definition is valid in every context.
Gender is a social construct. There, I disentangled it from evolutionary biology.
Sure, but nobody’s arguing that. Sex is very much real and very much not a social construct.
If no one’s arguing it then why did you bring it up? And no one said anything about sex being a social construct. It’s obviously a biological thing, which explains why you seem not to understand it.
There’s at least a third gamete size of 0, as in, no gametes, so there goes that binary
Their bodies are still organized around the production of one or the other of two gamete sizes, even if they don’t produce any
Except when they’re not. At which point your binary classification* system has more than two classifications it can make, making it definitionally not binary.
Nobody’s body is organized around the production of no gametes.
sex absolutely isn’t binary.
I think you’re misunderstanding how sex is defined. It’s very much a binary, but that doesn’t include gender, and doesn’t include sex phenotypes.
someone here has never heard of the sry gene and doesn’t think intersex conditions exist and it isn’t me
You’re confusing sex determination with sex definition. Those are variations within a sex.
Okay, now that we’ve established you only have a juvenile understand of biology and sex, do you want to tell us more wrong things?
It’s easy to throw around insults, but it would help if you started by not being wrong in the first place. SRY gene is part of how sex is determined, but not how sex is defined. Intersex conditions exist, but that’s confusing terminology, and it’s confused you. Those are male and female Disorders of sex development
SRY gene is part of how sex is determined, but not how sex is defined.
…by Donald Trump in his stupid antitrans bill.
Biologists are quite happy with using chromosomes to describe sex. Spoiler alert: there are more than two possibilities. Even with trump’s stupid definition there are at least three.
Gametes are haploid, they’re not even potentially human by themselves.
I think you’re confused about the point of contention here
Well I think we should caveat this as “in humans there is a tendency for sex to fall under two large umbrellas of typical characteristics” as there’s millions of small caveats for many mammals (its speculated parthenogenesis could naturally occur in humans under certain conditions).
Because of how early some features tend to develop in mammals there’s less variation than in other types of animals.
Outside mammals: Amphibians, Reptiles and Birds have many species that can change sex.
Outside animals: Plants and fungi are an absolute mess.
No biologist defines sex based on gametes alone, there are many characteristics that make up sex. Why would you define it that way? Because you started with your answer, that sex MUST be binary, and worked backwards from there.
Unfortunately that’s backwards. Sex is defined by gamete size because it’s the only coherent definition across so much of the animal kingdom. As an example, did you know that male seahorses give birth? It’s true, but how do we know that they’re male? Because they make the smaller of the two gamete sizes. Same thing with female hyenas. They have a pseudo-penis, so why don’t we consider them male? Because they produce the larger of two gamete sizes
O person whose comment history is mainly trolling on trans-supportive posts for hours at a stretch, it is you who have it backwards.
(You are using trump’s recently legislated definition of sex, and I’m afraid you’re picking the wrong teacher there. Trump can no more legislate a revision to science than whatever state it was that stupidly passed a bill claiming that pi was 3! The liar in chief isn’t being factually accurate.)
Your sex determimes whether you produce sperm or eggs or neither, yes, in the sense that cause has effect, but you’re claiming that the effect is the same thing as the cause or that gamete size determines sex. This is a classic logical blunder. Species determines number of legs, but number of legs does not determine species. Typically, species have 0,2,4,6,8 and occasionally more legs (or 1), but this does not mean that there are only 5 species!
You also claim in other threads that you prefer to use sex over gender in reference to people, which is strongly antitrans despite you pretending that your opponents are anti-trans.
You’re very focused on Trump. Not sure why, but whatever he’s doing is irrelevant to the science. I also didn’t make a statement about what I prefer.
If you have a beef with sex determination vs definition, take it up with the field of biology.
As usual, you ignored pretty much every substantive point because you don’t have facts on your side, just bigotry, determination and trump.
Now you’re lying about your shitty anti trans post history.
Lol, the sex prescriptivist
I see what you’re going for, but it’s literally the opposite. Sex is defined by gamete size because biologists wanted to describe the world they found accurately and coherently. It’s a descriptivist approach.
the fact that basic biology is being heavily downvoted is horrifying.
apparently just taking a normal biology course is now cause for anger and confusion.
Powerstruggle is misusing terms from school level biology to make a political point and trolling people who are explaining the mistakes in it.
“Basic” biology - in fact it’s biology that has been oversimplified and misapplied to the point of untruth.
I wish this were for fun. Unfortunately, you’re being anti-science
Nah, you’re just taking crap because of your political indoctrination. We can read your post history.
Stupid enough to be hoodwinked into supporting right wingers is often stupid enough to refuse to understand even when people explain.
Sadly no. I’m leftist, but also not willing to abandon science because it feels nice. Right wingers are right on this like a broken clock is right twice a day and all that. Or that Hitler was a vegetarian, but that doesn’t mean that vegetarianism is wrong or bad. Pick your favorite analogy
Lol. Leftist like “Dems are evil, don’t ever let them win” or leftist like “Trump is a fascist cunt who should have been kept from power”
Being anti trans is classic hater territory, which is why it attracts right wingers.
As in the latter. Trump is a fascist cunt who should have been kept from power.
I don’t expect you to believe it, but realizing that biology is real doesn’t mean being anti-trans.
Would you care to explain yourself? Maybe explain how folks that would never produce either gamete fit into your binary based on gamete production? Or is that too advanced? I hear we are sticking to basic biology after all.
Nobody’s body is a blank slate. Just because one developmental pathway didn’t turn out as expected doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to determine sex. Their bodies are still organized around producing one or the other of two gamete sizes, hence binary.
organized around producing one or the other of two gamete sizes
This implies that the organization can fail then? That is how we put the outliers in the binary? That means that that kind of organization has a goal?
That feels like common sense. Like in the culturally-rooted sense. Not necessarily a reflection of reality, but an easy idea to swallow. I don’t think human development has intention in that kind of way unless you are religious.
I guess, what makes gamete production the goal of human development? What makes you confident that there is a goal to human development?
To me it seems like it would be hard to answer those questions without anthropomorphizing human development.
You’re asking questions that are great, but are philosophical and go beyond this topic. Narrowly, the human body could be said to have a goal of reproducing in the same way a falling rock has a goal of reaching the ground. It’s clear how the physics play out, but there’s nothing that turns that “is” into an “ought”
I implore you to take a normal biology course in the present day and then get back to us
Yeah, it’s sad. I don’t understand why people think gender is at odds with science. That’s the whole point of differentiating sex vs gender.
Sex in humans really isn’t that binary. XXX and XXY exist for instance.
XXX and XXY are variations within a sex. They still have bodies organized around producing either one of exactly two gamete sizes
I think saying sex is the same as gamete production is somewhat reductionist and not the usual definition either. And at a minimum that would create a 3rd sex, a body that did not produce gametes.
It’s very much the usual definition in biology. There’s no other definition that makes sense, because the animal kingdom is so varied. Sex is entirely defined by gamete size, and not producing gametes doesn’t confuse things. There is no body type that is organized around producing a third gamete size, or no gamete size.
If I remember correctly, not even sex is binary in humans.
There are a decent number of combinations of the X and Y chromosomes, not just XX and XY. If I remember correctly there are about 6 more common combos
Not just cromossomes matter. Intersex can be purely environmental and not genetic.
Aren’t those considered disorders, tho? Like XXX or XXY
yes the majority of humans just have one or the other and mutations and disorders can cause variations within the two. but those aren’t a majority of humans.
people seem to think that he is putting some negative meaning behind it.
just because a mutation is a mutation doesn’t mean it’s bad. but it doesn’t mean it’s normal for humans either.
It also means there are more than two options for sex. Meaning it isn’t binary.
You’re probably thinking of variations within a sex, such as XXY. They still have bodies organized around producing one of two gamete sizes. Nobody produces a third size of gamete
But some produce neither.
Nobody has a body organized around producing no gametes
My niece has Turner’s syndrome. She had to learn to give herself hormone shots to grow and develop as others normally would during puberty, but due to very underdeveloped ovaries is incapable of producing gametes. How does she fit in?
Turner’s syndrome is a chromosomal disorder that only affects females. Her body is organized around the production of the larger of two gamete sizes.
What does this even mean?
Who “organizes” bodies?
If a body can’t and never could produce gametes, what makes it “organized” to do so anyway?There is no “who”, it’s the process of evolution over billions of years. Our bodies aren’t blank slates.
Kinda feels like you dodged the question. I think they were asking you to define what it means to “organize around producing a gamete”, how folks that were never going to produce either fit into that definition, and how you construct sex as a binary despite that.
Edit: looks like powerstuggle is responding to other comments but not this one. I think it is safe to assume they are going for low hanging fruit and trolling rather than actually trying to explain themself.
XO, XX, XY, XXY, XYY, XXX, XXXX, XXXY, XXYY, and others have been recorded in humans. In addition there is Swyer syndrome, Chappell syndrome, and mosaicism in which the gonadal phenotype doesn’t match the genotype. There are also events during fertilization which can cause an XX zygote to gain the SRY gene from the father. The SRY gene is what initiates male gonad development.
Sex is not binary just because there are two types of sex chromosomes. They can occur in multiple combinations and result in a spectrum of characteristics. Many of those combinations result in infertility, because they result in a loss of reproductive organs and/or indeterminate genitalia
but aren’t those fairly uncommon? I don’t think he means mutations or syndromes. I think he means the majority of humans.
Uncommon like all those other elements in the universe?
huh? no, uncommon in terms of human biology. this isn’t some political statement against those who have mutations or uncommon chromosome combos.
they exist. they’re real. they’re just not the majority. and that’s ok. they don’t have to be.
I’m not sure what that has to do with elements on the periodic table.
they exist. they’re real. they’re just not the majority. and that’s ok. they don’t have to be.
Exactly. Just like all of the other non-hydrogen and non-helium atoms in the universe.
I have no idea why I’m getting downvoted then. nor the other commenter.
I think people are quite confused when he is literally just talking about basic biology. no negative connotations whatsoever.
if real actual facts are now being downvoted I have very little hope for humanity.
huh? no, uncommon in terms of human biology.
How do you differentiate this from the meme?
they exist. they’re real. they’re just not the majority. and that’s ok. they don’t have to be.
Like the elements in the meme? How do you differentiate this from the meme?
I’m not sure what that has to do with elements on the periodic table.
This post is explicitly about a meme comparing gender to elements.
I am pretty sure you getting downvoted because it looks like you either forgot or are ignoring the post you are commenting on.
Sex is binary, because there are two sizes of gametes. Sex is determined in humans by chromosomes (and is rather messy, as you note). Sex is defined by gamete size, because it’s the only common factor across so many different species. Some animals have their sex determined by the temperature while they’re developing instead of chromosomes, but we can still differentiate between males and females by gamete size.
Sex is defined by gamete size, because it’s the only common factor across so many different species.
Dawg this isn’t even true. What was the publishing date of the last biology book you read? I think you need to update your knowledge. The current scientific and academic consensus is that neither sex nor gender are binary.
You unfortunately have a grossly distorted view of what the scientific consensus is. There’s a few extremists pushing for silly things, but no, sex is binary. Sex phenotypes aren’t binary, but those aren’t how sex is defined
What’s in this for you? Why is it so important for you to believe that sex is binary, to try and convince everyone in this thread that sex is binary? How does this narrow-minded, oversimplified view that ignores modern biology serve you? And, maybe most curiously, why do you think “there’s a few extremists pushing for silly things?” What silly things? What kinds of extremists? Let’s go down this fucking rabbit hole together my dude.
It’s just so funny seeing you acknowledge all over the place that all these other characteristics of sex are not binary, except for gametes (which in reality, also aren’t binary), and that just happens to be the thing you’re pinning your definition of sex to. Like, the pieces are all there and it just looks like you’re refusing to put them all together.
It’s not what I believe. I’m just the messenger, sorry but you are disagreeing with the scientific and academic consensus. I wish I didn’t have to do this and people didn’t post a bunch of nonsense on Lemmy, but here we are.
People really need to know when their worldview is based on falsehoods, and this is one of those times. As an example, you might have heard of the concept of “5 sexes”, but it turns out that the source of that claim was someone who certainly knows better being “tongue-in-cheek” and “ironic”:
She’s also the source of the “intersex is as common as redheads” claim, and that’s also completely wrong and she should know better. That is a silly thing and she’s one of the extremists pushing such silly things.
I don’t know how to better explain it to you, but yes, sex characteristics are not necessarily binary, but sex is (and yes, gametes are binary). You’re refusing to acknowledge the scientific consensus, and that’s really disappointing.
sorry but you are disagreeing with the scientific and academic consensus.
Hmmm, an interesting assertion, one that would be all the more interesting were it not for the open letter sent to the president, signed by ~3500 scientists, saying sex isn’t binary. Weird.
You wanna know what else is weird? This whole “gametes determine sex” thing is something Donald Trump says, and used as the “scientific basis” for one of his incredibly transphobic executive orders. An order that basically makes it illegal to be trans. The order that that letter I linked, the one signed by 3500 scientists, was a direct response to.
You’re refusing to acknowledge the scientific consensus, and that’s really disappointing.
No, what’s disappointing is that you’ve spent the better part of your day parroting and defending right-wing pseudoscience, then have the gall to tell others that they’re refusing to acknowledge scientific consensus.
The idea you’re so vehemently “just being the messenger” for originated over a hundred years ago dude. The science has changed since then. We’ve learned more. It’s time for you to catch up.
You so clever! How many numbers I have write with binary? Is two, no? Why fucking computer use binary if only two numbers?
Sarcasm works better if you respond coherently. You doing math with gametes?
Sir is doing biology without brain. Is much cleverer trick.
You should redirect this energy into learning about how your model of the world is incomplete. You’d benefit much more from that.
Ya sir, I incpmplete with too much genders, too much elements in periodic. You complete with two of each. Clever sir. Complete sir.
That’s a ridiculous definition conjured up by people trying to claim there’s only two sexes. It has effectively no practical use considering gametes on their own are useless for reproduction without an entire system of hardware surrounding them. Plus it guarantees at least three sexes - people who don’t produce gametes at all.
You’re kind of shooting the messenger here. It’s literally how sex is defined and used in biology, I’m just letting you know.
Not producing gametes doesn’t confuse things. Nobody is born with a body organized around producing a third gamete size, or no gamete size.
Nobody is born with a body organized around producing a third gamete size
You say that because you incorrectly categorize genetic variations as a failed attempt at one of two binary options. It’s circular reasoning. You’re looking for a binary to sort things into, so regardless of the underlying truth, you sort everything into it.
Like all smoking gun “binary” sex characteristics transphobes have honed in on over the years, we’re only talking about it because they arrived there from working backwards towards it. Just a few years ago all of these same talking points were “biological truth” regarding chromosomes (which you now openly concede are not reliable sex determinants)
A thorough investigation of gametes reveals that like everything else in biology that’s paired off, it’s bipolar in nature rather than binary (strongly gathered up into two categories but with outliers and exceptions).
Even ignoring gamete manifestation in all other species, which there is no reason to do other than to try and make a transphobic point, just among humans genetic variation occurs somewhat regularly. This is the basic principle that makes evolution possible, and it’s why other species have such insane gamete setups such that that gamete size cannot be used universally to determine sex.
Ah but I forget we’re still just talking humans. Evolutionary scientists reveal that the simple reason intermediate gamete sizes do not proliferate in our species is because they have historically been outcompeted. This fact could not be true if there were no bodies born with a third gamete type
An additional issue with this whole train of thought is the baseless presumption that normal biological variation precludes someone who was “supposed to be female” from producing the small gamete. It’s literally the meme we’re looking at in the OP: where the vast majority fits neatly into two categories, but if you were to try to work backwards from there and say everything must fit into those categories, you will have deprived yourself of even the most fundamental biological truths that describe our universe, and on a personal note, you will have deprived yourself of what makes biology beautiful.
I’m afraid you have me mixed up with someone else. There’s no “you openly concede”. This is literally how the field of biology defines sex. To quote:
In animals and plants, binary sex is universally defined by gamete type, even though sexes vary in how they are developmentally determined and phenotypically identified across taxa.
Yes, way back in our evolutionary history, sex wasn’t binary. We were also not multi cellular, but so what? We are now.
There’s no “you openly concede”
Listen buddy, you’ve obviously had a busy couple of days with your science themed transphobic tirade, so I understand it can be hard to remember all the things you yourself wrote. I know it might feel like a lifetime has passed, but this is actually you from only from two comments ago:
Sex is *determined* in humans by chromosomes (and is rather messy, as you note).
Look at you. You were so young. It feels like just yesterday you were openly conceding that chromosomal arrangement is not binary, but rather, “messy”
Then, given your ridiculous non sequitur dismissal of my point, I’m willing to accept that perhaps you simply misunderstood what I wrote, similar to how you misunderstand “literally the entire field of biology”.
Out of curiosity, do you assume nobody on this website is or is friends with a biologist?
That’s not true, there are definitely people both without any sex organs whose body “organization” has no concept of producing any gametes. There are people who are able to produce both gametes. Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting LALALA does not make these people magically disappear. You cannot argue “well part of their body organization is invalid because of reasons”.
This is classic Dunning-Kruger shit where just because you learned a little about gametes you think you’re an expert, but there’s a huge world of exceptions out there.
What exactly do you mean by “has no concept”? I don’t think you quite understand what you’re talking about.
I know you’re just here for the argument, and I’ve wasted enough time on this already. The “gamete size” simplification is Trumpist propaganda and not based in actual rigorous science.
Actual biologists agree that bodies without sex organs don’t fit into the binary definition
Determining “organization” in cases of “physical anomaly” via chromosomes is unreliable
1.3% of people are born intersex, and “intersex” represents an entire continuum
Educate yourself.
Biology doesn’t give special consideration for humans. We’re simply animals like the rest of the animal kingdom. Within the animal kingdom there are absolutely species with more than two sexes including more than two gamete sizes.
You’re probably confusing sex with mating types. Sex is binary because there’s exactly two gamete sizes, eggs and sperm. Other species have gametes that are the same size, but those are called mating types and work very differently than sex.
Nope. There are animals with more than two gamete sizes. Egg and sperm are not sizes.
I provided several examples of chromosome combinations that result in people who produce no gametes. You’ve said in several comments that no one is born with a body plan that doesnt produce gametes, and that is incorrect. I’m a biology major, and I’m in a developmental biology class right now There are several points in development that can cause a failure to develop a sexual phenotype.
I don’t know why you’re saying it’s a hard line that biologists have drawn, when science is about being able to adjust our understanding of the world when we are presented with new information
Edit: The body plan that you are talking about is a result of several things ranging from transcription factors to hormones working together, not just chromosomes alone. A break at any point can result in a body that isn’t “organized” (whatever you think you mean by that I don’t know) to produce gametes. I feel like you’re trying to play “gotcha!” throughout these comments and have no true understanding of biology. I recommend that you try going back to school
I didn’t say that nobody is born with a body that doesn’t produce gametes. I said nobody is born with a body organized around producing no gametes. Ask your professor about the difference.
Careful. The longer you stare down the looking glass at life, the more of a kaleidoscopic fractal it all becomes. Even “species” are loose, funny things.
What’s interesting about sex being binary is that biology is really messy and hard, and it’s kind of amazing that we found such a universal definition.
So why’re you trying to put it into such a rigid framework if you agree it’s messy?
I’m doing nothing other than relaying how the field of biology uses the terms.
You’re also confusing biology being messy in general, vs finding one particular area where it isn’t
You’re confusing your shit politics with truth.
It does feel nice to throw around insults, but maybe a better use of your time would be to learn about why you’re wrong
Like I said, you’re confusing your shit politics with truth.
Being intersex is about as common as having red hair, and as plenty of people have told you, some people produce neither eggs nor sperm. Also some intersex people are born with both ovarian and testicular tissue. Intersex isn’t new, it isn’t unscientific, it’s been known about for millenia, and it doesn’t vanish out of existence because your idol trump wrote an executive order that denies scientific reality. Some state passed a law that said pi is 3, which is just as stupid as trump’s order and the crap you’re spouting in this thread.
You don’t even understand what the words determine and defined mean, or you’re deliberately misusing them and you told a biology major they were wrong because you believed trump over an undergraduate education.
Biology is the study of life, and even the definition of what constitutes “life” becomes very fuzzy when you look at it too closely. For every set of properties you can define that need to be met for something to be alive, there are edge cases and outliers in nature.
Sure, are you aware of any outliers in this case?
You mean well (edit: well. not entirely sure anymore) but even in humans it’s not that simple (not to mention non-humans who might produce both sizes or switch). People who are identified as female at birth because they have a vulva may lack ovaries (or even the entire reproductive tract). They don’t have any gametes but because of their outer appearance they’re usually socialised as girls and only notice when they don’t start menstruating at some point. I assume it’s similarly possible to be born with a scrotum (and penis) but no testicles.
powerstruggle does not mean well and is trolling up and down the whole thread.
It seems like it.
Unfortunately I mean well. Sometimes people need to hear things they don’t really want to hear. I’m sick of seeing people that should know better spout off unscientific nonsense because it makes them feel good. There’s too much of that on Lemmy
No you don’t. You’re lying through your teeth as a multitude of people explain how counting works to you. Stop it.
Sorry, I wish you could believe that science accuracy is important. It’s disappointing that you don’t, but them’s the breaks
I wish you could stop trolling. It’s disappointing that you don’t.
Are you then going to answer my question and tell me what size gamete a body without either ovaries, uterus, and vagina, but a vulva, is “organised” around? Or are you going to shift the goalposts further? First it was “size of gametes”, now its “organised around a size” and I still don’t know what that even means.
Apologies if I’ve missed it, I still have a backlog of messages to go through. My best guess at interpreting your question that you mean something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5α-Reductase_2_deficiency, in which a male has internal testes and is often incorrectly assigned female at birth due to ambiguous external genitalia. Is there another specific DSD you’re thinking of?
Let me rephrase that: people without ovaries, uterus, vagina or testes. Nowhere in their bodies. They have a vulva or a penis plus scrotum.
No that’s not what I mean. People can be born without ovaries, uterus, vagina (but have a vulva). People can also be born without testes (but have a scrotum and penis). They do not possess these organs, they are nowhere in their bodies. That’s what I was talking about in the very beginning.
Not producing any gametes doesn’t confuse things. Even if you don’t produce any gametes, your body is organized around producing one or the other of two sizes.
Things get more interesting in other animals, though anything anywhere near us is still either male, female, or hermaphroditic. When you get down into fungi, you get gametes that are the same size and instead of sex you have mating types, where a single species can have tens of thousands of options.
You get both sizes of gametes with all kinds of bodies. It’s only the testes/ovaries that are reliably correlated with gamete size, and anything further away from their production than that has about the same chance of not being the style you’d expect as an atom has of not being hydrogen or helium, just like the original meme alludes to.
