/sci/ - Science & Math

Sex is biological, gender is identity based, so they say

>>7088075
Yes, there are only two sexes.
For humans, Y Chromosome -> Male
No Y Chromosome -> Female
This still applies in mutations that add extra X or Y chromosomes, as in XXY and XYY

Gender is a social construct, so it can be whatever the fuck you want, thus the speshul snowflakes on tumblr who think their gender is a Fox/Turtle hyrid

technically, there are more than the male and female sex, as the X and Y chromosomes can get fucky and incorrectly express themselves

However, rewriting the rules of society for a very, very small slice of the population is silly. Additionally, the people who have these other sexes typically show distinct physical traits of one sex or the other, even if their sexual organs are not exactly male or female.

This really isn't a strong case for introducing 3 new pronouns into our languages - lots of people with these genetic anomalies don't even feel like outliers until the doctor tells them they have testes where their uterus should be

>>7088093
>gender is a Fox/Turtle hybrid

>>7088093
Gender shouldn't be a thing. It relates to grammar.

If we really want to be anal about pronouns and science then we might as well skip the distinction between he/she and it as well. In fact everything should be an "it", which works until we start to question what really qualifies as a singular object.

>>7088075
Dude, that shit is mental illness. You can't reason with people who push that nonsense.

No, there are not two sexes. In fact, the reliance on chromosomes is simply another backpedaling step for the binarist outlook on gender. Sex is entirely assigned and imaginary, based on perceived similarities in genitalia.

Your sex is not assigned to you based on your chromosomes, it is assigned based on how big your dick is. It's a subjective measurement. Phenotypically, sex is not tied to chromosomes. This is especially evident in species with numerous sexes per chromosome setup, like the sunfish.

So, no, sex does not exist biologically. Chromosomes exist.

>>7088981
>Sex is entirely assigned and imaginary
Sex is a definition based on your chromo-

>So, no, sex does not exist biologically. Chromosomes exist.
Ok, but even if you're technically correct sex is a definition based on your chromosomes.

>Definition
>noun: an exact statement or description of the nature, scope, or meaning of something.

You define XX as "female" and you define XY as male. Even XXY XYY or whatever other chromosomal anomalies have definitions. Your point is moot.

>>7088981
>nothing is black and white so everything must be uniform grey

>>7089000
Sex is assigned based only on phenotype, not genotype, but OK. However, the medical industry doesn't just use chromosomes as the be-all-end-all of sex. The five specific medical measures of sex according to science are chromosomes, hormones, genitalia, gonads, and secondary sex characteristics. Most people on earth will not line up with only one sex on all five characteristics. The definition used by science is way wider and way less cut-and-dry than you suppose it to be. It can't be just chromosomes, because almost no one ever gets themselves tested for sex chromosomes. I can guarantee you don't know for a fact what your chromosomes are, so you're not going off of chromosomes, you're going off of the five-fold medical definition.

Anyway, since most people never find out their chromosomes, sex assignment is almost entirely based on phenotype and social pressure. If your dick was too small and your doctor was enough of an asshole, you would likely have had coercively been assigned as a female, gone though dilation procedures throughout childhood so you could fit a dick inside your vagina, and raised as a woman without any input from you. In a much less violent way, you were raised as a man, still without any input from you.
You were assigned your sex, not based on your chromosomes, but your appearance at birth, which can vary wildly. Totally unscientific.

Really, most of what we use the sex binary for, in combination with age, is for a substitute to a series of yes-no questions:
Capable of being naturally impregnated and bearing children?
Sexually attracted to men?
Possessed of maternal caregiving instinct, and inclined to be attentive and responsive to the needs of infants and the unwell?
Capable of naturally impregnating a woman?
Sexually attracted to women?
Physically strong and capable of effective violence without sophisticated weaponry?
Has typical male hormones and medical concerns?
Has typical female hormones and medical concerns?

As a society, we subsidize and otherwise encourage marriage to promote the production and proper rearing of the next generation, so we specify that it's between a man and a woman on the assumption that this means they will have children together.

We segregate people by sex for convenience and savings of reducing privacy between them, on the assumption that they won't need as much privacy from each other since they're not sexually attracted to each other.

This is all very convenient, and convenience matters. Bathrooms and locker rooms would cost twice as much or more if they all had to be fully private for each individual user. And while sex is usually immediately apparent, we don't have very good other ways to answer these questions.

So we're likely to go on making these assumptions and just dealing with the awkwardness of when the sex binary doesn't do what we expect it to.

>>7088093
Came here wanting to say this. So instead....

/thread

>>7088981
>knowing this little about biology.

Please leave these things to those of us with an education in the field

>>7089030
>sex is assigned based on phenotype
>I can guarantee for a fact you dont know what your chromosomes are

Actually you can't, for all you know I very well may have had them tested for whatever reason, its not impossible.

But, if you want to break down what sex is at its most basic components, you can go off of a chromosome definition.

We don't need 5 definitions in a scientific context, because science is about experiment. A social definition of sex is entirely different than a scientific one. If we wanted to scientifically determine what the sexes of human beings were, according to their chromosomes, we could. It would take some work, be we could do it.

>totally unscientific

Actually, it isnt. Im not saying that social definitions of gender aren't important, but that the scientific definition is not open to interpretation. You either have something or you dont. We can measure it. It does exist.

>>7089030
>by your appearance at birth
Which, surprisingly, is correlated with chromosomal expression.
What your taking about it epigenetic misregulation of chromosomes, but that shit doesn't change the fact you have XY or XX chromosomes.
Misdiagnoses based on appearance is super duper rare, so assigning sex based on appearance is excessively accurate for the wide spread majority. (thus, you can say sex is assigned based on chromosomes as chromosomes phenotypically dictate appearance for the overwhelming majority of the population)

you either have a functioning sry or you dont

>>7088075
>Stuff like transsexualism, gender fluid and ambiguous genitalia might be a thing but at the end of the day they're just deviations (for want of a better word) of the binary norm. Male and female.

Sex does not exist. Humans do not exist. There are only quantum waveforms that factor into atoms and particles, arranged in patterns.

If you're going to insist that some of those patterns should be named, I am sad to inform you that there are more than the two patterns you call "male" and "female."

>>7089000
>You define XX as "female" and you define XY as male. Even XXY XYY or whatever other chromosomal anomalies have definitions. Your point is moot.

You're wrong. The doctor looks at the ultrasound (early) and the actual physical body (at birth) and check of there's a penis. The chromosomes are not checked, and XX can be, and sometimes is, assigned "male" at birth due to the presence of a penis, and XY can be, and sometimes is, assigned "female" at birth due to the absence of a penis.

>>7089115
You seem to have misunderstood the person to which you are replying. They correctly asserted that the standard medical, and hence "scientific", definition of sex is based on those five factors. You can decide to define sex however you want, in particular in a way that makes it easier for you to mock transsexuals, but by choosing an alternative use for the word "sex" you are being disingenuous and choosing to intellectually masturbate over the definition of an established term rather than use the existing language to engage in an intelligent and productive discourse.

>>7088075
Too Easy OP. There are actually 6, not 5.

Herm-male and female genitalia
Merm-female genitalia but male secondary dimorphisms
Male-male genitalia and male secondary features
Neut-neither male or female features
Female-female genitalia and secondaryu features
Ferm-Male genitalia and female secondary features

>>7089149
You're literally just stringing together a bunch of insults and making it sound like im mocking transgenered people, but im not.

Scientifically, there IS a difference between men and women. Perhaps the words "man" and "woman" might not fit in with your idea of sex, but there is a distinct difference between their chromosomes regardless. You can switch the names, ask them how they feel, see what the doctor says, but in the end the evidence is in their genes.

The genes might not reflect what society or the doctor or what the person themselves might believe, but the differences are there.

If we took a sample of people identifying as male or female and analyzed their genes, we would find that this is the most scientifically sound way of identifying gender. If we were to take samples from random people, analyze them, then guess the gender they identify as, we would see that we are overwhelmingly right.

The exceptions would be those who identify as something else, but that doesn't change their genes.

We use terms like "male" and "female" for the sake of simplicity.

Does that mean that someone needs to socially or personally identify with them? No. But as far as science is concerned, their genes place them in a certain category, and by analyzing them a lot can be ascertained about potential characteristics they might have.

Here's the "medical definition", of sex

Definition of SEX

1
: either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as male or female
2
: the sum of the structural, functional, and behavioral characteristics of living things that are involved in reproduction by two interacting parents and that distinguish males and females

Once again, it's for the sake of simplicity. How you feel about yourself does not reflect your actual characteristics in a scientific sense. It doesn't make your feeling about yourself irrelevant, just for the sake of science, theyre not useful.

>>7089178
For example, if we wanted to study differences in genetic diseases affecting men and women, do you think what your idea of what gender you are will affect the results?

Would it help our results if we started accepting the testimony of people who claimed to be women but possess the XY gene in research attempting to treat a specific disease that is experienced by 99% women? Would it encourage or hinder our research?

This is where the definition of sex that im talking about comes into play.

>>7089178
I apologize for using sex and gender interchangebaly. My argument applies to sex.


Any usage of the word gender in this paragraph means sex.

As for gender, it can be whatever you want as far as society goes. That is not science.

>>7088075

I'll chime in here.

I got my MS in genetics and worked in some labs focus on the human genome, so take that as you will. Just saying I'm not coming at this from nowhere.

It's not really a complicated issue. People just get wrapped up in poor language.

Firstly, there is a person's actual sex. In all organisms that reproduce sexually, "sexes" are divided up by their genetic code and classified based on their reproductive roles. Humans are broken up into females (XX) and males (XY).

Those are the only two sexes, as our reproduction demands only those roles. that's how we've evolved.

>But anon, what about XXY

Well, those are classified as a syndrome or disorder. Disorders are genetic errors that have a negative impact on an organisms intended function (many of the chromosomal trisomies and beyond do have inhibitory effects.) You could make the case that "syndrome" is more appropriate, as that connotes that an error has occurred but that it's not inherently negative. Whatever language you want to use doesn't change the actual state of what has physically happened:

An error occurred, likely in meitosis, and fetal stem cells ended up with an unintended number of chromosomes. As far as dictating the -sex- of these organisms, the general rule of thumb is that "If there is a Y, it's male. No Y, it's female." This is due to the fact that XXX or whatever, largely produce female gametes, and XXY or XYY largely produce male gametes.

There are a number of reasons gamete production might be non-functional in an organism, but at that point, it's just a mutated organism that won't propagate. A classification therefore, has largely never been required.

>But anon, sex is what's assigned at birth, not what's in my DNA

That statement is entirely false, and it's not hard to see why.

Now, this is more my brother's field than mine (received his doctorate in psychology a few years ago), but it has to do with "heuristics".

>>7088075
>>7089246
cont.

Heuristics are social shortcuts that allow someone to function in society.

Think of it this way. If you had to do a DNA test before you could call someone "he" or "she", social interactions would grind to a halt. You can't function that way, so you use a bunch of reliable signals (adam's apple. breasts. penis. whatever) to come to a quicker conclusion.

This is what the doctors do when "assigning" sex at birth. There is no reason to run through DNA tests when a physical examination is thousand times cheaper and faster, and is 99.9% reliable.

HOWEVER the doctor -can- be wrong, in that 0.01% situation. That -doesn't- actually change your sex. It just means the doctor got it wrong. Your sex was always male or female, regardless of what the doctor said, and he just made a mistake. A future examination, physical or genetic, would correct the mistake.

>So anon, what about gender?

Again, but to the psychological aspect. "Gender" refers to a collection of social roles that people fulfill. "Masculine" for instance, can be thought of as "a collection of (lets say) 100 traits that are extremely commonly seen together".

People can make the conclusion that if you have 99 of those traits, you likely also have the 100th.

Of course gender is malleable. In some social paradigms you are the more assertive party, while in others, you are not. Social attributes shift slightly in every situation and with every person you interact with (and even day to day between the same people).

"Special Snowflake Gender" while technically sound is a bit superfluous. Again lets throw out some pretend numbers. Say we've got 1000 social attributes.

"Masculine" contains attributes 1-100.

If someone has 1-100, except is missing attribute 90. They could claim to "not be masculine" but are actually some gender "Snowflake-A".

Another person could have traits 1-100, but be missing 91. They are thus not masculine, nor Snowflake-A, but define themselves as Snowflake-B.

>>7088075
>>7089253
cont.

You certainly see where that is going.

Genders make sense because, again, they're heuristics. They allow us to make incredibly reliable assumptions about the people we interact with. This helps us determine how we're going to act in varying situations.

It may not be 100% accurate 100% of the time, but it's certainly functional.

>Now to the opinion portion of my posts

It's my belief that none of the above is difficult to grasp, unless you're being motivated by something other than understanding the truth of things. Maybe you like the special attention, so you get all fired up about something. Who knows.

Sex is a hard fact. It simply is the way it is, and is measurable. There really isn't any debating that and not being miserably wrong.

The current gender system works the way it does because it's an incredibly efficient method of expediting social interaction. If you want to demand people refer to you as some made up classification, you're not only being incredibly unreasonable in asking -the entire rest of society- to augment their heuristics because of an incredibly small subset of people (sometimes that subset being "just you"), but you're just straight up kind of being an ass hole.

If you're XY and you wish you were a woman. Or you feel really feminine, or whatever. That's cool. No one should get on your ass about it. Being you're not a definition woman. You're not some asexed magical fairy-kin or whatever the fuck else is on tumblr. You're a human male with a genetic mutation that doesn't fulfill the standard gender roles of most males.

That's cool, but you're the outside case. Don't get mad at people when they employ their usually accurate heuristics. Understand that you're the one that has to accommodate them because you're the one making special demands.

http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency#fn2

So I was curious and although this comes from the "intersex society" and should be taken with a grain of salt, apparently there is at least some work to suggest that 1 in every 1700 are neither XX nor XY. That's a surprisingly high number. In any small town there would then be upwards of a dozen of these people.

>>7089268
>http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency#fn2
That doesn't make a ton of sense to me. I was aware that Klinefelter was about 1/1000, but given that, how can non-XX/XY be 1/1666? At least one in 1000 isn't XX/XY based on Klinefelter alone...

Maybe I'm just tired and doing math wrong, but that doesn't make a ton of sense to me at the moment.

>>7089266
>>7089253
>>7089246
Holy shit awesome posts.

>>7089568
Yeah it seems to be mainly just the sex is =/= gender thing. Even the most hard-nosed of people tend to agree with if you word it right.

That said aside from people insisted using female pronouns and putting dresses what about the more harder to dismiss cases of body dysmorphia with transsexualism? Can one really be born 'in the wrong body' as they said or it that just a symptom of some mental illness.

>>7089585
Honestly doing things that will ruin your reputation with any sensible person indicates a mental illness. Up to and including cutting your genitals off.

Depends on whether or not you consider "combinations" to count as a different sex or not.

>>7089594

But what defines a sensible person? In some cases, a transgendered person might be in an environment where being transgendered is totally accepted and encouraged. In this case, would it not be sensible to follow through with a transition?

I don't even necessarily disagree that being transgendered is a mental "disorder", but saying that something is a mental illness because other people think it's weird devalues the term "mental illness", don't you think?

>>7089787
A sensible person would be one who more or less approximates social convention.

Basically because following social convention signals to others that you're not a threat so are safe to interact with - whether it be doing business, hanging out, or mating.

Not following social convention indicates to others you might not be the best person to associate with.

So like, there's nothing inherently mentally ill about spurning socially accepted behaviours, but being willing to out yourself as such a person indicates certain things about you. In the case of transpeople specifically for example, it would indicate in our current culture that wearing dresses and cutting off your penis is more important than being accepted by your peers and family, having a nice career and all that jazz. Not that those consequences are sure to happen necessarily, just that you're willing to risk it. Most people would call that poor prioritizing and naturally wonder if you're all-right up there.

binary? no. bimodal? yes.

>>7089266
>Now to the opinion portion of my posts

/agree on all of the above facts, including "gender" being a useful heuristical tool and a word in the English language, not something fundamental to people.

/disagree on the actual opinion. Maybe somebody's gonna call me a moralfag again (I wear the badge with pride) but I go through life trying as hard as I can to not hurt people, neither physically, nor financially or emotionally. As part of that, if I interact with somebody who gets sad when I use pronoun X about them, I will switch to pronoun Y. Sure that's non-standard, but my goal is not to go through life blameless in the eyes of others and "I was just following the standard," while an acceptable excuse from others, has never been an excuse I accepted from myself if I make somebody sad.

I find that these distinctions exist mainly on the internet. In real life, I know only one person who will admit to being like this, and they're fine. They're a nice person. But if the internet intruded on real life and if I met somebody who, in real life, insisted they were a male squirrel despite looking like a teenage girl, I would wonder what the fuck was up with their medication and then I'd say "him" when talking about the person.

Do I get mad at people who don't act like this? Sometimes. Sometimes not. If they're trying to
>employ their usually accurate heuristics*
and find that this time it fails them, then no. But if they're the kind of asshole who deliberately uses the opposite pronouns to get a rise out of people, I would class them with people who unironically use "nigger" or "faggot" in real life and stop associating with them.

*Additionally on the subject of accurate heuristics: The "She" group includes makeup, long hair, wears a dress, feminine name, no beard. If somebody goes through all that, you don't get to blame your "heuristic" when you use male pronouns, unless perhaps you knew the person ahead of time and used male pronouns about them then.

>>7088075
http://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

>>7088956
I thought it is related to social norms

>>7090364
>The "She" group includes makeup, long hair, wears a dress, feminine name, no beard.

like this charming young lady here?
yeah, how could anybody think she's a man? must be horrible bigots, these people.

>>7088075
the only people who think gender and sex are different are the mentally ill trans freaks. To most of society sex = gender, the trannies can't handle it and want to separate it because special snowflake syndrome. There is no reason to have any form of 'gender' identity that isn't just based off ones sex, it serves no purpose.

>>7090677

If you see that and don't immediately tweak to the fact that there's something weird going on, you are not intelligent enough for /sci/ and should instead go to the board for our home schooled members >>>/hm/

>>7090708
Said the person who has no knowledge of other cultures.

>>7090677
>implying Chris Chan is a typical tranny
>implying he's even a tranny at all

>>7089000
trips don't lie.

>>7088093
I'll go ahead and provide the liberal argument that defining other sex chromosome combinations as abnormal is heterocissexually biased and that you are stifling social progress with your shitlordness.

But in all seriousness though, literally everything in life is a construct of some sort. Even so much as the words we're use. XX/XY is a purely arbitrary distinction just like any other. The real issue (to me) is why the fuck does it matter?

Also genders are for words, not people.

>>7090730
Go ahead, post an actual purpose it serves.

>>7090844
"Third gender" such as the Indian hijra or Oaxacan Muxe serve to alleviate the stresses that non-gender conforming males put if the society without suffering expensive losses associated with killing or rejecting an otherwise functional person. This allows the culture to maintain its sex roles and still extract useful work from those who do not wish to follow them but pose no material danger to the society.

>>7090861
Snowflake feel good bull shit no different than american imaginary gender labels.

>>7090866
U mad bro?
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it isn't helpful for mitigating society's losses when people don't conform.

>>7090364
A common stance. I think a lot of people take the approach of "I'lI just do what other people ask me to do". And certainly there is merit in going out of your way to not be unkind.

In that sense I agree with you. I don't pick on anyone I meet in my daily life, there's simply no point. However, as terms like "he" and "she" are purely dictated by sex and I generally refuse to misuses them. Unless someone is SO convincing that I mistake them for the wrong sex, I won't generally use the wrong pronoun for someone, even if they ask. And even then, I would be doing it Accidentally.

I simply believe that language serves a purpose. That it shifts -organically-. I dislike certain demographics trying to bully the majority of a people into forcefully adopting their custom nomenclature.

As a question in the hope of a serious discussion does anyone believe this to be more of a fad that's been spurred by Tumblr?

I distinctly bisexuality being a fad as well in the UK where I lived with many people just 'jumping on the band wagon' as it were

Of course I'm not saying that these other genders don't exist but I don't believe there are as many as there are now claiming to be

>>7090930
>I simply believe that language serves a purpose. That it shifts -organically-. I dislike certain demographics trying to bully the majority of a people into forcefully adopting their custom nomenclature.

Oh absolutely, "I don't associate with assholes" cuts both ways - if somebody realizes that I am not a "shitlord" to use the internet nomenclature, and thinks that this means they can take advantage of me, or gives them the right to make me feel bad about accidentally slipping up, I use the same solution as I do for other assholes and stop associating with them.

Since this has only ever happened to me on the internet, it has not been difficult.

>>7091023
>As a question in the hope of a serious discussion does anyone believe this to be more of a fad that's been spurred by Tumblr?
>I distinctly bisexuality being a fad as well in the UK where I lived with many people just 'jumping on the band wagon' as it were
>Of course I'm not saying that these other genders don't exist but I don't believe there are as many as there are now claiming to be

I frankly don't believe you accurately assessed the situation. Men don't take it in the pooper from other men because of a "fad." They do it because they're genuinely interested.

On the subject of Tumblr, I believe there is a kernel of truth buried under a tower of shit. Transsexuals exist. Some of them have Tumblr accounts.

Do delusional squirrel-kin exist or is it all a ruse in a fucked-up status game? Who am I to say either way. I neither confirm nor deny, because it impacts my life exactly zero percent.

>>7091048
>I frankly don't believe you accurately assessed the situation. Men don't take it in the pooper from other men because of a "fad." They do it because they're genuinely interested.

Ah right no these were people who never had same sex sex.

>it impacts my life exactly zero percent.
This is the jist of what I'm feeling. It doesn't feel like this is a 'real' issue and more just something that's been blown up out of proportion

>>7091023
>>7091048

I would wager that transexual actually exist, biologically.

Think of it this way. Something in the female brain encourages female behavior and body type. This makes sense evolutionarily because of the roles they fill in a group. Same with males. So is it possible that certain traits are inappropriately expressed in certain individuals? Sure, that happens all the time.

Do I think some people jump on the Wagon because they're socially unsatisfied and want to join a culture that positively reinforces their in group to a tremendous degree? Of course I do. That makes sense too.

I can't speak to the ratio between the two groups, but I would wager anything that they're both substantial

>>7088079
Most languages have only one word.
Both of these were used for the same thing not long ago anyway.

>>7091096
>I would wager that transexual actually exist, biologically.

Well we know you can be born XX with a penis and XY with a vagina.

As an expansion on that: Having established that you can be born with female chromosomes + penis:

If an XX tells me they feel like a woman, I'm not going to be wildly surprised that somebody with classically-female chromosomes (but a penis) has a classically-female brain (and associated feelings). Likewise XY/Vagina/male.*

Expanding on THAT: Might there be more ways for this to occur? Dunno, but since we know of one way already, I'm not going to be the asshole who tells somebody who claims to have this feeling that it's wrong, it's not like they're hurting people.

>>7091086
>Ah right no these were people who never had same sex sex.

Oh. Well in that case, people say a lot of crazy shit. As above, I'm not going to tell them they're wrong if they aren't hurting people.

*Additionally: Under a new law, in Texas, if you have XX and a penis you are legally a female. If you have XY and a vagina you are legally male. This is the kind of complete idiocy you end up with when you let your feelings of disgust control you more than your common sense.

This is a real scenario that can legit happen in Texas now: Get born, have penis, doctor writes "Male" on birth certificate, parents call you John, dad buys you your first rifle on your 15th birthday and you feel like a man now instead of a boy, wear blue jeans and a stetson (Texas, son!), get bloodwork for unrelated reason, reveals you're XX, you're now legally female better change that birth certificate also your marriage with the hot blonde is annulled because you're a woman now and gay marriage is constitutionally banned in Texas. Better find out how to break it to your kid fast.

>>7089246
guten Posten

>>7091354
>dad buys you your first rifle on your 15th birthday
All these feels

>>7091375

I'm sorry, Texas says you're a girl now. You're gonna go home to dad, hand back the rifle and tell him "The state government tells me I'm Joanne now, not John. Buy me a barbie doll."

That law is the worst piece of bigoted hackery I have seen and let me tell you, I've seen some shit.

>>7089030
I can guarantee you don't know for a fact what your chromosomes are.
Maybe because its painfully obvious what the distinctions are?

>>7091354
This is fascinating to me actually.

I've studied fetal development and all that, some I'm aware of how the gonads progress through the different embryonic stages, but something here confuses me.

So I looked it up, and this is what I found:

People can have 46XX or 46XY and still have non-functioning genitalia. Ok, sure, that makes sense. Any part of a chromosome can suffer mutations and the gonad development is only part of that.

However, your statement "XY with a vagina" seems pretty misleading in light of what I've found. Certainly there would be no penis, but in these individuals their genitalia are referred to as "streak gonads". Simply put, they don't develop AT ALL. This is often mistaken for female, because the female genitalia is more "base" than male genitalia.

This also makes sense because if you've got the portion of your chromosomes that dictate gonadal development nonfunctional, you'd simply end up with the base state. Which looks sorta female-ish.

You would not, however, have ovaries, a uterus, or proper vaginal structure. In short.

>(No penis) != (vagina)

Now, your claim of XX with a penis is what really caught my eye. I knew that a embryonic gonads are much closer to female structure than males, so if you have XX (no Y to give you the development) WHERE is all that extra genitalia development coming from? There is no way streak gonads could be mistaken for a penis.

So I looked into that as well and found...

>nothing

Could you perchance post some links to studies of those disorders?

Most of them seem to be linked to sever health problems from what I could find (and certainly sterility), and so it makes sense that people don't take them into account as a sex category, but whether or not the assertion that "XX with a penis" is even true is something I wasn't able to verify.

>>7090773
>Also genders are for words, not people.

Have you been hiding under a rock for the past 70 years?

Gender is a social construct describing people now.

>>7091503
>>I can guarantee you don't know for a fact what your chromosomes are.

>Maybe because its painfully obvious what the distinctions are?

No, you dumb cunt, that is the entire fucking point. You cannot trust phenotype to reveal genotype.

>>7091967
>Now, your claim of XX with a penis is what really caught my eye. I knew that a embryonic gonads are much closer to female structure than males, so if you have XX (no Y to give you the development) WHERE is all that extra genitalia development coming from? There is no way streak gonads could be mistaken for a penis.
>So I looked into that as well and found...
>>nothing
>Could you perchance post some links to studies of those disorders?
>Most of them seem to be linked to sever health problems from what I could find (and certainly sterility), and so it makes sense that people don't take them into account as a sex category, but whether or not the assertion that "XX with a penis" is even true is something I wasn't able to verify.

46XX is what I was referring to.:

>Disease characteristics.

>46,XX testicular disorder of sex development (46,XX testicular DSD) is characterized by the presence of a 46,XX karyotype; male external genitalia ranging from normal to ambiguous; two testicles; azoospermia; and absence of Müllerian structures. Approximately 80% of individuals with 46,XX testicular DSD present after puberty with normal pubic hair and normal penile size, but small testes, gynecomastia, and sterility resulting from azoospermia. Approximately 20% of individuals with 46,XX testicular DSD present at birth with ambiguous genitalia. Gender role and gender identity are reported as male. If untreated, males with 46,XX testicular DSD experience the consequences of testosterone deficiency.

> Approximately 80% of individuals with 46,XX testicular DSD present after puberty with normal pubic hair and normal penile size,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1416/

>>7088981

>sex is assigned based on how big your dick is

wait, what?

>uses fish as an example to critique the way human sexes are treated

nvm, you're an uneducated moron. fish sexes are nothing like mammals. birds also have three chromosomes and can change sexes later in life. this doesn't mean jack shit for humans, who have CONCRETE sexes defined by chromosomes.

someone told me I was transphobic for referring to trans people as people with "medical conditions" and that it is "medical rhetoric" and "just because some old white dude decided to call them 'gender dysphoria'"

>come into this thread
>"muh chromosomes
>realize nobody here knows what the fuck they're talking about
>they don't even know that XX males exist, and that the SRY gene is what's mostly responsible for deciding your sex

It's like I'm living in the goddamn 20th century.

transgenderism is caused by a genetic abnormality which results in the brain sex (which defines our personalities) incorrectly triggers to the opposite sex. this doesn't make transgender folks bad or anything, but it's not a distinct sex or does not make the sexes indistinct. If people suffering from this (I can't imagine being the opposite sex, would be terrible) decide they would feel better changing their bodies to match what their brains tell them then its not my business, but this doesn't mean that this state has any implication whatsoever for the vast vast vast vast vast majority of the species who develop sexes that match in their heads and their bodies.

>>7092728

Yes, developmental weirdness happens. that's the nature of being a biological organism. no, this does not have any implications whatsoever in the general definition of the species as a whole.

>>7092755
You're a moron. There's no proven "genetic abnormality" that "causes" transsexuality. In fact, nobody knows the details of why it happens. The current prevalent idea is that it has to do with an error in which hormones are introduced to the child during fetal development. But that isn't proven; there is no theory that gives details on how transsexuality arises.

>>7092761
What about cases in which autopsies reveal a male with a partly female brain?

>>7092761

You're a moron. nothing can ever fucking be proven. saying "it isnt proven" is the stupid shit flat earthers say. stop being a stupid flat earther.

>>7092759
>Yes, developmental weirdness happens. that's the nature of being a biological organism. no, this does not have any implications whatsoever in the general definition of the species as a whole.

>Let me just bring species into this, since I'm wrong on gender but want to post more without admitting it

>>>/out/

Or, alternatively, I have completely misunderstood what you're getting at and you need to rephrase to something that makes sense.

>>7092764
Brains are brains. I realize that these sorts of conversations must be difficult for you, but please try to articulate your thoughts in a way that actually makes sense.

"Male" and "female" brains are extreme oversimplifications of differences in brain matter. I am aware of studies that show differences between the brains of members of each sex, and I am aware that transsexuality is often legitimate, after discounting the types that alter their presentation out of rebellion, expression, or attention, and do not proceed to actually make a full transition.

Differences in the brains of men and women, and how transsexuals have brains that display qualities that are similar to the sex they are transitioning to, have nothing to do with the causation of transsexuality, however.

Furthermore, those autopsies are prone to some potential inaccuracy. They are almost always done on transsexuals who were on hormone treatment - it is not known how cross-sex HRT could affect the brain's physiology, but it is possible that it could be responsible for at least some of the differences you are aware of.

>>7092774

what the fuck are you even talking about?

Let me just bring species into the discussion on how to define the sexes of our species?

>>7092752
>>they don't even know that XX males exist, and that the SRY gene is what's mostly responsible for deciding your sex

>>7089145
>>7091354
>>7091967
>>7092728

You don't get a pass on idiocy just because you agree with me.

>>>/out/ for you as well

>>7092776
what

I wasn't even that guy you replied to.

I just asked a question.

fuck you

>>7092773
Thank you for that useless axiom. I'm sure that everybody here is fully aware that the nature of being subjective necessitates some margin of error. If anyone here is not, then I would suggest chemically castrating yourself, and killing any offspring you have unless you had children with someone far less idiotic.

I wouldn't normally dignify a post like yours with even a demeaning response, but I'm in a charitable mood.

>>7092777

>Let me just bring species into the discussion on now to decide the politics in our country populated by the human species

>Let me just bring species into the discussion of what aesthetics Greenlanders of the human species prefer

>Let me just bring species into the discussion on what DOTA characters are mainly played by members of the human species

>Let me just bring species into the discussion on how much of a raging faggot you, a member of this species, are.

>>7092781
Ask a better question next time.

>>7092778
>Not even one mention of an SRY gene

>>7092782

>you can't prove that!

>of course I can't, nothing can be proven

>pft, everyone knows that. thanks for the useless axiom

see the problem here?

>>7092790
There is no problem here.

>>7092783
congratulations, you've learned to plug x in for y. maybe someday you can use that to learn how to make these substitutions cogent, instead of just randomly referencing things semi-related to humans to argue the absurdity of discussing humans when defining a key characteristic of humans.

>>7092789
how is that a bad questions

I have simply read articles showing that transgendered people have had opposite sex brain structure

I questioned if that had anything to do with it

now I have your thoughts based on evidence

stop being an egotistical dick

>>7092799

YEAH BUT YOU CAN'T PROVE IT

>>7092800
you can't prove anything faggot, that's a no brainer

but strong evidence can make something obvious or not

>>7092799
Sometimes, being an egotistical dick is fun.

Actually, though, you seem really humble. Like, you might actually be a decent human being. It brings me no joy to bring misery to the lives of nice people - my temper is reserved for the insufferable cunts that make up a significant minority of this board.

>>7092802

don't bring such useless axioms into this.

>>7092809

>>7092798
>congratulations, you've learned to plug x in for y. maybe someday you can use that to learn how to make these substitutions cogent, instead of just randomly referencing things semi-related to humans to argue the absurdity of discussing humans when defining a key characteristic of humans.

"Male" and "Female" are key characteristics of the English language, not of the human species. A hundred years ago, "Male" covered everybody with a penis. These days, "Male" covers everybody with XY, everybody with a penis or everybody who presents as male, depending on who you ask. Species has fuck-all to do with it.

>>7092822

Ah, you're a subjectivist moron. thanks for clarifying that for me, I no longer have to waste my time with you.

>>7092822
Nobody uses gender qualifying words to refer to somebody's chromosomal makeup, you fucking retard. The majority of people are untested; male and female still refer to implied penis-wielders and vagina-keepers, and ONLY because male and female refer to organisms that eject or accept gametes, respectively, as far as accurate definitions go. As far as usage goes, male and female are superficial, only referring to how they look. The presence of appropriate genitalia isn't even universal in usage.

If anything, chromosomes have a worse case for taking the place of the current definitions for male and female than they did even ten years ago.

>>7092848
>Ah, you're a subjectivist moron. thanks for clarifying that for me, I no longer have to waste my time with you.

If you think English isn't subjective, we've got nothing to talk about any more. "Male" and "Female" are from the year 14XX and come from even older latin. Mendel didn't perform his seminal work until 400 years later.

>>7092851
>Nobody uses gender qualifying words to refer to somebody's chromosomal makeup, you fucking retard.

Tell that to the Texas legislature.

>>7092872
I'm surprised texan legislators even admit DNA exists.

>>7092728
That's pretty cool.

However, I don't think it changes much. That's pretty in line with what you would expect. It's like... One of our most important genes for replication proofreading is on chromosome 17. But we don't need to lose all of chromosome 17 for that to stop working, we just need to lose the p53 gene.

Now there are lots of common types of mutations. Chromosome arms can become detatched, they can flip around. They can latch on to other chromosomes....

It sounds like Here, the SKY gene from the father detatched from his Y(or the arm of the YEAR chromosome detatched) and ended up on the X.

So really, the child isn't XX, they are XX+half a Y.

That even follows that those that are XX1/2Y that don't have the copy of SRY end up with ambiguous genitalia.

As I said in my first huge three posts: if you have a Y you're generally male. apparently that extends to "even half a Y"

Good post thOugh. Thanks.

>>7093458
Also holy Fuck the auto correct on this tablet is garbage.....

>>7088981

but humans arent sunfish, you fucking retard.