Weird one biology

But you are right in that looking at the top of this thread, it looks like you have started a thread under the sub heading Sex and Gender of the main heading Feminism Chat

But using that thread's logic - that biological sex can be made more somplicated than xx/xy, and 'do you know what your chromosomes / hormone levels look like? Of course not' - it makes no sense to then say 'respect a person's right to tell you who they are' because they haven't seen theirs, either! Which takes us back to that an individual can identify themselves however they like, but that doesn't give them the right to tell me how I view them.

Trying to make it complicated is a way to shut down discussion. If it was so complicated (which is also the title of a thread on the Sex and Gender board) how have we managed to reproduce as a species while not knowing the finer details?

Didn't get far!

She needs to tell this to an audience of farmers, staff of endangered species breeding programs. And the Taliban and Isis. Etc etc...

Don't worry about it. Some posters don't want this to be discussed.

But you have some good answers already. Maybe pick a really simple line or two to respond with

And then just laugh and say, "biology really isn't that simple and human beings are sexually dimorphic. The occasional coding error doesn't change that, no matter how many leaps of illogic you make"

It looks like they're taking about DSD which covers a range of genetic disorders that don't just effect "gendered presentation" or however you wish to describe it, it can effect every aspect of a person's life including their life span.

It has absolutely nothing to to with gender identity and I don't know why people insist on lumping them all in together, it helps no one.

My thoughts are that you should've posted in the gender section not feminist chat.

This is a Univariate Fallacy - dishonestly applying univariate statistics to a multivariate problem. Smoke & mirrors basically!
Colin Wright did a great thread
In particular "Yes, no single factor can 100% determine sex, but that doesn't mean the categories "male" & "female" lack any coherent meaning. There may be extremely rare edge cases where we must use a reasonable heuristic, but this does not obliterate the categories as a whole."

It's not seeing the forest for the trees.

Sex is not defined by chromosomes. People knew about sex before we knew of any such thing. Farmers knew how to breed their livestock. People figured out a lot about plant breeding too.

Sex is about reproductive role. It's about the types of gametes an organism produces, or did produce, or will produce. Or in some cases, where something has gone wrong, it's about what kinds of gametes their body would have made had that not happened. Including errors at the level of DNA and chromosomes.

So if some extra bit gets included, or there is some developmental error in the appearance of the sex organs in the womb caused by a chemical exposure, or some doctor accidentally cuts of a penis during a circumcision, it doesn't change that a particular body would have developed to be a functioning male or female person if things had gone right.

There is no third gamete, nor any necessary third role in sexual reproduction. Just a large gamete and a small one. Female and male. That's it.

Nope… I take it back. Not him at all! 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

Firstly, the whole "hey folks!" "friendly neighbourhood biologist here!" schtick sets my teeth on edge.
I find it irritating and condescending.
But that's my issue so I tried not to let it influence my opinion of what they wrote.

Secondly, what is their point?
That biology isn't "simple"?
Well, no. I didn't think it was.
That sex isn't "simple?"
Well, clearly there are all sorts of interesting cases and exceptions, and that's all very fascinating. So in that respect it's not simple.
But the vast majority of humans are still either biologically male or female, and we can't truly change our sex no matter how much we might want to.
The existence of certain medical conditions does not change that.

Declaring yourself to be the the opposite sex does not make you the opposite sex.
They can't disprove that, so they use individuals with DSDs to disprove a completely different point instead.

It's an old trick... Not got a good counter to an arguement? Make up a different one, and counter that instead!

It's a bit of a shitty way to treat people with DSDs as well.

I think that is the guy that was debunked for spreading a heap of bullshit about sunscreens on SM a couple of years ago. Either no credentials or dodgy AF.

It's easy to understand. They are claiming that determining someone's sex is complicated because some people have DSDs. In the same way someone might claim it's complicated to say that humans are a sighted species because some people are visually impaired.

This thread is deeply offensive

What's a 'biologist' professor

Regardless, is there any evidence that trans people have anything other than normally developed sex chromosomes sitting on normally developed genes making normal cell expression?

The answer is no there isn't. So attempting to say 'it's complicated' and co-opting DSDs is merely another tool with which to shut GC people up.

Sounds like a load of bollocks to me.

People with disorders of sexual differentiation have repeatedly asked not to be dragged into the trans debate as a gotcha. Why not respect that?