So, I dont know a lot about trans stuff. But I do know about ‘biological sex’. What defines biological sex? Really think about this as a scientific exercise. What?
Chromosomes? Are we chromosome testing these kids? I don’t think we are, but even if we were there are well documented, decades old cases of chromosomes not correlating with physical presentation of sex. WTAF? Really? Yes really. Because genes are just blueprints. On their own, they don’t do anything. They need to be switched on. And some people’s don’t. We don’t know why.
Man. OK, lets look at internal sex organs. They’re pretty important. Ovaries and whatnot. Except they control sex by producing hormones. And some people don’t produce high enough levels of hormones for their chromosomal sex and their appearance to correlate. Hermaphratidism in people happens. Some people have a mix of sexual organs. Some people are born girls, because they don’t have penis’ and that’s as far as anyone looks and then hormones levels surge at puberty and they display male characteristics.
OK then, hormone levels. But they vary widely between people. They are controlled by things that are not sex-dependent. PCOS is super common (like 10% of women, I think?) I have PCOS and the only hormone that’s out of normal range is my testosterone. It’s high. But I’m definitely still female. It affects things like facial hair and weight and stuff, sure, but I still look female, despite an elevated male hormone and some definitely masculine features. Plenty of other hormones can be affected by all kinds of things. They must be, otherwise we couldn’t alter them with medications. Some times, the levels are normal, but some people are more sensitive than others, so even an objective hormone range isn’t definitive.
Bugger. External sex organs? Y’all know blokes with boobs, right? And anyway, they don’t always correspond with chromosomes, which is the ultimate biological sex, even though it isn’t always accurate. So we’ve come full circle.
So, we need a real mix of characteristics to define sex. It’s much more nebulous scientifically than people seem to think. And while wild discrepancies are well documented in the medical literature, as it’s so complex its hardly surprising there are more mild cases of gender fluidity. Because gender is different from sex anyway. It’s not physical, is a societal construct. It’s how we treat people based on their appearance, which is never a good thing, is it?
I don’t really care how people define themselves. I really don’t care who uses what bog. Just don’t piss on the seat. There are massively bigger issues in society. Should we be ensuring children’s health is protected and teens have good mental health support? Hell yes. Should we be protecting women’s spaces and (especially) sporting events? Yep, for sure. Are there likely to be other issues. Yep. Can we solve is without all this hyperbole and hysteria around ‘knowing what a woman is?’ Of course, if people calm down and stop being so childish about it. Are this issues more important for women than stopping the world being run by and for old, rich white men? Nope. Are they part of it? Yep.
So by all means be sceptical about trans people. But don’t claim it’s a scientifically sound position on gender, because it’s not. And don’t claim that it’s feminist position either. It’s a patriarchal strategy to divide and rule, as always. We are going to end up with a patriarchal Tory government (again) because they have successfully convinced the large majority of women that a tiny sub-set of trans women threaten their rights and identity. When the actual problem is, as it always has been, the patriarchy.