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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

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Original poster

okay - basic biology question...

65 replies

loveyouradvice · 21/10/2018 20:52

Am I right in thinking that from the very first second ie a one cell embryo they are either XX or XY?

Interesting discussion at lunch with well=informed woman who was quite convinced by the hormone washes determining sex later on in pregnancy.

Sorry this is biology 101 but I just needed to check...

OP posts:

NeurotrashWarrior · 23/10/2018 06:20

that's a good point I hadn't thought of before.

IdaBWells · 23/10/2018 07:24

I cannot understand how trans activists can possibly say there is any “fluidity” in biology, because whatever is happening to the growing baby is always happening in an adult female human’s body. Can we acknowledge her? She is always an anonymous background provider in these discussions while in reality she is an objective reality and a unique individual and (most likely) the most important person in the new baby’s life.

NeurotrashWarrior · 23/10/2018 07:26

I'm starting to think we may need to blame the education system...

Certainly there's a lot of neurotrash science around these days that really doesn't get challenged.

pancaketosser · 23/10/2018 07:40

I would have thought the TRAs would be all over this thread, explaining advanced biology to us. Strange.

quixote9 · 23/10/2018 08:11

Well, if you want input from another biologist: I'm seconding all the others on here. I'm even seconding the non-biologists. I haven't seen any outright nonsense yet.

Y'all are better than most classes of undergrads.

I love this forum.

TheElementsSong · 23/10/2018 08:15

Hot damn, I only just saw this thread. Biochemist here. And yes to all the sensible posters above.

FesteringCarbuncle · 23/10/2018 08:18

The expression of gender varies over time and place so even if the hormone wash theory were true it fails to explain how the infant is born knowing that pink and sparkly=girl

CountFosco · 23/10/2018 08:21

Another biochemist here. Assuming we are talking about homo sapiens all above is correct, X or Y determined by sperm. Alligators on the other hand...

MyVisionsComeFromSoup · 23/10/2018 08:27

presumably the hormone washes are country specific, so in the US, they know that girls play soccer, and in the UK, it's boys who play football, so cleverly manage not to get those particular washes mixed up. I mean, we all know what happens when a stray red hormone ends up in the white shirts load.

calpop · 23/10/2018 08:33

The intersex diversion is such bollocks - its vanishingly rare to have a Disorder of Sexual Development, and as far as I know, no TRA or trans person has ever claimed to have one. Its very easy to check what chromosomes you have now in a simple test and presumably this is checked during the current gender reassignment process so it must be completely irrelevant.

The few people who have publicly stated they have an intersex condition dont claim to be trans.

examdoctornick · 23/10/2018 08:39

Sperm cells are either X or Y and eggs are always X. At the point of conception the resulting cell becomes either XY (male) or XX (female).

EBearhug · 23/10/2018 08:40

Alligators on the other hand...

What about the alligators? I need to know now! Do they have some weird reptilian way of managing all this?

SweepTheHalls · 23/10/2018 08:44

Oy, no blaming the education system here! We don't teach any tosh about hormone washes! Just standard x y crosses.

AspieAndProud · 23/10/2018 09:10

Transgender activist would be wise not to go down the hormone wash route anyway.

If it were true that gender dysphoria was caused by a hormone inbalance in the womb it would give us an objective test for transgenderism, thus negating the need for self-ID (just as brain scans for ‘pink’ and ‘blue’ brains would).

It would also mean that we could potentially ‘correct’ the imbalance in the womb, eventually eliminating gender dysphoria entirely.

Is this what they really want?

In truth there’s no test for a mismatch between sex and gender because gender is no more biological than your accent.

AspieAndProud · 23/10/2018 09:16

What about the alligators? I need to know now! Do they have some weird reptilian way of managing all this?

Incubation temperature determines reptile sex, IIRC.

I don’t know why people talk about the birds and the bees because birds have WZ chromosomes and bees are WAY more complicated - though I love the term ‘haplodiploidy’:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplodiploidy

ScreamingBird · 23/10/2018 09:50

Calpop,

This person is making sure that trans people don't appropriate intersex conditions. They are trans and have a self diagnosed slight androgen insensitivity.

www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/9pcr6a/can_dyadic_nonintersex_trans_people_please_stop/

EBearhug · 23/10/2018 14:31

I don’t know why people talk about the birds and the bees because birds have WZ chromosomes and bees are WAY more complicated - though I love the term ‘haplodiploidy’

So do I.

I am having very faint memories of a talk I was once at, about chromosomes in strawberries and potatoes.

I don't remember any details though.

GhoulMythicalMoooaning · 23/10/2018 14:41

So interesting

BeyondAdultHumanFemale · 23/10/2018 15:23

Birdseye might be a good go-to for potato related questions, ebear...

EBearhug · 23/10/2018 15:27

I don't have any potato-related questions, other than shall I go to the chippy on my way to my evening class, as I won't have time to eat otherwise.

I focus on the important questions.

BeyondAdultHumanFemale · 23/10/2018 18:11

(we're having chippy for tea... Apologies to Birdseye for not going to the freezer section for my lazy meal)

Bowlofbabelfish · 23/10/2018 18:57

However the epigenetics may be influenced by environment, including uterine environment, so it is possible (and still a fairly new field of study) that expression of X or Y linked characteristics could be influenced.

But that wouldn’t affect sex, unless it affected the SRY region.

The average gene on the X chromosome is nothing to do with sex determination. Classic example would be the genes that code the visual pigments in various eye cells - that’s why the most common form of colour blindness, red green, is x linked and thus more common in men.

Most genes on the X are nothing to do with sex. The only really unusual thing about the mix of genes on the x is that it has almost none of the basic ‘housrkeeping’ Genes which keep cells running.

As far as I know, epigenetics and sex determination don’t overlap much. Epigenetics is primarily a way of the environment interacting with the genome and is mainly linked to stuff like resource allocation (ie how much food is around.) most epigenetically imprinted genes are linked to growth in one way or another.

Genetically the Y is a bit of a barren zone. O think there are only seventy five ish actual genes on it - the SRY region, bits and bobs to do with Male fertility and some immune stuff. There are also things called pseudoautosomal regions which have genes which are present on x and y. And autosome being a non sex chromosome.

Queenofthedrivensnow · 23/10/2018 20:57

Tras really would have us believe there's an intersex person in every office and cul de sac

JamPasty · 23/10/2018 23:57

Can I get people's take on this article please? It pings my bullshitometer, but I know bugger all about development biology, so it could be 100% kosher. Thanks!

www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/

MaidOfStars · 24/10/2018 00:19

Same shit she published three years ago. Like, literally the same.

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