"Some females have Y chromosomes"

[Lamaha]

There's a meme going around Facebook and my woke friends are cheering and smirking.
It says that there are some people born with Y chromosomes and are female and it is not that rare. I tried to post the relevant meme but apparently it is too large.

The exchange is on this website:

me.me/i/thip-itein-philip-batterham-this-video-is-misleading-possibly-deliberately-f55d2d53be684a45af2396676d0709a1

Considering Philip Batterham's position as President of the International Federation Genetics Federation, I was confused and dug around some more.
I found this today:

"Sex is biological and 99.98 percent of humans are either straight up male or female with no ambiguities. It's determined at conception and fertilization, and is observable in every cell, every system, all our hormones, every organ, and in our entire biology. Sex is not assigned, it's observed as a physical, material, and biological fact. Ultimately it's all about the gametes. If you produce sperm you are male. If you produce ova you are female. No human was ever born without the haploid contribution of both male and female gametes.
"And as regards intersex, this occurs in about 0.017 percent of humans and every case is a disorder of sexual development of either a male or a female. We have a ton of good data and the DSD categories are well understood genetically. These are the six biological karyotype sex disorders that do not result in immediate death to the fetus:
X – Roughly 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 5,000 people (Turner’s )
XX – Most common form of female
XXY – Roughly 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000 people (Klinefelter)
XY – Most common form of male
XYY – Roughly 1 out of 1,000 people
XXXY – Roughly 1 in 18,000 to 1 in 50,000 births
"If you are 46, XX, you are female. If you are 45, XO, you are still female, but with Turner syndrome. 47 XXX, 48XXXX and 49XXXXX, aren't a spectrum of femaleness, they are classified as female chromosomal disorders. If you are 46, XY, you are male. If you are 47, XXY, you are male, but with Kleinfelter syndrome. If you are 48, XXYY, you are male, but with XXYY syndrome. 48,XXXY, 49,XXXXY. All are still male. These aren't on a spectrum - they are categorized as male genetic disorders. They aren't considered intersex conditions, but a lot of trans activists like to claim they are.
"If someone had trisonomy 21, we don't say they are on a human spectrum of any sort, we classify them as having Down syndrome.
"Intersex conditions by themselves can exist in a spectrum, but only in relation to the severity of that specific condition. But even over that spectrum they have clearly defined categories. Androgen insensitivity syndrome is someone who is genetically male, but their reproductive organs don't masculinize. It has 3 categories of severity.
"There is no spectrum gradient between male and male with androgen insensitivity syndrome. These are clearly defined categories. There is no spectrum gradient between female and androgen insensitivity syndrome. You are either in the category female or category male with androgen insensitivity syndrome. There is no spectrum gradient between having an intersex condition and not.
"If you have all the typical indicators of your sex, you are that sex, you are in that category. If you are born with the number and type of sex chromosomes off from your external genitalia, with unmatching or mixed type of gonads, with ambiguous internal reproductive anatomy; and/or ambiguous external genitalia, then you are in the intersex category. There is NO spectrum gradient or overlap between being typical male and having an intersex condition.
"Bottom line: Intersex is a specific set of individual genetic disorders of sexual development - not a third sex or a collection of different sexes.
"Gender on the other hand is a set of trivial characteristics associated with the performance of masculine or feminine behaviors. These are entirely cultural constructs and are widely varied culture to culture. Typically gender is the box constructed to limit the power of females. And if you don't understand the ways that male transactivists are consciously and intentionally infringing on the rights of women then you have not been paying attention. Either that or you are purposely blind to the intensely violent misogyny directed at women from that population.
"Bottom line is there are two sexes, three orientations, and 7.6 billion genders. Rocks are hard. Water is wet. Men are not women. Women are not men. Nobody is ever born into the wrong body. Nobody's rights should be infringed upon and no one should care about any particular person's gender performance. That gender performance should not be confused with their sex.
"Please feel free to copy and save this comment for later reference. It's complex and difficult to remember off the top of your head if you do not know the biology inside and out. And lots of people will try to confuse you with their ideological bullshit. The science is clear and the data is not confused."

I'm not sure to whom that info is attributed to, but I'll try and find out. As a non-scientist, it's all rather complex and confusing to me and it's important to have some understanding of the complexity. I would have posted a rebuttal to the original meme if I'd had more info as well as a source.

It's the only argument they have. Disorders of sex development don't prove that people are born into the wrong body. It's sophistry.

That is wonderful, going to save it for later use.

'no spectrum"

That's the key. There aren't shades of male and female, there is male and there is female, plus intersex disorders.

It’s a very good summary, one I’ve made in bits and bobs on various threads, particularly the Semenya thread. It’s quite startling how people are still unwilling to accept, or preferring to avoid the fact that Semenya is male. This is a biological fact. Water is wet.

Only thing I would change is define 45X0 and those similar as aneuplodies that affect the sex chromosomes. I have seen Klinefelter, Turner, 46XYY and XXX but never the others. They’re incredibly rare.

It is wonderful. Coherent. Plain. Def one to save & thanks for posting.

Just saved that in case needed. Thanks!

From the link: Battenham says some people with a Y chromosome are female. I have a memory of Bowlofbabelfish saying if you have a Y then you are technically male. Or have I misremembered?

How does The President of the International Genetics Federation explain people born with a Y chromosome who are female then?

How does JaneEyreAgain explain how someone with a Y chromosome can be female? Because the explanation above explains how they can’t pretty well (and the OP isn’t sure who it’s from, by the way).

From memory I think an individual can have a partial Y chromosome. If they are missing the "branch" of the Y which contains the "Road map" to develop as male they will develop in utero following the female "Road map" so are classed as female.

Hopefully, one of our resident scientists can correct me and use the proper scientific terminology.

Of course TRAS are massively appropriating the existence of intersex conditions to make their arguments. Something which is considered heinous by the "woke" when discussing any other matter.

Very eloquent.

I completely follow the explanation above and think it's great. However, I would be interested to read the seemingly untenable position that those with Y are female.

I've asked the person who shared that info for the source. It still doesn't explain how Battenham could make that claim. However, even scientists are capable of having a belief system and if he wants to define female wokenly, well...

is it perhaps XY males with complete androgen insensitivity?

looking forward to finding out the source of this. because we have organisations such as the BACP and Bish training (goes into schools) pretty much implying there is a spectrum with clitoris at one and and penis at the other. teaching children that some penises look more like a clitoris than two clitorises look alike.

interesting, isn't it, that organisations such as these can say this sort of thing because they know full well children are not going to all show each other their penises and clitorises to see if what they said was correct.

I'm pretty sure that's by Claire Graham. She's a medical professional who has a intersex condition, tweets as @MRKHVoice and has a blog. She's well worth following.

is it perhaps XY males with complete androgen insensitivity?

Yes, I've seen people say this counts as female. I can see why they might, in terms of how such an individual is treated in society, it makes a lot of sense that they would function as female.

I think a lot of people have a hard time separating the idea of social role from describing what is going on physically or developmentally.

I think it's about what happens to the body during puberty as well as believing oneself to be female. Thing is we know full well this has fuck all to do with the concept of transgenderism. TRAs care about intersex people as much as pro life campaigners care about maternal health and child poverty.

TRAs care about intersex people as much as pro life campaigners care about maternal health and child poverty.

Very true. They use intersex conditions as a "gotcha" which personally I find quite distasteful.

I’m wondering if they’re talking about people who are XX but have the SRY gene? Normally the SRY gene is present on the Y chromosome. It’s presence leads to the undifferentiated cells that will become the genitalia to develop as testes through a process of triggering various proteins and receptors. As girls are XX they have no SRY gene, therefore no development of testes and the cells become ovaries instead. If I understand it correctly (and I’m a GP not a geneticist so my recollection of embryology and DSDs is a bit hazy) in people who are XX with SRY gene, the SRY has accidentally got transferred from a Y chromosome onto a bit of an X chromosome during cell division. This leads to someone being XX with the presence of the SRY gene leading to the development of testes at about 6-7 weeks gestation. The resultant foetus would then be phenotypically male (ie in appearance as it would have testicles) but genotypically female (if you sequenced it’s chromosomes it would be XX).

However, as we’ve said so many times here, this really has nothing to do with transgender people. It’s not some sort of “gotcha” that proves Male people who identify as female really are female or that humans are not sexually dimorphic. These cases are very rare and do not support the TRA line that sex is a spectrum, not least because the vast majority of them will be normal XY males (as evidenced by many of them fathering children before they decided they really were a woman all along).

@Lamaha this is a good example: www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34290981

It's incredibly rare, and strictly speaking they are boys not girls, but it's certainly not a case of disordered gender and no one (sensible) would even think to include this in the trans debate.

It can occasionally happen with Klinefelters (XXY) that phenotypically people appear more female but in these cases they usually appear slightly dimorphic and often end up having genetic testing early on to remove ambiguity