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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Not sure if this has already been discussed. Biologist on chromosomal sex.

26 replies

TickledOnion · 03/01/2020 15:06

I’ve been off MN for a while so may have missed a discussion on this. m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1554835678010878&id=119810451513415&ref=content_filter

OP posts:
MIdgebabe · 03/01/2020 15:15

Link fails?

TickledOnion · 03/01/2020 15:16

Sorry about that. It’s a Facebook link. I’ll copy and paste it.

OP posts:
Sexequality · 03/01/2020 15:20

Can’t see the link but sex has been discussed extensively on here by biologists and geneticists with decades of experience and high levels of knowledge. It has been firmly confirmed that sex is binary in mammals. The presence of rare developmental or chromosomal abnormalities does nothing to alter this fact.

TickledOnion · 03/01/2020 15:24

I can’t work out how to copy it.

OP posts:
TickledOnion · 03/01/2020 15:25

www.facebook.com/InsufferableIntolerance/posts/1554835678010878/

OP posts:
ArranUpsideDown · 03/01/2020 15:27

The presence of rare developmental or chromosomal abnormalities does nothing to alter this fact.

And several advocates who have DSDs have asked, repeatedly, that the existence of DSDs should not be used as a weaponised, rhetorical device in various arguments and cultures wars. Eg, Claire Graham in What is dignity

mrkhvoice.com/index.php/2019/12/18/what-is-dignity/

KatvonHostileExtremist · 03/01/2020 15:56

Someone asked them on Twitter if the attached statement on sex was incorrect....

The tumbleweed is still tumbling.

I feel so sorry for biological women with actual physical medical conditions, why can't TRAs just leave them alone and stop dragging them into this debate? Its continuous, and its disgusting.

Not sure if this has already been discussed. Biologist on chromosomal sex.
RedHoodGirl · 03/01/2020 15:56

I don’t think their intention was to “weaponise” anything? They actually say at the end “Biology is a shit show. Be kind to people.” (or variations of) several times as the intended point of their post.

KatvonHostileExtremist · 03/01/2020 16:11

Be kind to people by lying?
Be kind to people by telling them they aren't a proper man or woman because they have a biological medical condition?
Be kind to people by making them feel shitter than they do already, so you can feel better about yourself?

"Kind"
I cried when I first saw PCOS dragged into this. My pain. My reality. My fucking lived experience.

But regardless of it all my shitty imperfect body is female, because I produced the large gametes. Same for my sisters, who would have produced them but for disorders of sexual development.

No matter how much bs you spout, you will not change material reality. And shame on you for even trying.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 03/01/2020 16:20

I would definitely see that Facebook post as an attempt to justify the ridiculous "sex is a spectrum" claims made by gender ideologists. It's not an argument being made in good faith. If it were I'd be interested in hearing about the third, fourth and any subsequent gametes.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 03/01/2020 16:23

Sorry this has so upset you, KatvonHostileExtremist. Flowers

That sort of claim enrages me. The O in PCOS stands for ovarian, FFS. Only women can have PCOS. ONLY WOMEN!

OnlyTheTitOfTheIceberg · 03/01/2020 16:24

I don’t think their intention was to “weaponise” anything? They actually say at the end “Biology is a shit show. Be kind to people.” (or variations of) several times as the intended point of their post.

Then they're just fucking hypocrites, aren't they? No one who spends more than a little time on the trans issue can be unaware that people with DSDs have repeatedly asked to be left out of the debate because theirs is a very different reality. How is repeatedly dragging them back in despite that request being "kind"?

MrsDoylesTeaBags · 03/01/2020 16:58

Be Kind?

Biological Sex has nothing to do with Identity and neither does DSD.

Some people have a mental illness of Gender Dysphoria that means they feel more comfortable presenting as the opposite sex, why others feel the need to co-opt other medical conditions to justify it is beyond me.

KatvonHostileExtremist I'm really sorry to hear that, I have a friend with PCOS so I understand how difficult it is to live with. I don't understand how they can use your condition but then we're dealing with the upside down and there is much I don't understand.

NellieEllie · 03/01/2020 19:05

I simply don’t get all this stuff about how “complicated” sex is. People go to great lengths to bamboozle us with long winded science”explanations”.
Let’s face it, does this mean that trans women and trans men have these anomalous conditions? Is there a scientific test for “being in the wrong body”? No. Right, so irrelevant. End of.

StrangeLookingParasite · 03/01/2020 19:14

It's just as fucking stupid in this instance as the other 975426778 times it's been spouted.
The occasional person born with less than two legs doesn't stop humans being bipedal.

NotDavidTennant · 03/01/2020 19:30

I've started to believe that 'sex is binary' vs 'sex is a spectrum' is a bit of a fruitless debate. Both sides seem to more or less agree on the facts, it's mainly definitions that are being argued over.

The crucial thing is that biological sex, whether a binary or a spectrum, can't be changed in any meaningful sense. That's the line that needs to be held.

MrsDoylesTeaBags · 03/01/2020 20:04

Exactly Nellie. Its not nearly as complicated as some try to make it out to be, and even if it were it still has nothing to do with obviously male or obviously female people who just feel at odds with their bodies.

I think this movement has done a great disservice to people who live with mental illnesses that are at the root of transgenderism by creating a stigma rather than addressing it.

I'm on a Twitter detox at the moment, but I find that of the transgender people I follow, the ones who address their issues honestly seem to be able to deal with it much better than the ones who don't.

ShootsFruitAndLeaves · 03/01/2020 20:53

the person here being quoted doesn't seem very clear about biology, for a biologist.

the SRY gene does not 'pop off' the Y chromosome. Rather what happens is that there is that the X chromosome is long and contains lots of genes, and the Y chromosome is.much shorter and contains fewer genes.

Now if you are a woman you obviously have two X chromosomes, and when eggs are formed then genetic material from the two X chromosomes can be split and rejoined essentially anywhere, as X is obviously the same as X .

Whereas men when they create sperm they have an X chromosome and a Y chromosome so the process of meiosis is not quite so easy as there's only a small area that's common between X and Y, and it just so happens that the SRY gene is located adjacent to that area, so it's quite possible, if rare, for SRY to end up on a X sperm, and also for a Y sperm to end up without SRY, since the splitting and rejoining of chromosomes is not a completely exact process.

Also it's not true that SRY is 'the' gene. Sex reversal can occur due to SOX9 or Dessert Hedgehog gene mutations.

And there really isn't such a thing as a 'hormonal male', that's nonsense. You do have 'normal male hormone levels' and normal female ones, but that's not a class of biological sex. A person with a male genotype who produces hormones below the normal male range, may have a female phenotype, but equally they might not. An old man with very low testosterone is in no sense a 'hormonal female', unless you are a fucking idiot.

And to whatever extent normal male or normal female development can go wrong, none of this defines a third sex. XX, SRY+ with a penis will be infertile.

testing987654321 · 03/01/2020 21:55

So bored of this, I assume people like this are completely stuck when it comes to mating, they simply have no idea what kind of person they should have sex with to have a baby. And presumably they are completely surprised when they get pregnant or get their partner pregnant. Life is so confusing.

Feminazgul · 03/01/2020 22:47

If sex really isnt binary then surely all trans people would have their own, distinct, chromosome arrangement?

I would be willing to bet that if you examined the chromosomes of a transwoman and a man that they would both be XY.

ShootsFruitAndLeaves · 03/01/2020 23:27

that's not really the point tbh. the point about sex being binary is that there are sperm and eggs, and sperm are produced by males and eggs by female.

chromosomes are not really the issue here I think.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 04/01/2020 13:21

I’ve been off MN for a while so may have missed a discussion on this.

There's nothing much to discuss, OP. This argument has been made by numerous gender ideologists over the years. It was piffle the first time I saw it and it's still piffle.

ArranUpsideDown · 04/01/2020 14:24

For anyone who hasn't seen it, @lecanardnoir123 (Andy Lewis) has a good Twitter thread that is relevant to biological development (follows on from a very unpleasant video from 2 women 'skeptics' about JKR's tweet):

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3785171-Fantastic-twitter-analysis-of-criticism-RE-JK-Rowling-Title-edited-by-MNHQ-at-posters-request

ArranUpsideDown · 04/01/2020 16:42

Dr Emma Hilton (Fond of Beetles) on DSDs [a thread]:

The role of RSPO1 in suppressing differentiation of male gonads (testes) is a subject of much research. Scientists now understand to some extent how RSPO1 function slots into our model of sex development. To suggest that people with DSDs, from whom we have learned so much about sex development, are actually best represented (read: othered) by some alternative model seems, well, a little impolite at best.

People with DSDs are not simply “understood within a binary model”, the threads of their exceptional molecular and anatomical variations are woven into the very fabric of the model.

twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1213113271785598982

Tocopherol · 04/01/2020 18:42

I actually LAUGHED when I saw PCOS being dragged into it. PCOS is A DISORDER. There is definitely something wrong with me. PCOS is A FLAW! It negatively affects my fertility and causes me terrible pain! Having to use a debilitating disease to pad out a definition is a sign of failure. And to imply there's nothing disordered or wrong about PCOS is as misogynist as the idea that women's(that is, period) pain doesn't really matter. Also not a good look for your movement.