Biologists take on sex seen in fab

[exmouse]

twitter.com/rebeccarhelm/status/1207834357639139328?s=21

Seen this floating about on fb
Any thoughts?

I started reading, but didn’t reach the end. All these threads are designed to make the science sound so complex that credulous people will conclude they don’t understand and that therefore they must take the word of the much cleverer person as truth.

Biological sex existed long before we knew anything about chrosmosome function. Information we gain about chromosomes has largely backed up the observation that there are two sexes. The exact interplay of how chromosomes function and variation withi the two sex groups that sometimes overlap does not affect the simple fact that there are males and females and that for sexual reproduction to occur, one of each of those is required.

It’s

1. patronising and
2. bullshit

They’re talking about the times things go wrong, deviations from the norm. It doesn’t mean sex is complicated, it just means it can go wrong, the same as many other things with human beings.

All very interesting. But the proposed law changes are not based on, or driven by, people with DSDs, they're based on people without DSDs.

It would be a refreshing change to see as many column inches devoted to autogynephilia.

Why is she talking about kelp wrt gametes?
Humans aren't even in the same phylogenetic kingdom as kelp.

Yes I think it was linked to before.

The OP is trying to use variations in chromosomes and the corresponding physical appearance of a person to say that sex isn't a binary.

They are correct that it's possible to be XY (male) and due to a disorder appear physically female. There are a number of variations.

What they are incorrect is in claiming that this means sex is a spectrum. Humans reproduce sexually. You need one person (female) to produce an egg and one (male) to produce a sperm.

I don't believe any of the variations discussed in that list are actually fertile.

‘As a biologist’? botanist? Ecologist? Evolutionary biologist? Zoologist?

Sex is a mechanism for reproduction, sexual reproduction requires different gametes - there are only two sorts. But in any case we have horses and we have donkeys, you can breed them and get sterile mules. That doesn’t mean horses and donkeys are on a spectrum and horses can’t change into donkeys and donkeys can’t change into horses.

The existence of DSDs doesn't mean that people can change sex.

Because that's how desperate she is. All these people are. Kelp, clownfish, strawberries, mushrooms. All to pretend that biological sex isn't a thing, in order to prop up the ideology of transgenderism.

It's not bullshit. It means that if any of us have cell/gene/SRY defecit then we have effectively chosen our sex and luckily our bodies have matched. Society's gender programming is a powerful thing indeed.

I like that there's a scientific explanation. A reason. This means people can't just choose not to believe someone who doesn't feel the same inside as outside.

Chosen our sex? How did we do that then?

We can choose not to believe anything we like, actually. Disorders of sex development have nothing to do with perfectly normal XY males suddenly deciding they feel like they think being a woman should feel. It's not science, it's ideology.

And when I say "normal" I mean the norm, average etc. No judgement implied.

This means people can't just choose not to believe someone who doesn't feel the same inside as outside.

People can choose to believe what they like.

There is no such thing as feeling on the inside and then feeling on the outside.

If someone has a DSD, they have a DSD. That doesn't mean spaces should be mixed sex and men with gender dysphoria or AGP have access to female spaces.

Kelp, clownfish, strawberries, mushrooms...

That's tonight's tea sorted.

I like that there's a scientific explanation. A reason. This means people can't just choose not to believe someone who doesn't feel the same inside as outside.

The science described does not provide any basis for the phenomenon of gender dysphoria. We may one day understand why gender dysphoria occurs, but for now doctors are taking people’s word for something that cannot be physically diagnosed.

So even if we believe they are having that experience, we do not have to credit that experience with any power to change legal sex, or accept that such a person is anything other than a woman or man who has a mental illness that makes them uncomfortable with their observed sex.

If there was physical proof that gender identity existed and that some people genuinely had a gender identity that didn’t match their sex, then diagnosis would be straightforward and false claims would be impossible.

That is not remotely close to the current situation where it appears scientists are being paid to find the desired outcome, so far with very little success. When they find that isn’t easy (likely because the science doesn’t back up the claims being made) those who want to push forward with their agenda fall back on complicating the issue.

You can't have Nemo for tea

You can have asparagus though - I've seen that mentioned in this sort of thing. I don't personally feel I have an awful lot in common with kelp. Or asparagus, but whatever floats their boat

I like that there's a scientific explanation. A reason. This means people can't just choose not to believe someone who doesn't feel the same inside as outside.

As others have said, I don't believe there is any correlation between people who say they are transgender and people with DSDs.

If you have given birth or fathered a child you can be absolutely certain which sex you are.

Any biologist who proposes that there is a non-binary body in humans is talking nonsense. Offensive nonsense because this zoology professor is wading into an area she clearly doesn't understand.

People with DSDs are not a gotcha in the debate whether completely normally developed males should be allowed access to female-only legal set asides and about our right to have these legal set asides in the first place.

Let me just clarify that, if you have given birth without donated eggs, you know you are female.

Let's just remember the numbers - GIDS tests all kids referred and in over 5000 there had not been a single case of a child referred with gender dysphoria who they found to also have a DSD.

(Maybe someone here will have the reference for that)

It's all besides the point and gobshite
an in-depth explanation of autogynephilia would be much more illuminating and relevant

Let me just clarify that, if you have given birth without donated eggs, you know you are female.

Surely just having had periods at some point you do. You may or may not have a DSD, but you are definitely female as you must have or have had a uterus to shed its lining.

That's tonight's tea sorted.

I really don't understand why people bring in the reproductive strategies of other species, some from different Kingdoms into this debate. No one would disagree that there are diverse reproductive strategies used by living things. But they aren't being used by mammals, or more specifically humans.

This is akin to people pointing out that not everything is a heterotroph and that plants are photoautotrophs to justify the reality of people who claim to be 'breatharians'. Just because plants are autotrophs it doesn't mean that humans aren't heterotrophs.