We might all have some male cells inside us?!

[Gosports]

I just came across this article that suggests just that. Our chromosomal makeup might be more complex than we assume. I had no idea. I thought every cell in my body was female.

I’m 100% GC and fully believe Robert Winston when he says we can’t change sex, but maybe the debate is a bit more nuanced than I first thought. Anyone with a more scientific background than me (ie, none) have any thoughts?

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

It was more the suggestion that we could all have a DSD to some extent that gave me pause for thought.

Well, that's the game they're playing. Distractions. Look over here, not over here. Don't think about the big picture, just accept this bullshit for this thing we want to do for some totally different reason.

"Bullshit baffles brains" is an old saying. Just because you understand what the bullshitter's saying, and recognise that it's true, doesn't mean that it's relevant.

Favourite related meme attached.

Excellent meme! I’ll ignore the article and carry on knowing that penises must not be allowed in women’s spaces.

A bit worrying that these scientists and doctors are in what are seems to be influential positions though.

It was more the suggestion that we could all have a DSD to some extent that gave me pause for thought.

Anyone might have a DSD precisely because most DSDs have little/no practical impact, so are undetected. That's why true rates are hard to estimate.

It gives a realistic rate for DSD's of 1 in 4500.

The rate quoted for moasticism is 1 in 1500 but usually that would be for small changes at embryo stage- chromosomal changes to sex must be much rarer still.

'Full' chimerism is vanishingly rare.

I agree it's a very interesting topic and those arguing against self ID do well to be familiar with it, if only to refute the ridiculous assertions made about this area.

A bit worrying that these scientists and doctors are in what are seems to be influential positions though.

But they aren't, that article is entirely factual. It's only the title which is misleading.

So the article is about a DSD, or something that sounds like an extreme form of conjoined twins.

Right.

The author has made clear she wasn't meaning for the article to be used to support the 'sex is a spectrum' nonsense:

mobile.twitter.com/claireainsworth/status/888365994577735680

There is no evidence that female and males are fundamentally different beyond sexual organs .

So why have separate male and female sports?

It was more the suggestion that we could all have a DSD to some extent that gave me pause for thought.

And yet, one class of human still perpetrates 98% of all sexual crime....

And yet, one class of human still perpetrates 98% of all sexual crime....

Maybe it is the ‘female’ cells they might have in their bodies. Running amok in there. Perhaps we need a researcher to set that study up.

NecessaryScene points out that Neanderthals are extinct. I have had my DNA analysed (XX, if you wish to know but I already knew that as I'd popped out 3 babies) and analysis showed that I have a greater than average percentage of Neanderthal DNA. I see this as akin to having some male cells: that wouldn't make me male just as having my DNA profile doesn't make me a Neanderthal.

@Fieldofgreycorn

There is no evidence that female and males are fundamentally different beyond sexual organs .

So why have separate male and female sports?

Different skeletons, muscle amounts and types, hormone levels, blood and loads more.

I think the point PP was making is that the lady brain myth is nonsense.

Maybe it is the ‘female’ cells they might have in their bodies. Running amok in there. Perhaps we need a researcher to set that study up.

Women get blamed for everything anyway so why bother with research. Damn those pesky female cells.

@Fieldofgreycorn

There is no evidence that female and males are fundamentally different beyond sexual organs .

So why have separate male and female sports?

Yes, I saw that. If we rephrase it as "There is no evidence that female and males are fundamentally different beyond primary and secondary sex characteristics" then it would be true, but trivially true. Because it's the differences between these characteristics which define the two sexes. So it's actually tautologous.

Perhaps it would be clearer and easier to say that "the features, related to reproductive role, which differentiate females from males are characteristics a to x, which are significant in situations 1 to n."

Or, "females and males are differentiated by reproductive role" and leave it at that.

The sporting difference is directly related to sex , age of puberty and affect of hormones

Young girls and boys don't show the difference

NecessaryScene points out that Neanderthals are extinct.

But I feel bad now, because I said "fortunately".

I meant meant "fortunately" in that at least it's one less civil rights issue to worry about.

But on the other hand, if they were still around, women (of both species) might be better off.

Women currently suffer from the problem that we don't otherwise seem to properly understand how to do civil rights for two groups that actually are fundamentally different in some way.

You see all these bad analogies to race, which misses the point that men and women are different in a fundamental way that people with different ancestry aren't.

If there was a clearly distinct second intelligent species, we'd have the necessary frameworks to handle them. And both groups including men, they should have been able to balance the rights. Including having different sports categories for the two species, if they had clearly differing physical abilities.

It would be a more even fight if it was "trans-species" Neanderthal men demanding to be let into the human male category (if humans were lower performance). Males versus males, not males versus females. I wasn't convinced patriarchy was a thing until I saw how readily women would be perceived as support humans in such a fight.

(Although it's possible neanderthal vs human might not be as clear-cut as sex is, if there was possible interbreeding. But it's an interesting thought experiment).

Young girls and boys don't show the difference

Totally false, as discussed here.

Link should take you to timestamp 1:18:38, the relevant bit.

Sorry I hate video as a format - really doesn't work for me - promise that if I get some time I will try some research

You assertion sounds surprising given my ( purely anecdotal) personal experience

Although I do know it's not totally simple as in very gendered societies girls are given less opportunity to develop physical skills which would certainly affect performance

There was a video posted from not too long ago from New Zealand with a compilation of stupid questions including the number of times a particular person shoehorned this Scientific American article into the discussion. It’s good, I will try and find it.

[quote Gosports]@Hasselhoffsheadband I agree, and understand that people with DSDs don’t want their condition used in this way. It was more the suggestion that we could all have a DSD to some extent that gave me pause for thought.[/quote]
The idea that the world is complex and that trivial meaningless imperfections exist doesn't give me pause for thought!

And surely you either have a DSD or you don't - if the sex-based imperfections are completely trivial then it looks lore like a TCSD (trivial cell sex difference) not a a Disorder of anything, and not relevant to sexual development.

Sorry I hate video as a format - really doesn't work for me - promise that if I get some time I will try some research

You assertion sounds surprising given my ( purely anecdotal) personal experience

Fortunately I posted a partial transcript previously, so can repaste it. You'll find more discussion at that link.

Of course in track and field we actually have, interestingly enough, it's easy to look up online world records for running, jumping and throwing events starting even from age six. And so what happens is you have maybe even as much as five, six, seven, even up to ten percent difference between males and females at six and seven years of age in the running and jumping events, but way higher, like maybe fifteen to twenty percent more in the upper body, for example ball throw. And then what happens is you have this big distinct difference between little boys and little girls and then as they get to about eight, nine, ten you see a little bit of a convergence of that difference. Never though with upper body strength, but for [...] jumping and running events they get together, but what happens there is a lot of studies only start measuring children just prior to puberty, and what they're capturing there is if there's no difference between boys and girls at say 9, 10, 11 it's because the girls have advanced in maturation. They've actually started to mature earlier than boys so they have that momentary sort of advantage as girls because they went into the growth spurt a little bit earlier.

So what you're seeing is - because we all know that girls have about a two-year head start on puberty compared to boys - so you would see... everybody knows this, like if you see children around grade five, four, five and six sometimes, little girls look really mature and the boys still look very childish. And so if you're just measuring the difference between boys and girls starting from that stage and then through puberty it looks like there's no difference between boys and girls but then the puberty happens but if you actually start earlier there's a big difference then it gets smaller.

I’m 100% GC and fully believe Robert Winston when he says we can’t change sex, but maybe the debate is a bit more nuanced than I first though

Sure, Jan.

Here it is

mobile.twitter.com/singlikeadiva/status/1446036390760706054

Here's what the author of this piece had to say.

@ScreamingMeMe

Here's what the author of this piece had to say.

Right.

However, prepare for the shitstorm of obfuscation and misinformation.

Is Scientific American a reputable publication? Or an aspiration...

[quote Gosports]I just came across this article that suggests just that. Our chromosomal makeup might be more complex than we assume. I had no idea. I thought every cell in my body was female.

I’m 100% GC and fully believe Robert Winston when he says we can’t change sex, but maybe the debate is a bit more nuanced than I first thought. Anyone with a more scientific background than me (ie, none) have any thoughts?

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

No, that still does not mean people with penises and testicles and prostates can invade the spaces of people with ovaries and vaginas regardless of their consent.

And that is all this is about.