The Guardian, on Trump's EO re: gender ideology

[theilltemperedqueenofspacetime]

Did anyone else notice that the Guardian has at last caught up with this discussion, and supplied exactly the tropes one expected of them:
Sex is really complicated, too complicated for you plebs to comprehend.
Now we're all female, because early embryos are not yet morphologically sex-differentiated , ha ha ha!
If Trump is allowed to say male and female are different, it gives him carte blanche to take away female's rights, just like the Taliban.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/25/trump-executive-order-sex

It was the most read opinion piece this morning but not open for comments. Nor did they solicit letters for the letters page.

Trump, first fish president.

The scientists provided the author with very comprehensive information, but simply put the sperm provides either an x or a y chromosome, which means sex is determined at conception. It may take six weeks of development for the sex to become apparent, but it was set at the moment of conception and is unchangeable.

https://alexroblesmd.com/gender-selection-ivf/
"How accurate is gender selection in IVF?
With the latest technology, we can achieve ~99% accuracy in determining gender for embryos."
Does Mahdawi think they're just getting lucky?
(Also want to credit the poster on the other thread who let me know this is already a thing)

@ArabellaScott "How do scientists in general deal with the ones who say that sex is on a spectrum etc? Is it politely ignored? Are they not laughed at?"Did you ever see a movie called Men in Black? Hilarious take on aliens on Earth. Anyway, two FBI agents march up to a house as part of their investigations, ask questions about aliens, and the woman answering the door asks, "Are you being funny?" The senior one responds, "No, ma'am. We have no known sense of humour." Well, that's scientists' public face, usually. In private, the gender-lalas are considered on a par with flat earthers. Not even wrong.

The other name for Swyers is Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. That affects development, not the initial state of being male or female. Complete insensitivity means no gonads develop but, remember, gonads are a secondary sexual characteristic. The original sperm producing potential is not realized at all, but it doesn't change what it originally was before development was stymied.

Swyer Syndrome and CAIS are different conditions.

I know anyone can say they are anything on the internet, but I’m struggling to believe that a real evolutionary biologist with a particular interest in sexual development would confidently assert that Swyer Syndrome is the same condition as CAIS. People with CAIS have XY chromosomes, internal testes & male levels of testosterone but are unable to respond to androgens. They appear externally female but the vast majority have no internal female reproductive organs inc uterus. Swyer individuals also have XY chromosomes, but because of various genetic blips, end up with undeveloped, frictionless scar tissue called ‘streak gonads’. These don’t produce hormones. Individuals also appear externally female with a vulva snd vagina. They usually have a uterus (but obvs can’t produce eggs). They don’t go through puberty spontaneously but need hormone therapy to grow breasts and menstruate. So both conditions involve people who look female physically but are genetically XY males. However, they are quite different conditions with different causes.

Depending on what the "C" stands for, no. That's why I also spelled it out. Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome is one where all the cells in the body do not react to androgenic hormones at all. There's no male puberty, for example. The gonads don't develop and cannot produce sperm. Karyotype is 46,XY.

I don't have a particular interest in sexual development. This is just basic bio. To repeat, the key is in the phrase "complete androgen insensitivity." Yes, circulating levels of testosterone are in the range for males, but none of the cells respond at all. So none of the secondary sexual characteristics develop. There's no male puberty, no gonad maturation. There are other forms of androgen insensitivity which are not complete and male puberty does occur. (Just as an aside, it's not technically correct to call their phenotype "externally female." Females are much closer phenotypically to the basic human body plan, which is what CAIS individuals grow up with. That includes the continued separation of the major and minor labia. In males the major labia fuse to form the scrotum, the minor labia fuse to form the skin of the penis.)

Yes, that’s what CAIS is. But that’s not what Swyer Syndrome is. BoldRed has explained the difference between the two conditions. You could look it up, but it would be worth acknowledging you have this wrong.

Just leaving this here for anyone with 5 mins spare today:
https://www.theguardian.com/info/2014/sep/12/-sp-how-to-make-a-complaint-about-guardian-or-observer-content

Come on. You’ve been rumbled. CAIS is a completely separate condition to Swyer. I love that you are trying to tick me off for saying that both Swyer and CAIS individuals APPEAR externally female (they do) while being caught out in a whopper of a mistake.

Exactly. The same media would say he really is a woman if only he ID'd as one. Lunatics.

The Guardian have become the "Cringe Cringe Comedy Show".

That article is so bad, and when I opened it on my phone I got the Guardian begging for cash to protect the reporting of facts!!!! 🤣🤣🤣

Who falls for this? What's happened to our 🧠🧠🧠 ?

It's incredible there are still people who thing the Guardian is a credible paper.

Oxford degree journalism- will lie, manipulate & drum up hysteria for ££££

Also @quixote9 ovaries and testes are primary sexual characteristics. https://training.seer.cancer.gov/anatomy/reproductive/female/ovaries.html

Thanks, BoldRed.
Mind blown.

I'd love to ask Arwa Mahdawi: if sex is so complicated, how could you campaign for Hillary Clinton to be the first female president? How did you know she's a woman? How did you know Trump was a man? Mahdawi wrote a whole article about how awful it was that Trump called Clinton a "nasty woman", but why was it so awful if we can't really tell what sex people are?

The stupidity of this stuff is off the scale. I just feel so weary with it all sometimes.

I'm not clicking on a Guardian article. I won't reward them with the click. I've been a life long reader and was getting it free as it was a giveaway with my Waitrose card. Waitrose have recently withdrawn the free newspaper perk but I stopped availing myself of it a year ago. I occasionally used to pick up a free Observer which is slightly grounded in reality (thank you Sonia Sodha).
I was recently at an exhibition (Whitechapel Gallery resistance/anti nuclear sort of stuff). There were broadsheet Guardian spreads from the 70s and 80s when it was a different beast with serious journalists and intelligent analysis. It is just a student blog now. RIP the Guardian.

Can’t be stated enough. Thank you.

The thing is, I'm hearing it on American media that Trump is female. They're all repeating what each other are saying without much thought. You can tell since they're all repeating the same sexist "joke".

I often warn my kids that anonymous people on the internet may not be who they claim to be. I need to remind myself of that fairly often too.

Yes, Swyers is sometimes called Gonadal Dysgenesis. You can probably see why the gonads wouldn't develop.

Yes, but it’s not CAIS, is it? They’re two different conditions, not interchangeable.

From their site, at the top "The SEER Training Website is a training resource for oncology data specialists (ODS) and cancer registration trainees."The difference is which characteristic defines sex: the ability to produce large- or small-celled gametes, versus the use of primary in that sentence which is used to mean "a very basic trait." It doesn't change the fact that it's secondary in the sense of not defining the sex. Plenty of organisms produce gametes without gonads. Eg fungi, many seaweeds. It doesn't change the fact that they produce differentiated gametes.