this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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So that's actually not true, but for reasons that I think are weirder and more interesting than anything implied by either side of this "debate."
There are actually about 50% more women who have Y chromosomes than originally expected, and also: microchimerism seems to be extremely common in people who give birth, seemingly regardless of whether or not they give birth to children with XY chromosomes. But the genetic remnants of fetuses that have XY chromosomes stay in the body for many years (possibly a lifetime), and this has a fairly significant effect on genetic composition.
I get what you're saying and I don't totally disagree, but I think the main thing that I keep learning is that "biological sex" is just not actually a particularly meaningful concept.
"Immutable" in a mathematical sense probably isn't true, yeah.
I imagine people forget that biology and evolution will do literally anything that doesn't not work. And the whole male/female thing isn't really a fundamental truth, it's just a really popular answer.
I didn't mean to suggest that sex is easy to define, just that characteristics like chromosomes, gametes and the like cannot be changed by transitioning. There are obviously things we can change (hormonal makeup, appearance), but it doesn't change the underlying biology that you are born with.
Definitely agree that the whole concept of sex becomes shaky in some circumstances - but it remains a concept which has value in fields like pharmacology. There are outliers, but there are also a huge number of people for whom the basic male/female categories apply.
Would you care to elaborate on this, and preferrably add sources for your statements (or pm me) so I can read further?
It's "meaningfulness" is secondary - it is most certainly a highly useful concept in the science and practice of biology and medicine.
Biology actually has a lot of difficulty nailing down words like "species" as there are many useful ways to define a species in biology. Its not surprising that sexuality is a also a concept thats hard to pin down in biology. It is similarly highly useful in biology to define sexuality in multiple different ways - genetically, morphologically etc, but as a concept it doesn't always fit perfectly and its an area where evolution likes to experiment, even in humans.
How one defines "biological sex" is important, there could be a definition which is immutable, and there is an equally valid definition that is entirely mutable, but sex like all of nature is on a spectrum and any definition will have edge cases and should only be used as a description not a prescription.