cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18302836
Iβm just picturing that robot from Star Trek (the one thinking about βthis sentence is falseβ) going βhuhβ and then blowing upβ¦
Jesus whatβs so hard about XX and XY?
One reason is because your chromosomes donβt control genital development, your hormones do. So if youβre born with XY chromosomes and your testosterone receptors donβt work then youβll develop female genitals and a generally female physiology (minus reproductive organs).
This is all separate from gender expression obviously, but things are hard because the world is complex. If you havenβt seen or experienced this complexity in your life, thatβs fine. But donβt diminish the complexity of otherβs experiences just because they donβt match your own.
I personally know someone like that. Sheβs currently raising a kid she gave birth to thanks to a donated egg and IVF. Chromosomes are useful for first order approximations, but biology is a glorious fucking mess that cares not for simple binaries.
I hope that the person youβre responding to will be able to form a new opinion after seeing these very measured and thoughtful responses. Iβm really pleased with how calmly the community is handling this particular comment.
Nothing at all
This post is talking about people born XXY or X0 (just one x chromosome and nothing else)
or people born with a mixture of XY and XX chromosomes, such as discordant chimerism
Genetic sex is not binary, its a bellcurve. This is not a theory or an idea or a matter of debate among biologists.
The only people on earth who think its only XX and XY are those who are uneducated on the topic
but now you know better!!
Can somebody please enlighten me with some numbers on the commonality of said deviations. I always assumed they made up such a small percentage it wasnt relevent same as people with 4 or 6 fingers.
How big does a minority need to be before itβs βrelevantβ enough to be acknowledged and its membersβ rights respected? People with 4 or 6 fingers exist. People whose chromosomes donβt match their physiology exist. People whose gender identity doesnβt match their genitals exist. It doesnβt matter how many of them there are, because every single one of us is a unique minority of one.
But you asked for numbers, so Iβll give you some numbers.
According to this article, around 1.7% of people are intersex, meaning they have physiology that doesnβt fit neatly into the common conceptions of male or female. Thatβs close to the number of people with red hair, which is estimated to be 2% of the world population. I have never heard anyone suggest that redheads are too small a percentage to matter.
I think you were asking specifically about chromosomes, though. Thereβs a table in the linked article that breaks down intersex conditions by cause. The first entry is βNon-XX or non-XY (except Turnerβs or Klinefelterβs)β. This refers to people with XY chromosomes whose bodies developed female characteristics (Swyer syndrome) and people with XX chromosomes whose bodies developed male characteristics (de la Chapelle syndrome). It does not include people with X, XXY, or XO chromosomes. (Those are the next two entries in the table.)
The estimated frequency for this condition is 0.0639 per 100 live births, equivalent to 0.0639% of population. That looks like a really low number, right? Surely not enough to be βrelevantβ! Exceptβ¦ There are 8.1 billion people on this planet. 0.0639% of 8.1 billion is 5,175,900 people, which is roughly the current population of New Zealand.
Remember, that is only women with XY chromosomes and men with XX chromosomes. If we include all intersex people that number rises to 140 million, which is nearly the population of Russia.
Quite a lot actually! Chromosomes arenβt a good basis for biological sex.
Credit to @jarfil@beehaw.org for where I first saw this image (and obviously original credit to the original tweeter, @RebeccaRHelm)
So we have 4 independent variable
Chromosomal sex Genetic sex Hormonal sex Cells sex
Put it all into a matrix I would love to see the population distribution across this table.
Surly we can simply define a subset of the combinations. Cos the only other solution is to simply through out the concept of gender divisions but that just ainβt gonna work.
Put it all into a matrix I would love to see the population distribution across this table.
That would be an interesting thing to see.
However, biology is still learning about human sex. IIRC last year there was a cancer study that put in question a large number of biology studies in generalβ¦ because many only focused on XY cell lines, to save time, reasoning that βif it has an X, and it has a Y, then all variables are coveredβ. Well, turns out that XX cells donβt use both chromosomes at the same time; instead, the genes from one of the Xs get inhibited via epigeneticsβ¦ but not always all of them, or in the same way, and not always on the same X. That means some genes that didnβt activate in XY cells, sometimes would in XX cells, causing different mutations and reactions to cancer medication.
As a general rule, when it comes to any science, the version you learn in grade school is extremely simplified to the point of being almost entirely useless. To draw a parallel to physics, if you ask a physicist βhow many states of matter are there?β, theyβd probably consider it a difficult and poorly defined question, the exact distinction between a distinct state and a subset/variant of a state is up for discussion, but any coherent model has at least 20 states. What youβre saying is the equivalent of βwhatβs so hard about solid, liquid and gas?β
