I think you’re misunderstanding the point the OP is making. Typically, male/female are used when referring to sex, and masculine/feminine and man/woman are used when referring to gender. So this conversation isn’t about gender identity at all, but completely about biological sex.
There are a bunch of factors that go into determining sex. The two main categories are related to the person’s genes (their genotype) and how the person physically presents (phenotype). The biggest genetic marker is whether the person has XX or XY chromosomes (or some other combination). The easiest marker for phenotype is the person’s genitalia, but there are others, such as gonads, gamete production, hormones, etc.
So even just talking about biological sex, a person’s genotype and phenotype might give conflicting determinations of sex. So an “XX male” refers to someone with the genotype of a female, but the phenotype of a male, but says nothing about their gender identity or any surgeries they might’ve undergone.
With that in mind, someone with a PhD in genomics seems to be in the right field to address gene expression and genotypes vs phenotypes. Although you’re right that we shouldn’t rely on authority, but instead on the arguments presented. What we’ve been shown here, though, isn’t a fully fleshed out debate. It’s about 60 words on social media that amounts to “your mental model of sex is wrong; here are cases to rebut it”
EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 hours ago
I don’t have a PhD, but my understanding of the basics is this:
All people start out developing as female in the womb before a certain point where a large dose of testosterone caused (usually) by the Y chromosome activating (basically the only time in life that it does apart from starting puberty AFAIK) causes the proto-labia and vagina to push outwards and form the ball sack and enlarging the clitoris and urethra into what we know of as the penis. This is why you can see that line down the middle of your ball sack; that’s where your labia fused together. It’s also why the tissue that makes up your ball sack is biologically identical to the tissue that makes up the inside of the vagina. It’s an outie vs. an innie.
There are many reasons why this wouldn’t happen “correctly” since biology is more a wonder of things somehow working at all after evolution is done with them rather than a perfectly designed, well-oiled machine. Sometimes the Y chromosome simply doesn’t activate, or it does, but the person has androgen insensitivity and so the testosterone doesn’t do anything, or they develop as female but have testicles where their ovaries should be, rendering them infertile but otherwise a perfectly normal woman. Sometimes a person is XX, but they experienced a higher than normal amount of testosterone during development and developed male instead of female.
And that’s before you get into the issue of intersex people, who are often surgically altered as babies when they’re born by the doctor to match with the genitalia that the doctor thinks should be the “correct” one. In a number of places, the doctors don’t have to ask permission or even tell the parents after.
Also, your definition of cis male is slightly off. “Cis” is the opposite Latin prefix of “trans,” meaning a non-changing/stable state of being, and in this case it’s used to mean that one’s gender identity matches up with the one that you were given at birth. It ultimately has nothing to do with what genitalia you have, and it’s simply an identification saying that your sense of gender matches up with the sex that the doctor declared and that you therefore aren’t trans. It’s an after the fact solution to the question of what to call people who aren’t trans and comes from the use of trans to identify somebody who transitions from one gender to another.