Comment on OnLy tWo eLemEnTs

• Carnelian@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Nobody is born with a body organized around producing a third gamete size

  You say that because you incorrectly categorize genetic variations as a failed attempt at one of two binary options. It’s circular reasoning. You’re looking for a binary to sort things into, so regardless of the underlying truth, you sort everything into it.

  Like all smoking gun “binary” sex characteristics transphobes have honed in on over the years, we’re only talking about it because they arrived there from working backwards towards it. Just a few years ago all of these same talking points were “biological truth” regarding chromosomes (which you now openly concede are not reliable sex determinants)

  A thorough investigation of gametes reveals that like everything else in biology that’s paired off, it’s bipolar in nature rather than binary (strongly gathered up into two categories but with outliers and exceptions).

  Even ignoring gamete manifestation in all other species, which there is no reason to do other than to try and make a transphobic point, just among humans genetic variation occurs somewhat regularly. This is the basic principle that makes evolution possible, and it’s why other species have such insane gamete setups such that that gamete size cannot be used universally to determine sex.

  Ah but I forget we’re still just talking humans. Evolutionary scientists reveal that the simple reason intermediate gamete sizes do not proliferate in our species is because they have historically been outcompeted. This fact could not be true if there were no bodies born with a third gamete type

  An additional issue with this whole train of thought is the baseless presumption that normal biological variation precludes someone who was “supposed to be female” from producing the small gamete. It’s literally the meme we’re looking at in the OP: where the vast majority fits neatly into two categories, but if you were to try to work backwards from there and say everything must fit into those categories, you will have deprived yourself of even the most fundamental biological truths that describe our universe, and on a personal note, you will have deprived yourself of what makes biology beautiful.

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• pennomi@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  That’s not true, there are definitely people both without any sex organs whose body “organization” is incapable of producing any gametes. There are people who are able to produce both gametes. Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting LALALA does not make these people magically disappear. You cannot argue “well part of their body organization is invalid because of reasons”.

  This is classic Dunning-Kruger shit where just because you learned a little about gametes you think you’re an expert, but there’s a huge world of exceptions out there.

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    What exactly do you mean by “has no concept”? I don’t think you quite understand what you’re talking about.

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    • pennomi@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I know you’re just here for the argument, and I’ve wasted enough time on this already. The “gamete size” simplification is Trumpist propaganda and not based in actual rigorous science.

      Actual biologists agree that bodies without sex organs don’t fit into the binary definition

      Hormone expression (in addition to gamete size) is also a critical factor that scientists use to define sex

      Determining “organization” in cases of “physical anomaly” via chromosomes is unreliable

      1.3% of people are born intersex, and “intersex” represents an entire continuum

      Educate yourself.

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        You seem like you should know better. From the first link:

        Instead, most characteristics ascribed to males and females fall along a spectrum with two peaks, one the average for females and the other the average for males. For instance, on average, males are taller than females and have more muscle mass, more red blood cells and a higher metabolism.

        But almost nobody fits in the peak for all those measures for their sex, Lents says. “There’s plenty of women who are taller than plenty of men. There are plenty of women who have higher metabolic rates than some men, even though the averages are different.

        “If you define biological sex purely on the gametes, you’re going to ignore most of what actually matters to your daily life, including in your social life,” he says. “Reducing sex to a binary really doesn’t make a lot of sense for how we actually live.”

        It confuses sex phenotypes with sex, which is a basic error. That’s not how sex is defined, it’s defined entirely by gamete size because no other definition makes sense.

        Intersex is a confusing term, because you will either have a male or female DSD

        Your other links are talking about variations within a sex. You also misunderstand how sex is determined vs how it is defined.

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• meco03211@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Biology doesn’t give special consideration for humans. We’re simply animals like the rest of the animal kingdom. Within the animal kingdom there are absolutely species with more than two sexes including more than two gamete sizes.

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    You’re probably confusing sex with mating types. Sex is binary because there’s exactly two gamete sizes, eggs and sperm. Other species have gametes that are the same size, but those are called mating types and work very differently than sex.

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    • meco03211@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Nope. There are animals with more than two gamete sizes. Egg and sperm are not sizes.

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        What animals are those?

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