Comment on Plants looking at people looking at people looking at fungi
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 23 hours agoI’m talking about a working definition for biologists in a research setting, not for colloquial use. We’re in the science memes community. The original meme in question is about mycologists and botanists, both working scientists in biology.
What a doctor sees when a human baby is born has nothing to do with plants or fungi. And if you’re studying plants (for example) and happen to produce one that can’t produce gametes of its own (such as a seedless watermelon) you just refer to that as sterile offspring. It doesn’t factor into your working definition of sex, it’s just one of many variations that happen to (in this case adversely) affect reproduction.
LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 hours ago
This is the comment I was responding to. Rejecting an organism as sterile offspring does literally nothing to answer what sex that organism is. What sex is the “sterile offspring”?
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Well in the case of the plant, most plants have both male and female parts. Asking “which sex is this plant?” is a meaningless question, even if one of those parts is absent or improperly formed.
LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 hours ago
I’ll now return to your original comment.
Some people do not produce a gamete. Some people can produce both. What sex are each of those people? One person is assigned female at birth and another person is assigned male at birth, but they are both sterile and incapable of producing any gametes. Are they the same sex? What sex are they?
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
If they don’t produce gametes then they don’t have a sex; they’re sterile. If they produce both types of gametes then they have both sexes, making them a hermaphrodite.