Comment on OnLy tWo eLemEnTs

powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• goldenbug@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  If I remember correctly, not even sex is binary in humans.

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  • Entheon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    There are a decent number of combinations of the X and Y chromosomes, not just XX and XY. If I remember correctly there are about 6 more common combos

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    • jol@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Not just cromossomes matter. Intersex can be purely environmental and not genetic.

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    • ICastFist@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Aren’t those considered disorders, tho? Like XXX or XXY

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      • Nima@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        yes the majority of humans just have one or the other and mutations and disorders can cause variations within the two. but those aren’t a majority of humans.

        people seem to think that he is putting some negative meaning behind it.

        just because a mutation is a mutation doesn’t mean it’s bad. but it doesn’t mean it’s normal for humans either.

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    You’re probably thinking of variations within a sex, such as XXY. They still have bodies organized around producing one of two gamete sizes. Nobody produces a third size of gamete

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    • mech@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      But some produce neither.

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Nobody has a body organized around producing no gametes

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• FoxyFerengi@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  XO, XX, XY, XXY, XYY, XXX, XXXX, XXXY, XXYY, and others have been recorded in humans. In addition there is Swyer syndrome, Chappell syndrome, and mosaicism in which the gonadal phenotype doesn’t match the genotype. There are also events during fertilization which can cause an XX zygote to gain the SRY gene from the father. The SRY gene is what initiates male gonad development.

  Sex is not binary just because there are two types of sex chromosomes. They can occur in multiple combinations and result in a spectrum of characteristics.

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  • HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I prefer a simpler view… leave people the fuck alone as long as they aren’t harming anybody.

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Sex is binary, because there are two sizes of gametes. Sex is determined in humans by chromosomes (and is rather messy, as you note). Sex is defined by gamete size, because it’s the only common factor across so many different species. Some animals have their sex determined by the temperature while they’re developing instead of chromosomes, but we can still differentiate between males and females by gamete size.

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    • pennomi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      That’s a ridiculous definition conjured up by people trying to claim there’s only two sexes. It has effectively no practical use considering gametes on their own are useless for reproduction without an entire system of hardware surrounding them. Plus it guarantees at least three sexes - people who don’t produce gametes at all.

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        You’re kind of shooting the messenger here. It’s literally how sex is defined and used in biology, I’m just letting you know.

        Not producing gametes doesn’t confuse things. Nobody is born with a body organized around producing a third gamete size, or no gamete size.

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    • FoxyFerengi@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I provided several examples of chromosome combinations that result in people who produce no gametes. You’ve said in several comments that no one is born with a body plan that doesnt produce gametes, and that is incorrect. I’m a biology major, and I’m in a developmental biology class right now There are several points in development that can cause a failure to develop a sexual phenotype.

      I don’t know why you’re saying it’s a hard line that biologists have drawn, when science is about being able to adjust our understanding of the world when we are presented with new information

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        I didn’t say that nobody is born with a body that doesn’t produce gametes. I said nobody is born with a body organized around producing no gametes. Ask your professor about the difference.

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    • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Sex is defined by gamete size, because it’s the only common factor across so many different species.

      Dawg this isn’t even true. What was the publishing date of the last biology book you read? I think you need to update your knowledge. The current scientific and academic consensus is that neither sex nor gender are binary.

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        You unfortunately have a grossly distorted view of what the scientific consensus is. There’s a few extremists pushing for silly things, but no, sex is binary. Sex phenotypes aren’t binary, but those aren’t how sex is defined

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    • davidagain@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      You so clever! How many numbers I have write with binary? Is two, no? Why fucking computer use binary if only two numbers?

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Sarcasm works better if you respond coherently. You doing math with gametes?

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  • Nima@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    but aren’t those fairly uncommon? I don’t think he means mutations or syndromes. I think he means the majority of humans.

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    • athatet@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Uncommon like all those other elements in the universe?

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      • Nima@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        huh? no, uncommon in terms of human biology. this isn’t some political statement against those who have mutations or uncommon chromosome combos.

        they exist. they’re real. they’re just not the majority. and that’s ok. they don’t have to be.

        I’m not sure what that has to do with elements on the periodic table.

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• Slovene@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  In my case sex is imaginary. 😕

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  • abfarid@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Pro tip: square it to have real sex. But keep in mind that you might get negative sex.

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• fossilesque@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Careful. The longer you stare down the looking glass at life, the more of a kaleidoscopic fractal it all becomes. Even “species” are loose, funny things.

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  • MathiasTCK@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Exactly. Ring Species are a good example

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species

    In biology, a ring species is a connected series of neighbouring populations, each of which interbreeds with closely sited related populations, but for which there exist at least two end populations in the series which are too distantly related to interbreed, though there is a potential gene flow between linked neighbouring populations.

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    What’s interesting about sex being binary is that biology is really messy and hard, and it’s kind of amazing that we found such a universal definition.

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    • Lumidaub@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      So why’re you trying to put it into such a rigid framework if you agree it’s messy?

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        I’m doing nothing other than relaying how the field of biology uses the terms.

        You’re also confusing biology being messy in general, vs finding one particular area where it isn’t

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    • mech@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Biology is the study of life, and even the definition of what constitutes “life” becomes very fuzzy when you look at it too closely. For every set of properties you can define that need to be met for something to be alive, there are edge cases and outliers in nature.

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Sure, are you aware of any outliers in this case?

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• Lumidaub@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  You mean well but even in humans it’s not that simple (not to mention non-humans who might produce both sizes or switch). People who are identified as female at birth because they have a vulva may lack ovaries (or even the entire reproductive tract). They don’t have any gametes but because of their outer appearance they’re usually socialised as girls and only notice when they don’t start menstruating at some point. I assume it’s similarly possible to be born with a scrotum (and penis) but no testicles.

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  • davidagain@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    powerstruggle does not mean well and is trolling up and down the whole thread.

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    • Lumidaub@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      It seems like it.

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Unfortunately I mean well. Sometimes people need to hear things they don’t really want to hear. I’m sick of seeing people that should know better spout off unscientific nonsense because it makes them feel good. There’s too much of that on Lemmy

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Not producing any gametes doesn’t confuse things. Even if you don’t produce any gametes, your body is organized around producing one or the other of two sizes.

    Things get more interesting in other animals, though anything anywhere near us is still either male, female, or hermaphroditic. When you get down into fungi, you get gametes that are the same size and instead of sex you have mating types, where a single species can have tens of thousands of options.

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    • Lumidaub@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      No ovaries, no uterus, no vagina, just some flabby bits between the legs (that may make tummy feel funny when touched gently) - what size is this body organised around?

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    • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      You get both sizes of gametes with all kinds of bodies. It’s only the testes/ovaries that are reliably correlated with gamete size, and anything further away from their production than that has about the same chance of not being the style you’d expect as an atom has of not being hydrogen or helium, just like the original meme alludes to.

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• feannag@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Sex in humans really isn’t that binary. XXX and XXY exist for instance.

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    XXX and XXY are variations within a sex. They still have bodies organized around producing either one of exactly two gamete sizes

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    • feannag@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I think saying sex is the same as gamete production is somewhat reductionist and not the usual definition either. And at a minimum that would create a 3rd sex, a body that did not produce gametes.

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        It’s very much the usual definition in biology. There’s no other definition that makes sense, because the animal kingdom is so varied. Sex is entirely defined by gamete size, and not producing gametes doesn’t confuse things. There is no body type that is organized around producing a third gamete size, or no gamete size.

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• HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  sex absolutely isn’t binary.

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I think you’re misunderstanding how sex is defined. It’s very much a binary, but that doesn’t include gender, and doesn’t include sex phenotypes.

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    • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      someone here has never heard of the sry gene and doesn’t think intersex conditions exist and it isn’t me

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        You’re confusing sex determination with sex definition. Those are variations within a sex.

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• thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    en.wikipedia.org/…/Disorders_of_sex_development

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• Fedizen@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Well I think we should caveat this as “in humans there is a tendency for sex to fall under two large umbrellas of typical characteristics” as there’s millions of small caveats for many mammals (its speculated parthenogenesis could naturally occur in humans under certain conditions).

  Because of how early some features tend to develop in mammals there’s less variation than in other types of animals.

  Outside mammals: Amphibians, Reptiles and Birds have many species that can change sex.

  Outside animals: Plants and fungi are an absolute mess.

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• Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  There are also people born that do not fit in the biological definition of male or female. Same image applies to them.

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• Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Gametes are haploid, they’re not even potentially human by themselves.

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I think you’re confused about the point of contention here

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• Skarklette@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  No biologist defines sex based on gametes alone, there are many characteristics that make up sex. Why would you define it that way? Because you started with your answer, that sex MUST be binary, and worked backwards from there.

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Unfortunately that’s backwards. Sex is defined by gamete size because it’s the only coherent definition across so much of the animal kingdom. As an example, did you know that male seahorses give birth? It’s true, but how do we know that they’re male? Because they make the smaller of the two gamete sizes. Same thing with female hyenas. They have a pseudo-penis, so why don’t we consider them male? Because they produce the larger of two gamete sizes

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    • davidagain@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      O person whose comment history is mainly trolling on trans-supportive posts for hours at a stretch, it is you who have it backwards.

      (You are using trump’s recently legislated definition of sex, and I’m afraid you’re picking the wrong teacher there. Trump can no more legislate a revision to science than whatever state it was that stupidly passed a bill claiming that pi was 3! The liar in chief isn’t being factually accurate.)

      Your sex determimes whether you produce sperm or eggs or neither, yes, in the sense that cause has effect, but you’re claiming that the effect is the same thing as the cause or that gamete size determines sex. This is a classic logical blunder. Species determines number of legs, but number of legs does not determine species. Typically, species have 0,2,4,6,8 and occasionally more legs (or 1), but this does not mean that there are only 5 species!

      You also claim in other threads that you prefer to use sex over gender in reference to people, which is strongly antitrans despite you pretending that your opponents are anti-trans.

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        You’re very focused on Trump. Not sure why, but whatever he’s doing is irrelevant to the science. I also didn’t make a statement about what I prefer.

        If you have a beef with sex determination vs definition, take it up with the field of biology.

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• OrganicMustard@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Lol, the sex prescriptivist

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I see what you’re going for, but it’s literally the opposite. Sex is defined by gamete size because biologists wanted to describe the world they found accurately and coherently. It’s a descriptivist approach.

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• lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Sex encompasses everything about the body including external and internal organs, hormones, (facial) hair, voice (level), body height, … none of which are binary. Reducing it to gamete size makes it meaningless

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Those are sex phenotypes

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    • lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      And that’s what sex means in the context of sex vs gender. Are you new to the concept that words have different meanings in different contexts? This isn’t about evolutionary biology.

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Well, no. People just misunderstand what sex means in that context. You can’t disentangle sex vs gender from evolutionary biology.

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• zalgotext@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  There’s at least a third gamete size of 0, as in, no gametes, so there goes that binary

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Their bodies are still organized around the production of one or the other of two gamete sizes, even if they don’t produce any

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    • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Except when they’re not. At which point your binary clarification system has more than two classifications it can make, making it definitionally not binary.

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      • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Nobody’s body is organized around the production of no gametes.

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• Nima@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  the fact that basic biology is being heavily downvoted is horrifying.

  apparently just taking a normal biology course is now cause for anger and confusion.

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  • davidagain@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Powerstruggle is misusing terms from school level biology to make a political point and trolling people who are explaining the mistakes in it.

    “Basic” biology - in fact it’s biology that has been oversimplified and misapplied to the point of untruth.

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    • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I wish this were for fun. Unfortunately, you’re being anti-science

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      • davidagain@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        May, you’re just taking crap because of your political indoctrination. Stupid enough to be hoodwinked into supporting right wingers is often stupid enough to refuse to understand even when people explain.

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      • pebbles@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Would you care to explain yourself? Maybe explain how folks that would never produce either gamete fit into your binary based on gamete production? Or is that too advanced? I hear we are sticking to basic biology after all.

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  • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I implore you to take a normal biology course in the present day and then get back to us

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  • powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Yeah, it’s sad. I don’t understand why people think gender is at odds with science. That’s the whole point of differentiating sex vs gender.

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