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 4 months agoSex 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.
davidagain@lemmy.world 4 months ago
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Sarcasm works better if you respond coherently. You doing math with gametes?
davidagain@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Sir is doing biology without brain. Is much cleverer trick.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
You should redirect this energy into learning about how your model of the world is incomplete. You’d benefit much more from that.
FoxyFerengi@startrek.website 4 months 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
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 months 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.
athatet@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
So people who produce no gametes, their bodies are unorganized?
FoxyFerengi@startrek.website 4 months ago
This is how I’m going to refer to myself from now on. “My name is FoxyFerengi. I have no pronouns because my body is unorganized.”
pennomi@lemmy.world 4 months 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.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 months 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.
meco03211@lemmy.world 4 months 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.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 months 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.
Carnelian@lemmy.world 4 months 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.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
I’m afraid you have me mixed up with someone else. There’s no “you openly concede”. This is literally how the field of biology defines sex. To quote:
In animals and plants, binary sex is universally defined by gamete type, even though sexes vary in how they are developmentally determined and phenotypically identified across taxa.
Yes, way back in our evolutionary history, sex wasn’t binary. We were also not multi cellular, but so what? We are now.
pennomi@lemmy.world 4 months 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.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
What exactly do you mean by “has no concept”? I don’t think you quite understand what you’re talking about.
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
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.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 months 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
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
What’s in this for you? Why is it so important for you to believe that sex is binary, to try and convince everyone in this thread that sex is binary? How does this narrow-minded, oversimplified view that ignores modern biology serve you? And, maybe most curiously, why do you think “there’s a few extremists pushing for silly things?” What silly things? What kinds of extremists? Let’s go down this fucking rabbit hole together my dude.
It’s just so funny seeing you acknowledge all over the place that all these other characteristics of sex are not binary, except for gametes (which in reality, also aren’t binary), and that just happens to be the thing you’re pinning your definition of sex to. Like, the pieces are all there and it just looks like you’re refusing to put them all together.
powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
It’s not what I believe. I’m just the messenger, sorry but you are disagreeing with the scientific and academic consensus. I wish I didn’t have to do this and people didn’t post a bunch of nonsense on Lemmy, but here we are.
People really need to know when their worldview is based on falsehoods, and this is one of those times. As an example, you might have heard of the concept of “5 sexes”, but it turns out that the source of that claim was someone who certainly knows better being “tongue-in-cheek” and “ironic”:
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She’s also the source of the “intersex is as common as redheads” claim, and that’s also completely wrong and she should know better. That is a silly thing and she’s one of the extremists pushing such silly things.
I don’t know how to better explain it to you, but yes, sex characteristics are not necessarily binary, but sex is (and yes, gametes are binary). You’re refusing to acknowledge the scientific consensus, and that’s really disappointing.