7 ms·

Interesting. "We can turn a women into a man... But it's almost impossible to turn a man into a women."

azinman2 8y ago
We all start out female in the womb, and then some of us turn make given the right chromosomes. If you look at those who have transitioned their genders, female to male almost always look more “correct” than male to female... it’s hard to remove the effects of testosterone, but easy to add it.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  True although paradoxically there is one aspect that is reversed - genital surgery is harder and less functional to construct a functioning penis from a vagina than to create a more or less functional vagina from a penis. Put crudely but succinctly as 'it is easier to make a hole than build a pole'. Reminds me of the one bit of weirdness with birds - they have the opposite convention of sex assignment being based upon ZW where males are ZZ and females are ZW. Females also have two ovaries but only one of them is active and the inactive one produces testosterone - meaning that if the primary one lost functionality they would start spontaneously masculinizing.
  - JamesBarney 8y ago
    This is one of the reasons you see a higher standard deviation for traits in female birds than male birds. The opposite of humans.
    - nicoburns 8y ago
      Am I correct in interpreting your comment as saying that human women generally have less variance in (gendered?) traits than human men. That's an interesting observation if it is what you meant.
      - Nasrudith 8y ago
        Well part of it is also that any X-linked traits are more likely to tend dominant with the back-up copy. Look at colorblindness for one. Women would need a 'bad' gene on both Xs. A man would lack a backup copy on the Y and thus only needs one for it to express.
      - JamesBarney 8y ago
        Yeah you see it in a couple of traits like height, etc.. Basically it's if you have a gene on the x chromosome that increases height by an inch in a man, it will only increase a woman's height by half an inch. And vice versa with removing an inch.
  - collectibles 8y ago
    Okay, one last comment before I wear out my welcome: this is actually super fascinating. The reason for this difference has to do with genital homology[1]. Basically, apart from the vagina itself, almost every part of male and female genitalia is made of the same essential “stuff”, just smooshed around to suit different roles. Crucially, all the most important nerve endings are there— so if you rearrange stuff to be in more or less the right place, you get something that works more or less the way you’d expect. The only issue is, if you got the deluxe variety pack at birth, you probably have a bunch of extra “vulva skin” that you don’t really need, and it’s hanging out in just the right place to make a neovagina out of. Neat! But if you’re stuck with the original flavor, you’ve probably only got a tiny little bit of “penis muscle” to make do with, so you have to get much more creative. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(biology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(biology)
- blfr 8y ago
  Maybe but I think it's mostly because there's more variability among men so it's easier to pass as a man because we're used to men coming in all shapes and sizes.
- porpoisely 8y ago
  I see this repeated so often on the internet, but it is scientifically false. We start out as male or female at conception. XY and XX are determined at conception. As a matter of fact, women who go through the IVF path can actually choose the sex of the embryo they want implanted in their womb. The womb has nothing to do with the sex of the baby and the female is certainly not the default. A woman can literally choose the sex of her embryo outside the womb and implant it.
  - collectibles 8y ago
    Well, actually, if you look up Sex on Wikipedia[1], you’ll see that biologists define sex based on the size of the gametes an organism produces. So we technically don’t turn male or female until puberty! But seriously, if you’re going to be correcting folks on the internet using the word “scientifically”, you ought to be a little more accurate about, you know... science. The third paragraph of that Wiki article is a pretty apolitical summary of the scientific consensus. Unlike a lot of folks’ opinions, the scientific consensus is mostly informed by the real world, so it turns out it’s pretty nuanced. You don’t have to sign up for a Tumblr account to understand that no, male/female does not “scientifically” mean XY/XX. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex
    - porpoisely 8y ago
      > Well, actually, if you look up Sex on Wikipedia[1], you’ll see that biologists define sex based on the size of the gametes an organism produces. Size of the gametes? No. The type of gamete. > So we technically don’t turn male or female until puberty! Simply not true. Females are born with their eggs. Males produce sperm at puberty. Also, females don't stop being female at menopause. I'm puzzled by your assertion here. > But seriously, if you’re going to be correcting folks on the internet using the word “scientifically”, you ought to be a little more accurate about, you know... science. I thought I was? What about my specific claims do you have a problem with? I just simply stated that we don't all start out as females. Your link and your reply seems to indicate you actually agree with me. > Unlike a lot of folks’ opinions, the scientific consensus is mostly informed by the real world, so it turns out it’s pretty nuanced. Yes. I agree. I genuinely confused here. Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing? > You don’t have to sign up for a Tumblr account to understand that no, male/female does not “scientifically” mean XY/XX. What? Listen. All I said was simply that the assertion that "we all start out as female" is scientifically wrong. Either you misread my comment or you misread your wikipedia article, because your article says we don't start out as female.
- collectibles 8y ago
  Based on my own transition, and a huge number of conversations I’ve had with trans folks, I don’t think that comparison is relevant. It’s true that trans men often face a “faster” hormonal transition than women, but this is predominantly due to to the impact of testosterone on facial hair and vocal pitch. But on the assumption that these agents aren’t actually being put on HRT (the whole point is that it’s reversible, right?) going in either “direction” with cosmetics and vocal training is pretty difficult. Conversely, it’s certainly true that it’s a lot easier to build up someone’s apparent height or facial dimensions than it is to reduce them, again assuming agents aren’t actually receiving cosmetic surgery. But most transitions happen after skeletal differentiation in puberty has already slowed or stopped, so neither men or women get any benefit from that difference during transition. The effect ‘blfr alludes to probably has much more of an impact, although I don’t agree about the cause. We’re used to cultures where male is the prototype, and female is the marked gender. When those markings are ambiguous, the default assumption is male. My lived experience is that once you do mix-and-match enough markings to be seen as female, folks will eagerly accept that and ignore whatever “contradictory” signs might be there. Looking at height, for example, it’s not any weirder to see a 95th percentile woman than a 5th percentile man. If you already check the “F” box, no one will look twice. Lastly, if you’re still with me, maybe take this as a reason to reevaluate how confident you should be WRT who looks like what. If you spend any amount of time interacting with strangers in a US metropolitan area, it’s quite likely you’ve exchanged words with a woman you didn’t realize was trans. We’re really not that rare; we just don’t look like the people you see on TV.
  - chroma 8y ago
    > My lived experience is that once you do mix-and-match enough markings to be seen as female, folks will eagerly accept that and ignore whatever “contradictory” signs might be there. Looking at height, for example, it’s not any weirder to see a 95th percentile woman than a 5th percentile man. If you already check the “F” box, no one will look twice. Have you considered that other people are just being polite? I know about a dozen trans women, and none of them pass. I've never been surprised to discover someone is trans. The main issue seems to be that medical technology can't yet reliably correct all the giveaways: Large hands, narrow hips, wide shoulders, low voice, strong brow, high hairline, gait, etcetera. And those are just the physical attributes. There are also differences in cultural knowledge, mannerisms, and body language. Why would I make an issue of someone not passing, especially a stranger? That'd be like pointing out someone's toupee. It'd make them feel worse about themselves while presenting no useful solution to the problem. (Unlike say, "You've got something in your teeth.")
oldmariner 8y ago
They have fake apendages that can appear fully functional. It's much harder to remove an appendage though.
sctb 8y ago
Not interesting by Hacker News' standards. We're not here to have dumb flamewars, but that's what follows comments like this. > Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We all start out female in the womb, and then some of us turn make given the right chromosomes. If you look at those who have transitioned their genders, female to male almost always look more “correct” than male to female... it’s hard to remove the effects of testosterone, but easy to add it.

Nasrudith 8y ago
True although paradoxically there is one aspect that is reversed - genital surgery is harder and less functional to construct a functioning penis from a vagina than to create a more or less functional vagina from a penis. Put crudely but succinctly as 'it is easier to make a hole than build a pole'. Reminds me of the one bit of weirdness with birds - they have the opposite convention of sex assignment being based upon ZW where males are ZZ and females are ZW. Females also have two ovaries but only one of them is active and the inactive one produces testosterone - meaning that if the primary one lost functionality they would start spontaneously masculinizing.
- JamesBarney 8y ago
  This is one of the reasons you see a higher standard deviation for traits in female birds than male birds. The opposite of humans.
  - nicoburns 8y ago
    Am I correct in interpreting your comment as saying that human women generally have less variance in (gendered?) traits than human men. That's an interesting observation if it is what you meant.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      Well part of it is also that any X-linked traits are more likely to tend dominant with the back-up copy. Look at colorblindness for one. Women would need a 'bad' gene on both Xs. A man would lack a backup copy on the Y and thus only needs one for it to express.
    - JamesBarney 8y ago
      Yeah you see it in a couple of traits like height, etc.. Basically it's if you have a gene on the x chromosome that increases height by an inch in a man, it will only increase a woman's height by half an inch. And vice versa with removing an inch.
- collectibles 8y ago
  Okay, one last comment before I wear out my welcome: this is actually super fascinating. The reason for this difference has to do with genital homology[1]. Basically, apart from the vagina itself, almost every part of male and female genitalia is made of the same essential “stuff”, just smooshed around to suit different roles. Crucially, all the most important nerve endings are there— so if you rearrange stuff to be in more or less the right place, you get something that works more or less the way you’d expect. The only issue is, if you got the deluxe variety pack at birth, you probably have a bunch of extra “vulva skin” that you don’t really need, and it’s hanging out in just the right place to make a neovagina out of. Neat! But if you’re stuck with the original flavor, you’ve probably only got a tiny little bit of “penis muscle” to make do with, so you have to get much more creative. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(biology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(biology)
blfr 8y ago
Maybe but I think it's mostly because there's more variability among men so it's easier to pass as a man because we're used to men coming in all shapes and sizes.
porpoisely 8y ago
I see this repeated so often on the internet, but it is scientifically false. We start out as male or female at conception. XY and XX are determined at conception. As a matter of fact, women who go through the IVF path can actually choose the sex of the embryo they want implanted in their womb. The womb has nothing to do with the sex of the baby and the female is certainly not the default. A woman can literally choose the sex of her embryo outside the womb and implant it.
- collectibles 8y ago
  Well, actually, if you look up Sex on Wikipedia[1], you’ll see that biologists define sex based on the size of the gametes an organism produces. So we technically don’t turn male or female until puberty! But seriously, if you’re going to be correcting folks on the internet using the word “scientifically”, you ought to be a little more accurate about, you know... science. The third paragraph of that Wiki article is a pretty apolitical summary of the scientific consensus. Unlike a lot of folks’ opinions, the scientific consensus is mostly informed by the real world, so it turns out it’s pretty nuanced. You don’t have to sign up for a Tumblr account to understand that no, male/female does not “scientifically” mean XY/XX. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex
  - porpoisely 8y ago
    > Well, actually, if you look up Sex on Wikipedia[1], you’ll see that biologists define sex based on the size of the gametes an organism produces. Size of the gametes? No. The type of gamete. > So we technically don’t turn male or female until puberty! Simply not true. Females are born with their eggs. Males produce sperm at puberty. Also, females don't stop being female at menopause. I'm puzzled by your assertion here. > But seriously, if you’re going to be correcting folks on the internet using the word “scientifically”, you ought to be a little more accurate about, you know... science. I thought I was? What about my specific claims do you have a problem with? I just simply stated that we don't all start out as females. Your link and your reply seems to indicate you actually agree with me. > Unlike a lot of folks’ opinions, the scientific consensus is mostly informed by the real world, so it turns out it’s pretty nuanced. Yes. I agree. I genuinely confused here. Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing? > You don’t have to sign up for a Tumblr account to understand that no, male/female does not “scientifically” mean XY/XX. What? Listen. All I said was simply that the assertion that "we all start out as female" is scientifically wrong. Either you misread my comment or you misread your wikipedia article, because your article says we don't start out as female.
collectibles 8y ago
Based on my own transition, and a huge number of conversations I’ve had with trans folks, I don’t think that comparison is relevant. It’s true that trans men often face a “faster” hormonal transition than women, but this is predominantly due to to the impact of testosterone on facial hair and vocal pitch. But on the assumption that these agents aren’t actually being put on HRT (the whole point is that it’s reversible, right?) going in either “direction” with cosmetics and vocal training is pretty difficult. Conversely, it’s certainly true that it’s a lot easier to build up someone’s apparent height or facial dimensions than it is to reduce them, again assuming agents aren’t actually receiving cosmetic surgery. But most transitions happen after skeletal differentiation in puberty has already slowed or stopped, so neither men or women get any benefit from that difference during transition. The effect ‘blfr alludes to probably has much more of an impact, although I don’t agree about the cause. We’re used to cultures where male is the prototype, and female is the marked gender. When those markings are ambiguous, the default assumption is male. My lived experience is that once you do mix-and-match enough markings to be seen as female, folks will eagerly accept that and ignore whatever “contradictory” signs might be there. Looking at height, for example, it’s not any weirder to see a 95th percentile woman than a 5th percentile man. If you already check the “F” box, no one will look twice. Lastly, if you’re still with me, maybe take this as a reason to reevaluate how confident you should be WRT who looks like what. If you spend any amount of time interacting with strangers in a US metropolitan area, it’s quite likely you’ve exchanged words with a woman you didn’t realize was trans. We’re really not that rare; we just don’t look like the people you see on TV.
- chroma 8y ago
  > My lived experience is that once you do mix-and-match enough markings to be seen as female, folks will eagerly accept that and ignore whatever “contradictory” signs might be there. Looking at height, for example, it’s not any weirder to see a 95th percentile woman than a 5th percentile man. If you already check the “F” box, no one will look twice. Have you considered that other people are just being polite? I know about a dozen trans women, and none of them pass. I've never been surprised to discover someone is trans. The main issue seems to be that medical technology can't yet reliably correct all the giveaways: Large hands, narrow hips, wide shoulders, low voice, strong brow, high hairline, gait, etcetera. And those are just the physical attributes. There are also differences in cultural knowledge, mannerisms, and body language. Why would I make an issue of someone not passing, especially a stranger? That'd be like pointing out someone's toupee. It'd make them feel worse about themselves while presenting no useful solution to the problem. (Unlike say, "You've got something in your teeth.")

oldmariner 8y ago

They have fake apendages that can appear fully functional. It's much harder to remove an appendage though.

sctb 8y ago

Not interesting by Hacker News' standards. We're not here to have dumb flamewars, but that's what follows comments like this. > Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html