3 ms·
> > Women typically have two X chromosomes > Isn't this actually the definition of female? ‘Women’ and ‘female’ are not interchangeable; one is a gender chara
by altairprime 3y ago
> > Women typically have two X chromosomes
> Isn't this actually the definition of female?
‘Women’ and ‘female’ are not interchangeable; one is a gender characteristic, the other is a sex characteristic. The statement as made is valid: Women are statistically likely to be XX, rather than XY or XXY or no doubt many other variations. ‘XX is female’ is a convenient rubric that is easy to remember, but as is usual for such things, human bodies do not respect convenient rubrics regarding genetics and sexes.
- n8henrie 3y agoPerhaps you meant "'XX is female' is a convenient rubric"?
- altairprime 3y agoYep! Fixed, thanks.
- viisio 3y agoNo, they're both sex characteristics. It's just that there are individuals with sex chromosome aneuploidies who will develop a female phenotype, e.g. X0 (Turner syndrome) and XXX (trisomy X), and also XY individuals where the Y chromosome is deficient in specific ways, e.g. Swyer syndrome.
- tzs 3y ago> ‘Women’ and ‘female’ are not interchangeable; one is a gender characteristic, the other is a sex characteristic. That's not what most dictionaries say. They say a 'woman' is an adult female human.