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> “It is very upsetting for people who have grown up and lived for years believing that they are of a particular sex to suddenly discover that they are actually

by _lvbh 1y ago

> “It is very upsetting for people who have grown up and lived for years believing that they are of a particular sex to suddenly discover that they are actually of the opposite sex. This can be a relief but can also be a loss. For most people it comes as a shock that upends their whole identity. Coping with this can take years,” I find this statement odd. Haven't we already established that chromosomes do not determine gender? What more is there to cope with beyond a simple genetic abnormality. It's not like discovering this means they suddenly have to register as the opposite gender or use a different bathroom. It's like taking a 13andme test and finding it hard to cope that you're 10% asian.

prmoustache 1y ago
>Haven't we already established that chromosomes do not determine gender? This is not universally accepted.
drdeca 1y ago
Race is a substantially less real concept than sex is.
- otterley 1y ago
  What does "real" mean here?
  - stanfordkid 1y ago
    It means two people of different races can have a baby together, but two people of the same sex cannot.
    - otterley 1y ago
      Sure, but does that make it any less "real"?
      - prmoustache 1y ago
        First because there is absolutely no objective way to define races in their coloquial meaning. So they don't exist. The only race we can truly define is homo sapiens sapiens.
        otterley 1y ago
        > because there is absolutely no objective way to define races in their coloquial meaning. So they don't exist. This is a pretty controversial statement. Even studied anthropologists disagree with this.
        r14c 1y ago
        Only in the sense that race is a type of caste system. There's really no biological reality to it.
        otterley 1y ago
        If that is so, why does a black couple bear black children, and a white couple bear white children? I'll concede that much in the way of "race" is a social construct, but to claim there's no biology involved is categorically false.
        r14c 1y ago
        race is a category assigned based on crudely determined heritable traits, but looking at the genetics you don't get the same categories. dark skin is a convergent evolutionary trait that comes from living near the equator, you don't need the groups to be related at all for them to arrive at a similar skin tone. the same goes for all skin tones in fact. racial categories actually don't make sense from a biological perspective, but that doesn't mean that traits correlated with race don't exist. the picture is just extremely crude to the point of being useless outside of the political element of providing a visible indicator of caste.
    - khuey 1y ago
      So literally every human characteristic other than their sexual reproductive capability is not real?
      - drdeca 1y ago
        Well, I said race is "less real" not that it is "not real". Here are other things that are more real than "race": "blood type", "whether one has Down syndrome", "the number of limbs one has". These kinds of properties/classifications are, I claim, more "natural", as far as biology. These groupings into classes are more natural (based on biological properties) than groupings into "races".
        otterley 1y ago
        Maybe choose a more precise and less judgmental adjective than "real." The opposite of "real" is "fake," not "difficult to substantiate."
        drdeca 1y ago
        But “difficult to substantiate” isn’t what I mean? I mean something more like whether something is there independent of what people think of it. (“Reality is that which, when one stops believing in it, doesn’t go away.”) Distinctions between categories are often somewhat fuzzy, but in some cases there are processes independent of peoples’ opinions that behave largely like there are distinct buckets. Such as “has a left arm”. With “race”, while there are certainly correlations between various genes and where one was born (and where one’s grandparents were born), and correlations between genes and other genes (which is partially explained by the correlations with location), any lines one may draw to split humanity into “races” will be fairly arbitrary, and at least substantially more arbitrary than splitting by whether someone is male or female (even though there are edge cases there as well; like I said, categories are often a little bit fuzzy). Now, there may be other concepts that are even less real than race, but I don’t know if any of them are cared about enough to - oh, astrological signs! A person’s astrological signs are probably even less real than race, and people care enough about them to give them names.
  - anon84873628 1y ago
    It's the delta between the common use of the term in public discourse versus the scientific biological basis for it.
rconti 1y ago
It would be very upsetting to most people to realize they had been switched at birth and raised by the "wrong" parents, even though it doesn't fundamentally change anything about the family you love, the childhood you experienced, and your development along the way.
Barrin92 1y ago
Stood out for me as well. For all I care you could tell me I'm genetically a giraffe or I was sent here from Alpha Centauri. If I was fine with it an hour ago when you hadn't told me I'm fine with it now
- 725686 1y ago
  Good for you. Not everyone is as good or strong as you.
- drcongo 1y ago
  Finding out that you can never have children would likely be upsetting to a great many people. Just because you're so amazing, doesn't mean everybody is.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  I think you are coming from a good place, but it is better to not compare our imaginary and implausible concerns (like discovering we’re a giraffe or from another planet) with real problems that people might actually have. I think you actually would have a lot to think about if you found out that you were a giraffe, but we don’t really have to seriously contend with that possibility or what it means. Yes, it is good to remind people that we continue to be ourselves whatever we discover about ourselves. But, we should also be upfront about the fact that some of us are going to end up with real identity issues at some point.
  - Barrin92 1y ago
    >with real problems that people might actually have. But it's not a real problem, that's my point. The infertility is obviously, but that's not the identity issue here. Most people with infertility issues don't have a sex or gender identity problem, but a medical one. Insofar as your genes matter in regards to your sex, they can only matter in what they express, and that's already done. It's like someone telling you they switched the blueprints for your house up, and you were supposed to have your neighbors house. But whatever you've been living in for 30 years, it's still the same place. Everything that's wrong with it is still wrong and everything that's good about it is still good. Your body can matter to your identity because it's what you experience, but your genes can't unless you start to in a sense fetishize your genetic markup.
CGMthrowaway 1y ago
"Genetically men," a specific phrase used in TFA that adds the word "genetically," refers to a specific, contextually-dependent definition of sex as determined chromosomally (your sex genes). Hence, XY = "genetic man"
MattGaiser 1y ago
We are culturally far from accepting that though.
otterley 1y ago
> Haven't we already established that chromosomes do not determine gender? This statement is extremely controversial. The gender attribution wars are still burning like the Springfield tire fire.
- r14c 1y ago
  controversial, sure, but its mostly people being upset that their cultural norms don't match the traits we observe in humans. we have already established that chromosomes do not determine gender, whether people accept it is a different question. we're also nearing the point where the earth being a spheroid is controversial so I'm not sure controversy really has anything to do with how factual something is.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - kijjun 1y ago
    Who is "we"? That is not established at all, in fact the opposite is objectively true and widely understood. Chromosomes are the key determinant of "gender", by even the most progressive definition of the term.
    - lagadu 1y ago
      If anything chromossomes would be the key determinant of sex, not gender. But even that's not how we attribute sex: biologically sex is attributed by the capacity to generate small or big gamete, which means that someone who doesn't produce either type, such as a child or elderly person has no sex.
      - kijjun 1y ago
        This is absurd and offensive, and seems like something taken straight out of transsexual propaganda or fantasy.
        1y ago
postepowanieadm 1y ago
It's about sex, not gender. And it's about Scandinavia, not the USA.
- davorak 1y ago
  Even if it is only about sex, the statement made in the article is a binary one, "they are actually of the opposite sex", which is an oddly black and white way of putting it.
KevinMS 1y ago
> Haven't we already established that chromosomes do not determine gender? No we haven't. And in fact, the cases cited in the article still have gender determined by chromosomes, just not the basic XY, XX configurations.
saulpw 1y ago
Well for one thing it means that you are infertile, which would be very upsetting to many people apart from their gender.
KittenInABox 1y ago
> Haven't we already established that chromosomes do not determine gender? I would think so but I think there's a ton of cultural pain points around this. These are people who identify as women but are being told that they may have ambiguity, e.g. they may not be able to bear children/have difficulty getting pregnant or have internal genitals that they would consider manly. I can definitely see that knowledge being painful to experience and trigger some kind of gender dysphoria. Being told you're genetically abnormal and that this may affect your capacity to bear children, something people have been socialized/instinctively incentivized to desire, will always be shocking imo.
nofriend 1y ago
Such a person would lack a womb and ovaries and instead have internal testicles. Discovering that they are infertile is usually a shock to women, so it would at least prompt similar shock. Furthermore, discovering that the reason for their infertility is due to being biologically and genetically male would tend to prompt a similar gender dysphoria that trans people experience, I expect.
ObscureScience 1y ago
I don't believe that is true (but I am certainly outside of my expertise). As far as I understand it, sex chromosomes (specifically the Y chromosome) are responsible for genitalia differentiation, but the relevant genes of the chromosome needs to be expressed for it to happen. Whether it's the Y chromosome itself that is inactive, or genes on the other chromosomes that supress it I have no clue about.
- davorak 1y ago
  There is genetic transfer between X and Y so you can have XX and still have male genital[1]. No expert but I thought there was a few to several cases along these lines. To my understanding chromosomes are never responsible for anything, they are a container for genes, and some genes are likely to live on particular chromosomes, so talking about chromosomes being responsible is never 100% correct, so a bad level of abstraction when talking about corner cases. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome
sunshowers 1y ago
At least it might cause gender dysphoria.
TinkersW 1y ago
The quote is about sex--you know the thing is that is actually real, and is absolutely defined by chromosomes.
_wire_ 1y ago
Re simple discoveries and coping: Take a swig from your drink, then spit it back into the container. Keep drinking from same container. Offer a sip to your friend. At a restaurant meal, mix all the food you are served together into one pile. Explain how it all gets mixed up in your stomach. Imagine when a pet dog throws up, then eats its own vomit. Include neighbors dogs joining the feast. Place a photo of a king rat on your refrigerator or over your dining table. Hang another in view from the toilet. When reading these scenarios, at a certain point you may have become disturbed or offended, yet empirically there's nothing dangerous or even wrong with any of them. Explain the dimensions of your distress and how you cope.

by _lvbh 1y ago

prmoustache 1y ago

>Haven't we already established that chromosomes do not determine gender? This is not universally accepted.

drdeca 1y ago

Race is a substantially less real concept than sex is.

otterley 1y ago
What does "real" mean here?
- stanfordkid 1y ago
  It means two people of different races can have a baby together, but two people of the same sex cannot.
  - otterley 1y ago
    Sure, but does that make it any less "real"?
    - prmoustache 1y ago
      First because there is absolutely no objective way to define races in their coloquial meaning. So they don't exist. The only race we can truly define is homo sapiens sapiens.
      - otterley 1y ago
        > because there is absolutely no objective way to define races in their coloquial meaning. So they don't exist. This is a pretty controversial statement. Even studied anthropologists disagree with this.
        r14c 1y ago
        Only in the sense that race is a type of caste system. There's really no biological reality to it.
        otterley 1y ago
        If that is so, why does a black couple bear black children, and a white couple bear white children? I'll concede that much in the way of "race" is a social construct, but to claim there's no biology involved is categorically false.
        r14c 1y ago
        race is a category assigned based on crudely determined heritable traits, but looking at the genetics you don't get the same categories. dark skin is a convergent evolutionary trait that comes from living near the equator, you don't need the groups to be related at all for them to arrive at a similar skin tone. the same goes for all skin tones in fact. racial categories actually don't make sense from a biological perspective, but that doesn't mean that traits correlated with race don't exist. the picture is just extremely crude to the point of being useless outside of the political element of providing a visible indicator of caste.
  - khuey 1y ago
    So literally every human characteristic other than their sexual reproductive capability is not real?
    - drdeca 1y ago
      Well, I said race is "less real" not that it is "not real". Here are other things that are more real than "race": "blood type", "whether one has Down syndrome", "the number of limbs one has". These kinds of properties/classifications are, I claim, more "natural", as far as biology. These groupings into classes are more natural (based on biological properties) than groupings into "races".
      - otterley 1y ago
        Maybe choose a more precise and less judgmental adjective than "real." The opposite of "real" is "fake," not "difficult to substantiate."
        drdeca 1y ago
        But “difficult to substantiate” isn’t what I mean? I mean something more like whether something is there independent of what people think of it. (“Reality is that which, when one stops believing in it, doesn’t go away.”) Distinctions between categories are often somewhat fuzzy, but in some cases there are processes independent of peoples’ opinions that behave largely like there are distinct buckets. Such as “has a left arm”. With “race”, while there are certainly correlations between various genes and where one was born (and where one’s grandparents were born), and correlations between genes and other genes (which is partially explained by the correlations with location), any lines one may draw to split humanity into “races” will be fairly arbitrary, and at least substantially more arbitrary than splitting by whether someone is male or female (even though there are edge cases there as well; like I said, categories are often a little bit fuzzy). Now, there may be other concepts that are even less real than race, but I don’t know if any of them are cared about enough to - oh, astrological signs! A person’s astrological signs are probably even less real than race, and people care enough about them to give them names.
- anon84873628 1y ago
  It's the delta between the common use of the term in public discourse versus the scientific biological basis for it.

rconti 1y ago

It would be very upsetting to most people to realize they had been switched at birth and raised by the "wrong" parents, even though it doesn't fundamentally change anything about the family you love, the childhood you experienced, and your development along the way.

Barrin92 1y ago

Stood out for me as well. For all I care you could tell me I'm genetically a giraffe or I was sent here from Alpha Centauri. If I was fine with it an hour ago when you hadn't told me I'm fine with it now

725686 1y ago
Good for you. Not everyone is as good or strong as you.
drcongo 1y ago
Finding out that you can never have children would likely be upsetting to a great many people. Just because you're so amazing, doesn't mean everybody is.
bee_rider 1y ago
I think you are coming from a good place, but it is better to not compare our imaginary and implausible concerns (like discovering we’re a giraffe or from another planet) with real problems that people might actually have. I think you actually would have a lot to think about if you found out that you were a giraffe, but we don’t really have to seriously contend with that possibility or what it means. Yes, it is good to remind people that we continue to be ourselves whatever we discover about ourselves. But, we should also be upfront about the fact that some of us are going to end up with real identity issues at some point.
- Barrin92 1y ago
  >with real problems that people might actually have. But it's not a real problem, that's my point. The infertility is obviously, but that's not the identity issue here. Most people with infertility issues don't have a sex or gender identity problem, but a medical one. Insofar as your genes matter in regards to your sex, they can only matter in what they express, and that's already done. It's like someone telling you they switched the blueprints for your house up, and you were supposed to have your neighbors house. But whatever you've been living in for 30 years, it's still the same place. Everything that's wrong with it is still wrong and everything that's good about it is still good. Your body can matter to your identity because it's what you experience, but your genes can't unless you start to in a sense fetishize your genetic markup.

CGMthrowaway 1y ago

"Genetically men," a specific phrase used in TFA that adds the word "genetically," refers to a specific, contextually-dependent definition of sex as determined chromosomally (your sex genes). Hence, XY = "genetic man"

MattGaiser 1y ago

We are culturally far from accepting that though.

otterley 1y ago

> Haven't we already established that chromosomes do not determine gender? This statement is extremely controversial. The gender attribution wars are still burning like the Springfield tire fire.

r14c 1y ago
controversial, sure, but its mostly people being upset that their cultural norms don't match the traits we observe in humans. we have already established that chromosomes do not determine gender, whether people accept it is a different question. we're also nearing the point where the earth being a spheroid is controversial so I'm not sure controversy really has anything to do with how factual something is.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- kijjun 1y ago
  Who is "we"? That is not established at all, in fact the opposite is objectively true and widely understood. Chromosomes are the key determinant of "gender", by even the most progressive definition of the term.
  - lagadu 1y ago
    If anything chromossomes would be the key determinant of sex, not gender. But even that's not how we attribute sex: biologically sex is attributed by the capacity to generate small or big gamete, which means that someone who doesn't produce either type, such as a child or elderly person has no sex.
    - kijjun 1y ago
      This is absurd and offensive, and seems like something taken straight out of transsexual propaganda or fantasy.
      - 1y ago

postepowanieadm 1y ago

It's about sex, not gender. And it's about Scandinavia, not the USA.

davorak 1y ago
Even if it is only about sex, the statement made in the article is a binary one, "they are actually of the opposite sex", which is an oddly black and white way of putting it.

KevinMS 1y ago

> Haven't we already established that chromosomes do not determine gender? No we haven't. And in fact, the cases cited in the article still have gender determined by chromosomes, just not the basic XY, XX configurations.

saulpw 1y ago

Well for one thing it means that you are infertile, which would be very upsetting to many people apart from their gender.

KittenInABox 1y ago

> Haven't we already established that chromosomes do not determine gender? I would think so but I think there's a ton of cultural pain points around this. These are people who identify as women but are being told that they may have ambiguity, e.g. they may not be able to bear children/have difficulty getting pregnant or have internal genitals that they would consider manly. I can definitely see that knowledge being painful to experience and trigger some kind of gender dysphoria. Being told you're genetically abnormal and that this may affect your capacity to bear children, something people have been socialized/instinctively incentivized to desire, will always be shocking imo.

nofriend 1y ago

Such a person would lack a womb and ovaries and instead have internal testicles. Discovering that they are infertile is usually a shock to women, so it would at least prompt similar shock. Furthermore, discovering that the reason for their infertility is due to being biologically and genetically male would tend to prompt a similar gender dysphoria that trans people experience, I expect.

ObscureScience 1y ago

I don't believe that is true (but I am certainly outside of my expertise). As far as I understand it, sex chromosomes (specifically the Y chromosome) are responsible for genitalia differentiation, but the relevant genes of the chromosome needs to be expressed for it to happen. Whether it's the Y chromosome itself that is inactive, or genes on the other chromosomes that supress it I have no clue about.

davorak 1y ago
There is genetic transfer between X and Y so you can have XX and still have male genital[1]. No expert but I thought there was a few to several cases along these lines. To my understanding chromosomes are never responsible for anything, they are a container for genes, and some genes are likely to live on particular chromosomes, so talking about chromosomes being responsible is never 100% correct, so a bad level of abstraction when talking about corner cases. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome

sunshowers 1y ago

At least it might cause gender dysphoria.

TinkersW 1y ago

The quote is about sex--you know the thing is that is actually real, and is absolutely defined by chromosomes.

_wire_ 1y ago

Re simple discoveries and coping: Take a swig from your drink, then spit it back into the container. Keep drinking from same container. Offer a sip to your friend. At a restaurant meal, mix all the food you are served together into one pile. Explain how it all gets mixed up in your stomach. Imagine when a pet dog throws up, then eats its own vomit. Include neighbors dogs joining the feast. Place a photo of a king rat on your refrigerator or over your dining table. Hang another in view from the toilet. When reading these scenarios, at a certain point you may have become disturbed or offended, yet empirically there's nothing dangerous or even wrong with any of them. Explain the dimensions of your distress and how you cope.