That seems important – fearlessstateofmind backup

lndtbr:

not sure why people use chromosome disorders as evidence against the gender binary as chromosome disorders are Bad Fuckin News

(cells expect a certain amount of DNA and if there are extra or missing chromosomes, things go wrong. these chromosome combinations do not go undetected, they totally have symptoms).

personally i think a better argument would be along the lines of

the Y chromosome carries ONE SINGLE GENE (the SRY gene) that makes someone have male primary sexual characteristics (genitals) and if there’s no Y chromosome then female primary sexual characteristics develop

that is one gene out of 20,000 genes (and that number does not take into account different possible splicing combinations of exons and introns, epigenetics, environmental factors and all that jazz.)

(sidenote: the X chromosome carries all the genes for each sex phenotype so an XY genotype still has all the genes for female characteristics, though unexpressed, and the XX genotype is only one gene short of a male phenotype).

even if you wanna count the whole X chromosome that’s only 2-4% of the genome (assuming all chromosomes are the same size, by a quick google the X chr appears middling)

so (if for arguments sake we assume that humans are mindless obeyors of their genomes) then i think it’s fair to argue that something else in the other 90% (and all the other regulatory jazz) must be changing the internal characteristics and making them disagree with the external ones

because of course humans are mindless machines that follow the orders of their DNA (which we dont even bloody understand how the fuck do you know there isnt something in there to program gender separate from sex characteristics).

we’re totally not a species that prides ourselves on free will and rising above the utilitarian lives of beasts.

(additional note: like 30% of our genome is bit of genes from ancient viruses that got stuck in us like we are more virus genes than we are sex determining genes like if you wanna argue chromosomes are more important than someone’s emotions why dont you go be a non living replicating blob of protein motherfucker you may as well youre about as useful as one *cough*)

(addendum: apologies for dodgy science or science/SJ terminology issues)

I generally like the argument that the other 19999 genes proably also have some say in gender and/or sex developement not just one of them. Also prenatal developement etc. but I think its an additional good argument against gender being determined in a binary fashion by your chromozones (or by your genitalia) not one that invalidates the argument against the concept by the existance of chromozone differences.

if the gender binary is based on an assumed sex binary (which it is) then yes that there are people who are not 46xy male or 46xx female does sort of disprove that assumption. and as these people’s genders are equally valid, they also have a vested interest in gender not being linked intrinsically to chromozones. The gender binary is therefore based on a false assumption.

the fact that these conditions exist at all is fairly good evidence of sex not being as binary as people would like to believe. so if you insist on forcing people into binary gender systems based on their sex alone you are going to end up with a sizable number of people who will not fit the criteria for either box. (the prevalence of intersex conditions is usual put at around 1.7%, for reference this is the same rate as (naturally) red hair and doesn’t include people who aren’t intersex but have abnormal chromozones)

the fact that people who aren’t xx or xy, or who have chromozones that traditionally differ from their birth assignment, and who have genders goes some way in showing that chromozones cannot be the only determining factor. In the same way people with ambiguous genitalia having genders is compelling evidence that your gender doesn’t depend on your genitals either.

What you have said also shows that its ridiculous to base the concepts of gender or sex solely on one gene out of thousands

the other thing is I know you are wrong about a couple of things in your first couple of paragraphs (you might be 100% right elsewhere or not, but I don’t know)

firstly, I think this is usually called (chromozone) Aneuploidy rather than chromozone disorders (though aneuploidy wouldn’t cover people who are xxmale or xyfemale so I’m not sure – either way I don’t think disorder is the right word)

SRY doesn’t ‘make people have male primary characteristics’ it increases the likelyhood of this happening but its not a 100% return rate (AIS particularly) and not everyone who has traditionally male sex characteristics (by birth?) has a Y chromozone (CAH in xx people + some other stuff mostly caused by people perscribing dodgy drugs to pregnant people)

there definitly are chromozone aneuploidies that do go undetected and that don’t have any real symptoms or harmful effects. If you are xxx or xyy it is more likely you wouldn’t know as these give a normal female or male phenotype. they have the same prevalence of about 1 in 1000. mosaicism is also a thing and may not cause symptoms to present. Other conditions may not present until later in life. So, you cannot say for sure you know what your karotype is unless you’ve had a karotype test (most people haven’t unless you’ve been tested for something else – they’re a bit expensive)

I think your point that there’s so much we don’t understand about our genetics is really important. (something else separately determining gender like you suggested seems pretty likely for example based on current scientific enquirery but also on the evidence we get from the existance of trans and intersex people – but we still don’t really know that)

tl;dr: karotypes other than 46xy male and 47xx female disprove the assumption that sex is binary fairly well which is also the assumption the gender binary is based on. Also you don’t nesseccerily know what your karotype is