this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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[–] bl4ckp1xx13@lemmy.dbzer0.com 75 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (73 children)

I hate, with a burning passion, the term "biological sex".

We have frankly, no fucking clue how our genetics and sex are intertwined.

We used to think it was "just chromosomes", but then we discovered "biological men" with double-X, or double-X and a Y, or vice-versa.

Or intersex individuals.

Then, we also got to consider that, say, a "biological woman" can transition to a "transgender man", which renders no change to their genes, just hormone levels, and they see physical development, voice deepening, hair growth, etc, just like a "biological man", or vice-versa.

In conclusion, "biological sex" is just another gross simplification created by people who's minds are so pathetic they can't comprehend reality and so choose to live by mantra founded in disproven pseudo-sciences, religion, and other excuses to avoid critical thinking, and then put themselves in positions of power.

[–] deranger@sh.itjust.works 54 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Doesn’t sound to me like you know the difference between sex and gender. We do have a pretty solid idea of how genetics and sex are intertwined, including intersex conditions. Gender is a whole different thing.

[–] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

You're mostly correct, tho the bit about genetics (+++) and sex is a bellcurve meme... There's tons we don't know and a lot of it is a giant interconnected mesh of incredibly complex relationship we barely grasp with very little casual data, and just a tiny bit of epidemiological inference that we can almost try to reason from.

[–] deranger@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (7 children)

Can you explain further? I’m a biochemist / medical lab scientist, and between my studies in genetics, human sexuality, and endocrinology, it seems pretty well figured out. Between “normal” X/Y chromosomes, various chromosomal abnormalities (X, XXX, XXY, XYY, etc), and mutations like androgen insensitivity syndrome it seems there is significant causal data. Not sure if they’ve studied these with knockout mice but it’s well beyond inference at this point.

I’m not sealioning here, it has been like a decade since I was actively learning this stuff and I’m sure there have been more discoveries. In general though it seems like we know the genetics, we know the hormones and receptors involved, the developmental process and various maladies are known, etc.

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[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 30 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Biological sex is a dogwhistle made digestible to appease the apathetic moderate

Edit: and this entire thread is proof of that 🍿

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[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

I totally understand what you’re saying, but if you take gender out of it and just think about humans as any other animal, you could classify animals with penises and animals with vaginas separately especially if you’re breeding them. The AI overlords won’t care when they’re breeding us.

EDIT: two types of genitalia instead of just penis and vagina. And not all but many animals.

[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago (19 children)

Here's the thing though, pretty much everything you just said is wrong. It's not that simple if you think of humans as any other animal. Here's a video link that is pretty long, but dives fairly deep into this topic that is massive from a scientific point of view.

https://youtu.be/nVQplt7Chos

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[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

...and animals with both, and animals with neither, and...

[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Sure but you can classify the ones with just two types of genitalia as something or another. Doesn’t mean you can’t have other layers of classification.

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[–] TheMuffinMan@piefed.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (15 children)

I’m not entirely sure what point you’re making, when sex reassignment surgery exists.

Not all trans people get it, sure, but many trans men have dicks and many trans women have vaginas. These usually align cosmetically but will have functional differences to their cis counterparts. Where would you crudely sort such people?

There’s also genital nullification surgery (think Barbie doll - nothing at all).

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[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I don’t like it by association, because most of the time I hear it used by intolerant people (like right wing assholes on the “news”). Sometimes, though, I hear it used without malice, presumably because people don’t know what else to say.

Pardon my ignorance, but what term would you suggest instead? Birth sex? Assigned sex? Something else?

[–] TheMuffinMan@piefed.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (10 children)

I’m not the person you asked, but ‘assigned sex’ is fine. The common one is ‘assigned gender at birth’.

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[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

I hate, with a burning passion, the term "biological sex".

For anyone else questioning topics like this, here's a fairly lengthy but great video on the topic.

https://youtu.be/nVQplt7Chos

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[–] Cleisthenian@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 weeks ago

Cis ppl showing they're not ready to hear this yet

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