BTW, 2old, I noticed that throughout your OP you kept speaking of "somatic cells." I hope you know that this terminology is redundant coz "somatic" simply means "relating to or of the body, as opposed to the mind." So similar to "physical" or "bodily."

In your OP, you also made a claim I found too ridiculous to address and refute, namely

What I believe given these findings is there is no such a thing as a "man" and a "woman", "sperm" and "egg", and they are man-made socially constructed categories that don't actually exist.

Now that we've had friendly exchanges and you've said

I am really not here to debunk the existence of sex, but really just trying to understand about it, and overcome confusion because I tend to get confused easily, and reach a conclusion.

I'm wondering if you still believe - and if you ever really believed - that

there is no such a thing as a "man" and a "woman", "sperm" and "egg", and they are man-made socially constructed categories that don't actually exist.

Finally, since your user name makes an issue of your age, I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind revealing how old exactly you are and at what age you think people become "too old for school."

In the spirit of fair play, I'll go first: I am 66, and I believe there is no age at which anyone becomes "too old for school." I know lots of people in their 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s who've gone to school - whether it be adult ed courses, grad school or to get their HS or BA/BS degrees. I once did a newspaper story on a woman who was forced out of school in 8th grade when she got pregnant in the 1940s, and who attended HS in the US and got her HS diploma in her late 40s/early 50s. Gladys Mae West, the mathematician whose calculations formed the basis for GPS, earned a PhD in 2018 at age 88.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_West

we all are a bunch of cells as embryos, during embryonic development, the stem cells become egg or sperm. That's what they do in the lab, they take the stem cell of someone, and turn it into sperm or egg, which is exactly what happens in embryonic development. They are redoing what happened to everyone of us when were were embryos in the lab now, recreating the same situation.

You seem to be suggesting that during the embryo stage of development, all human cells only become - and only have the possibility of becoming - either egg or sperm. This is not true. Embryonic stem cells have the capacity to differentiate into hundreds of different types of cells:

Human embryonic stem (ES) cells capture the imagination because they are immortal and have an almost unlimited developmental potential (Fi

After many months of growth in culture dishes, these remarkable cells maintain the ability to form cells ranging from muscle to nerve to blood—potentially any cell type that makes up the body. The proliferative and developmental potential of human ES cells promises an essentially unlimited supply of specific cell types for basic research and for transplantation therapies for diseases ranging from heart disease to Parkinson's disease to leukemia. Here we discuss the origin and properties of human ES cells, their implications for basic research and human medicine, and recent research progress...

https://stemcells.nih.gov/info/Regenerative_Medicine/2006Chapter1.htm

Your posts also indicate you don't think any part of the human body begins developing in the first 8 weeks of life other than the gonads (or the potential gametes that will reside in/issue from or be produced by the gonads? or sumpin' like that). This too is not true.

Here's what happens in the first 4 weeks of human development:

• All major systems and organs begin to form

• The embryo looks like a tadpole

• The neural tube (which becomes the brain and spinal cord), the digestive system, and the heart and circulatory system begin to form

• The beginnings of the eyes and ears are developing

• Tiny limb buds appear (which will develop into arms and legs)

• The heart is beating

By the end of the 8th week of human embryo development:

• All major body systems continue to develop and function, including the circulatory, nervous, digestive, and urinary systems

• The embryo is taking on a human shape, although the head is larger in proportion to the rest of the body

• The mouth is developing tooth buds (which will become baby teeth)

• The eyes, nose, mouth, and ears are becoming more distinct

• The arms and legs can be easily seen

• The fingers and toes are still webbed, but can be clearly distinguished

• The main organs continue to develop and you can hear the baby's heartbeat using an instrument called a Doppler

• The bones begin to develop and the nose and jaws are rapidly developing

• The embryo is in constant motion but cannot be felt by the mother ***

*** I don't believe this statement has ever been proven (and isn't hard to prove a negative anyway?) Indeed, many mothers would say our "lived experience" suggests it's a myth/belief/assertion made up by men that's not necessarily true. At all. Lots of women have reported having sensations in early pregnancy that we believe was movement of the embryo. Some women who've miscarried during the first eight weeks have said they could feel it happening. Lots of women can feel the moment we ovulate; if it's the case that we can feel when one of our ovaries releases an egg, why assume it's impossible for any of us to feel an embryo developing and moving in our uterus?

https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=first-trimester-85-P01218

BTW, before going any further down the rabbit hole of Dr Frankenstein scenarios that seem to have so captured your fancy, I think you would benefit by looking at some basic biology books online, as well as ones that explain/show how human embryos and fetuses develop. There's lots of illustrated material out their geared for expectant parents explaining what happens each step of the way.

I suspect if you looked into these matters further you'd find it's really not the case that today scientists only need "a lab and technology" to create a brave new world where, as you put it,

Everyone can produce sperm or egg, in the lab, if they take one of their somatic cells, or stem cells.

https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1008676

I would treat male rapists the same as female rapists. Though to be honest I think our prisons need more oversight and there should be stricter security for violent offenders.

There is one "small" difference, men are stronger and can make women pregnant, while women don't.

women are more likely to be QT than men.

This not makes you wonder why there is such an upraise among women to become "he/they" and "anything but woman"?

I think sports is the only thing that should be sex segregated.

Why only sports? Why everywhere else, where sex segregation always mattered - it stopping to matter, while in sport it still matters?

Why someone like Alex Drummond, who saying "I am woman" but leaving beard and looking like a regular man, should have access to female rape shelters or to examine women after rape? Why mental state of women there does not matter? Why sex segregation here should not matter and "gender identity is a mental state" should metter, while mental state of vulnereable women does not?

Most of us define ourselves by our gender identity.

Most of us does not define ourselves by any identity. No one I know ourside of internet, except one transwoman, have any feeling of gender identity and can't understand how you can feel yourself separated from your own body.

Trans women are women, not men who think they're women.

There nothing to prove that transwomen are adult human females.

Gender identity is a mental state.

Why mental state matters more than biological reality?

Sex and gender are different. You want us grouped by sex which is why you would group me with men. I expressly don’t want to be grouped with men for a litany of reasons, the most important of which is that we are so different that to do so creates a myriad of legal problems and leaves us at the mercy of the unquestionable most powerful and dangerous form of humanity, and the one that does harm to us by a huge margin, men.

So why not campaign for your own spaces, provisions and protections then instead of horning in on other people's? That's what women, people with physical disabilities and the elderly had to do. How come trans people get to barge in and claim women's hard-won spaces, provisions and sports for their own?

Also, why is it okay for trans identified males to be afraid of other males and want spaces away from them, but it's bigoted and "transphobic" for female people to do the same?

In most cities, there are separate lanes in streets for buses, cars and bicycles, and the sidewalks are for pedestrians and people in prams and wheelchairs. Whenever new forms of transport and recreation come along - skateboards, roller blades, Segways, razor scooters, electric scooters, seated motorized mobility scooters for disabled people (all of which have arrived on the scene within my own lifetime) - municipalities and communities have to get together and decide where the new devices belong.

But a majority of trans people today don't want to be held to the same rules and community decision-making processes as everyone else - they want to be able to go wherever they want whenever they want simply because they demand and insist upon it. The position of many trans people is essentially that if they want to drive a bus or car on the sidewalk or in the bike lane, that's their right. Who cares how many people they mow down and how many rights belonging to others they trample and remove in the process?

Trans activists love to tell others to "stay in your lane" but they don't want to have to carve out a lane for themselves, nor stick to their own lane once it's created.

If a man or a woman has this complete surgery where they remove the entirety of genitalia, and I mean all genitalia, nothing is left there, do they become sexless after surgery?

And if they don't become sexless after surgery, why don't they become sexless? I thought genitalia and gametes determine sex, so when there is no genitalia or gametes, there is no sex? Saying sex is defined by genitalia and gametes would exclude a cix man or cis woman that removes the whole genitalia in surgery.

You need to use proper terminology that is "inclusive" of both sexes. Gametes come from gonads and gonads are not necessarily the same as genitals.

In humans, only the male gonads (the testes) are part of the genitals. Female gonads (the ovaries) are internal organs inside the abdomen; they are not part of the female genitals.

A woman could have her genitals and vagina entirely removed - her uterus too - and still retain her ovaries.

You question whether sex exists, but the way you frame your views and arguments seems sexist and male supremacist. You seem to think that males are the default humans, that male anatomy constitutes "the norm" for the human species.

I dunno what country you're in, but if it's the US or somewhere in the Middle East, I suggest you visit a hospital ward or rehab facility for men who've lost their lower bodies or had horrific groin injuries due to bomb blasts and combat and ask them your questions. They'll be thrilled, I'm sure, to hear that in your view they no longer are men, but have been rendered entirely sexless.

But Violet said some bugs are sexless? Do you have sources that no multicellular animal is sexless? https://saidit.net/s/GCdebatesQT/comments/74q3/gc_i_have_questions_that_need_answers/r0vi

Depends on bugs. Some bugs are all female (like bees), with only few males, and one reproducing queen. (Ant) soldiers most often are sexless.

Ant workers are sexless too depending on the specie

And this: https://saidit.net/s/GCdebatesQT/comments/74q3/gc_i_have_questions_that_need_answers/r0vf

There are insects that produce neuter offspring, like ants. Queens are female, but workers are neuter... as far as I remember. I could be wrong though. I'm no expert on ants. It might be more complicated than that. Maybe the workers are still female, but sterile?