"Assigned __ at birth" is a bizarre and goofy expression that should never be used

submitted by [deleted] from self.GenderCritical

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–][deleted]  (3 children)

[removed]

    [–]Lyssa 21 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 0 fun22 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    chromosomes don't have much bilogical function, they're just an inactive bundle of genes.

    That's a pretty ridiculous statement. Chromosomes carry both active and inactive genes. Otherwise: where should our active genes reside?

    And of course they have a biological function and in 99,98% of cases male and female are a very binary categories. Just because a coin somebody lands on its edge (coincidentally they do in about 0,02% of coin tosses...) does not mean it has three sides or that "sides of coins are actually far more complicated than heads or tails".

    You will also find persons with 12 fingers or no arms. Nevertheless, "humans are a two-armed and ten-fingered species" is a correct statement.

    [–]kardamom 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    chromosomes in the form that we usually think of them only exist during mitosis or meiosis and the dna they carry is always completely inactive while bundled up. when a cell is not undergoing division chromosomes don't really exist as those visible, countable structures, the dna is just a ball of chromatin inside the nucleus. if you genetic code is a library, chromosomes are like bookshelves. boookshelves don't carry any information, they just organize information. but the books themselves are not always in perfect order, so relying on the shelves to tell you what kinds of books are in your library is just a rough approximation. and in the case of intersex people, the books/genes usually are out of order, so the shelves/chromosomes are kinda irrelevant beyond giving you a hint that something has to be unusual.

    [–]Lyssa 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    I thougt you were referring to the fact that large parts of our DNA are what researchers used to refer to as "trash", i.e. not builing body parts even in mitosis or meiosis but just being copied along with the parts actually doing something...

    Anyhow: Of course genes re "active" technically when read. Just like a library. Nevertheless, a library of cooking books is fundamentally different from a library on aeronautics and not at all "the same" or "not important" unless currently being read. Yes, you can use both as fancy wallpapers. But that is the equivalent for a library of a biological death of the carrier for DNA.

    Your chromosomes decide what your body looks like, what your IQ potential is (note I've said potential, not IQ) and if you e.g. have Huntington's Chorea. If you had one of the more dramatic variations (like Huntington's...) the notion "it's only important during cell devision, but so TOTALLY irrelevant for your life" would probably be rather infuriating...