Do male seahorses, and their male relatives, really get "pregnant" and "give birth"?

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[–]MarkTwainiac 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yeah, lots of living things of different kinds and species do things that humans and other mammals can't do.

Seahorses are fish. So are clown fish. They are completely different to mammals, including humans. They live underwater and can't survive out of water. Which is the opposite of us humans and all the other land-dwelling animals who can't survive under water.

What sea horses do, and the way they reproduce, has no relevance to what humans are, can do, the way we reproduce, and how human sex is defined.

Bees live in colonies where a single female queen bee rules; all the rest of the colony are worker bees, whose sex I previously misstated as males. But slushpilot below has corrected me. It's the drone bees who are male, not the worker bees. Which of course makes sense: the job of the male drone bees is to fertilize the eggs laid by the queen bee, whilst the mostly female bees do all the rest of the work of the hive! Same as it ever was. But either way, how bees behave and procreate, and how bee hives function isn't germane to how humans behave and procreate, and how human societies function.

Kangaroos are mammals. Female kangas have two uteruses, and one external pouch, for gestating/growing their young - which are called joeys. Kangas gestate their joeys in their uteruses for only a short period, then the joeys are birthed and they make their way on their own steam to their mothers' external pouches, where they stay for a much longer time, getting their nutrition from milk from their mothers' teats.

But even though kangaroos are land-dwelling mammals like us humans, they are very different to us and many other mammals in numerous ways. Just look at 'em hop. And at their limbs. What kangas do is not germane to discussions of human sex and behavior, and to human reproduction. Just as what seahorses do has no relevance, either.

[–]slushpilot 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Slight correction: bee colonies are >95% female worker bees. Where the queen lays fertilized eggs, only females emerge: usually worker bees, or else a new queen when the hive grows beyond its capacity and is about to swarm (split off and establish a new colony). Where the queen lays haploid (unfertilized) eggs, drone bees emerge. The queen can choose, depending on the size of the cell the workers prepared for her! Drone bees are the males, and their only purpose is to mate with a virgin queen from another colony. Therefore, the hive doesn't spend much of its resources raising very many of them. Before winter, the drones get dragged out of the hive and die. Hence in winter, bee colonies are 100% female.

[–]MarkTwainiac 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thank you. Actually, the correction you made is a major one, not a slight one, coz the error I made was a big one. In any event, I stand corrected.

I've edited my comment to acknowledge the error I made, but not to erase it, and to include your correction. Again, thanks. Just goes to show I should always check every little detail of what I think I know before posting.

[–]slushpilot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It didn't affect your greater point, so it didn't seem major. :)

[–]ArthnoldManacatsaman 12 insightful - 8 fun12 insightful - 7 fun13 insightful - 8 fun -  (0 children)

trans people and trans rights activists always go to sea horses and their relatives to show "male pregnancy" exists

Turritopsis dohrnii is a species of immortal jellyfish. Death is a spectrum.

[–]MisandryFTW 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Warning, I used to study/teach/work in fish reproductive biology:

Fish, reptiles, amphibians, and birds don't actually get "pregnant" in the sense that mammals do. In some species they have internal fertilization, but the baby is nourished entirely by the egg, not by either parent or a placenta, until it hatches. Most hatch externally, some hatch internally, although it is less common. That said, among all animals sex is determined by which parent produces the large gametes (F) and which produces the small gametes (M) and some animals (not humans) sex can change over time due to environmental conditions. In most animal species, whichever parent is the last to deposit genetic material is usually burdened with childcare. Interestingly, in fish and other species that have primarily external fertilization (some fish are internal, but it's uncommon) the female often lays eggs, then "fucks off" while the male deposits sperm and cares for the eggs until they hatch. There is of course variation where one or both or neither perform childcare.

In seahorses they are usually a mated pair where the female deposits eggs into the male's pouch where he fertilizes them and carries them until they hatch. The male does not produce a placenta or produce nourishment for the babies and is therefore not pregnant, in the same way if I'm carrying around a hamster in my closed hands I am not pregnant with said hamster, and if I am carrying gum in my mouth I am not pregnant with the gum. The seahorse pouch is not the same as a uterus in either structure or function. After hatching seahorse babies often return to the pouch if there is danger. Other male fish will look after fertilized eggs in nests they've made or in their mouth. The nest is not pregnant and neither is the mouth.

[–]NecessaryScene1 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

the only males in the world that undergo pregnancy and give birth to their offspring.

The important question here is - how did we identify that this was the male?

What is the defining characteristic that makes this creature that "gets pregnant" and "gives birth" male?

Having checked this answer, you can then correlate with humans to check which type of human is male and confirm that in humans the male does not do this.

Edit: same applies to clownfish - if you can figure out that a clownfish has changed sex and what sex it is, then you can apply exactly the same tests to see which type of human is male and female, and again confirm that humans do not change sex. Unlike the clownfish.

If these transactivists were serious about their logic they'd be telling you that you can't possibly tell the sex of either the seahorse or the clownfish.

[–]MezozoicGay 5 insightful - 5 fun5 insightful - 4 fun6 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

And no one even asked poor seahorses if they are identifying male or female. Maybe they are identifying as demiboys?

[–]anonymale 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The reason for male seahorse pregnancy and their generally awe-inspiring strangeness is that they mutate and therefore evolve faster than other fish. I guess TRAs are using seahorses to justify the female-erasing language contortions we're expected to make to accommodate TIFs. However, male seahorses produce sperm, not ova. That's how we know they are male. It makes about as much sense to say seahorses disprove the mammal/fish binary as to say they disprove the sex binary.