Trump's Executive Order Against Trans People Technically Makes Every American Female
Trump's Executive Order Against Trans People Technically Makes Every American Female
If you legislate with scientific words, you should know the science.
If you want to argue technicalities (and you REALLY should at least examine those before making legally binding edicts reinterpreting reality), it actually makes every American nongender.
It specifies "at conception", at which point no sexual characteristics have developed.
Even more specifically, at conception, we produce neither large nor small reproductive cells. So we all have no sex.
So we all have no sex.
Stop it. You're reminding me of my early adulthood.
That was my thought also. Trump getting rid of a legal gender distinction altogether by accident would be hilarious. I hope he stands his ground and insists it's not a mistake.
Ironically, the executive order goes on to acknowledge the difference between sex and gender
Or genderless. Either way I'm down.
Yeah they define female as member of species with largest sex cell but also state the sex person is at conception is their sex, therefore we are all sexless.
Another reason why politicians shouldn't have a say in science and biology.
Pretty sure according to current science, the sex is "undifferentiated" until a certain point in development. That means Trump wrote it so no one is female, lol.
Even as a zygote, the chromosomes are still XX and XY, aren't they? (Ignoring XXY, etc.)
It's still stupid as hell, and the female thing would be funny-sad, but scientifically I'm not sure it's accurate.
The EO definition didn't refer to chromosomes at all actually it referred to female as "at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell" and male "at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell."
A zygote is a singular cell at coneception... so you could also argue it's saying everyone's bigender actually. In any case its extremely poorly written, goes against science, and forgets about intersex people
(also note that XX and XY chromosomes don't guarantee AMAB or AFAB. You can have XX chromosomes and present completely AMAB and vice versa)
not all people with XY chromosomes end up with a penis.
not all people with XX chromosomes end up with a vagina
Fair. But if we do include intersex people with less common chromosomes in this topic, I wonder if they might get overlooked? I hope so, since it's probably the best chance here except in the unlikely case a "wait and see" stance is allowed.
*edit - correction: I somehow forgot that as orclev said (and usernamesAreTricky expanded on with a vice versa), it's possible for XY folks to be cis women. So chromosomes don't deliver the desired gotcha either.
Expression is where it's codified. For instance: I have XX chromosomes, but I also have dangling genitalia and a great big bushy beard. All because the X chromosome I recieved from my father had an SRY transcription error, and my body had male expression "switched on" by the SRY gene.
It rather depends on how you're defining sex. And I'm not joking, the article gives good examples on when it is ambiguous.
Thanks for pointing that out. When I first checked the link, I must have been tired as I missed that there was an article beyond the image and headline somehow. (Normally my habit would have been to check if the topic was covered, since headlines can be misleading. Case in point, in this case they were going for humour more than accuracy there, but the article indeed has examples.)
Well, it shows that the average right winger was fast asleep in school, especially during science and history classes.
That's because anyone with a basic understanding of human biology knows sex is a biological concept that is quite fluid - and gender has an incredibly soft scientific basis if any at all, within social contexts. If he had people who actually understood science helping his write this, they would only be explaining the ways it's wrong.
Does this mean I have to update my drivers license since I'm going to be female for the next four years?
Oh, that could be fun.
That's so cool. I'm glad we can find a good laugh in the midst of this hell.