The Biology is The Biology is The Biology: The Biology of Sex is Digital. "Gender" has a Cultural Aspect. Many Are Confusing Themselves and Others About These Facts.

Chromosomes determine sex. The cultural phenomenon of self-determined gender does not undo inheritance of chromosomes. When the Dumbing Down of America is done, people won't know the difference.

Most of us are born male or female. This is not our “assigned gender”: it’s our biological sex. An individuals’s sex is determined in animals (and plants) via the chromosomes one is born with.

Historically, in our species, parents of infants born with both sets of genitalia felt compelled to make a decision about which genitalia to “keep”. They hoped for a normal life for their children. And they hoped (of course) that they made “the right” decision; that is, that their children would develop and adapt as male-gendered or female-gendered in a culturally normal way. Some individuals born with both types of genitalia kept both, and one presumes and hopes found a way to happy life. However, they did not likely advertise their particular anatomical differences, and either adopted a male- or female- appearance, lifestyle and identity in search of a normal life.

Not all animal species have human-like XX (female) and XY (male) sex-determination. The platypus have five pairs of sex chromosomes that form an unusual chain shape. Birds do not have X and Y sex chromosomes; they have ZW sex chromosomes. That is, male birds have a pair of ZZ chromosomes, female birds have a Z and a W sex chromosomes. (See: Sex chromosomes and sex determining mechanisms in birds). There’s variation in birds: the Z and W sex chromosomes of emu and duck are more similar to each than the X and Y sex chromosomes of humans are to each other.

XX and XY are not the only sex chromosome karyotype possible in humans. Other (rare but real) include a female with a missing X (Turner Syndome; XO), a male with an extra X (Klinefelter's Syndrome, XXY), and a male with an extra Y (Jacob's Syndrome; XYY).

Any discussion of reconciling the chromosome-based sex determination of humans and the current culture phenomenon of the “gender spectrum” is largely futile. Biology-based sex is not “assigned sex”; that’s redundant. For most of us, we ARE male, or we ARE female. Unfortunately, early scientific articles conflated “gender” and “sex”, and much of society conflate them this as well. Depending on context, someone might need to know your sex (karyotype). For other purposes one might need to know your gender. The fear among conservatives that males (sex) who present their gender as female might abuse the confusion to take advantage of others is not unlike the association of fear of violent crime from one race or the other, depending on which country one is in, based on unwarranted generalizations about a group due to the actions of some of its members.

I hope I can make some fine points that help educate and clarify. For example: Our sex chromosomes are digital packages of information. Gender, however, is sometimes considered something that can be decided, like and option for one’s style of clothing, or hairstyle, or occupation. It may or may not be that simple, depending on the individual: how much is choice and preference, and how much is biology?

At one extreme, there is the view that “anything goes”: you are what you say you are. At the other end of the viewpoint is the position that a man who decides he is a woman is still a man. These people, too, while often dismissed entirely as bigots, have a point: karyotypically, males born with male sex chromosomes are male, and females born with female sex chromosomes are female.

Anything between those two viewpoints is cultural, and beyond the scope of biology… with the exception of the intervening effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals and the effects of estrogen mimics - and they human species is awash in a soup of toxic chemical that can dramatically alter human biology and development. And their effects can be permanent (exposure in the womb or during early childhood) or transient (post-pubertal).

I’m not advocating for or against gender fluidity; people have to accept it or not based on their individual set of core principles, again, something far outside the realm of biology. But how many peoples’ lives have been altered dramatically due to exposure to EDCs?

The fact that a sexually dimorphic brain structure (specifically, the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc)) is larger in males than in females, and that the size of BSTc in transsexual men who underwent hormonal treatment resemble the BSTc in females more than males might help people who doubt there are biological differences between heterosexual males and male-to-female transsexuals, but it has done little to quell the fear.

The Pride Parade in Washington, D.C. has served to solidify fears that male-to-female transexuals and others seek to normalize the sexualization of underage minors and normalize pedophilia. In this parade, persons who we can presume to be male-to-female transsexuals or transvestites were seen, topless, riding bicycles, performing stripping dance moves, and in general flaunting themselves in sexually provocative ways - all in front of children. These behaviors would not be well-tolerated if they were biological females presenting as females acting the same way.

These provocations come at a time when the left and the right could not be less mutually trusting. There is a clearly liberal agenda to normalize the discussion of gender choice in schools, for all children, not just those who step forward as gender-confused; here's an article from 2003 that states clearly the agenda to cast cultural preference for heterosexuality as normal in the same vein as racism and sexism. It describes the queer-theory worldview as one that includes the aims to make children - all children - “(ponder) their sexual orientation and the fluidity of their sexual identity”.

And this where it’s worth drawing a line. The same liberals are forcing innocent children to accept the label of “oppressor” and “oppressed” over race issues, when, in reality, they are children of parents in a society that has invested heavily in affirmative action and other programs. Generations of Americans have been taught that racism is disgusting. However, the presumed “advantages” of being caucasian are mere presumptions and require unwarranted generalizations. As an undergraduate student, I was once denied a waiver for my books when I had no funds (due to delayed processing of my financial aid paperwork) only to find that some of my minority floormates had no problem getting a waiver. I had to confront the (white, female) University bursar on their bigoted policies, and she attempted to try to instruct me on how hard “those people” had it. I simply asked “how is it going to help ‘those people’ for me to not have my books for the first month of classes, unlike my friends, who happen to be black”? and “Won’t I be a less able educator to the children of ‘those people’ in my classrooms when I become a school teacher”?

The only reason why I was denied a waiver was my skin color. That’s bigotry. That’s discrimination. I appealed my concerns to the Provost, who personally loaned me the funds, which of course I paid back. That Spring break, while many of my friends were in Florida, I was waitering a University Event. Guess whose table I served? The Bursar and the Provost. They recognized me; I thanked the Provost for his help. The message was clear: I was hardly “privileged”; instead, I had to work to earn for my income to afford school and counter to the Bursar’s bigoted assumption, I was not “entitled” to wealth she presumed my family held. That was in 1987. It’s now 2022, and the dumbing down of America continues.

Current anti-discrimination laws confuse “sex” and “gender”. Consider the New York City Human Rights Law (MYCHRL). Under the NYCHRL, gender discrimination can be based on “one’s perceived or actual gender identity, which may or may not conform to one’s sex assigned at birth, or based on the ways in which one expresses gender, such as through appearance or communication style”. This is so vague as to make it a useless definition of gender, and yet the NYCHRL uses “sex” and “gender” interchangeably.

It’s not too complex to have a binomial nomenclature for sex and gender. If I ask someone “what is your sex”? I’ll be meaning “what chromosomes are you packing?” (Note that may or may not be any of my business). If I ask someone “what is your gender?”, I specifically do NOT mean “what chromosomes are you packing” but rather “what do you want to be considered”. I can work and play in that space. Government forms that need gender and sex information should request both. And people who care for others to know what chromosomes they carry and what gender they wish to be seen as can readily communicate what they need to.

One thing is clear: The push for “equity” among people of all types cannot by achieved by holding others - usually those in the majority - back with bigoted policies. First, it won’t work. Second, it’s unlawful. The 14th Amendment guarantees all US citizens “Equal Protection under the Law” - language chose specifically to broker a deal between people who could not bring themselves to say that blacks and whites were, in fact, equal. And to the extent that every person in the US is a US citizen, the 14th Amendment already affords each of every one of them with protection from bigotry.

From The Carter Center: “Every human being is equal under the law and has a right to equal protection against any form of discrimination and intolerance in any sphere of life, public or private.”

Where the neoliberals loses everyone is in their zeal to promote “equity”, which comes at a cost to some, it ignores “equal under the law” (equal opportunity).

In the US, you’re entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You have opportunity and protection from disenfranchisement.

Simply because you’re you.

You don’t have to be a minority, or a member of rainbow coalition.

You can even be white and expect equality - under the law. That includes equal opportunity.

And so let’s be clear: yes, hate crimes against transgendered people and people with non-heterosexual preferences is real, undeserved, and should be condemned. But the provocation by individuals bent on normalizing gender choice as a universal and necessary right of passage have no scientific or ethical basis for their program. Two wrongs have never made a right.

So, to all Americans, I say stay focused, raise your kids well, protect them from harmful chemicals sold by big corporations, eschew bigotry in all of its forms, and speak the truth plainly when you can.

Don’t fall for the race-baiting, or queer-baiting, or anything else-baiting.

Just act with integrity and have faith in the US Constitution. Remember: Justice is blind.

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash