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| "♪♫ 46 and 2, ahead of me. ♪♫" |
When the Social Justice Warrior is confronted with the argument from the empirically observable, genetic reality surrounding sex, he will often want to point out either the development of a fetus as 'female by default' or the less than 0.01% of individuals with more complicated allosomal (referencing the sex chromosomes) profiles.
While easily dispatched, the 'female default' fetal development claim is, unfortunately, far too often one we still hear and have to put up with. The claim is partly that because a penis on an XY fetus doesn't form until about the 9th week, then that means an XY fetus prior to that time is a 'female' with a 'vagina' and 'ovaries', with the alleged implication being that XX or XY chromosomes must then
not necessarily be what determine sex, and that sex is more 'biologically fluid' than is being acknowledged. Also,
a quick Google search of 'female as default sex' yields quite a bit of content of people continuing to propagate this error based on decades old and very limited research in the field of fetal sex differentiation. The reality is that prior to the 9th week where
sexual differentiation actually takes place, there are neither 'female sex organs' nor 'male sex organs' -- merely as-of-yet undeveloped, non-functional 'buds' that will eventually form according to allosomal profiles,
ceteris paribus.
In addition, this whole 'female is the default sex' claim was completely debunked, as expressed by a
Stanford paper on The Genetics of Sex Determination. In a nutshell,
Research on sex determination (the differentiation of the embryonic bipotential gonad into a testis or an ovary) traditionally focused on testis development. Andrew Sinclair’s 1990 Nature paper famously identified a Y-chromosome gene as the Sex-Determining Region Y (SRY). Female sexual development, by contrast, was thought to proceed as a "default" in the absence of Sry. In the case of sex determination, "default" became the prevailing concept for female pathways—i.e., an ovary results in the absence of other action. The active processes controlling ovarian development remained a blind spot. The notion of a "passive" female fit with current scientific theories and gender assumptions in the broader society.
Around 2010, questioning the notion of "default" led to the discovery of a cohort of genes required for ovarian function. Gender analysis led to three innovations in this field:
- Recognition of ovarian determination as an active process. These investigations have also enhanced knowledge about testis development, and how the ovarian and testicular pathways interact (see chart).
- Discovery of ongoing ovarian and testis maintenance. Research into the ovarian pathway revealed that the transcriptional regulator FOXL2 must be expressed in adult ovarian follicles to prevent "transdifferentiation of an adult ovary to a testis." Subsequently, researchers found that the transcription factor DMRT1 is needed to prevent reprogramming of testicular Sertoli cells into ovarian granulosa cells.
- New language to describe gonadal differentiation. Researchers have dismissed the concept of "default" and emphasize that, while female and male developmental pathways are divergent, the construction of an ovary (like the construction of a testis or any other organ) is an active process. Each pathway requires complex cascades of gene products in proper dosages and at precise times. [1]
Further,
in fewer than 0.00001% of XX and XY fetuses, the sex organs
may fail to develop, leading always to infertility and what are called 'streak gonads' (non-functional,
usually cancerous, fibrous tissue) as well as a failure of secondary sex characteristics to develop during puberty. This is called
gonadal dysgenesis and, depending on the form, can include complications such as
deafness,
eye disorders, and cancer (at the site of the streak gonads during infancy).
The counter-argument regarding more complicated allosomal profiles is far more interesting and more important. Notable examples include combinations such as
XXXXY,
XXXY,
XXYY,
XX/XY Chimerism,
XXY (Klinefelter Syndrome),
XXX (Triple-X Syndrome),
XYY,
XX Male (de la Chapelle Syndrome),
X (Turner Syndrome),
and more. These are all extremely rare, and apart from one or two
non-intersex profiles, they're all very unfortunate disorders that have complications ranging from sterility, to deafness, to eye disorders, to deformalities, to cognitive or physical developmental disorders, and in many cases shorter to much shorter lifespans and cancer. Most often, you'll find a combination of these unfortunate complications.
While still extremely rare, other intersex individuals often referenced are those historically known as
true hermaphrodites, and more clinically referred to these days as having
ovotesticular disorder of sex development. While their external genitalia are often ambiguous and they usually grow up sterile, these individuals typically have far less severe complications than the previously mentioned syndromes and can usually live normal lives.
The 3 Primary Karyotypes for True Hermaphroditism are XX with genetic defects (55-70% of cases), XX/XY (20-30% of cases) & XY (5-15% of cases) with the remainder being a variety of other Chromosomal abnormalities and Mosaicisms.[2]
It's important to bring up true hermaphroditism, since at first glance, this seems to possibly propose a problem for the idea of the empiricism of binary, clear-cut sexes. However, reality still reaffirms this. In the cases where true hermaphroditism isn't expressed through one of the previously mentioned severe syndromes, most are simply cases of the XX/XY
chimerism -- being that what was initially to be separate twins actually ended up with one XX or XY twin
absorbing the opposite sex twin at a very early stage of development. Where there would have been two clear-cut opposite-sexed individuals -- an extremely rare, developmental fluke took place, instead.
In consideration of all of this, how does it follow, then, that 'more than two sexes actually exist', or that this justifies genetically healthy and normal folks to claim that sex isn't based on one's chromosomes? If over 99.99% of individuals follow the standard genetic profile of sex as 'male' or 'female', and the further an individual unfortunately genetically drifts away from the standard blueprint of a healthy, fully functional individual brings more and increasingly severe complications, then it would actually follow that our conclusion should be the exact opposite. Simply put -- there are two sexes, and the more genetically intersex an individual is, the worse off he or she will be.
Ultimately, the subject of one's
sex is a matter of an empirical, binary reality for 99.99% of all individuals born -- male or female. As for the remaining 0.01% of
genuinely intersex individuals, it makes sense to refer to them as intersex, but not because there is a 'third sex', or no sexes, or some other arbitrary number of sexes other than 'two',
but because there are two sexes. They are the extremely rare exception that proves the rule. If these weren't complications, and additional sexes were necessary or even just possible in the
sexual reproduction of the human species, then intersex could be considered an additional 'sex'. Further, it's a particularly strange line of reasoning to fall on the argument of pointing out these intersex individuals and those with genetic complications as some justification for
transgendered individuals to be able to claim to be the
opposite sex, when they were, in fact, born genetically healthy and normal.
Part II: 'Gender' as a Social Construct and its Relative 'Elasticity'
Gender, on the other hand, is a subjective, social construct, albeit still based on a
bimodal distribution of ‘masculinity’ vs ‘femininity’. It's a social construct because while expressions of gender are typically tied closely to the sexes across cultures, the cultures themselves express masculinity and femininity in sometimes wildly different ways. It's a
bimodal distribution because while an individual would be on the spectrum of more or less masculine or feminine expression, there would be a peak concentration around a typical degree of masculine expression amongst the general populace, and a separate peak concentration around a typical degree of feminine expression amongst the general populace. In the middle of these peaks you'd have a very, very deep trough with a small connecting point representing essentially the androgynous, alienesque
Mechanical Animals (his, ahem, best album, obviously) incarnation of
Marilyn Manson, or
Ziggy Stardust-esque androgyny.
