Rishi Sunak wades into debate over trans people, declaring no one can change sex - eviltoast

All the news on his speech seems to be about HS2 but I think that this is important too.

  • dunestorm@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s simple, gender can be changed but sex cannot. End of story, anyone who argues otherwise is objectively wrong.

    • galmuth@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      You’re not technically wrong, but it’s a nuanced issue and people should treat it as such rather than black and white.

      Sunak saying “no one can change sex” without any qualifying statements is just designed to inflame and divide people.

      • Gamoc@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No it’s designed to gain support from ignorant bigots who have nothing better to do than think about other people’s genitals all the damn time, but are completely incapable of actual learning anything that isn’t shoveled down their throat by a far right psychopath who stands to gain from what they’re saying.

      • Gyromobile@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s designed to offer a firm take on the nuanced issue. A lot of people feel like they are tired of being told they are crazy (on both sides).

        It feels like if someone (self) inserts gender where he says sex here, they are looking for reasons to be upset.

    • fiat_lux@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Clown fish start life as males, and become female in adulthood. Gobies can switch back and forth between male and female. So far, we know of maybe 500 species of fish that can change sex.

      I understand people are not fish, but I’m not sure we should be so quick to declare something about people “can’t be changed” with enough time, knowledge and science. Sex and gender are both complicated systems with lots of opportunity for unexpected variations affecting seemingly unrelated parts of a person.

      It’s even possible for your body to have more than one set of chromosomes, it’s called Chromosomal Mosaicism and is detected in around 1-2% of pregnancies. Not all of those pregnancies make it full term, and not all mosaics are retained by the foetus, but in a world of billions of people it still ends up being a lot of people who are sexually diverse.

      Biology is not simple. Do not underestimate the weird things your body can randomly surprise you with.

      • Gabu@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Most people generally assume we’re talking about current technological limits, unless otherwise stated, lest we end up with “yeah, everything is possible because DNA editing is possible”.

        • fiat_lux@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Even without technological intervention, we know some kinds of chemical exposure and cancers can alter chromosomes and literally change your X into a Y or vice versa. Or even turn it into a different shape than X or Y. Sometimes it a chromosome just goes missing entirely. Genetics are not always good at following the rules and they can break or perform strange new equations with mistaken values whenever a new cell is made. Organics are messy like that

          Chromosomes delete, combine, duplicate, change and/or fuse bits of other chromosomes in unexpected places more than you might expect. It can happen to an embryo a few cells big right through a person’s life.

          Given the male sex is defined by the presence of any Y chromosome though (if we go by chromosome sex determination alone), if an arm breaks off the 46th chromosome after the embryo is established as XX, that XX foetus can develop as XY. Has it changed sex in the womb since it changed chromosomes? Are they female because they were conceived as XX, or male because they were born XY? It happens.

          And if a foetus has Chromosome mosaicism, with both an XX and an XY embryo that fused into one foetus, it can be born with both sets of working genitals. Because they usually determine sex visually, they might only see the XY genitals and classify it as male. But the blood tests will sometimes show XX and sometimes XY, as much as 50% of the time if the fusion happened early. Which sex is that person in that case, and are they only 1 sex?
          Are they still male becaude they have a Y if the first implanted embryo with XX chromosomes absorbed a smaller XY embryo, and therefore the final body is mostly XX?

          And If a person with mosaicism as an adult surgically removes their XY-typical set/parts of their body including genitals, are they still XY? Even if the XY cells can be removed completely because they’re only a small part of the person? Because that can happen too.

          It only gets more complicated and uncertain from there, because there are a lot of variables at play when there’s loads of organic data manipulation. But weird shit can and does happen for reasons we don’t yet understand or know about. Depending on how you define sex and the point of sex determination, it is very likely someone has already changed sex.

    • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I dare you to take HRT for a couple of years and then say that again (obviously not really, but you clearly don’t give a shit about biology, which would prove you wrong, and are only here to spread ignorance in the name of transphobia)

      • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Depends how you define sex.

        If you just mean physical appearance then yes you can change your sex through hormones and surgery.

        If you mean DNA then no, most AMAB will all have a X and a Y chromosome in every one of their cells which would technically make them male “sex”, despite whatever gender they identify as.

        You can change your gender but you can’t really choose your biological sex. But it’s semantics really and not totally flushed out yet either.

    • hawkguy@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      So transphobes can just ignore gender as a concept and treat sex as all there is and you can’t call them out because they are “technically correct”?