449
Trump's Executive Order Against Trans People Technically Makes Every American Female
(www.iflscience.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2025
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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)
It wouldn't be bigender, because that single cell has (again, oversimplifying here) either XX or XY, right?
Although if that's how they're defining gender, then anyone infertile (not producing sperm or eggs) is, by their definition, neither male nor female. So I guess they're still recognizing a form of nonbinaryness? Just in a really incorrect way.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/
The executive order doesn't mention XX or XY. We're talking about how Trump's ignorance has defined everyone as female. Or arguably neither male nor female. But the general point is that a lack of understanding has undermined his intentions.
They don't mention chromosomes. They mention reproductive cells.
not all people with XY chromosomes end up with a penis.
not all people with XX chromosomes end up with a vagina
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.
As the article points out until the genitalia develops it's impossible to accurately predict the sex of a fetus due to instances of fetuses with XY chromosomes occasionally developing as female. On the other hand it should be impossible for an XX fetus to develop as male as far as I know.
You can develop entirely AMAB presentation with XX chromosomes
See de la Chapelle syndrome
Many don't even know that they have XX chromosomes at all
Thanks for the correction. I guess that makes sense considering that the Y chromosome is just a mutant X chromosome, so there should exist mutations of the X chromosome that would result in male genitalia or intersex genitalia developing.
Wait... All men are mutants?
It's rare but possible. Basically, the piece of the Y chromosome that hosts the SRY gene can wind up swapped onto a different chromosome and still work its magic. You really only need that one single gene to trigger the whole cascade of development that makes a person male.
I think another interpretation of Trump's order is that nobody is female, since no embryos are capable of producing the "large reproductive cell" at conception. At conception they're just a single cell, they aren't producing any reproductive cells yet. That's not until quite a while later in development.
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.
Yep
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.)
This is 100% understandable... Especially on a phone these days it's getting crazy hard to read articles.