this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2025
449 points (95.7% liked)

News

24086 readers
3680 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 194 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Donald J Trump, the first female president of the United States of America.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I think it would still be George Washington, though I am not sure if this applies after death.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

She wasn't legally female while president

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Does this also make her the first trans president?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago

Underrated comment here, thank you for this

[–] [email protected] 114 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Even more specifically, at conception, we produce neither large nor small reproductive cells. So we all have no sex.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So we all have no sex.

Stop it. You're reminding me of my early adulthood.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

When is the early part supposed to end? Asking for a friend

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Ironically, the executive order goes on to acknowledge the difference between sex and gender

[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Well, it shows that the average right winger was fast asleep in school, especially during science and history classes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Considering iflscience also got reading the order completely wrong, I feel the issue is with your education system in general.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not my education system. I live in a civilized country.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Or genderless. Either way I'm down.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago

Another reason why politicians shouldn't have a say in science and biology.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm trying to wrap my head around how executive orders work. I'm not American.

Can someone explain what's the legal process compared to a bill for example?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

A policy applied to federal agencies on the whims of the executive/administration (president+staff). (FBI, CIA, DHS, ICE, TSA, HHS, FDA, so forth...)

Does not impact state law, judicials, or enforcement agencies. Though many of these do take their lead from federal guidelines to some degree, especially at the police and sheriff level.

This will be sued over constitutionality in the courts

Stacked courts will probably claim it's constitutional

Up to Congress to specifically and independently say it's unconstitutional. This Congress will probably not do that

IF there's another election, and the term limit is still adhered to, the next administration may chose to revoke it or alter it assuming they have differing policies.

Rinse and repeat.

[Edits: clarification and structure]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is there a process to make them official? Like is there a vote on them by Congress or something? Or are they automatically applied?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

They are applied with effect based on how they're written. They are "Official" but they can't change the writing of the constitution. Another administration can immediately revoke them as he has with many of biden's. The courts can only change how the constitution is interpreted. Congress needs to pass an amendment to change the constitution.

[–] atzanteol 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

They're not laws... The president is the head of the "executive branch" which has a number of federal departments that execute the laws passed by the legislature.

Executive orders are basically "memos" from the president that direct those departments on how to operate since the laws don't typically get into too much detail about the specifics.

These orders apply only to federal offices, he has no authority over private business or state governments without passing a law.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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)

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago

not all people with XY chromosomes end up with a penis.

not all people with XX chromosomes end up with a vagina

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] 9488fcea02a9 2 points 2 days ago

Y chromosome is just a mutant X chromosome

Wait... All men are mutants?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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.

[–] atzanteol 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It rather depends on how you're defining sex. And I'm not joking, the article gives good examples on when it is ambiguous.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.)

[–] atzanteol 3 points 2 days ago

I missed that there was an article beyond the image and headline somehow.

This is 100% understandable... Especially on a phone these days it's getting crazy hard to read articles.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

That's so cool. I'm glad we can find a good laugh in the midst of this hell.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Does this mean I have to update my drivers license since I'm going to be female for the next four years?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Oh, that could be fun.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago

Fixed the wage gap. Thank Thrump

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

This is pretty poor for what's supposed to be a science blog

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Yeah, I stopped following IFLScience over 10 years ago. Even then, their posts vere not very accurate scientifically.