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this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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I hate, with a burning passion, the term "biological sex".
We have frankly, no fucking clue how our genetics and sex are intertwined.
We used to think it was "just chromosomes", but then we discovered "biological men" with double-X, or double-X and a Y, or vice-versa.
Or intersex individuals.
Then, we also got to consider that, say, a "biological woman" can transition to a "transgender man", which renders no change to their genes, just hormone levels, and they see physical development, voice deepening, hair growth, etc, just like a "biological man", or vice-versa.
In conclusion, "biological sex" is just another gross simplification created by people who's minds are so pathetic they can't comprehend reality and so choose to live by mantra founded in disproven pseudo-sciences, religion, and other excuses to avoid critical thinking, and then put themselves in positions of power.
Doesn’t sound to me like you know the difference between sex and gender. We do have a pretty solid idea of how genetics and sex are intertwined, including intersex conditions. Gender is a whole different thing.
You're mostly correct, tho the bit about genetics (+++) and sex is a bellcurve meme... There's tons we don't know and a lot of it is a giant interconnected mesh of incredibly complex relationship we barely grasp with very little casual data, and just a tiny bit of epidemiological inference that we can almost try to reason from.
Can you explain further? I’m a biochemist / medical lab scientist, and between my studies in genetics, human sexuality, and endocrinology, it seems pretty well figured out. Between “normal” X/Y chromosomes, various chromosomal abnormalities (X, XXX, XXY, XYY, etc), and mutations like androgen insensitivity syndrome it seems there is significant causal data. Not sure if they’ve studied these with knockout mice but it’s well beyond inference at this point.
I’m not sealioning here, it has been like a decade since I was actively learning this stuff and I’m sure there have been more discoveries. In general though it seems like we know the genetics, we know the hormones and receptors involved, the developmental process and various maladies are known, etc.
Biological sex is a dogwhistle made digestible to appease the apathetic moderate
Edit: and this entire thread is proof of that 🍿
What about when you go to the doctor and they need to know what type of organs you were born with instead of what type of clothes you like to wear?
Sex ≠ gender.
It's wrong to try to force "gender" to mean "sex", but trying to force "sex" to mean "gender" is also wrong.
That isn't even a reliable indicator, and if it comes up, it is a discussion between the patient and the doctor and no one else. We have the language to be specific. Besides, doctors don't even know what to do with trans people regardless of gender or surgeries because all medical research on the topic has been blocked, erased, or burned by knuckledraggers
(MTF) When I go to doctors I have to explain to them that if they run my bloodwork as Male, every single damn metric on it is going to be flashing bright red. When it's run as Female, I can get actual data out of it. Also guess who you go to if you have titty problems.
I wasn't saying "organs" was an indicator. Obviously that's not the question on the medical form. I was using it as a placeholder because apparently I'm not allowed to use the term "biological sex." If you rule out the basic term used to describe something, don't be surprised when people use a less reliable descriptor to get the point across.
Yes, and the language for that is "biological sex." If you go to the doctor, they will ask you for your biological sex. Are you saying every medical questionnaire is really using transphobic dogwhistles?
Doctors don't immediately get amnesia when something gets defunded. If a doctor already specialized in gender-affirming care, then they still know as much as they did before this administration shut down new research. If they didn't specialize in it before, then they were already ignorant about it anyway so it's not like this makes them more ignorant.
Using the government to hamper medical research is a bad thing, yes. Giving bigoted doctors an excuse to let their religion or politics influence the care they give is a bad thing too. And so is making doctors who do care have to fear for their medical licenses in order to continue providing medically necessary treatments. But claiming that doctors suddenly don't know what to do is a hyperbole that misses the actual issue.
I wasn't saying otherwise. You said "biological sex" is a useless concept and nothing but a dogwhistle, so I gave a counterexample of a situation where it's has a legitimate use as a concept.
If a trans man goes to the doctor, it's not transphobic for that doctor to ask if he may be pregnant or when his last period was. That's standard information that doctors ask every patient who has ovaries. When it comes to routine medical exams, gender simply doesn't matter as much as biological sex.
Obviously if someone is on hormone therapy then it changes the indicators and target ranges for lab work. It changes the specific things to mainly look out for, like types of cancers and bone density or cholesterol issues. Having organs removed, whether cis or trans, changes risk factors for a variety of diseases and renders some screenings less necessary. That should all be taken into account, of course, but pretending that "biological sex" is useless in medical contexts is an ignorant take.
And besides, if "biological sex" is such a bogus concept, then what do we even contrast "gender" with in the first place? If those are different things, then each one logically must be something, or else there wouldn't be two different concepts, in which case the two concepts would collapse in on each other and become functionally the same. If you want them to be distinct, then pretending one of them doesn't really exist is counterproductive.
It's like race and ethnicity. Race is a social construct, sure, but nobody takes that to mean ethnicity doesn't exist or is just a useless dogwhistle.
the term "biological sex" doesnt make much sense tho
what are all of those complex medical treatments trans people can get, if not biology? far more advanced and interesting biology at that
and "biological sex" isnt a binary either, 1 in 40 people are intersex, mostly with almost no effect, but not in the binary either
So what do you want to call it then? It's not like I'm attached to the term itself, but the point is that it's a useful and necessary concept in some contexts so there needs to be a term that refers to it, and you can't just assume anyone who uses the most common term to describe it is transphobic.
And I never said it's a binary, but if a person is intersex then that's probably important information for their doctors to know because there may be certain medical complications that they're more at risk for as a result.
You are sealioning. You don't speak to your doctor in order to use the loos. In this context, "biological sex" is a transphobic dog whistle.
I've yet to have any single interaction with a doctor where knowing I was born with a penis has been helpful beyond not having to ask questions like "might you be pregnant?", but so many flags in medical paperwork that just result from them mislabeling me as a male.
I don’t like it by association, because most of the time I hear it used by intolerant people (like right wing assholes on the “news”). Sometimes, though, I hear it used without malice, presumably because people don’t know what else to say.
Pardon my ignorance, but what term would you suggest instead? Birth sex? Assigned sex? Something else?
I’m not the person you asked, but ‘assigned sex’ is fine. The common one is ‘assigned gender at birth’.
*assigned sex
gender is assigned at birth by society, sex is assigned at birth by biology
usually they match, but sometimes they dont (hard-to-detect intersex conditions (which are never noticed), easy-to-detect intersex conditions (that get you mutilated))
I totally understand what you’re saying, but if you take gender out of it and just think about humans as any other animal, you could classify animals with penises and animals with vaginas separately especially if you’re breeding them. The AI overlords won’t care when they’re breeding us.
EDIT: two types of genitalia instead of just penis and vagina. And not all but many animals.
Here's the thing though, pretty much everything you just said is wrong. It's not that simple if you think of humans as any other animal. Here's a video link that is pretty long, but dives fairly deep into this topic that is massive from a scientific point of view.
https://youtu.be/nVQplt7Chos
Woah. I don’t have an hour and a half to dissect all the ways an animal with a penis and an animal with a vagina may not fit the standard classifications of male and female. Not discrediting that there are so many different life forms out there that can’t possibly just be two categories, but you also can’t say that “pretty much everything I said is wrong.” If I wanna breed dogs, I’m gonna need two types of genitalia. Elephants? Same. Salmon? Ducks? Lots of animals can be classified in that way. Not all their characteristics, but their reproductive traits for sure.
I’m not entirely sure what point you’re making, when sex reassignment surgery exists.
Not all trans people get it, sure, but many trans men have dicks and many trans women have vaginas. These usually align cosmetically but will have functional differences to their cis counterparts. Where would you crudely sort such people?
There’s also genital nullification surgery (think Barbie doll - nothing at all).
All good. I’m referring to the comment that I replied to stating that they don’t like the term “biological sex.” Not saying that trans people should be bucketed into being men or women based on their goodies. I’m saying that biologically, across many animals, specifically mammals, we can say something have this kind of genitalia or that. Call it male or female. Call it bapu and beepo. It’s a biological difference that can be classified along with other traits.
...and animals with both, and animals with neither, and...
Sure but you can classify the ones with just two types of genitalia as something or another. Doesn’t mean you can’t have other layers of classification.
That's tautological.
So you’re saying it’s true
For anyone else questioning topics like this, here's a fairly lengthy but great video on the topic.
https://youtu.be/nVQplt7Chos
Cis ppl showing they're not ready to hear this yet