The XX + XY Obsession

Marked under "News and Politics" since this topic often ends up falling in political discussions.

I can't help but notice how often basic biology being used as some sort of argument, notably with the "men have XY, women have XX" statement that you'd usually see in pre-college education. Note that I said "basic" as biology is a lot more complicated than you'd think.

I see this sex chromosome (X and Y chromosomes have more function than just that, by the way) argument happen a lot against woman athletes who just so happen to have XY chromosomes, such as Imane Khelif (who has no medical evidence to conclude otherwise, thank you to the commenter who corrected me) and Caster Semenya. This is what is commonly known as DSD (disorders of sex development), or intersex. Despite being born with "male chromosomes", both athletes have lived their lives as girls. Those with DSD may also never know they even have it. As an example, having Swyer Syndrome physically and internally shows a female reproductive structure, but the testes/ovaries are not functional. Those with DSD often go undergo surgeries to conform to their chosen sex as well.

In other words, biological sex is not all that simple, and not everyone fits into the ideal categories of being defined as "male or female". And with the focus of reproduction tending to be in mind, it's important to consider not everyone can produce gametes. Sex is more than just reproductive cells. A lot of the arguments I see tend to be in relation to, again, sex chromosomes and also physical attributes to categorize someone into a specified sex; always incredibly simplified.

This blog was kind of made on a tired whim and to get some of my thoughts out being tired of being defined by a strict view of biological sex (and also the excuse to call someone "mentally ill", I feel like that gets thrown around a lot). If you want more structured information on the topic, here's two articles that I based my information on:

• Ideology verseus Biology by Sam Zuniga-Levy
  
  
• Biological sex is more complex than just male or female by Tina Hesman Saey