Chromosomes And Transgender People
Jan 4 2022
One of the biggest arguments to invalidate the existence of transgender people is that chromosomes determine gender and sex. You will see it all over the place: online forums, social media, transphobic bills, and more. Let's take a look at this argument and deconstruct it.
The argument goes if your chromosomes are XY you are a man and if they are XX you are a woman. This is convenient as it does not allow for the existence of transgender people. While many biological markers of sex can be changed one of the few that can't is chromosomes. Now let's look at the problems with this argument.
First, it's not even good at its job. Chromosomes are not that good at indicating sex. Sex is mainly indicated through more visible things. Chromosomes just tell your body how to develop these things. The thing is this process is complex and stuff can get mixed up. Sometimes people can appear as one sex but have the chromosomes of the opposite. Sometimes people have more than 2 sex chromosomes. If chromosomes determine sex then this would show there are many sexes. The people using the argument also only want 2 sexes. This is a contradiction if chromosomes are only used like these people want them to be. If they are not only used then transgender people would have to exist.
Also when transgender people go through HRT many of the sex markers chromosomes determined are changed making chromosomes useless.
Next chromosomes don't matter in real life. When you talk to a random person on the street you don't know their chromosomes you just see how they present. Most people reading this don't even know their chromosomes. By going through HRT and wearing affirming clothing a transgender person can pass on the street. What someone looks like and how people see them is much more important than chromosomes.
The chromosome argument is just a convenient way to erase transgender people while sound scientific. The truth is people using this argument don't know the science or don't care about it and just want to push transphobic hate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_abnormality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szf4hzQ5ztg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0frx7wsWibQ