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frittig | 6 years ago

One issue that a lot of trans supporters don't realize is that similarly to how trans people could be offended when they are referred to by a gender not of their choice, so to could some speakers be offended if they are forced to refer to a person as a gender not of their (the speaker) choice.

This may be easier to understand by using a comparison. When I talk about the Muslim prophet I say Muhammad. However, many Muslims would say Muhammad pbuh (peace be upon him). This isn't that problematic, but let's say they the term was Muhammad ttp (the true prophet). Now I as a non Muslim believer would never use ttp because that would be insulting for whoever I believe in. If SE required that whenever I mention Muhammad that I append ttp, I would refuse as it would be extremely offensive to me.

Similarly by referring to a person with XX chromosomes as she, is offensive to people who believe that genders cannot change. A reasonable compromise would be to let whoever is righting chose what they want, or even allow gender neutral pronouns. But what SE chose to do was to say that people who believe that XY is a guy are wrong and deserve no respect for their beliefs.

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skissane|6 years ago

> Similarly by referring to a person with XX chromosomes as she

It is worth pointing out that there are non-transgender XX males [1]. They are very rare, but it can happen. If the part of the Y chromosome which contains the SRY (testis-determining factor) gene is translocated to the X chromosome, an individual can be an infertile XX male. I don't think anyone would try to argue that such a person is not actually male (assuming they in fact identify as such), in spite of their XX chromosomes, since their external appearance from birth can be completely male. (XX male individuals vary: some appear anatomically completely male, albeit sterile; others show incomplete masculinisation.)

Biological sex cannot be reduced to chromosomes, although chromosomes can be used as a rule of thumb valid 99.99% of the time. In fact, I don't think there is any one single factor to which biological sex can be reduced; both maleness and femaleness are composites of collections of traits which usually occur together, but none of those traits is absolutely necessary to being of that biological sex. People who talk about biological sex as if it was completely determined by chromosomes are ignorant of the whole story.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome