Every time the subject of transgenders or transsexuals come up, sooner or later someone makes the statement that they only believe you can actually change your sex if you change your chromosomes as well.
I personally have never understood why this matters, and it all seems to be a weird kind of reductionist philosophy that doesn't make much sense.
But let's just say we accept this as true. Your actual sex is determined solely, and exclusively by your chromosomes.
If that is true, how many actually know what sex you are? I know many of you will make the assumption that if your body has certain organs, your genes, surely must match what you can see.
But since you were assigned a sex at birth, and in the process of assigning this sex, it is very unlikely your chromosomes were ever tested, I can almost guarantee most of you have no idea what your chromosomal sex is.
So... If we take it for granted that the chromosomes are the final word on what sex you are, the question is pretty simple.
How many of you here know what your actual sex is, and aren't just taking a wild guess without any evidence?
Results should be quite amusing.
I'm guessing those of you who know your 'true' sex will be almost non-existent.
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Edit: I should probably clarify that my main point is whether any of the people that think genes matter actually know what theirs say about them.
So, to that end, if you'd like to comment, could you say whether or not you think genes are important in determining if someone is male or female? (Or something else perhaps)
I personally have never understood why this matters, and it all seems to be a weird kind of reductionist philosophy that doesn't make much sense.
But let's just say we accept this as true. Your actual sex is determined solely, and exclusively by your chromosomes.
If that is true, how many actually know what sex you are? I know many of you will make the assumption that if your body has certain organs, your genes, surely must match what you can see.
But since you were assigned a sex at birth, and in the process of assigning this sex, it is very unlikely your chromosomes were ever tested, I can almost guarantee most of you have no idea what your chromosomal sex is.
So... If we take it for granted that the chromosomes are the final word on what sex you are, the question is pretty simple.
How many of you here know what your actual sex is, and aren't just taking a wild guess without any evidence?
Results should be quite amusing.
I'm guessing those of you who know your 'true' sex will be almost non-existent.
------------------------
Edit: I should probably clarify that my main point is whether any of the people that think genes matter actually know what theirs say about them.
So, to that end, if you'd like to comment, could you say whether or not you think genes are important in determining if someone is male or female? (Or something else perhaps)
Edit no. 3:
Since it's still not clear to many people, this whole thing is meant to be taken as a refutation of the idea that something which is basically invisible like your genes could be more important than all the traits which are blatantly obvious.
It's supposed to counter the argument that if you look like one sex, that you could in fact be something completely different, based solely on an invisible trait that most people have never had measured.
Does it make sense yet?
It's come to my attention that quite a few people don't get what I'm asking, or why I'm asking it.
I'll see if I can make it any clearer.
Whenever the subject of transsexuals, transgenders, or similar issues arises, one argument that always seems to derail the actual question is, what makes someone male, and what makes them female?
And... Can this be changed?
Those that argue that you cannot possibly change your sex/gender (there's usually also arguments about what gender means exactly) come up with the idea that you cannot change your sex unless you can change your chromosomes.
They then tend to argue that your chromosomes are absolute proof of your sex.
But, if this is the case, you would assume that when your birth certificate is written, and you are assigned a particular sex for legal purposes, that the only thing anyone checks is your DNA.
Yet, in practice, DNA is never considered unless you have some kind of obvious abnormality.
This means the vast majority of people actually have no idea if the sex they appear to be, and are considered to be legally actually matches with their DNA.
They assume this is true, and that's usually a reasonable assumption to make, but they don't actually know.
The reason for the poll therefore, is to check how many people actually know anything about their DNA.
And by association, whether it can really be considered reasonable to argue that your DNA is even relevant to your sex, let alone the most important thing.
In addition, I'm curious what people think about this.
How important do you consider DNA? Is it irrelevant? Does it overrule everything else?
Or something in-between maybe?
If you had conclusive evidence that your DNA says you are actually the opposite sex to what you so far have assumed (based on all other evidence) that you are, would you agree that this legitimately means you (and everyone else around you that thought so too) were wrong all along?
Just how important is DNA when most people have no idea what their own, or anyone else's DNA really says?
I hope that's clearer than the previous version. (if not, let me know. You can compare them by clicking the spoiler at the top of the post.)
So far I don't seem to be able to get the correct point across.
Feel free to read what I've tried to say previously, but until I can figure out a better way of putting it, I'll forgo trying to explain the reasons for this poll.
The results are quite interesting regardless though.
I'll get back to you on this when I can explain the issue a bit better.