I Find The "debate" About Trans People In Bathrooms So Frustrating. My Campus Has All Gender Restrooms

a lot of liberals rn

So as someone who's taken a college biology class with an entire unit dedicated to sex differentiation it's been bugging me immensely to see so many people (mostly on threads) say that "we're all female at conception" There's some truth to female anatomy being the "default baby" because it takes less developmental energy to create/maintain but "we're all female to start" is a way oversimplification of this to the point it's just not true. I'm not claiming to be an expert by any means but I would like to spread the knowledge I do have bc I think it's honestly cool as hell

To start I've seen this talked about a lot in relation to Trump trying to sign an executive order that categorizes people's sex by "the gametes they have at conception" There's so many issues with this. A zygote is not producing gametes at conception, it's a single cell. A zygote carries the genetic coding for which sex you are but genes are not the final determination and only make up part of your sex. For example, you may have an SRY gene which is the catalyst for male development but it may be damaged and not expressed. A person may present entirely as one sex but not be able to produce gametes, Sex isn't just one characteristic.

Once a fetus begins developing its organs it doesn't just start out with female anatomy which can then "become male anatomy if you have the genes for it" We actually start out with undifferentiated gonads (which are still not producing gametes) and two duct systems, one that can become the female reproductive organs and one that can become the male. They're called the Müllerian and Wolffian ducts. (Science illustration so you know I'm not just pulling this out of my ass)

This is where our genes come into play deciding if our gonads become ova or testes and which ducts develop into our reproductive organs. Shout out to all my intersex folks, a lot of intersex conditions become expressed at this stage of development. For example, a person with androgen insensitivity syndrome would have XY chromosomes but would have missing or non-functioning androgen receptors. This means their gonads become testes and the hormone that degrades the Mullerian ducts is released, but their body cannot use any androgens to continue male development. This means without androgens the wolffian ducts also degrade and the person would have external female genitalia and internal testes. My knowledge on the more micro-biology and chemical reactions part of sex determination is more limited so I can't really talk about it in a comprehensive way but I just wanted to share this really cool human fact.

Trying to figure out my gender is confusing. Womanhood is like wearing socks (I hate wearing socks but the world isn't set up for someone to not be wearing socks) and I'm definitely not anywhere like being a man. I'm pretty okay with my body but sometimes my boobs weird me out. I like that my face is a little more androgynous and makeup no longer feels like me. I think femininity and masculinity are completely made up and I'm outside of whatever they're supposed to be. I'm some type of nonbinary then, but I feel like I need to understand it beyond being not a man or woman.

I'm a Person first. I feel like a solar system, cosmic and vast. Not fully understood. Not able to be held. Everything orbiting around. My body is made of stardust as well as my soul.

I'm not sure why I'm not a woman, and I'll probably always be seen as one. But I think it would eat away at me to put myself in that box

Today I watched Kiki's delivery service for the first time. I cried a lot and I'm not quite sure why. I started reading 1984 because I'm scared for the future. Plus I want to get back into reading, it's been a long time. I cut my hair and took my cat on an adventure. He hated it but got some chicken at the end so I don't think he minds. My friend made soup for us. It's days like these I'm grateful for my humanity.

For years I didn't feel like a person and many people tried to take my personhood away from me. Simply because they saw me as different. Who gets to define my personhood but me?

Quick reminder that it's always morally correct to punch nazis.

I think it’s really weird that the average person needs a home and a car and an education to effectively function at all in a capitalist society but those things are all such an exorbitantly high price that the average person would never ever be able to pay for them one lump sum and thus we decided that upon entering adulthood every average person would likely have to sign their life away to various powerful banks to pay for these things and everyone was just like “Ok, that seems legit and not fucked up AT ALL.” and now it’s such an accepted and normalized part of society that everyone looks at you like you’re dumb for thinking it’s weird. I just think it’s really fucking weird.

How do I ascend to deity status? I yearn to be a spirit intertwined with the forest.

"But billionaires' wealth is not cold hard cash."

You fully admit that money is a completely made up concept, but we allow people to starve and live on the street because they don't have enough money, even though there exists enough food and housing for everyone?

Too many of you believe that the evils of capitalism begin and end with whether or not workers get paid enough. But capitalism is inherently wasteful by design. It is resource intensive and exploitative by design. Even if we killed every billionaire and redistributed all their wealth tomorrow (a good thing) we would still have to restructure how we manage society from the ground up, globally.

And no, you as an individual are not responsible for figuring out all of the answers, sad white person. There are people all over the world already working on the solutions their communities need. We just have to empower them to make those solutions happen.