Thread by @FondOfBeetles

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman I think understanding of what sex actually is varies among people.

Most of the world thinks it refers to physical properties of the body - most commonly, external genitalia - without ever referencing the function (or intended function) of sexed physical properties.

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman Thus, when ‘scoring’ characteristics (chromosomes, gonads, etc), one can, in rare cases, end up with mixtures of characteristics that create the illusion of ‘more than two sexes’.

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman This starts to ferment the idea of blended characteristics - that tissues/cells/roles are neither male nor female but somewhere in the middle - although most recognise when directly questioned that this is not the case.

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman But still they return to their checklist, as if ones sex is a balance sheet with ‘male’ on one side and ‘female’ on the other.

Still never referencing this checklist against the phenomenon underpinning the *reason we have sexed bodies in the first place*.

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman That phenomenon is sexual reproduction, and every aspect of sexed physicality in humans and most other higher species has developed to get one particular cell type to successfully unite with a complementary type.

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman Once you centre the causative phenomenon in your understanding of the sexed body, things start to clarify (IMO).

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman I am female, with typical anatomy and function.

If you found out I was XXX..
If you found out I was high T...
If, due to injury or disease, my external genitalia was altered radically...

...would I cease to be a typical female?

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman The answer in all cases is: ‘Well, yes, the category ‘typical female’ no longer applies’.

But it is not the ‘female’ word that ceases to apply, it is the ‘typical’ modifier.

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman We all have an idea that ones sex is not actually contained in ones chromosome conformation (at the start of the process) or ones external genitalia (at the end of the process).

Unless you are willing to call me ‘not female’ because I Lose My Vagina In An Accident (TM).

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman So where is my ‘femaleness’ located?

In short, you could strip away every part of my body and have my gonads living in a dish, and I would *still be female and, with some assistance, still be able to sexually reproduce as a female*.

Probably no longer ‘I’ though :)

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman My genetic makeup and my hormone profile have made my gonads produce a specific - large - gamete.

My genitalia and secondary characteristics have developed to help those large gametes get fertilised.

Sex centres on gametes.

@Admiralowen @TriciaFrasman I’ll note this framing is diametrically opposite to a cluster concept of sex :)