Thread by @delaneykingrox

One thing people need to understand about human biology is that your DNA carries all the instructions to make a human of any sex.
Most humans have 48 chromosomes- 23 pairs called autosomes and the two which you know called the sex chromosomes- X and Y.

Typically an XX develops into a woman, the XY into a man. So you may think that the "dude" instructions are all in the Y.

Actually, no.

The Y chromosome normally has a region called 'SRY'.

The SRY is like the order form for a boy. It just says "yo, gonads... make testes".

If you don't rock the SRY gene region, your gonads will shrug and keep on rocking- eventually developing into ovaries.

So by default, you get ovaries unless that SRY region show up.

So XX usually develop ovaries. XY usually develop testes.

But not always. For example, chunks of genes floating around from a failed XY embryo in the womb can "translocate" into an XX one.

This means you have XX- but still develop testes.

So the instructions for making testes doesn't exist in the Y chromosome. It just holds the order form. It's basically a checkbox.

So "genetic males" is actually a fuzzy term... because we all carry that information. It is what is EXPRESSED (what instructions are used).

Now, it's your gonads that tell the rest of your body which parts of your DNA it should express.

How does a pair of fetus balls tell the rest of the fetus which instructions to use?

The answer is hormones.

Testes produce high levels of androgens (andro = male). Testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT).

These are 'hormones'... a hormone is how a cell communicates with other cells.

Testes blast that stuff out twice during development, like a bath

It's man soup.

(Correction- 22 pairs, not 23.)

So there you are chillin' in your hormone bath, and your cells are grabbing up those hormones and switching from the default 'female' instruction to 'male'.

And so as you develop, it is the presence of hormones that make decisions at critical paths.

If you understand this, a lot of things regarding transgender people start making sense.

Your sex organs are determined in the first trimester. Your brajn, however, develops late second and into the third.

So if your hormones fluctuate, or your cell receptors cannot...

...snap onto those hormones, then your brain will develop using a different set of instructions to your junk.

Though male and female brains aren't at all different- they perform exactly the same- there are microscopic differences being detected- which indicate cells...

...that are affected by sex hormones.

In computer terms, essentially it means you get a brain that is the same motherboard and chip set, but some of the dip switches are flipped differently.

A transgender person is not one sex that thinks they are the other.

Instead it is a person whose brain developed one way, and genitals developed the other.

It is this mismatch, this misalignment that causes the severe distress. It feels "wrong".

So transition isn't a person of one sex trying to be the other. A better term for it is "realignment".

You cannot 'fix' a transgender brain- no amount of therapy or electoshocks (they tried) can change the parts of the brain that assert this...

...it's like trying to replace the foundations of a house by changing the wallpaper. We cannot do it.

But what we can do is shift the body.

This is done using mostly hormone replacement therapy to make the cells of the body use the wanted parts of your DNA.

Transition- or as I prefer we think of it as 'gender aligning' really just makes the body, and by extension the social expression, match the brain.

And, amazingly, it works.

Redeveloping the body to match the developed brain works.

It's pretty fucking awsome.

Transgender women are not men. They are a person with both expressions thanks to an incongruous development. The brain, and by extension, the person inside, it a woman. They literally match the indicators under a microscope.

Their body doesn't (usually) look female, but...

...remember that we develop in stages. If you let that person take puberty blockers, undergo HRT and potentially also surgery, that person can live perfectly happily and without harming anyone.

They aren't "men". And reducing them to this really skips over the biology.

Simply put, leave transgender people alone, let them transition. Stopping this traps them in a non-life, a hellish dysphoria where everything feels weird and life feels hopeless.

Forcing a girl to go through a male puberty is just horrific abuse.

Want a good example? The Father of Computing (who brole The Enigma Code) was forced to undergo hormone replacement therapy after being found guilty of homosexuality.

He killed himself as a result of the dysphoria caused.

Exactly the same as transgender people do.

You want to force a child to go through the wrong puberty and suffer dysphoria? For what?

Because you are too stupid to look beyond that one hour of highschool biology?

What kind of a monster forces people to suffer and die for their ignorance?

Anyway, here is wonderwall.

*strums*

If you like my shitposting you can support me here.

I dance for nickels.

ko-fi.com/dellak

Excuse the typos. I am punching this out on my phone quickly and do not have the benefit of a) a big phone b) an editor.

Thanks for everyone pointing out that it is actually *EVEN MORE* complicated than this, but the goal is to get people who skipped listening to the biology...

..teacher waffling on to, I dunno, check out Julie two rows back and figuring out if she fancies Tom or whatever. Teenagers are dumb, anxious, smelly things that cannot focus.

What was I saying?

Oh yes... this is designed to simplify things from highschool 101 to...

..."oh shit, I had it all wrong in my head and it turns out biology is complicated yo".

So forgive me if I don't go into the funky specific details.... because folks, it gets waaaaay crazier than this.

Ever wondered how, exactly your balls find their way down into your scrotum?

Or that some people can have XXY chromosomes? Or what a bed nucleus of the stria terminalis is and why you can usually tell someone's sex by looking at it under a microscope?

Humans are complex machines made of anxious, horny chemicals that want faster wifi and snacks.

And amazingly, you cannot spend sixty minutes skimming it in high school, then forget to do your homework (because Street Fighter II came out) and be an expert in human sexual development.

Hadouken.

Man, those typos are gonna haunt me. Why is it my viral tweets are the ones I mess up?

It's so annoynig