Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

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> and that’s probably because you don’t understand your objection.

Maybe tone that down a notch or three.

Gametes (egg or sperm) can mix-and-match with other sex markers—commonly, chromosomes, genitals, sex hormones, and secondary sex characteristics—to create a mosaic of sex traits.

We can’t create a sex binary using the reproductive organs (gametes and gonads), because:

* People can have both ovarian and testicular tissue (an ovotestis or gradation of cells)

* People can have ambiguous gonadal tissue

* It is common for all types of gonads (female/male/intersex) to lack gamete production

I refer you to:

  > “In anisogamety, an individual's sex condition coincides with the type of gametes it produces; male if it produces male gametes exclusively, female if it only produces female gametes, and hermaphrodite if simultaneously or at different times” [1]

  [1] The Biology of Reproduction, Cambridge University Press, Giuseppe Fusco, Alessandro Minelli

which you might be familiar with [0].

Note: " male if ..", "female if ..", and "hermaphrodite if .."

which is ( counts slowly 'cause can't understand stuff real good ) one, two, three buckets.

Not two.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42907868

An individual's sex condition *coincides* with the type of gametes it produces. Gametes are used to determine (in this sense, ascertain) sex because it shows the reproduction strategy.

> which is ( counts slowly 'cause can't understand stuff real good ) one, two, three buckets.

Humans are not hermaphroditic, no mammals are. Not sequentially, not simultaneously. (In fact, the way that sex development occurs it cannot happen, but that is going to be too high level for this discussion, clearly.)

> Gametes (egg or sperm) can mix-and-match with other sex markers—commonly, chromosomes, genitals, sex hormones, and secondary sex characteristics—to create a mosaic of sex traits.

Traits do not define sex, gamete size does (see above), adding them all up will not change that.

> People can have both ovarian and testicular tissue (an ovotestis or gradation of cells)

And only one reproduction strategy, which is why there are no human hermaphrodites, having both types of tissue does not mean there is possible gamete production, as evidenced by the total lack of any actual hermaphrodites in all of recorded human history, if not a knowledge of the process itself.

> People can have ambiguous gonadal tissue

Completely irrelevant.

> It is common for all types of gonads (female/male/intersex) to lack gamete production

Also irrelevant. Someone who has finished their fertile phase still has a reproduction strategy in place. Someone who has a disorder still has a reproduction strategy in place. Someone who is not disordered and still in their fertile phase yet not producing gametes right now still has a reproduction strategy in place.

There are only two reproduction strategies in humans, and only one in any individual, and only one is possible in any individual, and it cannot change.

> Maybe tone that down a notch or three.

It was an accurate observation, which you have only gone on to prove further.

> Humans are not hermaphroditic, no mammals are.

Most humans are not, sure. Some are: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02000779

Your claim is falsified.

> And only one reproduction strategy, which is why there are no human hermaphrodites,

Not all humans reproduce. Yes, there are only two reproductive genders, these do not cover all humans.

There are several strategies to identify gender, as we both (I hope) know, each has its edge cases, none is sufficient.

A laser like focus on sex-as-gamete-production (SAG) is completely adrift from social reality.

> It was an accurate observation, which you have only gone on to prove further.

Your attitude says more about you, the lack of self reflection most of all.

> Your claim is falsified

No, as we have both quoted, and you miscounted, there are four states:

- Male (gonochoric) - Female (gonochoric) - Sequential hermaphrodite - Non-sequential hermaphrodite

True hermaphrodite is a misnomer, a term for an intersex disorder known as ovotesticular syndrome[0]. To quote the great Wikipedia:

> In the past, ovotesticular syndrome was referred to as true hermaphroditism, which is considered outdated as of 2006. The term "true hermaphroditism" was considered very misleading by many medical organizations and by many advocacy groups, as hermaphroditism refers to a species that produces both sperm and ova, something that is impossible in humans.

To check, we can apply "our" quote - a hermaphrodite would either be sequential, which we know humans are not (I hope we know that much), or able to produce both types of gametes at the same time.

True hermaphrodites cannot do that, and the paper you shared makes no claim that they can or that they have. None of the examples show that either.

Your claim is false.

> Not all humans reproduce.

I'm sorry, but you're bringing the conversation down to a level too silly to bother with there. Every human has a reproductive strategy, and from conception to boot. Whether any individual actual reproduces is irrelevant to that.

Really, that kind of argument is beneath the level of this forum.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovotesticular_syndrome

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