Hi, welcome to Gender Analysis. There's a popular belief that XX or XY chromosomes should
serve as the sole determinant of whether someone is a woman or a man. This is a model of sex
assignment that's easy and absolute, offering two clearly divided categories that are meant
to encompass everyone. This definition even appeared as part of legislation filed in Texas
this year, which stated:
"A male is an individual with at least one X chromosome and at least one Y chromosome,
and a female is an individual with at least one X chromosome and no Y chromosomes."
In this instance, the binary chromosomal model was used to target transgender people using
public facilities, attempting to force trans women to use men's restrooms and trans men
to use women's restrooms. Similarly, this definition of individual sex commonly serves
to force trans women and trans men into categories that contradict who they are, regarding trans
women as "really men" and trans men as "really women". This definition proves inadequate
in many circumstances, and neglects to consider many important aspects of trans people's lives.
XX and XY aren't the whole story here.
It's important to remember that this is a question of definitions, not facts. Nobody
is challenging the fact that most trans women do have XY chromosomes and most trans men
have XX chromosomes. This is about the construction of a definition, and which aspects of reality
should connect to the words "woman" and "man". So why might someone prefer the binary chromosomal
model of sex? What makes it stand out? One reason this definition holds such widespread
appeal is that it treats a person's sex as fixed and forever unchanging. It differs from
concepts of gender based on mutable features such as self-identification, public presentation,
legal designation, medical diagnosis, or genital anatomy. Unlike these, it forecloses any possibility
of transit between categories, and serves to invalidate the genders of trans people
in a final sense. It's a model that seems to eradicate any hint of nuance, but it does
so by simply refusing to acknowledge it. Trans people are an edge case of this model. We
are a specific and well-known instance where the one-to-one mappings of XX to women and
XY to men no longer allow you to make accurate inferences about a person. Men tend to identify
themselves as belonging to the general social group known as men, present in a way that
allows them to be recognized as men, behave in ways that are more similar to other men
than to women, and have an unambiguously male physiology. Trans women generally don't exhibit
these features, yet the binary chromosomal definition groups them together with men based
solely on their chromosomes. If "man" is equated to "XY", then all that the word "man" will
tell you is that someone has XY chromosomes - nothing more. It loses a great deal of its
value as a useful and informative term for a real phenomenon, because it disregards and
even contradicts the other meanings associated with the word "man" in common usage.
Those who insist on the binary chromosomal definition gloss over all the significant
details of trans people's lives and experiences in their haste to label trans women as "men"
and trans men as "women". But trans people aren't the only edge case of this model. In
certain intersex conditions such as Swyer syndrome and complete androgen insensitivity
syndrome, a woman develops typically female physical features while nevertheless having
XY chromosomes. These women most frequently identify and live as women, and are almost
universally acknowledged as women. Notably, they are not the intended targets of legislation
in several states that would make it a crime to use a public restroom without possessing
the proper chromosomes. They're not the ones being described as "a man who feels like he
is a woman" by a Texas state representative who authored such legislation. In this case,
the binary chromosomal model is generally suspended in practice and certain women with
XY chromosomes are simply treated as women. Even though women with these intersex conditions
are estimated to be 10 to 100 times less common than trans women, a de facto exception is
made for this very small edge case and not for a much larger one. So what purpose does
this model of sex serve? Is this definition endorsed by those who are interested in most
accurately capturing the prevailing usage of the terms "woman" and "man"? No - it ignores
almost every feature related to sex except one. Are they genuinely that fixated on chromosomes
alone, with their classification of trans women as "men" just happening to follow from
that? No - intersex people are almost never the focus of these arguments. Could it be
that this model is crafted specifically to invalidate and misgender trans people? It
certainly seems like it. This year's streak of bathroom legislation comes as a time when
public interest in transgender subjects is perhaps greater than ever. Did the proponents
of this oversimplified model just coincidentally get the idea to codify it in law all at the
same time, for no apparent reason? It's not as if this came on the heels of a Time magazine
cover story about "the Swyer syndrome tipping point". There's no widespread anxiety over
women with androgen insensitivity in women's restrooms. It's clear that the driving principle
behind this chromosome-based model isn't actually a single-minded obsession with chromosomes.
This just happens to be the most convenient choice for erasing trans people's genders.
Ultimately, this definition attempts to hijack the concept of gender itself and wield it
as an instrument of transphobia.
In discussions of trans people's placement within competing systems of gender, one aspect
is often left unaddressed: the practical relevance of these definitions to trans people's everyday
lives. Cis people can easily slip into treating us as an abstract philosophical puzzle to
be debated over, with sweeping pronouncements about how a trans woman can't possibly be
a "real woman" without XX chromosomes. It seems far less common for them to stop and
question whether this actually matters to us at all. There's no particular reason why
a given model of what makes someone a "woman" or "man" would have any connection to how
trans people go about living as our genders. The International Astronomical Union was debating
how best to classify Pluto while the New Horizons probe was already on its way. But mission
control didn't have to monitor every new resolution and make course corrections based on whichever
draft proposal had the most support at the time. Regardless of whether Pluto is defined
as a planet, a dwarf planet, or anything else, Pluto is still Pluto. Its mass, orbit, and
other features don't change based on how we classify it. Similarly, our lives as trans
people are quite separate from how we're labeled. For the most part, we have very little reason
to care about chromosomes. What would a change of sex chromosomes offer us? Gene therapy
is still a highly experimental field, and can cause serious immune reactions and even
cancer. There's currently no way to remove a whole chromosome from a living person's
cells and replace it with an entirely different one. Even if this were possible and safe,
there's no reason to think it would have any useful effect beyond what hormone therapy
and surgeries already offer. These are safe and mature technologies that are known to
be medically effective for the treatment of gender dysphoria - something that actually
does matter to trans people. From our perspective, based on our experiences and our needs, this
emphasis on sex chromosomes is entirely misplaced. There are so many factors that are far more
relevant to my life as a trans woman than the specifics of which chromosomes I'm carrying
around. You know what's easier than changing our chromosomes? Changing your mind.
I'm Zinnia Jones. Thanks for watching, and tune in next time for more Gender Analysis.