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+--- Thread: "This Backyard Bird Has a Lot to Teach Us about Sex Variability" (/showthread.php?tid=295123)
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Re: "This Backyard Bird Has a Lot to Teach Us about Sex Variability" - sekker - 03-19-2025
This entire political controversy is absurd.
At the same time, the mechanisms of sex determination can be super complex.
Some turtles, the sex of the babies is determined by the temperature the eggs are incubated in.
In chickens and many birds, it's the Z chromosome.
For the overwhelming number of homo sapiens, sex is determined by how the XX and XY chromosomes work (or, sometimes, don't).
For gender, you can decide whether it's a 'skirt' or a 'kilt'. Doesn't matter what/how your XX or XY chromosomes work to determine whether you wear that garment. Culture, not biology, determines that decision.
My view is - UBU.
Re: "This Backyard Bird Has a Lot to Teach Us about Sex Variability" - anonymouse1 - 03-19-2025
I’m reading this book right now. It addresses a lot of this, and it is astonishingly good:
https://www.amazon.com/Bitch-Female-Species-Lucy-Cooke/dp/154167491X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=21XESSL1FAY0L&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.oK1Hqv2hPf3KU8ZKUFV50tBnupUcEwysSnFN0HTKctFuFQcwS97Y7WXaSrBMdYrODBav_T5IcH0cxi3Z2oRXd44ZFIbj3KHI1tmuFaZETX8cbofh8j0jgFTHULRMYUP_q_hWgv_tM4Uj_6wfMS6RK1dsoQeHL9i8a6cKxV3kTrJwZ_1MVojNb4U_quRYex1NUTSQ1fsrufxC9hy_jMoigQ.z22Jprvol4_c_qFFGIDBnSpaXE0KMQsTwXfGqWjd1_M&dib_tag=se&keywords=bitch&qid=1742426555&sprefix=bitch%2Caps%2C318&sr=8-1
Re: "This Backyard Bird Has a Lot to Teach Us about Sex Variability" - Black - 03-20-2025
mrbigstuff wrote:
[quote=$tevie]
[quote=mrbigstuff]
Interesting. But also
"This interesting and complex situation has earned this species the nickname “the bird with four sexes.” But to be clear, White-throated Sparrows do not have four different types of gonads. As in other birds, each individual typically has either two testes that produce sperm or a single ovary that produces eggs."
But the behaviors of the birds can vary with males displaying female traits and females displaying male traits, resulting in that nickname. As you know since you read the entire article.
they are hoping for clicks with that clickbait-y title, which probably could be "male and female traits interchangeable in WTS." I think the focus on plasticity/variability is an attempt to make the article seem topical. The traits aren't really interchangeable and I don't think all that variable past a certain stage of development-- they develop into 4 different sex variations.
Re: "This Backyard Bird Has a Lot to Teach Us about Sex Variability" - $tevie - 03-20-2025
This is actually how it works:
One of the biggest moral bombshells handed to Billy by the Tralfamadorians, incidentally had to do with sex on Earth. They said their flying-saucer crews had identified no fewer than seven sexes on Earth, each essential to reproduction. Again: Billy couldn't possibly imagine what five of those seven sexes had to do with the making of a baby, since they were sexually active only in the fourth dimension.
The Tralfamadorians tried to give Billy clues that would help him imagine sex in the invisible dimension. They told him that there could be no Earthling babies without male homosexuals. There could be babies without female homosexuals. There couldn't be babies without women over sixty-five years old. There could be babies without men over sixty-five. There couldn't be babies without other babies who had lived an hour or less after birth. And so on.
Re: "This Backyard Bird Has a Lot to Teach Us about Sex Variability" - $tevie - 03-20-2025
anonymouse1 wrote:
I’m reading this book right now. It addresses a lot of this, and it is astonishingly good:
https://www.amazon.com/Bitch-Female-Species-Lucy-Cooke/dp/154167491X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=21XESSL1FAY0L&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.oK1Hqv2hPf3KU8ZKUFV50tBnupUcEwysSnFN0HTKctFuFQcwS97Y7WXaSrBMdYrODBav_T5IcH0cxi3Z2oRXd44ZFIbj3KHI1tmuFaZETX8cbofh8j0jgFTHULRMYUP_q_hWgv_tM4Uj_6wfMS6RK1dsoQeHL9i8a6cKxV3kTrJwZ_1MVojNb4U_quRYex1NUTSQ1fsrufxC9hy_jMoigQ.z22Jprvol4_c_qFFGIDBnSpaXE0KMQsTwXfGqWjd1_M&dib_tag=se&keywords=bitch&qid=1742426555&sprefix=bitch%2Caps%2C318&sr=8-1
I put it on my wish list. Thanks!
Re: "This Backyard Bird Has a Lot to Teach Us about Sex Variability" - pdq - 03-20-2025
$tevie wrote:
This is actually how it works:
One of the biggest moral bombshells handed to Billy by the Tralfamadorians, incidentally had to do with sex on Earth. They said their flying-saucer crews had identified no fewer than seven sexes on Earth, each essential to reproduction. Again: Billy couldn't possibly imagine what five of those seven sexes had to do with the making of a baby, since they were sexually active only in the fourth dimension.
The Tralfamadorians tried to give Billy clues that would help him imagine sex in the invisible dimension. They told him that there could be no Earthling babies without male homosexuals. There could be babies without female homosexuals. There couldn't be babies without women over sixty-five years old. There could be babies without men over sixty-five. There couldn't be babies without other babies who had lived an hour or less after birth. And so on.
Po-tee-weet!