[Magdalen] Sex determination (was something else)

[Jay Weigel]

Exactly. I have a friend who has Klinefelter Syndrome (47,XXY). He is, for
all intents and purposes, male. Tall, slender, possessed of a rather
high-pitched speaking voice (in the tenor range), but indistinguishable
from other males generally. He was diagnosed sometime in his teens. He is
also gay, but they aren't all by any means.

There are also people who are born intersex, that is, with the sex
characteristics (including genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns) that
do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Intersex traits
are not always apparent at birth; some babies may be born with ambiguous
genitals, while others may have ambiguous internal organs (testes and
ovaries). Others will not become aware that they are intersex—unless they
receive genetic testing—because it does not manifest in their phenotype.
This occurs somewhere between 1:15,00 and 1:17,00 births, although it might
be more frequent because many go undiagnosed because they do not fit the
outward patterns. During my short time in neonatal in a small town
hospital, we had two babies who were born intersex, so I think it might be
more frequent than those numbers.

On Fri, May 6, 2016 at 1:33 PM, cady soukup <cadyasoukup at gmail.com> wrote:

> Basically, no -
>
> There are genetically-based variants (xxy, xyy, etc.), genetic mosaics
> (more than one genetic expression of DNA in one individual), and many
> ways to express or not express the underlying genes (penetration,
> expression, other terms & conditions). That's what makes genetics
> interesting.
>
> The majority tends to be expressed normally. In the specifics, not true.
>
> I've met & known variants (xxy, xyy) who have expressed relatively
> normally. It's hard to know for sure unless you absolutely know an
> individual's genetics, physiology, and life expression.
>
> Cady
>
> On 5/6/16, Rick Mashburn <ricklmashburn at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I was horrible at science in school but isn't it really genetic? The
> fetus
> > is either xx or xy from conception, right? Wouldn't that control the
> > physical development?
> >
> > Peace, Rick
> > On May 6, 2016 8:32 AM, "James Handsfield" <jhandsfield at att.net> wrote:
> >
> >> There’s a difference between the genetics and the anatomical development
> >> of an embryo or fetus.  You are right that an embryo is male or female
> in
> >> most cases.  Genetic confusion does occur, but it’s usually fatal long
> >> before term.
> >>
> >> The argument that an embryo or fetus becomes a different sex in
> >> development is also mistaken.  It’s based on the long discredited idea
> >> that
> >> ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.  The anatomical sex differences are
> >> homologous in that they arise from the same embryonic structures.  There
> >> are two embryonic reproductive systems in mammals - the Malphigian
> system
> >> and the Wolffian system.  The Malphigian system becomes dominant in
> males
> >> and the Wolffian system in females, but both systems exist in both
> sexes.
> >>
> >> Alleluia!  Christ is risen!
> >>
> >> James Handsfield
> >> jhandsfield at att.net
> >>
> >> > On May 6, 2016, at 4:02 AM, Sibyl Smirl <polycarpa3 at ckt.net> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > That's not the way that I learned it. At least, 99.9% of the time,
> >> there's an egg and a sperm.  The sperm contains either an x chromosome
> or
> >> a
> >> y chromosome, not both.  The egg contains an x chromosome, one of two
> >> possibles (the mother has two matching ones, which divide to produce the
> >> egg.)  Conception occurs when the egg and the sperm meet: an X matches
> >> with
> >> a y, or with another x, so that if it happens to be a Y sperm,
> conception
> >> results in an XY (male) combination, and if it's an X sperm, you get an
> >> XX
> >> combination (female).  So from the moment there's a fertilized egg, it's
> >> either a girl or a boy, even if it's only one or a few cells, and you
> >> can't
> >> yet tell by looking until much later, unless you want to kill it and
> have
> >> an electron microscope handy.
> >>
> >>
> >
>