Summary
Representative Sarah McBride, the first out trans congresswoman, criticized Donald Trump’s executive order defining gender as strictly male or female.
McBride points out that biologically all embryos develop as female until the SRY gene activates weeks after conception.
The order, which ties gender to reproductive cells at conception, unintentionally categorizes all humans as female from conception based on biological facts.
McBride’s remarks highlight scientific flaws in the policy.
Read it carefully, and then read it like a Republican.
This does NOT mean “a female is a person who can produce the large reproductive cell.”
The BELONG is the key word here. They’ll argue that anyone with XX chromosomes belongs to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell. An embryo may not produce large or small reproductive cells, but they still belong to the sex that produces the large or small reproductive cell. Even if an adult is infertile, they still belong to the sex that produces the large or small reproductive cell. It’s not like per-pubescent children or post-menopausal women don’t have a sex marker on their passports.
That is how this is meant to be read, and that is how it will be interpreted by conservative courts.
In truth the definition is a bit circular, as it defines “sex” as:
And then in turn it defines male and female in terms of “belonging to the sex that produces…”
But I don’t think the courts will really quibble with that. It’s clear what the intent of the order is. And that is how it will be interpreted.
You do not have to actually be capable of producing the large reproductive cell to be a member of the sex that produces the large reproductive cell. Is this definition all-encompassing and without issues? No. But legal definitions rarely are perfect, and courts have to find ways to still apply laws that reflect the intent of their drafters. And while the wording of the order is clumsy, the intent is quite clear.
The simple existence of XY females (Swyer syndrome, 1 in 100,000 females) and XX males (de la Chapelle syndrome, 1 in 20,000 males) makes this binary declaration imperfect.
The law isn’t code.
Yeah, courts often interpret poorly written stuff based on the intention gleamed from it.
I just found it funny how poorly written it was.
I read it as it defines “belonging to the male sex” as being able to produce small reproductive cells at conception, because the alternative is just cyclical nonsense. You are male if you belong to the male sex at conception. How do you know if you belong to that sex at conception? Who knows. You would have to have an outside definition to interpret it, in which case why bother writing that…
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