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Donald J Trump, the first female president of the United States of America.
I think it would still be George Washington, though I am not sure if this applies after death.
She wasn't legally female while president
Does this also make her the first trans president?
Wat
Underrated comment here, thank you for this
If you want to argue technicalities (and you REALLY should at least examine those before making legally binding edicts reinterpreting reality), it actually makes every American nongender.
It specifies "at conception", at which point no sexual characteristics have developed.
Even more specifically, at conception, we produce neither large nor small reproductive cells. So we all have no sex.
So we all have no sex.
Stop it. You're reminding me of my early adulthood.
When is the early part supposed to end? Asking for a friend
That was my thought also. Trump getting rid of a legal gender distinction altogether by accident would be hilarious. I hope he stands his ground and insists it's not a mistake.
Ironically, the executive order goes on to acknowledge the difference between sex and gender
Or genderless. Either way I'm down.
Yeah they define female as member of species with largest sex cell but also state the sex person is at conception is their sex, therefore we are all sexless.
Another reason why politicians shouldn't have a say in science and biology.
Pretty sure according to current science, the sex is "undifferentiated" until a certain point in development. That means Trump wrote it so no one is female, lol.
Even as a zygote, the chromosomes are still XX and XY, aren't they? (Ignoring XXY, etc.)
It's still stupid as hell, and the female thing would be funny-sad, but scientifically I'm not sure it's accurate.
The EO definition didn't refer to chromosomes at all actually it referred to female as "at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell" and male "at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell."
A zygote is a singular cell at coneception... so you could also argue it's saying everyone's bigender actually. In any case its extremely poorly written, goes against science, and forgets about intersex people
(also note that XX and XY chromosomes don't guarantee AMAB or AFAB. You can have XX chromosomes and present completely AMAB and vice versa)
not all people with XY chromosomes end up with a penis.
not all people with XX chromosomes end up with a vagina
As the article points out until the genitalia develops it's impossible to accurately predict the sex of a fetus due to instances of fetuses with XY chromosomes occasionally developing as female. On the other hand it should be impossible for an XX fetus to develop as male as far as I know.
You can develop entirely AMAB presentation with XX chromosomes
Many don't even know that they have XX chromosomes at all
Thanks for the correction. I guess that makes sense considering that the Y chromosome is just a mutant X chromosome, so there should exist mutations of the X chromosome that would result in male genitalia or intersex genitalia developing.
Y chromosome is just a mutant X chromosome
Wait... All men are mutants?
It's rare but possible. Basically, the piece of the Y chromosome that hosts the SRY gene can wind up swapped onto a different chromosome and still work its magic. You really only need that one single gene to trigger the whole cascade of development that makes a person male.
I think another interpretation of Trump's order is that nobody is female, since no embryos are capable of producing the "large reproductive cell" at conception. At conception they're just a single cell, they aren't producing any reproductive cells yet. That's not until quite a while later in development.
Fair. But if we do include intersex people with less common chromosomes in this topic, I wonder if they might get overlooked? I hope so, since it's probably the best chance here except in the unlikely case a "wait and see" stance is allowed.
*edit - correction: I somehow forgot that as orclev said (and usernamesAreTricky expanded on with a vice versa), it's possible for XY folks to be cis women. So chromosomes don't deliver the desired gotcha either.
Expression is where it's codified. For instance: I have XX chromosomes, but I also have dangling genitalia and a great big bushy beard. All because the X chromosome I recieved from my father had an SRY transcription error, and my body had male expression "switched on" by the SRY gene.
Yep
It rather depends on how you're defining sex. And I'm not joking, the article gives good examples on when it is ambiguous.
Thanks for pointing that out. When I first checked the link, I must have been tired as I missed that there was an article beyond the image and headline somehow. (Normally my habit would have been to check if the topic was covered, since headlines can be misleading. Case in point, in this case they were going for humour more than accuracy there, but the article indeed has examples.)
I missed that there was an article beyond the image and headline somehow.
This is 100% understandable... Especially on a phone these days it's getting crazy hard to read articles.
Well, it shows that the average right winger was fast asleep in school, especially during science and history classes.
That's because anyone with a basic understanding of human biology knows sex is a biological concept that is quite fluid - and gender has an incredibly soft scientific basis if any at all, within social contexts. If he had people who actually understood science helping his write this, they would only be explaining the ways it's wrong.
Considering iflscience also got reading the order completely wrong, I feel the issue is with your education system in general.
Not my education system. I live in a civilized country.
*their
I'm trying to wrap my head around how executive orders work. I'm not American.
Can someone explain what's the legal process compared to a bill for example?
A policy applied to federal agencies on the whims of the executive/administration (president+staff). (FBI, CIA, DHS, ICE, TSA, HHS, FDA, so forth...)
Does not impact state law, judicials, or enforcement agencies. Though many of these do take their lead from federal guidelines to some degree, especially at the police and sheriff level.
This will be sued over constitutionality in the courts
Stacked courts will probably claim it's constitutional
Up to Congress to specifically and independently say it's unconstitutional. This Congress will probably not do that
IF there's another election, and the term limit is still adhered to, the next administration may chose to revoke it or alter it assuming they have differing policies.
Rinse and repeat.
[Edits: clarification and structure]
Is there a process to make them official? Like is there a vote on them by Congress or something? Or are they automatically applied?
They are applied with effect based on how they're written. They are "Official" but they can't change the writing of the constitution. Another administration can immediately revoke them as he has with many of biden's. The courts can only change how the constitution is interpreted. Congress needs to pass an amendment to change the constitution.
They're not laws... The president is the head of the "executive branch" which has a number of federal departments that execute the laws passed by the legislature.
Executive orders are basically "memos" from the president that direct those departments on how to operate since the laws don't typically get into too much detail about the specifics.
These orders apply only to federal offices, he has no authority over private business or state governments without passing a law.
Does this mean I have to update my drivers license since I'm going to be female for the next four years?
Oh, that could be fun.
That's so cool. I'm glad we can find a good laugh in the midst of this hell.
This is pretty poor for what's supposed to be a science blog
Presidency
Yeah, I stopped following IFLScience over 10 years ago. Even then, their posts vere not very accurate scientifically.