• Cethin@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    To be clear though, hormones don’t define how your body functions, that’d be DNA.

    Chicken or egg. Hormones don’t work without DNA, but also your cells don’t function without hormones. The DNA has the instructions, but the hormones tell it what instruction to follow. Your cells don’t know to create a leg where your leg is until hormones tell them that they’re supposed to be leg cells. The DNA is the same, but the hormones tell them what to do.

    You wouldn’t have hormones or the ability to process them into meaningful signals without DNA.

    Sort of true, but we can now add/change hormones that aren’t created in our bodies by design. We also get hormones through our diet too. DNA does have instructions that allow it to produce hormones when the right conditions are met, but that’s not the only way to get them, nor does that define sex as we all produce both sex hormones in different quantities.

    but it does have an objective, scientific, apolitical, societally functional meaning.

    That’s the funny thing; does it? We all think it does, until you try to define it. Give it a shot. If it’s XX/XY, intersex people break it. If it’s reproduction, sterile people break it. If it’s what gonads you posses, people who have had hysterectomies break it.

    I’ve never actually heard a definition that doesn’t break down somewhere. It can still be useful, but it’s a spectrum. If you define it as a spectrum then it’s actually pretty simple, and it’s based on how their body is currently functioning.

    • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Intersex people have sex chromosomes, idk what you mean that they “break” anything. We even already have a term for them, it’s “intersex”. If we need to add terms when distinctt genetic morphologies are established, we can! That’s the beauty of science, we’re always learning more.

      Everything in your body comes from DNA first. The first bits of you that ever existed were chromosomes, everything else comes as a result of how your dad’s DNA combined with your mom’s DNA to make your DNA. You can add all the outside hormones to your body that you want, without DNA telling your body how to respond to them, all you’d have is dead meat filled with chemicals.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        7 hours ago

        Intersex people have sex chromosomes

        Yes, and they don’t always match what you’d expect. There are XX “men” and XY “women”.

        Everything in your body comes from DNA first. The first bits of you that ever existed were chromosomes, everything else comes as a result of how your dad’s DNA combined with your mom’s DNA to make your DNA. You can add all the outside hormones to your body that you want, without DNA telling your body how to respond to them, all you’d have is dead meat filled with chemicals.

        Again, chicken or egg. They don’t exist in a vacuum. There are hormones in their environment when the egg is fertilized that tell the DNA how to express itself. Without hormones all you’d have is dead meat. Your body can not function or form without hormones. DNA is a set of rules, and hormones tell it which rules to follow. They work together. Neither is more important than the other. DNA with “female” hormones develop a female body, no matter what DNA they have, and vice versa. The DNA usually (but not always) is an indicator of what hormones they’ll produce, but the expression is also dictated by hormones.

        • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          Personally, I have no expectations. Like I said, if we need more accurate language, all else we need is the data for it to describe.

          The chicken-egg thing is easy though, the egg came first. All chickens came out of eggs, including the first one. Two non-chickens combined their DNA to make a chicken, which came out of an egg.

          Where did the hormones that control DNA expression come from? DNA. DNA is more than 3 billion years older than hormones, DNA can replicate itself without hormones. Hormones can’t combine themselves to make new hormones, and they certainly can’t turn themselves into DNA.

          DNA with female hormones develop a female body no matter what DNA they have

          Not true. Add human estrogen to sex-undetermined plant DNA, you certainly won’t make a female human and you have no guarantees what sex the plant will be. Add it to asexual organisms, they’re not going to suddenly develop hitherto non-existent sex morphologies. DNA is king, it’s straight-up GOATed. The only way to break it down further is to start categorizing people by their A-T to G-C ratio, and I don’t think that’s an efficient use of time, technology, or resources.

          • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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            2 hours ago

            The chicken-egg thing is easy though, the egg came first. All chickens came out of eggs, including the first one. Two non-chickens combined their DNA to make a chicken, which came out of an egg.

            I don’t know if you’re trolling or not. There is no sudden point where chicken evolution became a chicken. They just get more and more chicken like traits. It’s a spectrum of evolution, which is still ongoing.

            Where did the hormones that control DNA expression come from? DNA.

            No? It was in the environment first. Then evolution selected DNA that responded to the environment in ways that helped it reproduce. This then evolved into cells that produce their own hormones that act on DNA in existing pathways. Without DNA already being effected by hormones in the environment there likely wouldn’t have been evolutionary pressure to manufacture them.

            Not true. Add human estrogen to sex-undetermined plant DNA…

            You’re obviously trolling. Clearly I’m talking about humans. Wtf. Cut out your bad faith shit. You’re wasting both of our time.