this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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From the perspective of biology, sex is a bit more complicated in humans than with a lot of other animals. In primates sex is epigenetic in nature, meaning that the DNA that contributed to our sex is expressed as we develop. It's not set in stone, and when we are developing into male or female that expression can vary.
Sex is not as important of a distinction in human biology, it's epigenetic nature means that the difference between a female human and a male human is incomparable to the difference of animals who present with sexual dimorphism.
Epigenetics are also influenced by our environment, what we eat, and what we do, meaning that a lot of the characteristics we associate with sex can change or be developed over time based on the environment.
We have observed young female gorillas who behave more like male gorillas, and as they develop they are observed to not only be treated more like male gorillas, but start physically developing more like male gorillas.
In short, its really complicated. Namely because outside of a specific scenario, there is no real biological reason to define sex in such a dichotomy. And even in those scenarios which require more myopic detail, the difference between individuals of the same sex are great enough to need more information than just male or female.