A bit about the science of Gender

People have been going on all across the internet for awhile lately on a million things gender-related.

This goes from gender-issues in bathrooms, to who's running for president, to "traditional gender roles", yatta yatta.

As someone who was actually in graduate level genetics-related stuff, I feel I can shed some light on these issues.

Chromosomally speaking, there are *more* than 6 human genders. (Joshua Kennon has a good article on it here: [1] ) And chances are you've met a number of people who aren't XY or XX and you didn't even know it. Heck, you may even *be* something besides XY or XX and not even know it. There's a decent chance that anyone you know that "had difficulty" having kids was in a relationship where one of the partners was one of these, or if you met a guy who got breast cancer there's a good chance[2]. There's a lot of research into helping them have kids[3]. Doesn't mean they *can't* have kids, just it's harder [4] (especially with the wrong mate). Most people who aren't XX or XY don't they aren't and just assume they're male or female. And why do they do so? Gender identity is a different set of genetics altogether. [5][6] (Your biological sex is decided by the SRY gene, your gender identity is decided mainly by your 5a reductase levels, controlled by a variety of other genes.) Genetically speaking, they latch onto one group (identified by pheromones). And these different combinations of identities, genitals, chromosomal changes, etc. actually helped people fill roles way back in the tribal days by mingling in epigenetic ways [7]. (That's a whole different topic if you want to get into details though).

The thing is, it's a thing, it's real, and it's not that uncommon. What *is* unnatural is the separation of the genders the way we have it now.[8] We didn't use to do things that way until well into the agricultural revolution. Most of our species history has us only caring about a person's genitals when it comes time when people want to breed. That's it. There was no Wilma bringing Fred Flintstone his steak and him going off to work. Old archeology shows that the pre-ag-rev humans had everyone doing everythng. It wasn't a matter of "guys" vs "girls", it was a matter of "our tribe" vs "everything else."

Although, maybe that's the problem right there. Our tribe, our community, has become global. We can pick up a phone and dial someone half a world away and carry on a conversation. Some people may have forgotten that we're all the human tribe, and are looking for something else, so they start treating their gender as their tribe instead. "This is our tribe's [girls/guys] territory, no other tribes [guys/girls] allowed in our [treehouse/bathroom/politics/field of employment].

We're a global society now. We're one big tribe. It shouldn't be an "us" vs "them", at this point. We grew beyond that. So instead of turning inward to make new microtribes, keep looking outward. There's still plenty our tribe has to stand up against[9].

Like I say, it's not "us" vs "them." It's still our human tribe, but at this point in time, instead of "our tribe" vs "lions" or "us" vs "the drought", it's "humanity" vs "the cold black of space that prevents us from surviving in the event of an asteroid wiping us all out at once like the dinos" or "us, our tribe of humanity" vs "silly infighting because so many have lost sight of the fact we're a big tribe now."

So anyone who is still whining on about other people's gender identities.
Literally, please stop being literally small minded (note: not literally small-brained, there's a difference). There's a bigger world out there we have to concern ourselves with.
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[1] - http://www.joshuakennon.com/the-six-common-biological-sexes-in-humans/
[2] - http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/9494523
[3] - http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199802263380905,  http://www.eje-online.org/content/23/3/227.short, etc.
[4] - http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282%2812%2900677-2/abstract?cc=y=
[5] - http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM197905313002201
[6] -  http://www.pnas.org/content/90/8/3368.short
[7] - https://heroismscience.wordpress.com/the-search-for-a-hero-gene-fact-or-fiction/
[8] - http://www.jstor.org/stable/3630252?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
[9] - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2007.00960.x/full