A Harvard-educated Democratic lawmaker from Texas faced pushback for declaring during a hearing that there are six sexes on a “spectrum” — not two, according to a report.
State Rep. James Talarico, a former English teacher with a master’s in education policy, made his pronouncement before the Public Education Committee on a measure to ban transgender athletes from girls’ K-12 scholastic sports, the Washington Times reported.
“The bill seems to think there are two,” Talarico said to Republican Rep. Cole Hefner, the bill’s sponsor.
“The one thing I want us to all be aware of is that modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes.”
He added: “In fact, there are six, which honestly, Rep. Hefner, surprised me, too.”
Talarico explained that there are “six really common biological sexes” based on X and Y chromosomes — not just XX (female) and XY (male), but also single X, XXY, XYY and XXXY.
“The point is that biologically speaking, scientifically speaking, sex is a spectrum, and oftentimes can be very ambiguous,” he said, according to the news outlet.
However, Beth Stelzer, the president of Save Women’s Sports who testified in favor of the bill, disagreed with the lawmaker’s take on Xs and Ys — citing studies “proving that the male advantage is immutable [in athletics], and there are in fact two sexes. They are dimorphic: XX, XY.”
“The other, quote, sexes mentioned are disorders of sexual development that are variants of XX or XY chromosomes. They are still disorders of male or female,” she said.
Meanwhile, conservative author Dinesh D’Souza said in a tweet that the “only thing obvious here is this man’s stupidity.”
Talarico did not cite his sources, Children’s Hospital Colorado said that “X&Y chromosome variations” occur “because of problems with the formation of a parent’s sperm or egg,” adding that such kids may have health conditions and certain physical attributes, the Washington Times reported.
“Males with an extra X chromosome usually have small testicles and show delayed or incomplete pubertal development due to low levels of testosterone,” the hospital explains on its website.
“Girls with Turner syndrome [one X chromosome] can have short stature, webbing of the neck, a broad chest and shorter fourth fingers.”
But Tech Interactive, a project supported by the Stanford School of Medicine’s Department of Genetics, said studies of chromosome variations do not “suggest that people who have these differences are more likely to be transgender.”
“Typically, if someone has a Y chromosome, no matter how many X’s or Y’s, they have the body parts of a boy. If someone doesn’t have a Y chromosome, they have the body parts of a girl,” Kim Zayhowski, a genetic counselor and former Stanford graduate student, said in a 2017 post, according to the report.
“Now this is important: having differences in sex chromosomes doesn’t mean that someone is transgender. Because remember, being transgender has more to do with how someone feels,” Zayhowski said, adding that sex-chromosome differences occur in about 1 in 1,600 people.
Meanwhile, Hefner said that the Texas University Interscholastic League has the flexibility to handle issues such as chromosome variations.
“There is a process in place for doctors and families to figure that [out] because we do know on a rare occasion that that has to be worked out and decided,” he said.
