[mjg59]

The correlation between Y chromosomes and sexual characteristics wasn't discovered until the early 20th century, so no. For the vast majority of human existence, the term "Men" has been used without reference to any underlying genetic status.

[NhanH]

Sure, we didn’t know the relation, but the y-chromosome didn’t spring to existence the moment we discovered it. The point is that whatever we wanted to use the word to describe was clear.

[mjg59]

...and was not defined by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. Using genetics to define sex is (by historical standards) extremely new.

[Affric]

It still isn't defined by the presence of absence of the Y chromosome. Some animals have sex defined by incubation temperature; there are animal species with inbuilt hermaphroditism and dioecious plants; male birds are WW, female birds are WZ. Biologically sex is defined by gamete size. It's a construct used to link together behaviours in many different species that are derived from a variety of mechanisms.

My understanding is that in humans that meiosis (production of gamete) begins in females whilst they're embryos whereas in males it only begins at the onset of sexual maturity. I would be interested to know if this is the same in other species because my working theory is that male meiosis is the fuel of evolution because there are more mutations in the male germ line cells. The female gametes having differentiated earlier and undergoing fewer replications provide a working original template as opposed to the male gamete's likelier deleterious replications. One small set of large well provisioned gametes likely to work, many large sets of likely mutated gametes hopefully with some useful mutations amongst the bad ones which can be rooted out by selection.

The fundamental existence of sex is interesting and its implementation is pretty complex. 99.9% of references to it in the "trans debate" are reductionist misrepresentations. Either of mystifying complexity making its existence meaningless or as if an authoritative revelation from an omniscient, omnipotent being.

And it now infects every discussion that we have about sex in humans. It's made sex, one of the most fundamentally interesting (and considering the success of its possessors) facets of life on Earth, torturous to discuss because it has become about the limits of society's ability to limit freedom of conscience, individuals rights to identify, and the right of the individual to self identify. It's narrow, myopic, fundamentally boring in the context of biology.

EDIT: for the record I agree with you in spirit. The rant was my thoughts following on from my minor point of information.