# About transgenders (transexuals?) and sexual orientation.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-transgenders-transexuals-and-sexual-orientation/660352>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 7, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-transgenders-transexuals-and-sexual-orientation/660352 "2013-06-07T03:17:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-transgenders-transexuals-and-sexual-orientation/660352/61 "2013-06-17T07:56:30Z")

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> [@njtt](#):
>
> Not all species have their sex determined by the same sort of chromosomal arrangement that humans and other mammals do. I do not know about spiders…

According to [this](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17899407), spiders have XXO, XXXO, and XXXXXY, and probably more besides. Sounds like it would be hard to come up with a chromosomal definition of sex that would cover all spiders, to say nothing of spiders and apes.

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**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-transgenders-transexuals-and-sexual-orientation/660352/62 "2013-06-17T10:58:45Z")

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And, to bring it back to humans, there are walking, talking, living examples of XY females and XX males in the world today. Sometimes, genes get swapped around funny or don’t work quite right and you get a mismatch between the form of the body and the chromosomes.

So far as I know, most XY females identify as women and most XX males identify as men, they aren’t transgender folks

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-transgenders-transexuals-and-sexual-orientation/660352/63 "2013-06-17T11:21:05Z")

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And people with sexual trisomy. “Either it’s a boy or it’s a girl” is pretty much the traditional example of a XOR choice, but as we learn more and more about biology it turns out to be nowhere near a XOR.

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