this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] Jolteon@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Are they even females if their species only has one sex?

[–] flora_explora@beehaw.org 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Well, female and male are defined based on their gonads. So yes, these are females because they produce egg cells. There are also animals that have more than two sexes or have sexes that change over time, or that are even weirder. But in all these cases, how we classify their sex is by their gonads.

Philosophically speaking, sex as a category is just a way of abstraction for us to better understand the world. But it is just that, a simplified view on the world, a social construct.

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

to the lizards - they probably wouldn't call themselves females if they could

to humans - our definition of female is producing the large gamete so if all those lizards do that then, from our human perspective, they're female