Ok, when the words Biology and Facts are used in the discussion of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman, it basically comes down to semantics and how people are defining the words based on their idea of the meaning.
If you want to talk biology, then let's talk biology. Because in the study of biology..... The words male and female are clearly defined.
First - the purpose of sex (noun) in all living things is basically to reproduce. It is a straight up survival of the species strategy. And man, are their lots of ways to reproduce! There are several ways that living things reproduce and they are basically separated into two categories - Asexual and sexual. In this case asexual is reproduction that is NOT the combination to two cells to create a new individual. Sexual reproduction REQUIRES TWO partial cells (with half the genetic information each) to combine in order to have a new individual.
So, I will obviously stick to sexual reproduction since this is the way in which human beings reproduce.
Going back to the idea of male vs. female. If you are a biologist, a male and female is pretty straight forward - a male has a Y chromosome, and a female does not have a Y chromosome. A male has a sex cell that delivers genetic material (commonly called a sperm) to a female sex cell (commonly called an egg or ovum) so that the genetic material of both can combine and develop into a new individual.
Second- nature definitely knows the difference between the sexes. It is all about reproduction. A deer doesn't care one bit if another deer thinks it is a male or female (if they were to have that kind of higher order thinking ability). All they care about is if they can make more copies of deer. You see? Nature does not argue if an individual thinks they are male or female. Because seriously - why does that matter in the grand scheme of survival?
Third - Humans are unlike any other animal in the world. Animals live in the environment they are given and they basically have evolved to basically do one thing - live long enough to make more copies of themselves to live long enough to make copies to live long enough to make copies . . . . . ect.
Humans have evolved to change their environment to be able to take away the stress of survival and therefore have more time to ponder why they have the sex organs they have. (I think I am being a bit sarcastic here but the basic idea is true.)
We are so numerous and our brains have grown so large and we have developed this ability to think about thinking. We have taken the threats of death due to things like finding food and predators and climate ect. away so that we can focus on thinking about the meaning of things that in the natural world would not have time to think about or. . . not really even important enough to consider for survival.
So that brings us to what is a girl and what is a boy. Well, a male has a Y chromosome and a female does not. A male produces sperm and the sperm does not grow into the new individual. A female does not have a Y chromosome and produces an egg (ovum) that, when combined with the genetic material of the sperm, grows into the new individual.
Sex (noun) is very straight forward in biology. There are variations, yes, (sometimes called mutations) but these are rare and in a lot of cases prevents the individual from reproducing which is the purpose of sex (noun) in animals.
When people argue that men can be women and woman can be men in a human society. . . . well that is semantics based on how you interpreted that those words. . . So now we have the argument of the word "gender" that has been born. I mean if you want to boil down what gender means in our new society, it basically means that no matter your genetic chromosomal make up - you are what ever sex (noun) you think you are. I even found it interesting that in a picture I saw the other day, a recent genetics text book for college saw it important enough to actually make mention of this difference between sex and gender.
Why is it important? Well because we have laws and rules and constructs of behavior that is unlike any other system of living things on the earth. With every living thing on the earth, interactions between individuals are basically structured to increase the chance of survival to create more individuals. This stress of survival creates predator and prey and foraging interactions. It creates herding and dominance structures. It creates the mating and caring for young interactions. And humans don't have to create those interactions because there is no threat of the human species to go extinct and our higher reasoning abilities have pretty much extinguish the drive to do so.
So, does it matter if a male (born with a Y chromosome) dresses like a woman or has surgery to change their anatomy to mimic a woman or acts like what they think a woman acts like really make a difference to human existence? Nope. But it makes a difference to things like marriage, having children, government assistance, taxes , how comfortable a person is that is not like that, and all those other things that no other living animal thinks about because they are too busy just surviving.
If you ask me whether or not I think there is only two sexes, I will say yes. All animals are separated into two sexes - male and female. If you ask me whether or not I care if it is important that a male thinks (believes) they are female I will say nope. It make no difference to me. They can think (believe) what they want. They can change their body the way they want. They can pump themselves full of what ever chemicals they want. It does not matter to me. I was born a male and I am a man and have always said so because that is my definition of man. What they call themselves...... well that is not me.
I bet if every animal that is not human were about to talk they would say - "These guys sure do think too much!"
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