There have been a lot of pro-science pieces in the aftermath of the Trump anti-trans memo, and while none of the science bits will be new to readers of this blog it’s still heartening to see mainstream media outlets battling misinformation from a man who actively courted LGBT voters before embarking on a campaign of cruelty against transgender people.

I like the cut of Wired’s jib.

Basically no scientist who knows anything about this stuff subscribes to the idea of the strict “gender binary” anymore.

The article is a good primer on the basic science.

a lot can happen on the road from embryogenesis to personhood. Sometimes the fusion of egg and sperm goes differently. People can be XXX, XXY, or XYY with no physiological indications. People can have some XX cells and some XY cells. Sometimes a person can be XX but have “male” physiognomy, or the other way ’round. Sometimes, to the tune of one in a hundred, a baby is born with genitalia that people in the room can’t agree on.

Trump’s memo isn’t about science, of course. It’s an attempt to rouse the supporters for the mid-term elections by picking on one of the few groups it’s still safe to pick on: a group that unlike the wider LGB community has no political power and precious little media clout.

There’s nothing remotely scientific about Trump’s so-called science. It’s science in the same way that some people call creationism a science, an attempt to reject the world as it actually is in favour of the world some bigots would like to see.