In my new video, I argue that "Boys have XY chromosomes and girls have XX chromosomes" is an oversimplification or a "lie to children" that teachers use to introduce the biology of reproduction. It's a teaching technique, not an unquestionable truth.

In fact, teachers use "lies to children" all the time, some harmful and some innocuous. In the video, I mention
- The Bohr model of the atom
- The idea that Columbus discovered America
- And "You can't take the square root of a negative number"

Conservatives have often used oversimplifications as evidence for their outdated views. Remember when Bill Nye Saves the World did an episode on gender? Many people (incorrectly) suggested that he was contradicting an earlier episode from the 90s.

As @Hbomberguy pointed out at the time, the 90s Bill Nye episode was actually about PROBABILITY. The show wasn't explaining some kind of biological axiom of gender, but rather was giving an example to illustrate 50/50 chances.

Even still, there is a difference between introducing the topic of biological sex and telling the "whole story" about gender. In grad school, many of my peers taught intro to gender studies. They told me that the sex/gender distinction is itself an oversimplification.

Typically, a teacher will say "Gender is a social construct, while sex is biological," which is not really wrong, but leaves out the fact that aspects of the concept of sex are socially constructed as well, as @JuliaSerano explains here https://medium.com/@juliaserano/transgender-people-and-biological-sex-myths-c2a9bcdb4f4a

If you found this interesting, check out my video on how the right exploits oversimplifications in introductory textbooks. Not only are they denying the lived experience of trans and non-binary people, they are also misunderstanding science and education.