On Jan. 13, in response to President Trump's order for federal agencies to dismantle webpages that included "gender ideology extremism," the National Institutes of Health removed or made unavailable all pages that mention sex as a biological variable. Agencies have discouraged researchers from using certain words considered "woke" by the Trump administration, and they have flagged funding proposals for review based on whether the proposals include any of the words on a long list, The New York Times reported. As a result, opponents of sex and gender studies in science may think they've successfully done away with "gender ideology."

But they've done a lot more than that. The impact of sex as a biological variable is far more subtle and pervasive than it may seem. In fact, sex-based differences with implications for our health exist even at the very "sciencey"-seeming level of cell and molecular biology. By censoring or defunding work that mentions sex as a biological variable, research on pretty much all cell biology relevant to human health is now at risk. That's because sex — and gender roles, too —permeates all the way down to the most unreproductive of cell types. If you want to do science about animals including humans, sex as a biological variable is a factor you simply cannot ignore. Studies of cancer treatments, for example, or Alzheimer's disease or drug safety or heart attack risk are all topics at risk in the current war on sex differences research.

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Developmental biology researcher Bruno Hudry, a scientist at the Institut de Biologie Valrose in Nice, France, told Salon it is accurate to say that cells — not just the cells of the ovaries or testes — have a sexual identity. "In many animals, the development of male or female sex organs is guided by specific genetic elements known as sex chromosomes. These chromosomes are present in every cell of the body — not just in the reproductive organs. As a result, every cell carries an intrinsic sexual identity, a concept I refer to as cellular sex," he said.  

The XX chromosome that in reproductive tissues results in production of eggs, and the XY chromosome that results in sperm production, are also present in all body cells. This means that "each cell has the potential to use sex chromosome genes to create sex-specific differences. In many cases, this potential remains unexploited, and the presence of sex chromosomes doesn’t result in obvious physiological changes. This is why studying cellular sex is important: to uncover when and where it plays a role, and to understand how it influences organ development, function or disease in specific biological contexts," Hudry said. 

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There are believed to be two ways in which sex chromosomes can cause sex-specific differences, also called sexual dimorphism, in cells. One relates to the presence or absence of the Y chromosome. Genes found on the Y chromosome are only active in cells that have the XY chromosome. Researchers have found that these so-called Y-linked genes can be active ("expressed") in many tissues beyond reproductive tissues. That means it's........

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