u/No_Interest1616

It's so red they have to unconstitutionally re-gerrymander the districts mid-term to make it more red. 

I'm mad on your behalf about March guy. What a dick. 

Not even dorkiness or weirdness, but just a wrong movement of the eyes can land you in "stuck up jerk" territory. Even my therapist, who had known me for years, thought I was rolling my eyes one time when I was settling in to listen intently to something he was about to say. I didn't even realize I did it until he called me out. That's when I realized I look up and to the right when I'm listening carefully. Apparently it looks like "I'm over this shit." Not what I was trying to portray at all. It's so isolating being misinterpreted all the time. 

Disclaimer: I'm not fully vegan, but I do live a lifestyle of trying to be the most conscious consumer I can be, meaning my animal product consumption is pretty minimal. No ethical consumption under capitalism is a whole other frustrating discussion since we're not really given a choice in our modern world. This is why I look at things in terms of "reduce harm" instead of a more black and white, "vegan or not vegan" perspective, because in the end, our individual choices tend to amount to choosing one harm over another.

I'm also a wildlife biologist. The number 1 threat to all animals is habitat loss and fragmentation. 

Where I believe veganism is beneficial is the way animal products reach our table. Factory farming is terrible use of land and water. We all know this. A large amount of grain crops are grown only as feed for livestock. All of that land which used to be habitat is now monoculture where the reduced biodiversity if plants also leads to reduced biodiversity of animals all the way around the food web. Not to mention the pesticides, the effects of which can be seen in a shockingly steep decline in insect and bird populations in recent years. 

Going vegan is an excellent way to reduce your personal footprint in this whole destructive process. Anyone who goes completely vegan or reduces their animal consumption is reducing harm, and I support that.

However, I believe a lot of vegans have a big blind spot about how our lifestyles as modern humans affect animals on a larger scale. I see a lot of focus on "eating animals," where there should be more focus on conscious consumerism. You didn't contribute to a cow, pig, or chicken dying, which is something to feel good about. 

But what about that vegan processed food snack? A pack of Oreos, for example (are Oreos still vegan, idk). Think of all the resources that went into that pack of Oreos, the land use for the crops, the factory, the distribution center, the amount of water, the transport, etc. How many local population extinctions happened in every part of that process? 

Now compare that to a local rancher 20 minutes outside of town who sells beef at a farmer's market. They use responsible grazing practices, work with consultants to maximize the conservation easements on their land, perhaps they practice prescribed burning (good for biodiversity). In my eyes, this product does less net  harm to wildlife than the pack of Oreos. 

I know we can't all research the origins of everything we consume. We can't buy only locally-made/grown goods. We can't all get advanced degrees in ecology (studying ecology is depressing as fuck, tbh). But we can expand our concerns beyond "I don't eat animals" to include thinking about how the products we buy affect the world around us and how they get to us. We can widen our scope of "animals" beyond livestock to include the vast network of native critters being threatened by habitat destruction, pollution, development, and invasive species. 

Buy local, buy secondhand, keep your cats inside, put decals on your windows to prevent bird strikes, get a brita filter instead of bottled water, pick up litter, stop buying balloons, get a reusable coffee cup, remove invasive plants, etc, etc, etc.

TL;DR: Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Do what you can to reduce harm. Saving animals doesn't end at the dinner table. 

Dear men: I'm not going to match with you if I can't see what you look like. It's tinder. It's for hooking up. Yes, physical attraction matters. It's completely pointless to have a picture of yourself in head-to-toe ski gear. Or where you're too far away from the camera. Or way too close. I don't need to see a picture of your car, a landscape, your pets, a plate of food, or a fucking meme. Save that shit for Instagram. I swear probably 60% of men's profiles are full of irrelevant filler pics in my area. 

Enjoy your fresh, new microplastics!

Convicted felon and alleged rapist and pedophile Donald Trump rushed off stage after shots fired at a rally. 

Or some pocket sand. Sh-sha!

Birds too. 

Yeah, that's what I meant when I said it's not black and white. It depends on context. And in biology, the context of sex usually has to do with gametes. Which is why I use terms like "likely," meaning not all the time.

 I don't know why you're downvoting and arguing with me. We're saying the same thing with different words. 

Biologists differentiate between sex and gender. Sex is based on which chromosomes they have and which gametes they make. But as such, nothing in biology is black and white. Different species have different sex chromosomes (XY, ZW, XO). Some species can change sex in their lifetime and start producing the opposite gametes. Some individuals can be born intersex. There's no set definition of biologically male or female across the board outside of which gametes they contribute to an offspring.  

So to answer your question, if they are born XY but phenotypically "female," a biologist would likely consider their sex based on whether they produce eggs or sperm.