Is there any inherent reason why the body becomes female unless “told” by the Y-chromosome to be male as opposed to the other way around?
In: Biology
The male pathway happens “first”, and female pathway “second” – they are literally separated in time so that the fetus “tries” to be male first, and then tries to become female after it failed to become male. Remember both processes are active, the feminization process just happens later in development than the masculinization process does.
In most cases with fetal hormonal deficiencies and other sex gene errors, the fetus can use the mother’s hormones from her blood to activate differentiation if it becomes necessary, as is the case with Y chromosome bearing fetuses with androgen insensitivity.
Thus my hypothesis (relatively unsupported) is that female “default” is because female has that backup secondary pathway of “just use mom’s estrogen to kickstart gonad differentiation”
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