Chromosomes Were Only the Beginning
Chromosomes Were Only the Beginning
By Jim Reynolds | www.reynolds.com
May 25, 2026
My brother John builds custom cars.
As he designs, bends, shapes, grinds, integrates, and fabricates, he shows the whole process on YouTube. Welcome to John’s garage.
These are real cars. Rubber, paint, metal, glass, wiring, fuel lines, shock absorbers, brake discs, transmissions, radiators, frames. The physical world. The stubborn world. The world where a part either fits, or it does not — until skill makes it fit.
He can start with a well-known form — say, an old Volkswagen — and turn it into something remarkable. From across the street, it may still look like a Volkswagen. Same general shape. Same familiar outline. Maybe even the same badge.
But underneath, almost nothing follows the expected form.
The engine may not be Volkswagen. The transmission may not be Volkswagen. The suspension, brakes, cooling system, wiring, steering, and frame may have been altered, replaced, adapted, fabricated, polished, or improved beyond recognition.
People may still call it a VW.
But the people who know what was done to it know better.
That is the real world. Appearance matters. But appearance is not the whole truth. Underneath the paint, reality keeps its own books.
About three years ago, I wrote a short piece called Chromosomes and Reality and sent it to Rip.
It was blunt. Maybe too blunt. Maybe not blunt enough.
The argument was simple: mothers contribute an X chromosome. Fathers contribute either X or Y. The result is ordinarily XX or XY. Female or male. Other combinations are rare, and rare exceptions do not repeal the basic structure of mammalian life.
At the time, that seemed like the necessary point.
Now it almost sounds dated.
Not because it was wrong. It wasn’t. It is still right. But because the argument has moved. We are no longer debating whether chromosomes exist. We are debating whether people are still allowed to notice what chromosomes mean.
That is a different fight.
Three years ago, I was still thinking in terms of biology. Sex. Reproduction. Male. Female. Sperm. Egg. Father. Mother. The sort of facts that used to survive fifth grade without legal counsel.
But the people attacking biology were never really interested in biology. Biology was just the first roadblock.
Bob looked at the old draft and said, “You thought they didn’t understand chromosomes. They understood them fine. That’s why they had to get rid of reality.”
And that is where we are now.
The new claim is not that sex is complicated. The new claim is that sex is whatever the claimant says it is, and the rest of us must clap, nod, repeat the script, and pretend not to see the obvious.
That is not science. That is theater with enforcement power.
Something else has changed too.
Three years ago, it was still possible for the movement to hide behind abstractions: identity, inclusion, affirmation, lived experience. Now the whole thing announces itself before it argues. The flags, the hair, the slogans, the pronoun rituals, the strange costumes, the theatrical outrage, the permanent sense of injury — none of this is accidental.
It is the uniform of a movement that has made the rejection of normality its public brand.
And unfortunately for Democrats, this movement now stands behind nearly every Democratic politician who speaks in public.
That may thrill the activist class. It may impress the faculty lounge. It may produce thunderous applause at a nonprofit conference where everyone’s nametag has pronouns and nobody knows who pays for anything.
But to normal Americans, it looks like a warning label.
Most people are not looking to join a traveling identity circus. They are not waiting for a new sexual glossary. They are not eager to have their children sorted, labeled, counseled, affirmed, renamed, and medically steered by people who seem less interested in helping children than recruiting them.
Most people want normal life.
They want boys’ sports and girls’ sports. Men’s rooms and women’s rooms. Fathers and mothers. Teachers who teach. Doctors who heal. Politicians who represent the public instead of whatever color-coded grievance bloc showed up with the loudest bullhorn.
This is why the old chromosome argument now feels almost too small.
XX and XY still matter. They matter because reality matters. But the deeper issue now is not whether biology is real. It is whether the country is still allowed to organize itself around reality without asking permission from people who reject it.
And this is where the custom-car analogy finally breaks down.
All combustion-engine cars live in the same mechanical universe. They run on gasoline. They use oil. They roll on rubber. They need wiring, ignition, cooling, compression, fuel, air, and spark.
There is no XX gasoline. No XY alternator. No male transmission fluid. No female shock absorber.
Cars are machines. Machines can be rebuilt.
People are not machines. We can repair parts of ourselves — my right hip can testify — but wholesale rebuilds are not possible.
John can build a marvelous custom car in about a year. That takes imagination, tools, patience, judgment, and a deep understanding of how physical parts work together. He can see the finished thing before it exists. He can make metal obey an idea. It is astonishing to watch.
But he is still working with a machine.
Male and female human beings were not built in a year. They were not assembled in a shop. They were not designed around preference, fashion, paperwork, political theory, or academic vocabulary.
They developed across millions of years of life, reproduction, adaptation, and survival.
And they were different from the beginning.
That difference is not a bug (no pun intended).
It is not a social error. It is not a clerical mistake made by a nurse with a clipboard.
It is the foundation of human continuity.
A car can be altered because it is assembled. A body is different. A body is inherited. A body is grown. A body is not a collection of interchangeable parts arranged around preference.
Sex is not a paint job. It is not upholstery. It is not a badge on the hood. It is not a modified suspension package.
It is biology all the way down.
You can change clothes. You can change names. You can take hormones. You can alter appearances. You can demand new words, new rules, new categories, and new paperwork.
But you cannot customize reality.
The body knows. The cells know. The chromosomes know. Nature knows.
And increasingly, voters know too.
Bob read the final revision and nodded.
“Now it has wheels,” he said. “And a body. That’s going to upset the people who deny both.”
Three years ago, I wrote that chromosomes were reality.
Today I would put it differently.
Chromosomes were only the beginning. The real question is whether a civilization can survive once it trains itself to lie about what everyone can see.
——
Hey — want to go for a ride? Check out John Reynolds in his slightly modified 517-horsepower Volkswagen Bug!
Enjoy the experience!
Whether you are XX or XY, it will be the ride of a lifetime.
