In an order released by the White House on 20th of January, President Trump has declared some defined terms for gender identity and sex of a person. The recent changes escalated many debates and conversations regarding the current state of affairs and what it could mean for people. The order says, “Female means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell” and “Male means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.” But experts are saying that this is factually incorrect! Medical experts explain that all fertilized eggs contain both X and Y chromosomes, and medical practitioners can only tell the gender weeks later. Even then, determining a baby’s sex is not always simple. When medical practitioners are trying to determine the sex of the baby they consider things like biological characteristics, but it is not very reliable. Some babies are born with physical characteristics of both sexes, making the idea of a strict male-female divide more complex than the order suggests. What Does “At Conception” Mean?According to Cleveland Clinic, conception is referred to as the point when a sperm successfully fertilizes an egg. It's one of the first steps in a pregnancy. This usually happens around the middle of a woman's monthly cycle (14 days from the beginning of the menstrual cycle), which is when her body gets ready for pregnancy. About once a month, an egg is released from her ovary (this is called ovulation). Science Says Gender is More ComplicatedIn an interview with NBC News, Dr. Eve Feinberg from Northwestern University emphasizes that sex organs do not begin forming until nine to 13 weeks into pregnancy. Before that point, an embryo does not have clear male or female traits. Feinberg explains that sex development is a complicated process and does not always follow a binary pathway. In some cases, people may be born with differences in their chromosomes, reproductive organs, or hormone levels that do not fit the traditional male-female model. Scientists and medical professionals agree that gender is influenced by many biological factors, making it impossible to define at the moment of conception. Medical professionals criticize the order’s rigid definitions, arguing they do not reflect the complexity of human biology. Dr. Aileen Gariepy, a women’s health expert at Weill Cornell Medicine, says that defining sex by reproductive cells is misleading. She explains that sex includes a combination of factors such as genetics, hormones, and anatomy, and these factors do not always align in a clear-cut way. For example, some people with XY chromosomes are born with female-appearing anatomy, while others with XX chromosomes cannot produce eggs. These cases prove that sex is not as simple as the order suggests. Experts say that a strict male-female classification ignores scientific realities and can lead to harmful policies.