A segment attributing biological sex to chromosomes has been cut from a re-release of “Bill Nye, the Science Guy.”
The episode, titled “Probability,” originally contained a scene describing why boys are boys and girls are girls.
“I’m a girl. Could have just as easily been a boy, though, ’cause the probability of becoming a girl is always 1 in 2,” a young woman says in the show. “See, inside each of our cells are these things called chromosomes, and they control whether we become a boy or a girl.”
“Your mom has two X chromosomes in all of her cells, and your dad has one X and one Y chromosome in each of his cells,” she continues. “Before you’re born, your mom gives you one of his chromosomes, and your dad gives you one of his. Mom always gives you an X, and if dad gives you an X, too, then you become a girl. But if he gives you his Y, then you become a boy. See, there are only two possibilities: XX, a girl, or XY, a boy. The chance of becoming either a boy or a girl is always 1 in 2, a 50-50 chance either way. It’s like flipping a coin: X you’re a girl, Y you’re a boy.”
That segment is not in the show as it appears on Netflix.
Requests seeking comment from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, which distributed the show on DVD, and Netflix have not been returned.
The disappearance of the segment, first reported by The Federalist, comes as Mr. Nye has embraced a new theory about how sex is determined.
In an episode of his new Netflix show, “Bill Nye Saves the World,” the science guy says what “makes someone male or female isn’t so clear cut.”
“Female or male, gay or straight, pink or blue. We were taught to see these as binary,” Mr. Nye says in his new show. “Now we’re realizing it’s more like a kaleidoscope.”
“Take sex,” he continues. “We used to think it was pretty straightforward. X and a Y chromosome for males, two X’s for females. But we see more combinations than that in real life.”
The show also features a cartoon of ice cream cones having an orgy to bash notions of monogamy, heterosexuality and religious belief.
• Bradford Richardson can be reached at brichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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