The Democratic lawmaker from Texas made a statement during the hearing saying that a person does not have two sexes, but six, New York Post writes.
The announcement sparked a heated debate on social media.
State Representative James Talarico, a former English teacher with a master's in education policy, spoke at a meeting of the State Committee on Education about a ban that would restrict transgender athletes from participating in girls' school sports.
"The bill seems to believe that there are only two sexes. Modern science recognizes that there are more than two biological sexes," Talarico said.
According to him, there are "six really common biological sexes" based on X and Y chromosomes — not just XX (female) and XY (male), but also single X, XXY, XYY, and XXXY.
Save Women Sports president, Beth Stelzer, opposed him saying there are only two dimorphic sexes XX, XY, while all the others are variants of the XX and XY chromosomes, male and female sexual disorders.
If it wasn't recorded, you wouldn't believe us.
— Save Women's Sports (@SaveWomensSport) April 22, 2021
Texas representative @jamestalarico yesterday, "Modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than 2 biological sexes, in fact, there are 6." @BethStelzer was quick to set the record straight. pic.twitter.com/IMwVSqaPaA
