In the horizontal gene transfer you have one that’s f+ and the other f- and this article talking about E Coli specifically is pretty gendered.
" This chapter deals with F-pilus—sex hair, sex pilus, F-fimbria, and sex firnbria— of Escherichia coli. It essentially describes methods of assay and synthesis of F-pili, their functions and properties, and the mutant approach to the F-pilus problem. F-pili first observed, differed from common pili by the random adsorption of small RNA viruses along their sides. F-pili are both longer and wider than Type I or common pili. Frequent appearance of knobs or enlargements at their distal extremities is also used to distinguish F-pili in micrographs. Free F-pili from the supernatant of a culture of male cells can be treated with ultrasonic vibrations to yield smaller fragments"
why do they even have genders
They’re free to identify however they like.
In the horizontal gene transfer you have one that’s f+ and the other f- and this article talking about E Coli specifically is pretty gendered.
" This chapter deals with F-pilus—sex hair, sex pilus, F-fimbria, and sex firnbria— of Escherichia coli. It essentially describes methods of assay and synthesis of F-pili, their functions and properties, and the mutant approach to the F-pilus problem. F-pili first observed, differed from common pili by the random adsorption of small RNA viruses along their sides. F-pili are both longer and wider than Type I or common pili. Frequent appearance of knobs or enlargements at their distal extremities is also used to distinguish F-pili in micrographs. Free F-pili from the supernatant of a culture of male cells can be treated with ultrasonic vibrations to yield smaller fragments"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/bookseries/pii/S0065291108603641
Because it’s a parody of humans