Biology is not as simple as one might think trust me i am a biologist….

The chances of a princess being unable to conceive for this reason are miniscule

There are so many other possible causes of infertility. For instance, apparently there are no reliable figures for how common endometriosis is (!) but estimates range up to 10% of women.

I often wonder about the consequences of undiagnosed cases in history, too - a princess unable to conceive and a dynasty falls...

Really interesting story, thanks for that. An example of the genetic "passport" system for sport working. I hope she had a happy life otherwise.

When I was a teenager in the 80s I remember being fascinated by a programme on TV, one of those weekly documentaries. I can't remember what it was about but there was an interview with a woman who discovered in her teens that she was XY.
She might never have known except that she was an amazing swimmer, and at the age of 16 was selected for the British team. For the Olympics she had to have a genetic test, and the result wasn't what she expected.
It was explained that although she was XY the section (allele?) of the Y chromosome that triggers male development in the 3rd month of foetal development didn't work. According to her, she had a typical female body, but her family wanted the information kept top secret as she was infertile and they didn't want the boys knowing. She lost her place on the team and carried on with her female life. There was no question of her being male.
I often wonder how frequently these anomalies accounted for infertility in the past. Also how her life worked out for her.

It's an interesting question. Stream of consciousness incoming...

Assuming they don't know about their condition. I don't know what how to get would guess. I'm going to treat your question as if you are asking whether there would be clues which they would subconsciously register.

I tried to imagine myself discovering I was a CAIS male at 19, and I couldn't really think what would be different. I'd still be me, there wouldn't be any point in starting to use men's loos, because to others I would still be a girl/woman. I think it might be like finding out you are adopted, or that you are/aren't Jewish. It would be destabilising and you would have to process a new fact... but apart from realising that you aren't technically a lesbian (which you might have assumed), I'm not sure how you would feel male, having been socialised female. There would be no male cues externally and no male sex drive. You would have female type adiposity, too. Probably excel at sport, but you wouldn't be bizarrely stronger than your peers.

Here is a link to a report on three siblings all with this condition and none of them had a clue until diagnosed!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3901178/

Thanks for the answers on CAIS/PAIS. As I understand it then, people with this condition are biologically male, but may appear female. That does raise interesting questions like - if someone with the condition is raised as a girl, do they sense they are actually male before the signs show at puberty? Because if they don't, surely they are trans (their biological sex being male)? Or could it be that there is no innate sense of gender identity?

I didn't ask because of Caster Semenya, but that case did come to mind. It was someone on Twitter using CAIS/PAIS as a gotcha to prove biological sex is a spectrum, and you can't say 'women are female'.

I do like a nice viper.

@Karensalright thank you for starting this thread. I won’t stop going on about toilets!! And threads like this prove that people either:

1. don't think things through to the logical end because its too difficult/awkward
2. may not be acting in good faith and keeping the thread going at least lets their views be on show as they reveal more of their thoughts

I am a biologist but write as a mum. My family have very much been affected by the real fear of having to check up on a child having seizures. Reviving your child is an experience you never get use to. My child is amazing and resilient but when she’s out and about in public and feels off, we have to rely on society to keep her safe. So keeping toilet door gaps in public toilets is potentially life saving for so many people. My child was fine one day then she wasn’t. Epilepsy affects 1 in 106. Government should not be mucking about with public toilet designs that are less safe for everyone because they don’t want to address keeping men out of women’s toilets properly.

As for the ‘feral’ comment, I would not think Emilia Clarke was in a ‘feral’ gym when she felt ill, and went to the loo to vomit. Luckily there was a lady in a cubicle next to her, that heard her and could access her cubicle and helped her, as the actress was having a brain haemorrhage. Just one person that could be any of us. We are all reliant on toilet designs keeping us safe. And keeping all men out of the women’s toilets so we can keep those toilet door gaps!

Yeah it's a decent thread, showing which arguments stand up and which are flatter than hammered shite

Do you mean this Caster Semenya?

Photo from CS's autobiography:

You can archive the pages on the archive sites. Annoyingly, it only works on the 20post view of a page rather than the 100 but it's better than nothing. I've included an example here because I've not done it since the personalised site changes and I'm curious as to what shows up.

https://archive.is/7kHH1

Otherwise, export the pages as pdfs.

I concur and IMHO we should not be (effectively) troll-hunting who the poster claims they are. The content of their posts, as with everybody's, speak for themselves.

The broader point is to do with arguments from "authority" and how these should be taken with ladles of salt, even from posters on the "same" side. As the saying goes, on the internet nobody knows you're a dog.

By the way, that's not to say that anybody's posts shouldn't be challenged or questioned on their content, this is precisely how to unpick the aforementioned arguments from authority.

I don’t think it’s massively helpful to assume that an older female science teacher can’t possibly be in the be kind camp.

Clearly many intelligent older people have been there.

That doesn’t excuse the assumption other people are just stick in the mud old fogies who don’t understand science is complicated. That’s the offence here, I think, rather than anyone not being who they claim to be.

So I'm not going to get my question answered despite tagging them three times with their own quote?

Surprise, Surprise 🙄

I always have to restart my phone when I come to Edi or Glasgow because I loose 4G on approach, maybe it stresses coming into the big cities from rural Scotland.

Sorry, wrong thread.

Allison Bailey's statement is so powerful. That is the tone we should be hearing from our politicians. A terrible thing happened, is happening. Where is the outrage?

My data black spots are my local Waitrose and outside DHs office.

Mind you, I live in the big smoke and live in a mobile data black spot and that is it the UK.

@Helleofabore I live far far away from the big cities and I can use the internet, it's even quite speedy most of the times.

Iggy if they are talking about feral schools, maybe they live out woop woop and they only get to use the internet on the rare visits to the big smoke.

(I say this from experience).

I'm quite amused that someone thinks they can get an entire thread deleted because they don't like it. Are they new to the internet?

A very offensive term, but did reassure me that the poster probably isn't the freemartins-and-male-nipples person I knew years ago.

Though it is a bit alarming that f-a-m-n is a more widely used 'debating' ploy than I would have hoped.

The idea is that mixed toilets are not a problem if people are Naice like in Naice Schools in Naice Areas. It's only when people aren't Naice, that this presents a problem, and it's kind of their fault for not being Naice, living in a Naice Area and sending their kids to a Naice School.