Good grief. Now they’re saying that not all xx are female and not all xy are male. And that xy ‘generally' means male.

I’m coming to the conclusion, as others have mentioned, that the softening of language, from disorder to difference, with the intention to destigmatise the notion of having a DSD for those that suffer from them, is partly fuelling the mess we’re in with TRAs declaring sex is on a spectrum and there’s more than one way to be a woman, because the language we use to describe those conditions allows this extrapolation.

Does this help anyone?

I’m thinking no, not in any practical sense, in fact it may do the opposite.

Oh, it helps the men who want to take over women's sports, women's shelters, women's jobs, women's healthcare. They'll appropriate anything to further that agenda.

This and the CAIS/Swyer thread have been really educational. I’ve ended up both more informed and more confused at the same time! 😂

But I do think part of the mess we seem to be in stems in part from our wish to Not Offend.

I noticed on the other thread that one of the reasons given for XY individuals without a functioning SRY gene to be classified as females is because with a uterus, fallopian tubes and external female sex characteristics it would be unfair to say that they were male and had to live as a man. As well as those characteristics being functionally identical (an XY woman may gestate a baby with much medical intervention), they have characteristics which are identical in appearance to those found in XX females.

Yes, there also seems to be the classification that female = no functioning SRY, even though male is usually the default for XY, because the absence of SRY cannot be considered a fault.

Well, why not?

Unless we are also saying that the term ‘male’ must have specific accompanying external and internal features and that a lack of those features = not male, then I really don’t see why a lack of SRY cannot be a disorder of males. A lack of other features still makes a male a male, so why not a lack of the specific maleness gene??

Yes, I can see on the logical path that if someone lacks the male gene they’re not a male (!), but equally an individual with XX chromosomes is never going to lack the SRY gene because they shouldn’t have it to begin with. The only one that can be missing it is XY.

And given that apparently Wt1 is the female equivalent of SRY, and that having SRY+mutatedWt1 (if I’ve understood that correctly) = female, I don’t see why presence of SRY should take precedence in determining if someone is male or female.

In many ways it seems actively regressive.

And no, I wouldn’t expect an individual with Swyer’s to ‘live as a man’, but equally I don’t see why it is wrong to suggest that they are a male with a DSD that gives them female characteristics.

On the social side that may be tough to hear, but then I imagine finding out that you possess a DSD is bad enough.

I’m coming to the conclusion, as others have mentioned, that the softening of language, from disorder to difference, with the intention to destigmatise the notion of having a DSD for those that suffer from them, is partly fuelling the mess we’re in with TRAs declaring sex is on a spectrum and there’s more than one way to be a woman, because the language we use to describe those conditions allows this extrapolation.

Does this help anyone?

I’m thinking no, not in any practical sense, in fact it may do the opposite.

If ‘female’ may be XX or it may be XY, then it’s easy to extend that to saying the definition of male or female is looking like one, and that plays right into the TRAs court.

Individuals with Swyer syndrome (XY) have a vagina, uterus and fallopian tubes. They do not have ovaries or testes and do not undergo puberty however they typically are treated with oestrogen to promote puberty (exactly the same way as a child who had to undergo an oophrectomy is). They will then menstruate normally, although remain infertile.

Individuals with de La Chapelle (XX) syndrome have normal male internal and external genitalia including testes. They are also infertile but do not need any hormonal support to undergo normal puberty which is why they are typically only diagnosed when being investigated for infertility as a PP's husband was.

This is an informative and useful discussion, thank you

Sorry, misread your post! Ignore!

The thing about "differences or variances" of sexual development Vs "disorders" of sexual development is that (as far as I understand) this change in terminology was driven by those with DSD because of their experiences of living with DSD. Not everyone with a DSD will feel as though they are disordered and the language of disorder and disease is stigmatising, particularly if somebody doesn't actually experience medical hardship as a result of their difference and is just living life with a difference. Eg "So what I have a micropenis I'm fine with that", "I like my body the way it is", "the way my body developed is right for me" etc.

Conceding this language doesn't mean conceding that people with male advantages should compete in female sport.

I do not think we should move away from user-led, respectful and holistic approaches within medicine to DSD, to score points against gender ideology. It's possible to stick with the facts without being disrespectful to anyone.

Well, we have the evidence of our own eyes, and definitive statements from the IBA, which many are pretending must be politically motivated pro-Russian lies. Even the IOC have implied there is a DSD involved.

What's really unhelpful though is the performative ignorance of journalists. They're just shrugging and saying 'no way to tell what's happening here', where normally the paucity of information wouldn't stop them: they'd be drawing diagrams for us, interviewing experts, and speculating wildly. Instead, tumbleweed.

Maybe they're squeamish about talking about someone's medical history (fair). But I think it's ideological. They can't bear to acknowledge that sex is a matter of biology, not opinion.

But that's the problem: There's an awful lot of speculation and people from both sides use it to confirm what they have already decided they want to believe. Really, we just don't have enough information.

We need first of all to accept that there are different, contextually valid, ways of defining sex. Chromosomal makeup is one. External appearance is another. By far the most relevant from a sporting point of view, however, is whether the individual experienced male puberty.

From what I've read, sex is defined by the type of gamete that the organism can potentially produce (which type of gonads they have, whether they actually produce gametes or not). But sex is normally determined by the sex chromosomes, (i.e. the sex chromosomes - or specific genes on them - usually cause the foetus to develop along the male or female reproductive pathway.)

This article seems useful in explaining the difference between how sex is defined and how it's determined: www.theparadoxinstitute.com/read/defining-sex-vs-determining-sex

Chromosomes aren't sex, but they usually indicate the sex of the organism. So they can usefully be used in sex testing for female sport. I agree with @nolongersurprised that the DNA cheek swab can be used as a screen. In the rare cases where the presence of a Y chromosome has been found but the person doesn't seem to be male, further testing would clarify what their condition is and whether they have been through male puberty and hence have male sporting advantage. (Similarly for someone who appears to be male but doesn't have a Y chromosome.)

The table that @ellenback21 linked to earlier is useful in showing which sex a person with a particular DSD should be considered to be for the purposes of sport categories.

I don't know whether the same is true of any other DSDs, or where the two boxers at the centre of this fit into it all.

I've seen a lot of speculation that they might be 46,XY 5-ARD, which is what Castor Semenya is. It seems that people with this DSD are over-represented in female sport, because they look female at birth (no external male genitalia or underdeveloped male genitalia) but have internal male genitalia, undergo male puberty and have male advantages in sport.

I agree! It's so nice to be able to share ideas and facts calmly, and discuss them without hurling insults at each other, which is what seems to happen a lot on social media.

I've been learning a lot through what others have posted and also the reading I've been doing recently to clarify my thoughts on the two "female" boxers. Although I was already aware of many DSDs and how they affect whether a person should compete as male or female, I've learned more about the subject here.

I think that's a very good point. GC feminists have to be careful not to fall into the same traps as TRAs do. Complexity in sex can be acknowledged without it meaning that sex is a spectrum.

Some of the things that GC feminists say are hostages to fortune, and can be seized on by TRAs. I also hate to see GC feminists resorting to using insults in the same way that seems so common among TRAs (or at least the TRAs that are very active on social media). It's not only cruel, but it doesn't help in putting forward our position.

I agree about not forcing someone with a DSD to live as their biological sex, if it's more appropriate for them to live as the sex they have always appeared to be. And I think that how someone "lives" shouldn't be relevant to things like which sex category they compete in in sport. That's the mistake I think the IOC are making with the boxers - they're saying that because they have F in their passports and have lived as female, then they are female for all purposes, including for competing in female boxing. It's a ludicrous, and dangerous, position to take.

The key issue is that the species was designed with 2 developmental pathways for sexual reproduction and that healthy humans who have developed typically will be male or female and will have a time window where they have the capability to reproduce.

DSDs occur when people do not develop typically/appropriately - something has gone wrong and there has been a developmental fault. There is not another sex, or a previous misunderstanding in biology, there is a fault in development. Discovering a new cancer doesn't lead people to question whether our understanding of the default of healthy cell reproduction is questionable.

There was a movement designed to remove stigmatising language such as 'abnormal', 'dysfunction' and 'disordered'. Labelling people in this way is clearly wrong, but applying them to diseases and disorders is not (e.g Kidney dysfunction/malfunction, abnormal cells etc.).

There are a world of problems arising from medical professionals, and those reporting on medical issues, seeking to remove 'stigmatising' labels from biological facts. People are a lot more than their medical conditions but medical conditions sit above and beyond socially engineered narratives that seek to influence social behaviour.

I think that's a brilliant summary of all the various possibilities of typical male and female, and the different DSDs - and, crucially, "sport sex", which is very helpful when deciding whether someone with a particular DSD has male physical advantage and should not be competing in the female sport category.

Thanks for posting it!

Yes, but these are not a spectrum of normal sexual development, which to me is what "differences" rather than "disorders" implies.

Quite right about intersex being a particularly misleading term.

I'm not sure that's true, @Catsmere. I think "differences" or "variations" of sexual development comes from reference to the fact that there are variations in the way that a human can develop into a male or a female.
In my experience activists attempting to coopt the reality of DSDs to advance self-id always use the term "intersex." Which is a particularly misleading term, but still wasn't chosen by activists. Just capitalised on by them.

I agree. I don't know who started it, but calling disorders of sexual development "differences of sexual development" seems like just another attempt to pretend sex is a spectrum, and men (it's always men, isn't it?) can be women if they say so, or pretend they have a DSD and that they're simply "different" women.

Mostunexpected · Yesterday 09:33

Soit stands that you can absolutely be male and have a vagina which is something I’ve read many times on here isn’t possible.

By vagina, do you mean "vagina," or do you mean, "external genitalia, which bears a superficial resemblance to a female pudendum"?

*do not mean.

The world athletics rules are incredibly clear about their DSD rules. The testosterone lowering requirements are for :

XY DSD athletes who are androgen sensitive ie go through a male puberty.

So - individuals with CAIS and Swyer who haven’t virilised with puberty don’t need to be have restrictions/exclusions. The DNA cheek swab is a screen - if an athlete is going to be XY then additional analysis can be used to determine if they are androgen sensitive.

(Personally, I would exclude CAIS - the last time there was obligate cheek DNA tests at the Olympics it was found they were over represented in women’s sport. Whether that’s due to phenotype, with tall, long limbs or just absence of periods as no ovaries, uterus)

The complexity doesn’t threaten a binary model of sex. Putting it bluntly, these disorders mean that, reproductively speaking, something has gone wrong. Fertility is compromised, or absent,

Humans are bipedal, yet people are born with different limb variations. People with one leg, no legs, partial limbs etc don’t threaten the notion that humans are bipedal. People with disorders of sex development mean there are more than two sexes

Another one here who will admit that this whole controversy has made me realise things CAN (rarely) be more complicated than I thought.

We need first of all to accept that there are different, contextually valid, ways of defining sex. Chromosomal makeup is one. External appearance is another. By far the most relevant from a sporting point of view, however, is whether the individual experienced male puberty.

When this story first broke I assumed that anyone with XY chromosomes would have done so. But as described here, in Swyer Syndrome that is not the case, as the individual has no testes so doesn't go through puberty at all.

I don't know whether the same is true of any other DSDs, or where the two boxers at the centre of this fit into it all.

@Tinylittleunicorn "However I have encountered some arguments from GC feminists recently wherein clearly, they do feel that complexity of biological sex in a tiny number of individuals with rare DSDs does somehow threaten a binary model of understanding human sex - so they have to deny the existence of that complexity."
I think it makes complete sense in response to the agressive disrespect for women's boundaries that the trans' rights movement has displayed, to want to make the conceptual boundaries between male and female really stark and clear.
I like the analogy @FOJN gave above, from Colin Wright, about male and female being two sides of a coin, and the tiny number of truly ambiguous DSDs being the sides of the coin.
It also helps me to think in terms of human embryos where Müllerian development pathway = female and Wolffian development pathway = male regardless of which combination of chromosomes, genes and hormones kick off one or the other pathway (this doesn't capture all DSDs but helps me get my head around some of the more common ones).
And even if there are different conceptual categories that will give us slightly different definitions of "male" and "female", it doesn't mean there are no definitional boundaries - and it NEVER means it's ok to violate the ordinary kind of boundaries we talk about when we're talking about bog standard (Wolffian!) male people in women's changing rooms, sporting competitions, gaols &c. &c.
Edited to add: dsdfamilies.org has been the most helpful to me for understanding DSDs but I'm having trouble finding the good infographics I remember on their site.

Lurker here. Sorry if I mess up posting this, or if it has been posted before. It's from a paper called 'Toward a Robust Definition of Sport Sex' by David J Handelsman

@AShortName I agree with you - for the small number of people with DSDs, including women with XY genotype such as those with CAIS or Swyer syndrome, decisions on athletic competition can indeed be made on a case by case basis.

I also agree that DSDs and transgender are two very different things that are sadly often conflated. I attended a transgender education session put on by our university and was unimpressed that they included people with DSDs under the transgender umbrella.

It seems that the statement 'XY is generally male' is correct, with the exception of some rare DSDs. Thanks for opening this interesting discussion.

I mean...my husband has de la Chapelle syndrome, which is otherwise called "XX male syndrome" because it results in otherwise normal males who have XX chromosomes and therefore are infertile. I've talked about this on other threads; it's why we have had to use donor sperm. Like most men with XX male syndrome, DH is a normal height, has normal genitals and body hair, and is indistinguishable from any other man except that he can't father children. So yeah, not all XX people are female.

Is that the technique that’s called a “gish gallop”?