Intersex

I remember this. At the time I read it more as 'arrogant rude bastard gets called out over lie about reading Cass and then betrays complete inability to evidence his child-endangering bullshit ideology'.

Oh I don’t like that. It does smack of harassment to me.

It sounds like you're straddling two world views (some activist members within the group you're in and this MN board) very effectively. I can't imagine that's easy at all.

In my experience, this board isn't always an easy place to be but it's a great place to have your own assumptions challenged. It's also an incredible place to build up knowledge, with posters sharing source info.

I guess the difficult bit is that there is always lots of source info that "prove" the case for sex being a spectrum.

Hopefully your group gives you helpful support, even if it does come with a side helping of gender identity belief?

Agreed. Was a huge breakthrough that they even recognised it though (through extreme gritted teeth).

Looking more into Wright's 'bullying' of O'brien, it appears to amount to 'peer pressuring into a debate'. The pressure appears to consist of the single tweet I posted above, after which O'Brien blocked Wright on Twitter. And of course, O'Brien doesn't have to debate. But making a public comment that the Cass review is a "sham at best" and then refusing to engage with any further conversation about it (apart from 'if you disagree with me, you're nothing but a transphobe') is a bit odd, at best.

The racism bit seems to be regarding Wright's comments on Critical Race Theory. I won't even begin to try and analyse that as it's beyond me. I genuinely don't mean that in a facetious way. I've tried to read about it before and there's so many strands to it that I just don't get it. It's like when people talk about Marxism - I feel a bit like Joey in an episode of Friends when he's just nodding along.

As an aside, in terms of the Cass Report, it's worth noting that even the utterly institutionally captured Scottish Government accepted the findings.

Well, on the one hand they sort of did. And on the other they try to brush it under the carpet. No update of the scandalous school’s guidance.

I haven't heard anything about the accusations mentioned in your post but just doing a search on Twitter brought up the following -

x.com/SwipeWright/status/1793110034596937948

(Wright offered O'Brian an open forum opportunity for discussion and was promptly blocked).

I'm not sure about the accusations of racism - I'll have a look.

As an aside, in terms of the Cass Report, it's worth noting that even the utterly institutionally captured Scottish Government accepted the findings.

He did challenge O'Brien to a debate, but I'm not sure that counts as bullying.

https://x.com/SwipeWright/status/1793797299220423011?t=EcXrMtpdEEUbHt2_D6se6g&s=19

Anything which doesn’t unquestioningly affirm the faith is transphobia.

Waitwhat23 · Yesterday 17:49

The Sex Redefined article and the infographic which many of us have seen before are mentioned, as is Dr Emma Hilton (dear God, I hope I've got her name and title right this time, unlike last night!) in this article -
^https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/sex-is-not-a-spectrum^

Thanks for posting this article, it's very clear in its message. I particularly liked the final two sentences:

"But over time, it’s become clear that they created a false theory of biology that distorts human nature and harms vulnerable individuals. When one attempts to achieve equality and justice by distorting reality, inequality and injustice are never eliminated, just relocated."

Sorry I was alluding to the study of embryology and genetics. I have a done a great deal of research into endocrinology having had a rare endo problem from my late teens. Our bodies are incredibly finely tuned and tiny imbalances can have a huge impact on the our whole endocrine system which is a complicated maze of feed back mechanisms. We are familiar with underactive and overactive glands but chemicals which stimulate the production of the “famous” hormones are as important as the end product.

This is definitely something to add.
I agree.

It's not the thread I was expecting it to be and I'm really glad I was wrong in my initial scepticism re the "thought experiment". Thanks from me too OP for starting it and sticking with it.

I said I would RTFT and pick out the "circular" bits. I started to grab a few things that didn't quite make sense and then realised it wasn't necessary. You covered it all with this:

I didn't mean to paint myself as an expert and maybe could have worded my OP better. I do think it's a bit unfair to say I have "little understanding" though, compared with a non expert.

Could be worse. Imagine if the variable took the form of a poisson distribution.

How dare you compare me to fish!

like not being considered "normal"

I forget whose it was, but it was either in Nature or Scientific America that there was an obituary which stated what a terrible person the deceased was because they compared people to the normal distribution curve, and who were they to decide what was normal!!!

That was when I realised how far these once scientific magazines had fallen.

I've nothing to add, but I'm posting to say that this has been a very interesting discussion, thank you OP for starting it and staying with it. It feels as if there is real exchange and learning going on here, potential derails not taken, a lot of openness, occasional heated words followed up with movement towards mutual understanding..
Thank you to the OP and everybody who has participated.

Ah OK. Interesting.

There is a very vocal core group who like not being considered "normal" and don't like being considered "disordered", so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it.

This sounds remarkably similar to the autism parents' group that I left. There was a lot of focus on autism as an identity... and a lot of crossover into gender identity as a result of this... and as a superpower. I mostly just listened. I quite like the superpower idea when it's tempered with reality as well.
One thing that really struck me was how I ended up seeing the phrase "my mask is for you". Initiallly I saw it as very empowering but I also realised it easily became very much the opposite of empowering - like a "it's me against a hateful world" thing. I appreciate it's a derail so I won't go into more on his but the principal is similar to what you've described I think.

I'm not that bothered, but I am very bothered indeed by being conflated with trans.

This sounds like a healthy approach to things. I guess if some people like the term intersex, and aren't using it as a tool with which to wedge in gender identity, fair enough. I'll stick to DSDs given I'm on the outside looking in.

Personally, I ignore it. People are welcome to call me "cis" should they wish. It means nothing to me as I don't believe I have a gender identity. It's a word of no relevance to my life.

It has as much of an impact on me as a Christian calling me a sinner.

If genderists find it helpful to call me cis and Christians find it helpful to call me a sinner, so be it.

This.
You are confused on many counts OP. Foetuses are sexed at the moment of conception. Males with DSD do not have complete female internal organs.

The DSD Families Charity is much more sane than the average ‘Intersex’ activist!

www.dsdfamilies.org/charity

I’m sure most of us have encountered this ‘special’ sort of bloke online!
Thankfully there are lots of thoughtful people with DSDs posting online as well, some activists, some not.

A while back we had a regular poster who had a DSD and who had served a prison term, I forget the particulars of their story but it was clear that they a) supported rules that exist for the safeguarding of women b) had not had an easy time coming to terms with the reality of their condition/fitting themself into society.

I wonder if any current Mumsnetters remember the poster’s username? You might find their posts (and the responses) interesting/informative.