Confusing statement about treatment for intersex being a victory for trans community

If that was indeed what happened to Van der Wouden @BunnyOnTheOnion then I think that's a fair point.

I don't suppose anyone knows whether Van der Wouden had spoken publicly before about having this medical condition? Anyway I will ponder what you've said.

Hormonally intersex sounds awfully like someone who classes PCOS as intersex.

Unfortunately the discourse has been muddied by activists so much, the term intersex is meaningless. Which is probably what they wanted.

AidaP · Today 03:35

Grow up, eh? What's so mature about posting misinformation about trans suicide rates?

I have a huge amount of sympathy for someone who found out at puberty that their genetic make up means that they are technically the opposite sex to that which they (and everyone in their life) believes they are. I can 100% see why someone would wish to use hormones/ surgery to prevent having to change their percieved sex after living 'as a woman' since birth. If my teen 'daughter' received a DSD diagnosis and wanted to remain presenting as female / keep a female name / pronouns etc I would support them.

I think this is a world away from a middle aged man, enjoying male privilege while simultaneously claiming to believe they are (meant to be) a woman.

If women writers are overlooked for awards it's not because of their chromosomes but because they are believed to be women/ look like women / becasuse society has certain expectations of their writing. Up until the point that this author spoke out about their personal medical situation they had experienced all the prejudice that women writers do.

"Hormonally intersex" is nonsense on its face.

I'm very confused. How can you be hormonally intersex anyway? Surely you'd just be a woman with high testosterone or a man with high oestrogen. I'm sure DSDs relate to physical development not aligning with your genetic sex. Hormones alone wouldn't be a DSD, right?

This silly twit is not intersex. Because there is medically no such thing. She has presumably a dsd. A named dsd which clearly defines her as either male or female. She sounds confused or more likely disingenuous

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jun/13/womens-prize-winner-yael-van-der-wouden-its-heartbreaking-to-see-so-much-hatred-towards-queer-people

"On the question of the supreme court ruling on gender rights, she adds: “To subject that to law feels baffling to me, especially as it is accompanied by legal, verbal and physical violence.”

🙄

...many instances are also unlikely to show on an ultrasound, and may need karotype testing to confirm.

Depending on the DSD and whether it is mosaic in nature, it may not become apparent until puberty, or until someone is trying to start a family.

Routine 20 weeks scans started in the mid-80s, and I’m not sure how good they were back then. The machines I was using 20 years ago were a pile of shit compared to the ones we have now.

No that was how I interpreted her speech as well. Androgen insensitivity, or something along those lines.

Internal testes aren't visible on fœtal ultrasound. NHS website says problem may only become apparent at puberty.

“I was a girl until I turned 13, and then as I hit puberty all that was supposed to happen did not quite happen, or if it did happen it happened too much,”

Vague and confusing enough to be meaningless, but it means that she has garnered sympathy in certain circles.

Also how old is she? Many DSDs become apparent in utero during routine antenatal scans. How likely is it that her mother didn't have any scans during pregnancy? Would her parents have been aware of this DSD and kept it from her? Or are we no talking about a DSD after all?

I read the article this morning and was confused by the conflation of trans and DSDs too. I don't know what surgery or hormones the author has had or whether she (he?) was born female? Very confusing.

Over the years TRA have used DSD to further their cause id different ways.

As you say, the idea that trans is a form of DSD of the brain, but also to justify why surgical and medical treatments are not a prerequisite for 'transitioning', and to justify treatments being available on demand. The idea that patients with dsd can choose their pathway, and so can trans people.

The idea that medical progress for trans has led to improved care for patients with DSD is a shift. Its suggesting that they are not the same and the money is in trans care, not the dsd medicine.

What are you on about? How do people with DSDs (intersex is a very outmoded term) not have “rights” in the U.K.?

You’re talking absolute bollocks.

Of course the waters are muddied by a large number of trans people who claim to have unspecified DSDs, or who say they might have a DSD, when that almost certainly isn't the case.

I'm aware of that. Any overlap is, by definition, going to be a tiny minority of a tiny minority. And since DSDs are rarer than trans identification, a survey of trans identified people could very easily turn up no DSDs.

Regarding the argument that male writers have no physical advantage, it's worth remembering that The Women's Prize for Fiction, originally the Orange Prize, came about after the 1991 final Booker Shortlist didn't feature a single woman writer. You might argue that 30+ years on, there is no longer a need for the award. I'd listen to such an argument. But, if that's the case, then the correct course of action would be to open it to both sexes and to be transparent about it.

I think it's plausible that people who grow up with DSDs might identify as trans in adulthood at a higher rate than the general population. I've known at least one, probably two, people like that, which is purely anecdotal but feels significant given we're talking about a tiny minority of a tiny minority.

The gender clinic in Melbourne checked the karyotype of its patients and found no DSDs.

It's difficult to know, because she hasn't really given us enough information to tell. And she appears female...

It's just that (again, cynicism) if I see an article about a woman winning a women's prize, these days I want to be sure that it actually is a woman, and if the woman in question describes herself as "intersex" and goes out of her way to big up transactivism, that also sets an alarm bell off.

Yes, I know, it's not like physical sports, but sometimes representation is the whole point of fairness. I sometimes mention chess, where we don't quite know why it's so male dominated, but there are 2000 grandmasters in the world and only 40 of them are female. When female representation is very low (this might be chess competitions or literary prizes) you need a separate female category simply to ensure fairness, and it doesn't take many males blagging their way in to undermine the purpose of the category.

Pressed post to soon: feminizing of his genitals.

I would agree except that, of all the writing awards in all the world, the one in question is The Women's Prize for Fiction.

Edited to add that this was in answer to @JuneJustRains post

No, writing isn't affected by physical differences between men and women (unless psychologically). But if this is a prize for women and if the person in question has a male DSD that made them present as a girl until puberty then they should have refused the prize because they have taken it from an actual woman (and we don't have that many prizes). This is the same problem as we have with Caster Semenye et al - they present as 'not male' and are brought up as girls, but they are male. It's another prize that has not gone to a woman because a man has taken it (even if he has had surgery to feminise him because he has a DSD and was brought up as a girl).
But whatever the truth of this situation, he/she is not trans and trans ideology has nothing whatsoever to do with it - except possibly the feminising of her genitals.