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

In which case she should have refused the prize. And I think, re-reading what she says that this is the case (the opposite of the condition in 'Conclave').

I'm not going to criticise (for the hypothetical actions of the judges) someone who has won an award for writing. There isn't the physical advantage that makes some male dsds unfair in female sport. I think I'll read the book.

Well it's got people talking and I dare say reading the book so if that's the case it's achieved it's aims.

I'm wondering how often the Women's Prize goes to a debut novelist. I haven't read her book, and maybe it's really good, so perhaps I'm being cynical in wondering if an exciting identity might have helped.

I don't think I'm being at all cynical in wondering whether the Women's Prize would have got half as much coverage if the winner didn't have an exciting identity.

I can't imagine how hard it must be to discover as a teen that your sex is not what you thought it was. If she found out she was actually male but decided to have treatments to align with being female then I guess in her eyes she is trans and feels she benefitted from treatments available to trans people. It's not really possible to know what she meant or what she's been through from a short speech. There's also the point that without those treatments she wouldn't be receiving the Women's Award.

Trans activists have used the ambiguity of some intersex conditions to further blur the boundaries and continue with the vagueness and lack of clarity that feeds trans ideology.

Everyone is either male or female....even if some have conditions ( DSDs) in which the under-lying actual sex is not evident to begin with. People who adopt trans identities are not a special category of human being, and people adopt trans identities for all sorts of reasons. Many also de-transition......because 'being trans' is not a fixed condition that has a physical reality...it only has a psychological reality for those that believe.

'Being trans' is a contemporary framing device to clothe one's feelings of discomfort or distress and so on. People have always struggled with gender expectations, and some choose to express that through a trans identity; others express or resolve it differently.

Actually the UK is always one of the most evolved when it comes to the recognition of civil rights...and it certainly recognises that female people have them too.

Your first sentence is exactly what I thought when I saw this story.

This thread is the first I've heard about the intersex/trans aspect though. And as for the term "intersex", we all know that that is the term the trans lobby prefer as it muddies the waters, and suggests that some people are actually between the two sexes and none of us can actually know what sex we are, so it's a win for trans people. If you use "DSD", with its expansion of "disorders", and the fact that people with DSDs are all actually male or female, that's not nearly so positive for the trans lobby.

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.

It's definitely plausible that some people with DSDs will want to be trans allies because they perceive they have something in common. Even if their objective situations are very different, they might feel that a certain dissociation from one's sexed body is the important thing. And maybe in a culture like the Netherlands there's a social pressure to be a trans ally.

But that's speculation on how individual DSD people might feel. The big push for forced teaming has all been from the other side, and it's all been based on how DSDs are useful for transactivist rhetoric, whether it's "sex as a spectrum" or whether it's the idea of trans identity as a kind of psychological/neurological DSD that a certain percentage of people are just born with. Anything to draw attention away from the Timothys who don't remotely pass and for whom there's an obvious element of fetishism.

Arguments based on the existence of DSDs have been remarkably successful from transactivists' point of view. I'm really struggling to see anything that transactivism has done for people with DSDs.

Bernard Reed of GIRES was trying to co opt 'intersex' organisations years ago. He was trying to sell trans as a form of 'intersex of the mind' and speaking over and for DSD organisations who didn't want him to do so. This thread has a bit of background:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007?page=5

I find this blog on how TQ+ has swamped DSDs helpful, the description of the least (or non) affected getting the most attention and funding is TQ+ in a nutshell:

https://differently-normal.com/

But she may not be a biological woman? She hasn't said. She might be biologically male and received feminising hormones when she didn't develop at puberty.

Possibly tmi, but turning a penis inside-out is completely different from slightly extending a naturally-occurring inguinal sinus (which is what tends to occur in male DSDs)

More here:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/dutch-london-bryony-gordon-fiction-charlotte-b1232698.html

“The surgery and the hormones that I needed, which not all intersex people need. Not all intersex people feel at odds with their gender presentation.

I mention the fact that I did, because in the few precious moments here on stage, I am receiving, truly, the greatest honour of my life as a woman, presenting to you as a woman, and accepting this Women’s Prize.

And that is because of every single trans person who’s fought for health care, who changed the system, the law, societal standards, themselves. I stand on their shoulders.”

I surmise from this that she thinks that feminising treatments for girls with male DSDs were only invented because they were wanted by certain men, but I don't believe that. If trans wasn't a thing, treatments for DSDs would still have been needed, and they're mostly not rocket science anyway.

I was sent the article and have posted it on another thread (it's on the thread about 'intersex' whales) and it ends with the point that DSDs are nothing to do with gender dysphoria. I felt, on reading it, that the woman in question was confused as to what she was saying - she is speaking English as a second language, I presume, which may be why she talks of 'intersex'.
I suppose there is a link between TiMs' desire for genital cosmetic surgery and that could have helped with research into DSDs and any corrective surgery needed or desired. If that's her point that's fine - but if she is supporting trans ideology then she is on less certain grounds for they are not connected. But I think she is Dutch and the Netherlands are pretty well captured by the trans cult.

What rights did "intersex people" not have, that they have now gained thanks to trans people?

My first thought was PCOS. The key element of PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome is that you have to have ovaries I.e. be capable of producing small gametes = biological female. It is not a DSD.

I am appalled that PCOS is being dragged into the trans debate and being used to significantly, but falsely, bolster the number of people with DSDs.

I think that, for whatever reason, she is a trans ally and wants to signal support by referring to her own experiences, which are likely to have involved surgery and hormone treatment.

Just because she has a DSD, that doesn't make her an expert on the biology of sex, and I find it quite sad that she's implying that she's not really a woman (by aligning herself with transwomen).

DSDs and trans are mutually exclusive scenarios. People with DSDs have incongruent sex attributes and are always required to make (age-appropriate) choices about medical treatment and/or social and legal sex. (Even if it's the choice of inaction.) They can correct their birth registration retroactively in the UK.

Trans people have congruent sex attributes. They don't require any medical treatment to be healthy and, in the UK, can only change their legal sex via a bureaucratic method that leaves the original birth registration unchanged.

FWIW I think she possibly has a male DSD requiring some treatments also demanded by certain men. (They're well-established and not particularly controversial treatments in themselves. ). That doesn't make it the same thing.

I have heard people use this argument as evidence that trans people are the most oppressed. They suggest that when they team up with others (framed as when others team with them to be allies), they experience a backlash because of the support they show.

Of course, I don’t let this go unchallenged. I point out that those making anti-women arguments get push back, no matter who is making the argument. I suggest that the ‘backlash’ goes to prove that it isn’t simply trans people that are being opposed, it’s anyone seeking to erode women’s rights.

I wonder if the motivation to use the platform in this way links to bystander guilt? Perhaps, the issues arising for those with DSDs in sport are being conflated with winning a women’s award it literature.

I don’t see them as comparable. If an author had a male DSD and was treated for this during adolescence, then passed as female, resulting in male advantage not kicking in, and publishers and critics judging an entry as if written by a women, this does not reflect the unfair playing field arising in sport.

As is so often the case with trans issues, the lack of nuance and the application of critical thinking seems likely

And when transgender people gain rights, generally so do intersex people

It’s patronising, isn’t it?

“Look how lucky intersex [sic] people are that trans activists are fighting for their rights too. Say thank you, intersex people!”

What rights have trans activists gained for people with DSDs?

The right to confuse the world about biological sex?

The right to commit children to societal stereotypes with medical treatments?

Genuinely, how has trans activism benefited people with DSDs?

I'd guess at virtue signalling. It's worked, hasn't it? She's everybody's darling right now. In video interviews, she comes across as a normal female person. Normal female voice, intonations, gestures, etc. No uncommonly large hands or feet. She might have something like CAIS or MRKH - both usually discovered at puberty - or something as pedestrian as PCOS (would explain the "some things happening too much" - I have it and they did!)

I fucking hate the way genderism's made me so very interested in identifying certain people's sex 🧐 Especially in a case like this, where it doesn't really matter.

It seems unhelpful to partially out oneself. Say, or don’t say. This vagueness isn’t edifying. It simply doesn’t contribute information to the conversation, just confusion.

If nothing else, the TRAs always give fantastic examples of forced teaming, and the damage it does to the groups they force-team with.

Women being the obvious one,

LGBTQ of course, the next biggest

Then 10 or so years ago, when people were more sympathetic to immigrants, the line was Trans people and immigrants

When BLM got big, it was Black and Trans lives matter slotted in everywhere

Trans and Intersex has bubbled along in the background

As soon as there is an actually disadvantaged group, they will latch onto it, leech funding, taking up places in leadership if they can.

And when transgender people gain rights, generally so do intersex people

Do they?

I'm at a loss really as to how it helps someone who is going through a life altering medical diagnosis, to be scooped up in the trawler net of LGBTQ+ identity politics.

I'm wondering if in this case it's swyer syndrome. If so then it is possible that some treatments they have had would be similar to treatments for trans people.

Another comment of note from the article is that about disliking the idea of ‘tolerance’ and wanting ‘love’ instead.

This kind of narrative is lazy. Humans will always hold different views about what is right or wrong, good or bad. When/where these differences relate to issues that are important to people, they are not going to like, let alone love, those who opposed them. It is entirely reasonable to hope for tolerance, and one up from that, affordance of dignity and respect.