Why do people use human abnormalities to prove sex isn’t binary?

I can understand why you might not want to acknowledge that something terrible was done to you as a child.

The fact that males with hypospadias are included in the '1.7% are intersex' statistic just indicates what bollocks it is. To have hypospadias, you have to have a penis...

Which means that you are obviously male...

Nah mate. She’s correct.

As someone who transitioned as one of the first of those children to do so, I'm afraid that you are talking pure bollocks here.

I don’t know why I’m continuing the self sabotage by engaging tbh

@WarriorN

I know which thread you’re referring to. Insufferable is exactly the right word.

It’s just a desperate clutching at straws. Otherwise they have to talk about AGPs, cross dressers, transvestites, fetishes, and predatory men who will, & have, taken the opportunity to self ID into female only spaces.

Also acknowledge social contagion, the huge over representation of vulnerable children & young adults with ASD who suddenly have gender identity issues. Also those with depression, anxiety, disordered eating, self harm, those in foster & long term care, those who’ve experienced pre pubescent trauma, abuse, have a parent on the sex offenders register. All of which have been seen to accompany a sudden claim to be born in the wrong body.

Students desperately trying to fit in in FE, HE, who see trans/non-binary/gender fluid as a way into the society.

Much easier to just claim ‘it’s science, innit?’ & totally misrepresent & use people with a DSD (all of whom are either male or female). It’s disgusting, & just another tool in this hideous ideology.

Because they can't tell the difference between a solid argument and bullshit.

Thanks @WarriorN, it's not mine though it's from a philosophy article linked and quoted. I was looking for an explanation of trans biology arguments.

Two excellent posts @BeLemonNow, as are so many others. And posts that could be on another insufferable thread right now.

But they’d be ignored as it doesn’t suit the key poster’s narrative or belief.

“it’s not a very good argument” is a good summary of the main protagonist’s theories .

On another note, I think this debates underlying issue is what it means for a concept to be binary.

Sex can be binary without needing to account for 100 per cent of cases, and without having to have necessary and sufficient conditions for everyone. It's normative.

Or in other words abnormalities are normal. You get them across biology and other areas.

From archive.is/2024.11.03-091945/philosophersmag.com/the-transgender-rights-issue/

"Trans activists often point to the difficulty in ascertaining sex in those with what are called DSDs, or differences in sexual development (or, perhaps more contentiously, disorders of sexual development), involving congenital conditions in which anatomical, chromosomal, or gonadal sex is atypical, often mistakenly described as intersex conditions, as proof that sex is not binary, exists on a spectrum, and is a social construct in any event. This position fails for at least two reasons. The first reason is that it is unclear why trans activists think that this is a useful argument in the first place. Biologists Emma Hilton and Colin Wright point out that, in 99.98% of cases, we can ascertain sex through observation of genitalia. The miniscule number of remaining cases require further investigation to determine their sex development path. Those who identify as transgender do not, with the possibility of a miniscule fraction of cases, identify as intersex. Rather, they claim that their gender identity trumps their biological sex, which is going to be ascertainable in virtually all cases. The transgender argument is, in essence, that, because sex may be indeterminate in a tiny fraction of cases, we can ignore biological sex that is clearly and indisputably ascertainable in virtually all cases, and in any case in which biological sex is clearly ascertainable, in favor of gender identity. That’s not a very good argument."

Hair colour isn't even a useful way to picture the numbers of people involved as the 1.7% of people with red hair is not distributed evenly.

The confusion is comparing DSD with hair colour. They arent comparable.

DSD are differences/disorders - the body hasnt developed as it should have. Whereas different eye or hair colour or skin tone aren't disorders, they are natural variations that don't effect health.

Comparing the number of people with DSD to hair colour is similar to comparing with the number of people born in Milton keynes- useful to picture the numbers involved, but not relevant for anything else.

We know people have DSD because we know what a healthy reproductive system looks like.

We know every trans identifying man has a male body, and is unlikely to have a dsd because to be a TW the person has to be male, and DSD are rare.

Whereas the eye and natural hair colour of trans will be broadly in line with the eye and hair colour of the population.

If DSDs were just straightforward variations in human sex characteristics the conditions wouldn't include those which require surgery (to prevent the very high chance of streak gonads becoming cancerous), hormone therapy (to induce puberty and prevent osteoporosis) and wouldn't render most people who have them infertile.

Any variation of sexual development resulting in sterility is evolutionarily redundant.

It seems to me like arguing that humans don't have 2 arms and 2 legs as a default standard because few people are born with less or more. Standard can be 0.
If that makes sense.

Depends if you are talking about people who are genuinely confused about why we describe sex as binary, or people who just want to attack women's rights.

Such a lot of bollocks is spoken in the drive to include men in places they do not belong.

All those people with DSDs recruited to the cause against their will. None of them have any doubt what sex they are.

Well said.

Intersex people (those with Differences of Sex Development) aren't just “abnormalities” they are natural variations in human sex characteristics.

You might as well argue that somebody born with a hole in their heart has a natural variation in human cardiovascular characteristics. I think perhaps the problem is that you assign too much worth and value to sex, so shrink away from acknowledging disorders, when the thing that gives us value is our humanity.

Is it this? Isn’t it more that they refuse to acknowledge the meaningful, fact based definitions of sex that exist, and then fail to replace it with anything evidence based and workable? Much like they did with the word ‘woman’ too.

Absolutely this. @TheBoldSeal , your post is a classic example of the confused thinking and arguments that have to be made to believe sex is not binary.

Your argument completely ignores first principles. The first principle here is ‘what does sex describe/ define/ denote?’ The answer is the role the individual’s sex class plays in sexual reproduction. There are only two roles in sexual reproduction. The role of the male and the role of the female. You would have to identify individuals with a ( natural) distinct role in human reproduction outside that of male and female even begin to substantiate your claim that sex Is not binary.

You can’t do that because intersex people are not those individuals.

Because they confuse determination and definition and they don't consider why we bother to define sex in animals and plants.

https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/intersex-is-not-as-common-as-red

Maybe this will help. I believe the real figure is 0.018%.

The higher figure is false and fed by Fausto -Sterling of the joke (her admission) five sexes theory. It includes people with unambiguous sex categorisation.

Here are some resources that are easy to access and have the reference material they use clearly listed.

https://theparadoxinstitute.org/watch