Intersex and trans

[PerverseConverse]

I've read a couple of times on here that the intersex community (if that's the correct phrase, sorry if not ) have stated, possibly in an official statement, that they do not wish to be used in any way in the trans argument. I can't remember which threads I have read this on or exactly what was said.

Does anyone know more or even better have a link they could share with me please?

I know that many people’s answer is to say "transwomen are transwomen". But I find this really difficult to get my head round as it just sounds like a weird tautology, like being asked what snow is, and replying "snow is snow". It just sounds like you aren't answering the question.

No it's transwomen are transgender. Transgender has a specific meaning. Albeit one that keeps getting changed.

I think calling transpeople intersex could be a way out of the hellish fight that we are in. And I think that it is problematic if we can't.

Intersex conditions are objectively and physically identifiable.

I very strongly object to the idea of saving women and female from being hijacked and subverted by suggesting the trans ideology hijack other groups instead.

It seems to be to be neither here nor there if males don’t like to be called males or men, that is what they are. I don’t get why this has become a problem. I don’t particularly like being referred to as a middle aged woman 🤷‍♀️but this is my problem, not anyone else’s. I certainly don’t expect everyone else to start pretending I’m not. Self-acceptance is great and stops a lot of this anguish!

I think calling transpeople intersex could be a way out of the hellish fight that we are in. And I think that it is problematic if we can't.

No. Absolutely not. Trans people are NOT intersex. All of the intersex conditions are specific medically defined issues. The genetic basis of I think almost all of them is defined. They are NOTHING to do with transgender.

The reason tra activists are pushing this is to hijack the very real issues people with these conditions face. To push the idea that sex is a spectrum and to establish being transgender as a defined state, rather than a belief.

So no. It would not be right, proper or correct to conflate any intersex condition with transgender

When it comes up in conversation with regular people, complex explanation isn't needed. If you just say - you know that intersex people are male or female don't you? ' (puzzled expression optional) then they never do. Then you just say' yes of course, I can send you links to klinefelter and turner syndromes, and androgen insensitivity if you like, but it's not anything to do with trans people anyway so'. They usually shut up about intersex people after that.

"There is a binary: Male or female. Women with CAIS? Clue's in the first word: women. In all cases the sex class is defined. "

It's not quite as simple as that. You can have two people with the same intersex condition, where one identifies as male and one identifies as female, even where both were assigned female at birth.

The example of a woman with CAIS (complete androgen insensitivity) is unambiguous, in that a person whose cells completely fail to respond to androgens is unambiguously female. However people who for instance are partially androgen insensitive could have either female or male gender identity.

It is wrong to say that the sex class is defined: what we know from studies of certain conditions is that individuals with them are likely to develop a certain gender identity, and therefore based on the specific condition we should essentially 'assign' that gender identity at birth.

But that would NOT include any kind of surgery until the person is able to decide for themselves at adulthood.

What intersex advocates WON'T do is say that, for example, a person with fertile sperm is male, if that person has an intersex condition and was raised female and has a female gender identity.

And it is complicated in that gender identity is partly socialized and partly biological, but if a person's intersex condition is not identified at birth and they are raised with the opposite gender identity, that may affect their gender identity in adulthood.

All that said, we should note:

1. as above 'intersex' isn't a sex, nor a single condition. TRAs will tell you 2% of the population is intersex. This isn't true. You might have a good % of hyperandrogenic women, but these women have ovaries, vaginas, etc., and their 'intersex condition' amounts to hirsutism and other complications.

2. The actual percentage of people born with intersex conditions is only 0.2%, and of these the actual proportion about whom there is some doubt about sex is even smaller. 0.1% of the population is XXY, for example, but XXY people are male, and can ejaculate sperm (though fertility is reduced). The numbers for whom there is confusion about sex is actually vanishingly small.

Quitecontrary (apt name) - you're conflating sex and gender. Two people of the same sex and with the same DSD can of course identify as having different genders. But they have the same sex.

Quitecontrary (apt name) - you're conflating sex and gender. Two people of the same sex and with the same DSD can of course identify as having different genders. But they have the same sex.

"It is wrong to say that the sex class is defined: "

To clarify:

Can we say that XX and XY define sex? No, SRY- XY makes a female, as an example, and SRY+ XX makes a male.

So can we say being SRY+ defines sex? Well not exactly in that an AR gene mutation on an SRY+ XY person also creates a phenotypically female (CAIS).

So if a person has a normal AR gene, and is SRY+, are they male? Well not necessarily. The way the human body creates hormones is very interesting. Hormones are synthesised ultimately from cholesterol, and there are multiple androgens synthesised in the human body, not merely testosterone, but also DHT. An SRY+ XY human with a normal AR gene but with a mutated SRD5A2 gene will not produce DHT.

DHT causes formation of male genitalia in utero, body hair, male pattern baldness, prostate enlargement
Testosterone causes spermatogenesis, voice deepening, male skeletal development, sex drive, acne

So someone who is otherwise male in important respects (will produce viable sperm at puberty, will grow male structure, etc.), can be born with female genitalia and socialized as female, while possessing internal sex. Are they male? Well yes in that they produce small gametes. Some may go on to identify as male after testosterone works its effects during puberty. But that's not always the case.

There are quite a number of genes involved, e.g., the HSD17B3 gene affects the production of the 17β-HSD III enzyme, which converts androstenolone (itself a weak androgen) into testosterone and mutations in HSD17B3 result in under-virilisation including female genitalia in XY babies. Most XY babies raised as female will change gender identity to male after puberty as there is SOME virilisation, the androstenolone/testosterone balance is upset, but this is sex is not deterministic per se.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1013106135002476544.html

Explains some of the issues.

www.isna.org/faq/printable

I think it was this group. But cannot find the actual statement. Might have been a different group. I had it saved on my laptop but its at the shop getting fixed. That seems to say that trans and intersex are vastly different things, but there was a statement that specifically said that they wish to be kept out of the trans debate, or thats how I remember it.

www.isna.org/faq/transgender

was the link I meant to put, the printable ones a bit of a mess

"Quitecontrary (apt name)"

Quiet, not Quite.

"you're conflating sex and gender. Two people of the same sex and with the same DSD can of course identify as having different genders. But they have the same sex."

I think you need to step back a bit here. Two individuals with the same DSD have the same DSD. What their sex is can be .... complicated. Intersex organisations do not talk about intersex people as having a particular sex, but rather being intersex.

See here:

www.isna.org/faq/gender_assignment

or here

ihra.org.au/18106/what-is-intersex/

You need to define 'sex' first of all. For example we have 'gonadal sex', which refers to the possession of testes or ovaries. An XY woman with CAIS has male gonadal sex but they will develop a female body shape. Ok so we can fairly easily say their 'sex' is female, because their body & brain is less androgenised than a normal XX female, let alone a normal XY male. An XY CAIS woman has a female phenotype. But XY PAIS has different grades, ranging from a female phenotype with mild masculinization to male phenotype & male fertility with only mild under-virilization.

So the whole point here is that intersex people have a genetic condition where we literally DO assign a gender at birth. That's the whole thing transgender people have been appropriating all this time. We assign a gender BECAUSE the intersex person does not conform perfectly to a normal male or female phenotype. It's true that with some intersex conditions we can say that the person is of the female or male sex, for example people with MRKH are of the female sex, they just have a malformation of their Mullerian duct. But other cases are NOT so straightforward.

And this is the door that TRAs are pushing at. Because there very legitimately ARE very rare cases where it's not particularly useful or meaningful to say that someone is of the male or female sex, since how do you really determine whether a person who has been exposed since in utero to some non-standard balance of hormones is 'male' or 'female', especially when they may be infertile, etc., so ALL these people have is a 'gender identity'. And what trans people want to do is to turn that 1 in a 10,000, genetically testable, individual into something they can use for themselves to say 'I'm a woman', just because, well, they want to.

So our wish to accommodate the human rights of people with very rare genetic mutations is appropriated by people with normal genetics - but they'll still, in many cases, swear blind that they must be intersex because they 'feel like a woman'.

It's a nightmare really.

The SRY+ XX person has a syndrome called XX male syndrome, which is very, very rare. One of their X chromosomes contains material from the Y chromosome, that is, a translocation occurs. They may be genetically female, but they are phenotypically male, and generally recognised as male.

The possibility that there is some, as yet undiscovered, genetic basis which covers all those presenting as trans seems to me vanishingly small. It is not a genetic or chromosomal conditions, that is, being trans has no physical basis (as yet known).

X-post - I had not read your latest post Quite

So our wish to accommodate the human rights of people with very rare genetic mutations is appropriated by people with normal genetics - but they'll still, in many cases, swear blind that they must be intersex because they 'feel like a woman'.

Indeed.

Its disgusting really. But not surprising from narcissistic blokes.

I think I get what Fungus Beetle was saying and in my opinion it was wrong to just dismiss them. Maybe there should be a third option, complete with targeted rights and third spaces? Ok don't call these people intersex as that conflates with genetic differences but call them something like 'Trans'? Then no one would be able to change from man to woman, or vice versa, but they could, as adults, opt into this 'special' group in the middle. Isn't this the ideal scenario for all?

"They may be genetically female, but they are phenotypically male, and generally recognised as male."

XX SRY+ males present at puberty with small testicles and will be smaller on average than XY males. Also some XX SRY+ males have cryptorchidism, which is another variant from the male phenotype.

"The possibility that there is some, as yet undiscovered, genetic basis which covers all those presenting as trans seems to me vanishingly small."

There is none, but what they are going for is more along the lines of 'brain difference' and 'hormone differences'. In that the 'male' or 'female' brain is formed in the presence or absence of various sex hormones, somehow, somewhere, some sort of 'hormone balance' or 'hormone flush in the womb', created a 'female brain'.

There's no evidence of this per se, but they have tried to show that transwomen brains are 'different' from male brains, but haven't exactly succeeded at this either. Gay male brains may be 'different' (on average, but not necessarily in any particular case), from heterosexual male brains too, but none of this

Yes, I get what you are saying. The problem is that brain or hormone differences, on the off chance they exist, are simply not enough to override the fact that man have penises/male reproductive systems and women vaginas/female reproductive systems, and this fact has material consequences. Even if it did turn out that one in a thousand men had pink fluffy unicorns flying around in their brain (so feminine), it will not cancel out the fact that these men still have a penis (which is what most women are worried about in same sex space).

*I know that pink, fluffy unicorn brains do not exist.

I wasn't really saying that tbh. Sorry I just noticed I didn't finish my last sentence. 'none of this means that gay males actually belong in female spaces, or indeed transwomen'

No, I know you weren’t saying that. It is just how I added my thoughts.