Conflation of Intersex Conditions and Transgender

[Thingybob]

I hope nobody minds me starting a new thread but in my opinion....

The manner in which the trans lobby have used those with intersex conditions to further their agenda, is nothing short of disgusting.

Hardly a day goes by when we don't see a thread on here conflating intersex people with trans people e.g "There are 6 different sexes?" or "Mermaids Training"

Having known two vulnerable young men with serious physical and cognitive disorders due to an intersex condition, I'm angry that anyone could use them in this manner. They are both non verbal due to severe learning disabilities so cannot speak for themselves but I hope the following no nonsense submission to the Scottish government (in response to census 2021) will help protect children like them. It was written by the UK charity DSD families, an information and peer support network for children and families living with disorders of sex development (intersex conditions)

www.parliament.scot/S5_European/Inquiries/CensusBill_DSDFamilies_CTEEAS518CB33.pdf

we are rightly concerned about further conflation between physical characteristics and sexual/gender identity and the inappropriate use of ‘intersex’

I don't understand?

I don't understand?

My poor grammer?
What intersex conditions are?
or
How the trans lobby use intersex condition?

i don’t understand

There are two sexes in humans. Male, of the class that produces sperm. Female, of the class that produces eggs.

Intersex conditions are disorders of development. Not proof of third/fourth etc sexes. Not a halfway house, not ‘a bit of both.’ No human has ever been found that produces sperm and eggs together. No human has been found that produces another type of sex cell (gamete.)

The TRA lobby uses intersex conditions to argue that sex in humans is a spectrum/you can be a bit Male and a bit female etc or that people are ‘assigned’ a sex at birth.

None of those arguments hold up to scientific scrutiny. Thus they are using people with intersex conditions to further their own agenda, not to promote knowledge/acceptance of such conditions.

Intersex conditions are in the body and often have related health problems. Babies with ambiguous genitalia used to routinely be given unnecessary operations, for appearances sake, which would damage nerves. All long before they could consent. There are many issues and rights around intersex conditions which need their own movement, but the rarity of the conditions makes it hard to build a proper movement of such disparate people.

Trans conditions, on the other hand, are all in the mind and are all about a person's beliefs. There is nothing physically unhealthy or unusual about trans peoples' bodies until they choose to interfere with their own endocrine system or choose to surgically alter their bodies to try to appear as though they are the opposite sex.

Intersex conditions are not beliefs or feelings they are real, concrete and physical. It is hugely disrespectful for this struggle to be appropriated by people trying to justify erroneous and uhealthy beliefs.

When I’ve discussed the whole trans in the wrong body issue people usually use intersex as a gotcha. Some people really believe that there are intersex people who are both male & female.

DSD are a fantastic org doing great work. I'm heartened to hear that Scot Gov have woken up to the realisation that intersex should never have been conflated with trans.

I don't know if you read the link I put above but this quote debunks the whole assigned at birth myth

DSD/intersex is not a ‘third’ biological sex, it is a series of different biological pathways which produce different anatomical characteristics among people who are female or male. A very small number of babies (estimated7/8 per year in the UK –possibly one every other year in Scotland) have the biology that means they could be raised either male or female and a legal sex assignment is made.

Thank goodness someone is listening to intersex/DSD organisations about the frankly disgusting way TRAs have attempted to use the lives and bodies of people with DSD to justify a range of increasingly batshit woo beliefs.

Meant to link this. It's from this morning's general meeting but inc the census. Starts over an hour in but worth finding the beginning as they admit they made a mistake in regards to intersex also worth listening for the last few comments.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=kF8iKDy08GI

The term sex refers to the way humans & many other species reproduce. Human beings are made when a male gamete or sperm combines with a female gamete or ovum/egg. That's the one & only way it happens. You can't make a baby with only sperm or only ova - both are needed. Each & every time.

The class of people/animals that produces sperm is called male, the class who produce ova are female.

People with intersex conditions, better known as disorders of sexual development, are still either male or female. Some might never produce gametes, but those intersex people who produce gametes produce either male or female gametes. They do not produce additional kinds of gametes, & so they do not constitute a third, fourth, fifth, or sixth sex.

Intersex conditions are extremely rare, & the majority of them do NOT result in genitalia that appear ambiguous at birth.

There are also only two kinds of sex chromosomes: X & Y. There are 24 other letters in the Roman/English alphabet, but there aren't an additional 24 sex chromosomes - no ABC, LMNO, only X & Y. Most females are XX, most males are XY. Intersex people might have different combinations - XXY, say - of sex chromosomes, but these combinations are still made up of only Xs & Ys.

And in the infamous Mermaids 'training" audio, Jan refers to insersex as 'the intersex'. She tells delegates how trans and intersex communities are being brought together.

Yes, by genderologists who love othering intersex people while bringing them into a debate about gender ideology.

Thingybob

Totally agree that it is not only shocking that the trans community presumed to say they speak for intersex people, but that the Government etc., are colluding with them.

Intersex people have had a long struggle to be allowed to decide how they want to live with their condition. ie too often in the past the medical profession would decide on their behalf some surgical procedure to "resolve" their condition that couldn't be reversed.

And only recently Germany has agreed to allow intersex people to be registered on their passport as intersex. needless to say trans activists are now saying it is a victory for them.

Trans "identity" or being gender non conforming has absolutely nothing to do with biological reality.

There used to be a couple of intersex campaign groups who consistently stated they were not part of the trans soup. Not sure if they have closed or that the media etc., cant be bothered with having to think outside of the I've done trans training box.

www.dsdfamilies.org/charity/latest-news

[[]www.ukia.co.uk/about.html]

www.vice.com/en_uk/article/gq8yq9/the-group-campaigning-for-better-intersex-rights

But stumbledin intersex people are still either male or female, so why should they have 'intersex' on passports instead of female/male? Hope Bowl still around for an answer.

AncientLights

For the same reason that when people are asked to say what their race is there is an option "Mixed".

ie it is about the biological reality not about some concept in someone's head.

I'm still puzzled by that stumbledin. From what I've read of intersex people, or DSD people I should say, they don't want to stand out and draw attention to themselves. Like most of us, they just want a normal life and to be treated as a normal human being. Still, I don't suppose they'd have to take up the option offered of stating 'intersex' on their passport.

so why should they have 'intersex' on passports instead of female/male?

They shouldn’t imo. In some countries like Germany and Austria the TRA argument that men should be allowed in single sex spaces uses intersex conditions as a wedge much more than the Uk, there was a poster taking about t on ather threadcrecently (can’t remember which one but I think language was the main focus.)

AncientLights

There are a very, very small group born as 'true hermaphrodites' My link above says that this applies to about 8 babies a year born in the UK and these few babies will genuinely be 'assigned a sex at birth'. The vast majority will be happy with that 'assigned sex'

So maybe it would be very important to one of these people to have their passport sex recorded as x? Or (the cynic in me) wonders if they had other reasons for wanting to change the law?

Anyway as Stumbledin says, the passport case in Germany has already been hijacked by the trans lobby. See this article and comment

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-third-gender-identiy-official-records-diverse-binary-intersex-a8684646.html

For the same reason that when people are asked to say what their race is there is an option "Mixed".

In as much as race is ‘real’ (unlike sex, it is a social construct) it would be possible to be ‘mixed’ if your parents were of different races.

That’s not how intersex works though. Having biological parents of different sexes is pretty much the default.

Race, genetically, isn’t a concrete thing. There are more differences within what we call racial groups than between them. But one can be a mix of what we call those racial groups.

You can’t be halfway. No human has ever been documented to produce sperm and eggs in the same individual.

And anyway, even if you could, what relevance would it have to transgender? None. Because every single disorder of sexual development is a physical medical issue with observable cause.

Thingybob In the German speaking world intersex people seem to willingly act as shields for the trans agenda (at least this is my impression).
In Germany and Austria intersex individuals sued in order to get the third sex option for passports/documents.
This was followed by articles (several, in both countries in media analogous to BBC and Guardian) about how this is important, but too narrow, as there are many intersex conditions that cannot yet be diagnosed (Ladybrain anyone?) leaving many inter and trans people in the cold.
I was particularly surprised about an article about unisex loos in an Austrian newspaper as this grand measure of inclusivity for intersex people (unfailingly, simewhere in the article they will suddenly slip in ‚inter and trans) . The intersex person who won the 3rd sex right for Austria was interviewed and said they were often admonished and scolded in toilets for ‚using the wrong one‘ (something I find hard to imagine, but ok). Notably the person is active in some (possibly the) organization for intersex people in Austria, it looks like the organization supports this approach.

I have broached this subject before on this board. It indeed looks like [puts tinfoilhead on head] different arguments are used for different cultures in order to arrive at one outcome - convergent engineering or so.

I have broached this subject before on this board. It indeed looks like [puts tinfoilhat on head] different arguments are used for different cultures in order to arrive at one outcome - convergent engineering or so.

Its not so much putting on a tinfoil hat as taking out the ear plugs, taking off the blindfold and saying what you see.

TinfoilHAT on head!

Yeah WeRiseUp, you have a point, it is obvious to me. But at the same time it sounds so crazy, I don‘t believe my lying eyes or something.

As the OP of the 'There are 6 different sexes?' thread, can I just point out that I KNOW there are 6 different sexes.

When TRAs threw that line at me and I read the information linked, I queried why they would conflate intersex with transgenderism, as that was what the article seemed to be discussing (with my very limited understanding of science) only to be told that OBVIOUSLY they weren't talking about intersex conditions in that article and how thick was I?

My thread was simply to get confirmation that the article WAS discussing intersex conditions and that the TRAs were talking out their arse, as per usual.

Of course the TRAs are bullshitting, Scamander. But why is that bullshit not challenged, but politicians and medical experts go along with it? (The Maria Catt blogpost that is also discussed in a thread here even indicates professionals do not want some of the in-group discussions aired to the wider public, presumably because it could hurt the cause. Insane.)
And why are intersex people apparently fine with getting their issues conflated with trans issues in the German speaking world?

This is madness, astroturfed madness.