Joshua Kennon? More than two sexes...

[JamPasty]

I'm sorry wise women - I know you've answered this before, but can I find the threads; can I buggery.

Two mates on Facebook are trying to tell me there are several sexes, based on this article:

www.joshuakennon.com/the-six-common-biological-sexes-in-humans/

I'm assuming Kennon's mixing up intersex with sex, but has anyone managed to explain the difference in a simple non-argument starting way? The people posting this article are people I care about and don't want to hurt, plus maybe I can convince them. So far I've just said I think Kennon's mixing up sex and intersex.

PS - can we start a thread with nice simple argument points for use by people like me who are as erudite as sponge puddings when it comes to this sort of thing? Thanks!

Are there six gametes? What are they called and how do they be fertilised?

Still two games apparently. The six "sexes" are(copied from the article):

X – Roughly 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 5,000 people (Turner’s )
XX – Most common form of female
XXY – Roughly 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000 people (Klinefelter)
XY – Most common form of male
XYY – Roughly 1 out of 1,000 people
XXXY – Roughly 1 in 18,000 to 1 in 50,000 births

Sex exists for sexual reproduction. That's what it evolved for. Mammals have two biological sexes which are not interconvertible. A small percentage of people have intersex conditions which are disorders of sex development. This is a medical term, tot a pejorative.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/disorders-sex-development/

@bowlofbabelfish can probably give a more authoritative description, of she's around.

Thank you!

Those are genotypes, not sexes.

There are only 2 sexes because there are only 2 types of gamete in mamals - egg and sperm.

The vast majority of people produce (or clearly would produce except for some medical condition) one or the other.

The tiny minority where this isn't clear are still fully human and do not disprove that there are only 2 sexes.

Anyone who draws any conclusions about personality or any other sociological factor based on wether a person has a body that could produce eggs vs sperm is being a massive sexist.

When women don't want a male bodied person in an all-female space they are not drawing any conclusions about that person. They are not calling that person an abuser or a predator, it is not personal. It's just known that women are safer if there are all-female spaces. The existence of all-female spaces does not stop male people from breaking as many gender-stereotypes as they wish.

This is long but very informative:
medium.com/@radfemflareon/the-intersex-masterpost-bb5a6250e6d6

Thank you all!

Has anybody read this?
www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index1.html

Or this.... www.sojourngsd.org/blog/sixgenders

I believe we do have more than the binary ‘English dictation’ of gender.... and that most others are far more aware & open to this..... and have been for a very long time.

I don’t get why it’s so scary or threatening or difficult for you not to accept

Have you actually read the WHO paper? In it, they say the following about sex

'More than 95% of the Y chromosome is male-specific (4) and a single copy of the Y chromosome is able to induce testicular differentiation of the embryonic gonad. The Y chromosome acts as a dominant inducer of male phenotype and individuals having four X chromosomes and one Y chromosome (49XXXXY) are phenotypically male. (5) When a Y chromosome is present, early embryonic testes develop around the 10th week of pregnancy. In the absence of both a Y chromosome and the influence of a testis-determining factor (TDF), ovaries develop.'

In other words, if you have a Y chromosome you will be phenotypically Male. Ie have the genitals of a Male. Even if you have multiple copies of the X chromosome you will still be Male. Sex is a real thing,

Re the bit from the Torah, well, it says that Pi is 3, so I wouldn't go looking there for scientific accuracy

@jax no one is discussing gender, they are discussing sex. It's not about whether things are "scary" or "threatening", it's about whether they are accurate, based in reality and not total nonsense.

I don’t get why it’s so scary or threatening or difficult for you not to accept

Why is it scary or threatening or difficult for you to accept that there are two sexes?

In other words, if you have a Y chromosome you will be phenotypically Male. Ie have the genitals of a Male. Even if you have multiple copies of the X chromosome you will still be Male.

This is not necessarily true. XY males with androgen insesntiviry or testicular feminisation syndrome often present and are classed as female from birth. They have a vulva, short vagina, no womb, breasts, and undescended testicles where their ovaries should be etc, but they do not look male.

Has anybody read this?
www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index1.html

No I didn't bother reading it all as in the first couple of sentences we got this

Research suggests, however, that in a few births per thousand some individuals will be born with a single sex chromosome (45X or 45Y)

45Y! Really???? Nobody has ever been born without an X chromosome, it is not compatible with life.

Well he doesn’t have trisomy X listed, which is significantly more common than XXXY, affecting 1 in 1000 women. And why “people”? People with Turner Syndrome are women. People with XXY are men.

Ottercup
"XY males with androgen insesntiviry or testicular feminisation syndrome often present and are classed as female from birth. They have a vulva, short vagina, no womb, breasts, and undescended testicles where their ovaries should be etc, but they do not look male."

They may not look male, but they still are male. Their undescended testicles are still testicles. That they are classed as female at birth is an understandable error. This error is the result of mutation.

We each and every one of us carry mutations. All of us. Several mutations each. Mutations are actually the whole point of sexual reproduction and the foundation of evolution.

@JaxintheBlue
I don’t get why it’s so scary or threatening or difficult for you not to accept

Not scared. Not finding it difficult to accept facts.

The WHO article is very reasonable and clear and says nothing contentious. It lays out that there are two sexes, that there are two phenotypes and that the vast majority of humans are one or the other. There are a tiny number of people whose sex chromosomes are anomalous but in many (though not all) of these cases they still clearly have one or other phenotype. For those whose phenotype isn't clear at birth there will be some challenges as they grow up in a society where more than 99% do have a physiologically binary sex. The article also very clearly states that sex is not gender, and gender is a social construct. There is no suggestion whatsoever that there are more than 2 sexes. This is called "reality" and we are fine with it.

Gender is different from sex. Feminists have been saying for many many decades that gender is harmful and limiting. Categorising what people "ought" to be like based on which of the two sexual phenotypes their body have is a crude, unsophisticated and uncivilised habit which we all ought to be able to transcend. I don't think the second article you linked to, about Talmud thought in this area, is that helpful or edifying. Like transgender ideology it still clings to the belief that the main herd of humanity belongs in a gender prison based on their sexual phenotype and merely concedes that some terribly special individuals might be allowed to diverge from that. That's not liberation. The article isn't particularly about fact either. Knowing what Talmud scholars (or any other cultural groups) have thought about this does not edify. As I said in my previous post, my main point is that basing expectations for personality and skills on sexual phenotype is sexism. Lots of cultures have had varying ways of being sexist over the centuries. Defining gender-nonconformance as "not a real (man/woman) but a different separate category" is still sexism.

This is really basic stuff - if the people you are discussing with OP don’t actually understand the difference between genotype and phenotype, or that the fact of intersex (disorders of sexual development) existing has no actual bearing on the theory of gender, then it will be challenging to have a rational discussion, you’re not on a level playing field.

That WHO article asserting that 45,Y individuals are born is a really worrying basic error for a health organisation and sadly calls the accuracy of the entire rest of the section of that site into question. Who (haha) wrote it?

OP, it might be useful to listen to what intersex organisations say about definitions of sex
www.isna.org/faq/what_is_intersex

(Also, on the point that a previous poster made that Y=male - which is what we were all taught in high school biology - whilst that’s true the vast majority of the time, it can be more complex than that www.isna.org/faq/y_chromosome )

The original link your friends are using to support their argument is a personal blog written by someone who as far as I can tell has no background in science or medicine - he has an asset management company and in his bio states he studied ‘classical music and a wide range of liberal arts’. It’s not an authoritative source, I’d politely suggest your friends become more sceptical and critical in their thinking.

Hmmmm.... ok. Please bear with me as I’m running around.

I sort of get the feeling, that no matter what is said to you.... that you will always argue that their are only two sexes.

I do understand; the difference between gender & sex; I was born with a vagina et al... but I am non-binary. I know several people personally, who are born intersex.

I’m happy to just disagree with you;
I believe that intersex people are a ‘sex’ in themselves; and are not a disorder or dysfunction.

Regardless, of this debate... on mumsnet ... of which one of us may be right, I’d like you to take into account the real life impacts; that refusing to accept other people’s understandings (most of which, actually come from the real people this affects).

If you are so gun-ho on dictating your understanding of sex/gender/ ‘disorder’ of intersex & your binary;

You condemn thousands of intersex babies to gender surgeries/ forced sex identification at both; rather than the respect the child is of a third ((/6) sex.
Which would allow them to distinguish for themselves who they feel they are, how etc.
We are not so advanced in the west to dictate a sex or a gender; we usually get it wrong for intersex babies. It has devastating life long truma & harm for these children.

• even if you don’t fully understand this; if you just accepted other sexes as a normal natural occurrence, you could end some of their suffering, at the hands of the definitions you want to impose.

Can I ask what it really means for you personally; if it impacts you in any personal way... to only have two sexes or multiple...
does it harm you in anyway... or just your theory?

I believe that intersex people are a ‘sex’ in themselves

You just don’t understand intersex. It’s not a possibility that you may be right, because you’re wrong. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia is an intersex disorder. It is autosomal recessive and causes an enzyme deficiency in the adrenal gland. Boys and girls, males and females, both can have the intersex disorder CAH. They are not their own sex.

It's not a matter of 'belief', the existence of two sexes, and within those intersex people, is a matter of objective science.

'Gender' is another matter - gender critical feminists would very much like to be rid of it. There should be no reason whatever for intersex people to have to undergo surgeries in order to make them conform to cultural norms of gender. You identify as 'nonbinary', jax; I would say that with regard to 'gender' everyone is nonbinary. Even describing 'gender' as points along one masculine to feminine axis is ridiculously constraining.

I do understand; the difference between gender & sex; I was born with a vagina et al... but I am non-binary. I know several people personally, who are born intersex.
I’m happy to just disagree with you;
I believe that intersex people are a ‘sex’ in themselves; and are not a disorder or dysfunction.

There is a great danger in mixing beliefs, anecdotes and biological facts.

There is a great danger in mixing beliefs, anecdotes and biological facts.

JaxintheBlue Which part of my comment above warrants your conclusion or reaction?