Nature Journal accepts that people with Y chromosomes have vaginas

[NotAnotherJaffaCake]

Not editorial, but on the front page:

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01606-8

For the uninitiated, Nature is one of the top science journals. Articles in Nature make and break scientific careers. It is supposed to be a bastion of the most rigourous scientific thought.

We're fucked.

Some people do have XX chromosomes and female external genitalia including the lower part of the vagina because the testosterone did not have any effect or was absent early in foetal development.

Nature is more of a science magazine than a journal and probably errs on the side of trying to attract readers with juicy stuff so will probably change their minds with the wind.

That should have been XY chromosomes. The iPad is disagreeing lol.

That's an opinion piece (by someone who testified in favour of Caster Semenya running as a woman). It's not a research article.

I miss John Maddox though.

This article explains how it’s possible for a girl with a y chromosome to exist. Honestly this is a scientific magazine; they would have done their research. No need to try make this anti-trans.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn16934-girl-with-y-chromosome-sheds-light-on-maleness/

Yes, I presume they’re talking about people with DSDs? As we’re all at great pains to point out, that is completely unrelated to trans issues

The harder people with conditions like PAIS, A5RD, male chromosomes/testes/anatomically male advantage push to shoehorn themselves into a sporting category for people with female chromosomes/ovaries/uterus/female physiology, the stronger the backlash will eventually be.
I don't accept a man demanding I ignore the physiological sexed differences between us, and similarly, I don't accept it from someone who may, rightly or wrongly, have been assigned female BUT still has profound physiological sexed differences from me, too.

It doesn't matter what you were assigned at birth. Nor what you feel. Nor what your legal sex is. Nor what you believe yourself to be.
What matters is whether you share meaningful commonality with the group "biological females" in whatever is the relevant context. In this case, sport.

I used to have much sympathy for those with conditions that genuinely, truly, objectively are 'INTER' 'SEX' (and most so-called 'intersex' conditions are simply NOT 'between' the sexes, at all).
But my sympathy has diminished for those who have any male characteristics, any at all, who also demand that women disregard those male advantages to their own detriment.

Women need the right to distinguish ourselves as a sexed group from those who have fundamentally meaningful sexed differences from us.

I think the problem with Semenya is the way her biology (incredibly rare and a genuine "edge case" in the philosophical sense) is being appropriated and weaponised by people who want to allow genotypically and phenotypically normal males to be allowed to compete in women's sports.

For what it's worth I feel very sorry for her; she's had the misfortune to be competing at a time when it's not just about her. It's become about whether, if it's okay to let her compete (with elevated levels of testosterone and a y chromosome) we should allow any person with elevated levels of testosterone and a y chromosome (i.e. men who say they're women) to compete.

The move to include the Gabriel Ludwigs, McKinnons, Hannah Mounceys of this world in women's sports means that where, maybe twenty or thirty years ago, a decision to let one genuine outlier go, because the knock on effects wouldn't have been that huge, now we can't afford to because Semenya's case will be used as the lever to completely destroy women's sports. Not her fault - she didn't ask for her extremely unusual biology to be weaponised by a whole bunch of individuals with absolutely big standard male physiology (up to and including the ability to father children) but there we are.

I quite agree barracker, my sympathies have dwindled with regards to males with intersex conditions bullying women.

I don't understand why anybody would listen to this guy in relation to genetics. He's not a geneticist or an endocrinologist or even a doctor... his education is in Political Science (PhD), Public Policy (MA), and Math (BA). He is not qualified to discuss the CS debacle as an expert regardless of his interaction with sport oversight and climate change theories.

None of his work involves genetics, he hasn't done any genetic studies, and he isn't educated in biology/reproduction any more than I am with my math/finance/psych education. I'm actually probably more equipped than he is to discuss this topic considering I have a minor in psych.

Maybe I defer to actual experts because I'm lacking ego attached to a phallus. Or maybe I'm just a rational logical human being that doesn't act like an expert on things that I don't know anything about.

The fact that he's even being used as an expert witness in the CS situation just shows how batshit-crazy everything has gotten. Beyond the sport politics this guy is no more equipped to provide expert testimony on this subject than he is to treat my dog's thyroid problem.

Fucking post modernism

Social scientists thinking they’re actual scientists

If you say it then it’s true, right?

Weren't all 3 women's 800m medallists at a recent event, women with Semenya's extremely rare condition? Including Semenya herself.

These are all people who would have been raised as boys if there had been better medical technology available to their families when they were born.

Even for the sake of people with PAIS, I think it's clear that PAIS women shouldn't be allowed in women's sports. Medical advances spread through the world pretty quickly so I'd imagine even today the prospects of PAIS babies being correctly diagnosed in poor countries have improved.

You do not want a situation where there is a financial incentive in place to allow suspected PAIS to go undiagnosed, and diagnosed PAIS to go untreated (isn't it normal to remove the internal testes because of health risks? But Semenya has chosen not to do so - we aren't privy to her reasons for that choice, but we can see her incentives.)

This is a scientific article about those who are intersex, presenting typically visually as female at birth but subsequently found to have xy chromosomes in testing, a very rare situation but due to their elevated testosterone their have an advantage in sport against xx women. It addresses whether it's ethical to insist upon medication to alter their natural testosterone levels "for fairness" when the medication is essentially experimental.

I'm not passing judgement on what should be done - if I was an xx female athlete being beaten by a xy dsd athlete I would be angry I suppose but I also think that they didn't choose to be different and I suspect that they would actually prefer to be a "normal" woman,bloke being able to have children.

This isn't about transgender athletes who choose to take hormones, possibly have surgery etc.

Once we can accept that some people having very rare intersex conditions can have Y chromosomes and also can have vaginas, where does that take us in relation to people without intersex conditions having common or garden XY chromosomes? What does it tell us about their vagina-having capabilities?

It's like comparing apples and oranges. Or should that be like comparing figs and bananas.

stucknoue

This is a scientific article

No it isn't - it's an Op Ed piece - this dude doesn't know any more about genetics than you or I and certainly isn't equipped to write a scientific paper on it. Just because he put some sciency things in the article doesn't make it a scientific article.

allmywhat it wasn't any old 800m event, it was the Olympic final in Rio.

Why is he bringing PCOS women into this?

PCOS makes you gain weight! Hardly turns you onto an elite athlete. In fact the complete opposite!

And if you can lose that weight the testosterone goes down to normal ranges. So no advantages at all.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17980364/

What is wrong with these people? Is there nothing they won't try and use to perpetuate their bollocks?

No need to try make this anti-trans.. This.

I'm confused by what people who complain about Semenya being allowed to complete want.

Let's assume that someone has Swyer syndrome (we don't know Semenya's medical history and it's none of our business). This hypothetical person would have been born with a vagina and womb and have been raised as a woman. They could become pregnant with donor eggs.

Women with DSDs like this are phenotypically female. This is a million miles from the problems of self ID. We should not help TRAs appropriate the issues over DSDs.

It's not us doing the appropriation. Take it up with the TRAs on twitter, not with feminists.

It's not us doing the appropriation. Take it up with the TRAs on twitter, not with feminists.

Indeed not, it's regularly shot down.

I think sadly the testosterone limits on DSD women are necessary; but I don't really get the argument of OPs like this one if the point is not to conflate the issue with self ID.

That isn't a science piece, it's a legal argument/opinion piece.

www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/6170229/Caster-Semenya-is-a-hermaphrodite-tests-show.html

www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/sports/international/dutee-chand-female-sprinter-with-high-male-hormone-level-wins-right-to-compete.html

These cases are terribly complex and terribly sad but a) have no bearing on the discussion for trans athletes, and b) are still worthy of review.

I think sadly the testosterone limits on DSD women are necessary; but I don't really get the argument of OPs like this one if the point is not to conflate the issue with self ID.
It wasn't self-ID was it? It was and is sex determination on external genitalia at birth, followed by lack of disclosure on becoming aware that genetic and internal anatomy were not in alliance with external genitalia, which both Semenya and Chand would have found out in their teens. This is nothing to do with self-ID or transgender athletes. It is to do with what is fair or acceptable regarding sex-selected sports events.

The people who object to XX/no testes/female-reproductive-class common or garden women having their own category are deserving of as much sympathy as they offer those women.

Won't acknowledge that a class of people exist that are physically different from you?
Won't extend the principle of fair play to others, and by others I mean 'just women'?
I won't be feeling especially sorry for you.

If you have the integrity to first acknowledge that the existence of others precludes you from certain classes, then we've started from a position of fairness and mutual respect.

From what I understand, Semenya knew of their 46XY condition and internal testes as of 2009. From what I've read from endocrinologists, the internal testes are the ONLY way Semenya's T levels could be as high as they were. And we know the T was efficacious because when forced to lower it, Semenya's times dropped.

I don't feel sorry. From 2009 on, Semenya made a choice to compete with male advantage over females and has profited enormously from that choice.

The honourable and sporting thing would have been to bow out. Unfortunately, we live in a society that now privileges and rewards dishonourable conduct, and every single day, rewarding choices like Semenya's teaches exactly that to our children.

Maybe this is an aside, but a lot of popular science and social science magazines seem to have really gone downhill. Nature, Scientific American, some of the psychology ones, National geographic. It's not just this issue ether, I've notices it across a spectrum of questions.