PCOS and devastated to be called intersex

[kbana]

I’m typing this through tears but just need to write it down to try and get it out of my head. Sorry if it seems long or disjointed but I’m in a bit of a state.

I hold GC views but keep these to myself as I feel afraid to speak out in case I’m called a bigot/TERF. I don’t believe that a man can become a woman but I would use people’s chosen pronouns to be polite.

I feel strongly that male-bodied people should not be able to access female spaces (including changing rooms and toilets). One of my very good friends from my university days is extremely supportive of trans rights and was ranting to me this afternoon about women’s toilets being for all women and not just females. I would normally ignore these comments to avoid arguments as she can get very heated. This time though I decided to explain (calmly and reasonably) why I didn’t agree.

My friend said that she found it astonishing that I would take that position “when many people would consider me intersex” and pointed out that I never question my own right to use the women’s loos. I asked her what she meant and she said that because I have PCOS, most TRAs and some doctors would not call me female and would include me in the intersex category. She said that I should have more sympathy for people with gender dysphoria because like them, I try to change my body to fit with my belief that I am female by taking medication to give me periods and reduce hair growth.

I tried to argue that there are thousands of women with PCOS and that they all have XX chromosomes and are female. I also pointed out that the medication is to bring back my periods, which I would have biologically if it wasn’t for my hormonal imbalance. She just kept arguing despite seeing that I was getting tearful and said that if the thousands of women with PCOS were correctly considered intersex, it would break the idea that intersex is an extremely rare group. She said that society avoids categorising PCOS as intersex to maintain the idea of two fixed sexes and encourages people with PCOS to medicate so that they fit better into the “female binary”.

I was so upset to have my sex questioned and told her so, but she just replied that is how trans people feel. Although she may have wanted to hurt me because of my GC view, she genuinely seemed to think that having PCOS means I am intersex and that my treatment for PCOS is basically to reduce my gender dysphoria so that I feel more female.

I’m not really sure what I’m asking for here but I hoped that MNers on this topic who are better informed than me can help me articulate why her view of PCOS as intersex is wrong and reassure me that I correct in believing that I am fully female (I can’t believe I even had to write that last bit). I am pretty sure that our friendship is over so I doubt I’ll have this argument with her again but it would still help me to know exactly why her thinking is wrong.

I am devastated to have lost her friendship and to have been made to feel less than female because of my health condition. I also don’t understand why she is so supportive of trans people choosing their gender and yet wants to tell me which category I’m really in. It is offensive and upsetting.

If you got to the end of this, thank you for reading. I hope I don’t sound like I’ve made this is up -frankly, I find it hard to believe too. The most upsetting part is that even though I am almost convinced she is wrong, it has still planted a seed of doubt because it plays on my insecurities about being hairier etc than most other women.

Thank you for any advice.

Also pcos is not a dsd anyway.

@Fizzadora - amen to that!

What an idiot.

I had PCOS. But I guess that since I am menopausal, I no longer have PCOS.

Does that mean that I was once intersex but am not no longer intersex!

I have learned over many years you dont argue with stupid. There is nothing to say, you cant talk reason into them, they are extremists and illogical and unreasonable.

Walk away, grieve for your friendship, get over her and make new friends.

This one is so out there I'm struggling to believe it's real!

My SIL has PCOS and she and my brother have a child even, despite struggles with infertility. You need ovaries to have PCOS. She is all woman and so are you. Her struggles with infertility doesn't make her less of a woman.

This so called person you refer to as a friend is ideologically possessed to the point she no longer has a brain. You are way better off without them.

I'd agree. But when you hear TRAs say interesex people are as common as redheads? That's because they're including PCOS and hypospadias in their definition.

Another person with PCOS here. Your friend is talking out of her arse.

Intersex is more commonly known as DSD - differences/disorders in sex development, where someone's chromosomes (eg XX or XY) don't match their external genitals, or they have ambiguous genitalia; or where someone has an unusual chromosome pattern (eg XO or XXY); or babies born without a womb.
(This is taken from the NHS website)

PCOS is not a DSD it is an endocrine disorder affecting a woman's female reproductive organs.

Regardless, I'd drop this friend who seems to feel entitled to upset you just to make her (wrong) point.

Would any other malfunctioning reproductive organ put you in this fictional category? Erectile disfuction? Infertility? Irregular period? Gestational diabetes? Not being glowwy enough during pregnancy?

Just to demonstrate how stupid she is, even if PCOS was redefined as a DSD (Difference in / Disorder of Sexual Development - Intersex is not used any more), you would still be female, in every cell of your body, including those pesky ovaries over-producing testosterone. Because every cell of your body has two X chromosomes.

I have PCOS. I am/we are not intersex. Your 'friend' is a dopey shit and you need to dump her.

Your "friend" is so ridiculously wrong that I am almost embarrassed for her.

By no medical definition are you "intersex" (which is an outdated term anyhow, and one which your oh-so-trendy-and-right-thinking friend would not be using if she actually knew 1/10 of what she thinks she knows).

Women with PCOS are women; when they were young they were girls; when they get older, they will be older women. You can't have PCOS without ovaries, and you don't have ovaries without being of female sex (except for a tiny number of people who do actually have both ovaries and testicles - this is really, really rare).

PCOS is not anyone's choice. Unlike "intersex" (or disorders of sexual development), it's not congenital. It is however a fluctuating condition and potentially reversible - at least for some women - as there is a strong link between PCOS and obesity (in a rather chicken-and-egg manner). Women can sometimes struggle to conceive due to PCOS, undergo assisted conception, then find that they conceive a subsequent child quite easily as the PCOS has righted itself. It's a medical condition, linked to other medical problems (eg diabetes) and nothing whatsoever to do with sexuality or gender.

I am a doctor; in 30+ years of medical practice, I met many, many women with PCOS; quite a few, male and female, with a variety of congenital problems with their genitals; and only one who was a true DSD person - she had a uterus, vagina etc but no ovaries, only testes, and turned out to have male chromosomes.

I don't know of any doctors who would call someone with PCOS "intersex". It would never even enter my head. I really hope that helps you feel a bit happier again.

OTOH your "friend" is clearly so fixed in her erroneous beliefs that there's no point arguing with her. You can't educate someone who has blindfolded themselves and put their fingers in their ears.

This is kind of a small-scale version of "those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities". Those who buy into this stuff will say the most mind-bogglingly offensive stuff. Sometimes justifying it on the basis of how it's "what some people think". Um, but you're the one saying it, and using it in an argument!

One of their other favourites in the same vein is about how black women don't look like proper women.

Remember the only reason you even know you have PCOS is because these issues are distinct to females! You ARE a woman or there'd be no need to diagnose your symptoms.

A bloke in your shoes would be sent home with a very quick and easy diagnosis of maleness!

Honestly what a moron.

You can only have PCOS if you are a biological woman, ffs. Some people are idiots (and deeply unpleasant for using your medical history to upset you)

Nobody with more than a few brain cells would class someone with PCOS as intersex. She is being antagonistic and deliberately hurtful to you.

Well, probably not the last. But there's a breakdown at https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/intersex-is-not-as-common-as-red of the conditions that some try and include under the 'intersex' umbrella.

Hint: very few of them are anything other than very clearly male, or very clearly female.

Of course you are female. Only women have PCOS!!

Your 'friend' is an absolute shit. I'd block them on everything and never see them again. They are completely wrong. And as thick as shit.

She thinks people with PCOS are encouraged to medicate to reinforce the gender binary. Rather than to, you know, reduce some of the symptoms of PCOS. She clearly has an agenda.

Your friend sounds ghastly, OP. Of course you're not intersex!! What a horrible thing to say, she's just trying to hurt your feelings and is lashing out.

Not only is your friend a weapons grade bellend, not only is she absolutely factually incorrect, but she chose to weaponise a medical condition she knows you have to beat you over the head with to make her “point”. Knowing that it was upsetting you, and also not listening to the person with the actually condition who would know more about it than she does.

what a shit. You are better off without her.

You have a medical condition. Blokes wanting to be women have an imaginary condition. That is the difference.

Your friend is a capital C.

To summarise, your friend is a bonafide fuckwit.

Sorry to digress but I've just read the link re DSD and redheads and discovered that the definition of a "real man" would, according to one person, include "a penis between 2.5 and 4.5 cm at birth"

now I've seen a lot of baby boys with their nappies off, thanks to doing paediatrics and then lots of baby clinics - and a newborn with a 4.5 cm long penis? That's nearly two inches! In a newborn! What planet is this person on?

This op.

i hope id have been able to reflect her words back at her and say that i found it astonishing that someone could have such a poor grasp of basic human biology that they considered a woman with xx chromosomes to be intersex.

That is horrendous, cruel and completely stupid. Please never, ever speak to her again.