Intersex

[Tootsurly]

Bit of a thought experiment, plus curious as to how much people know about intersex conditions / DSDs.

This is slightly Black Mirror, although not totally beyond the realms of possibility. If there ever came a point where anything specifically related to being male or female required a DNA test to determine your sex before participating, what would happen to intersex people whose chromosomes didn't match their outward appearance (i.e. genotype and phenotype don't match)?

You don't get to say if it's offensive.

How about if soneone sent a barrage of tweets claiming you were profiteering?
Wright's respose wasn't ideal, but he was provoked and the balance of bad behaviour seems to have been in the other side.

I don’t think it was wise of Wright to engage.
O’Brien’s poor behaviour spoke for itself.
However, the tweets about profiteering came after Wright had suggested giving money to charity in exchange for debate I think? That was a bad idea from the start and he later compounded it with the GoFundMe. It wasn’t profiteering (for himself at least) but it was an attempt to manipulate and coerce. Not nice.

Wright's respose wasn't ideal, but he was provoked and the balance of bad behaviour seems to have been in the other side.

This.

I remember feeling very uncomfortable at the time but also fascinated by what was playing out. I had no intention of donating to the fund but it was an interesting way to approach it. It certainly garnered attention to the "academic dispute"**, which is ultimately a good thing.

It's a totally different topic but I imagine that's also how I'd have felt if I'd been around at the time that (some of) the Suffragettes were throwing bricks through shop windows etc as part of their protest.

** that's the kindest way I can describe O'Brien's dismissal of the Cass Report and subsequent ad hominem critique of Wright.

Sayers syndrome is a female dsd that results in xxy
The corresponding male dsd of xxy is kinefelters syndrome
Whilst they both involve xxy chromosome groups the extra x chromosome in males effect the male differently to the added y chromosome to females

Swyer is 46XY with no SRY.

That doesn’t really make any sense @Hoardasurass.

Swyers syndrome occurs in XY individuals. It is very rare: 1 in 80,000. As the issue is on the Y chromosome a similar, but even rarer, outcome can occur in those with XXY karyotypes. 1 in 500 males have klinefelters. So XXY with a female phenotype would occur roughly in 1 in 80 million individuals. So on average less than one person in the UK.

Swyer's (not Sayers) is a female DSD where people have XY chromosomes (not XXY).

It affects (not effects) people by making them infertile, amongst other things.

So who does?

Black people can reclaim the "n" word, Rosie Jones can reclaim "retard", gay people can reclaim "queer", so why don't intersex people get to decide who uses the word "intersex"?

You can call yourself intersex if you like but that puts you in the same category as the trans-intersex self identifiers and the men who think an extra x makes them less male (it doesn’t).

Whereas if you stick to your specific DSD/VSD diagnosis you aren’t in the same category as them (which is what I thought you wanted? To not be lumped in with those you have nothing in common with?)

The group of people who are 'reclaiming' the word queer are not the same group of people who were queerbashed/gaybashed. It is still very contested as older gays and lesbians have extremely bad associations with it (for very good reason - some of the people who were beaten up were very badly injured and some sadly died). Younger people, especially the spicy straights, have latched onto it as a self descriptor.

I personally find that people who describe themselves as queer or intersex are more likely to be ideologically in step with gender identity ideology. Those who are gay/lesbian or have DSDs and don't use those terms are usually sex realists.

This is a generalisation, but I have found that it holds up IRL.

Personally I think that intersex is inaccurate, which is of course the point for the GII believers.

I thought it was a central tenet of being GC that you didn't become something just because you identify as it, or call yourself that thing?

If I choose to call myself intersex (and I have already said I'm not particularly bothered by the terminology, but that most people I know with DSDs do call themselves intersex and that is surely up to them) it doesn't make me the same as someone who is trans (which I'm not) and who self-identifies (which I don't), and I'm not sure what gives you the authority to make this pronouncement.

Perhaps, like most of the intersex people I know, I don't want people to know my specific diagnosis. Perhaps that's private. But either way, what I call myself doesn't change that diagnosis, or the fact that I do have one and someone who self-identifies (probably) doesn't.

I find your stance rather odd as presumably you don't appreciate people telling you what to call them (i.e. dictating pronoun use) and you don't think a person can change their biology with language.

I think your observation of people who describe themselves as intersex is probably correct, and I agree it is not an accurate term, biologically.

But of all the moronic gender politics/ideology stuff I hear spouted by this group, the fact most of them chose to call themselves intersex is probably the thing that bothers me the least. Surely they can use it as a self-descriptor, too?

Of course they can use it for themself. I draw the line at anyone enforcing the term on someone who does not like it.

I find your stance rather odd as presumably you don't appreciate people telling you what to call them (i.e. dictating pronoun use) and you don't think a person can change their biology with language.

Why? I said upthread that intersex as a term is meaningless so anyone can identify as it (whereas ‘female’ and ‘male’ have actual definitions),

I can identify as a flarf if I want but it doesn’t change my biology or mean anything to anyone except me. I can even campaign for flarf acceptance and flarf spaces if I feel like it, but I have to accept that most people will just momentarily wonder what the fuck a flarf is and then dismiss me.

Do you have a variant of sexual development?
If so, are you self diagnosed and have you told my odious work colleague that you have two working reproductive systems, one male one female? And that you are her "friend" despite having only interacted with her online in text or with heavily filtered photos?

Yes, I have a variant of sexual development, no I am absolutely not self-diagnosed; rather I was diagnosed by various paediatricians, gynaecologists and endocrinologists. No, I don't have two working reproductive systems (?!) - I would have considered myself fortunate to have one. And no, I don't know or have anything to do with your odious work colleague (and although I can't quite work out what's going on, it sounds utterly bonkers).

I'm as GC as the next person and don't agree with all this random self-identification, but that doesn't mean there aren't actual medically-diagnosed people with DSDs.

Why? Because I don't quite understand what gives you the right or authority or knowledge to proclaim/dictate that intersex is a meaningless term.

People may well wonder what the fuck a flarf is, but I think most people have a rough idea what intersex means. More to the point, there are people who (justifiably) refer to themselves as intersex and organisations using the term. I assume there isn't yet a society of community of flarfs?

NB, as I've said elsewhere, I am as gender-critical as the next woman/intersex person/flarf, but I don't think you can just unilaterally dismiss the term when it's widely used, even if its meaning is abused. I could call myself a colander, but regardless of whether you think I am one it doesn't change the meaning of the word colander.

Well we're in agreement then!

but I think most people have a rough idea what intersex means

I think a lot of people don’t, which precisely why ‘intersex’ is pushed by gender ideology. People think it means they are somehow between sexes, that sex is somehow spectrum. This is purposeful to try and undermine the male/female distinctions so can be replaced with genders.

I think a lot of people don’t, which precisely why ‘intersex’ is pushed by gender ideology. People think it means they are somehow between sexes, that sex is somehow spectrum.

Agreed. But I'm with the OP on why the term "intersex" isn't the battleground. Prior to this thread, I thought it was (and I'll continue to use the term DSD instead) but IMO it's more important to focus on the fact that DSDs are sex-specific.

I see it as similar to how I don't fight the pronoun "battle". If someone is using opposite sex pronouns in a conversation with me IRL (i.e they are using the preferred pronouns of someone with a transgender identity), I don't pass comment. I just listen and respond to the points that they are making e.g. if they say "Barbra Banda shouldn't be BBC women's footballer of the year because she isn't a woman, she's a man with a DSD", I engage with the main talking point: obviously the evidence on Barbra Banda's sex isn't in the public arena, but what we do know is that Banda has been found ineligible to compete in the Africa Cup of Nations on the grounds of sex (or "gender eligibility" as it's called). In other words, I let the "she" pronouns slide by.

I assume the OP has a similar feeling about the term "intersex". If so, fair enough.

Ok, let's just say more people have heard of intersex than have heard of a bleedin' flarf!

But I totally agree that the commandeering of the term to "prove" that sex is a continuum is not at all helpful.

I disagree. Especially around pronouns. Gender ideology cannot change reality so this is a battle around language. Stealing women’s pronouns is violence against women. ‘Intersex’, like pronouns, matters because it is designed to obsfucate reality. On one level it might seem innocuous how people refer to themselves but then more and more forms appears asking whether you are male, female or intersex/other and suddenly data is corrupted. Suddenly you are faced with people saying you can’t have male/female toilets because what about intersex? People wonder what your issue is recording rapists as female when you called another trans-identified man she.

Intersex is one of those things that didn’t used to be an issue but has been weaponised by transactivists. If you like the term to describe your condition then get angry with them.

Were you and the people you know diagnosed as intersex OP? I wonder if that is why you find it's usage prevalent. In the same way I use Aspergers for my DC's condition despite it no longer being used and considered outdated by some or even many.

This article explains my understanding of people with Swyer syndrome - which I think is now called gonadal dysgenesis and means you are biologically male but with an outward female appearance.

novonordiskfonden.dk/en/news/more-women-than-expected-are-genetically-men/