What about intersex people?

[tecbrowidow]

Hi mumsnetters, I can see a lot of posts in support of the UK court judgement ruling that the definition of woman is based in biology. I'm not in favour of this ruling because, aside from the trans issue, it places intersex people in an impossible position. For example those who are born with a female body and XY chromosomes (a rare condition which affects thousands of people in the UK). Biological sex is quite complicated, and I think the law should reflect that reality. I'm curious what other people think on this as I don't see the intersex angle being discussed in the media.

@Helleofabore

People's sex is not simply a matter of chromosomes only

hmm, I thought it was , or rather chromosomes were always going to be the deciding factor.
what other matters are there for consideration?

" biological sex is quite complicated"... can you elaborate on this? To me it's black and white. one or the other, wheres the confusion? You can't make a law for a tiny tiny minority of people it isn't fair. I doubt people with dsd would appreciate being dragged in to this ludicrous debate

People with DSDs are male or female and nothing to do with trans. Where people have been raised as the 'wrong' sex I've never seen anything to suggest that women aren't supportive of them in daily life.

Here is the explanation.

Or this one

https://www.theparadoxinstitute.com/watch/defining-sex-vs-determining-sex

theres a lot of people online who declare themselves to be intersex, showing clearly they aren’t. Lots of them saying they didn’t realise until they were older and that’s why they are trans. It’s clearly nonsense.
People who have DSD or organisations who represent them need to be pushing back on this.

And as I'm on a roll, this case defined sex in law

https://sex-matters.org/posts/case-law/corbett-v-corbett/

The testing looks at the presence of ovaries or testes for another aspect. Whether in a working format or as a streak gonad. No body has a body producing both. So one of the aspects they have to consider is whether that body part is present.

For instance, male people with 5ARD such as Semenya and likely Mboma and Khelif and Lin are most definitely male because they have testes. They may be undescended but they are still there in the body producing testosterone.

I thought that the situation was expressed very well in this recent British Medical Journal editorial:
"Sex (male or female) is determined by gametes at conception with phenotype influenced by chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive organs. A few people are found to have one of a small number of clinically recognised variations in sex development (VSDs) after expert investigation. These individuals nonetheless have a sex, either male or female."

I think we need a Bingo card for all the newbies. A womens rights area is a strange place for these people to congregate

It's also worth noting that before the Supreme Court judgment, the Scottish government's interpretation of the law wasn't that anyone who identified as a woman could use women's facilities, but rather, that non-women could only do so if they had a secret certificate (GRC).

There are not 'thousands' of people with CAIS. Around 2-5 in 100000 males (XY individuals) have CAIS. That means there are approximately 1000 people in the UK with CAIS. They are genetical male but phenotypically female and the condition is commonly not identified until puberty. Since they are phenotypically female and have been raised and socialised as a female very few people would think they should be in male single-sex spaces and even fewer would be able to identify them as being anything other than a girl or woman.

Lol.

<Settles in>

"I don't see the intersex angle being discussed in the media."

Because the clarification was about women. Do you find it hard to just focus on women's needs when and where appropriate?

If we were talking about disability, should I be focusing on elite sports?

Chromosomes determine sex, they don't define sex.

It is a common tactic of trans privileges advocates to disguise or conflate these terms in order to create confusion about the definition of "sex".

Understanding the distinction between define and determine allows us to include genetic outliers into the sex binary because they don't undermine it.

oooh…. Ticks bingo card..

I am worried that we are regressing towards extinction as we cannot tell the difference between the sexes and it’s all too complicated.

The older and more jaundiced I get, the more I think this would be no bad thing. The other surviving species on the planet would be all the better for it.

Oh stop with this nonsense. People with DSDs are either male or female. They know which sex they are. We've done this over and over.

We are not going to accept males back into female spaces.

Do you have a link please?

Jaundiced?!!

I think Reddit's leaking again, can someone weld a patch on it?

Thanks in advance!

Time for this one again:

One of my friends has Turners Syndrome, she’s female, as are all people with Turners. She was only diagnosed as a teenager. Maybe do some research? Implying DSDs are so complicated that no one knows what sex they are is insulting. All people with DSDs are either male or female.