Have I completely misunderstood GCSE biology...

[proximalhumerous]

...or is the purpose of spotting an anomaly not specifically to disregard it in order that it doesn't lead to an inaccurate conclusion?

If so, why is everyone fixating on DSDs as "proof" that sex is a spectrum, when the anomalous 1.7% (if indeed it is as high as that - from what I've read that figure is only achieved if you include conditions such as PCOS which have a tenuous claim at best to be one of the "intersex" variations) is clearly a set of results that don't fit. Because something has deviated from the norm. It's not like calculating the mean of a range of heights, FFS.

Please can someone more scientific than me explain what is going on here? Or is it simply that certain factions are so hell-bent on arguing that anyone with ladyfeels can be a woman they're happy to completely disregard any sort of science or logic in order to do so?

Ohhh. Now I understand.

Fifty-year-old frock-wearing Dave who can talk of literally nothing other than being trans, you mean?

Completely agree and I will be right with you

What is a sensible figure of the incidence of DSDs?

The TRAs don't like it when you ask how we know that Clownfish can change sex.

I don't think you mean to quote me...

Or how it's relevant to mammals.

It's always fish, or invertebrates. Or fungi

For...some reason

No, I didn't! I meant to quote @Waitwhat23.

Or fruit.

I thought clownfish and avocados proved sex could be changed.

If you eat enough avocados, no doubt. But what do you do with the clownfish?

Most credible sources seem to place it at around 0.018% (the TRA's rely on the ridiculous, completely discredited Fausto Sterling 'as common as redheads' argument for their 'facts')

I suppose you could use a couple of them as bra inserts.

@proximalhumerous
? Or is it simply that certain factions are so hell-bent on arguing that anyone with ladyfeels can be a woman they're happy to completely disregard any sort of science or logic in order to do so

You've got it right already. Apparently feelz are more important than actual biology and they will say it til they're blue in the face. The whole ideology is built on bullshit and to imply otherwise means you're a big fat meanie😂

to change sex you first have to change into a clownfish? That sounds tricky

Thanks. That sounds much more realistic.

And, as Helen Joyce points out, as common as redheads where? There aren't very many in Namibia, for example.

So, as I understand it, DSDs should be discounted for the following reasons:

1. All DSDs can still be categorised as male or female;
2. Sex is determined by the body being on the pathway to producing large or small gametes; the fact that something mutated in a particular specimen doesn't change that;
3. The tiny numbers of people who have a DSD show that it is an anomaly and should therefore be disregarded;
4. Any functional spectrum in a species cannot include infertile members of that species as those members are evolutionarily defunct;
5. Sex classification is entirely related to reproduction and only a male plus a female can reproduce; there is no room in this paradigm for a "third sex".

Not sure whether I've missed any...

Count me in.

I only discovered I was supposedly intersex (DSD) because of a train and did some research 😂 https://www.southwesternrailway.com/other/news-and-media/news/2023/march/swr-launches-uks-first-intersex-inclusive-pride-train.

The clue is the acronym is PCOS = Polycystic Ovary Syndrome I.e. you need at least one ovary, preferably two, to have PCOS. Only females have ovaries.

Sadly for tras, humans are not clownish or avocado's.
Some other animals can fly. We can't do that either because we're a different species 😁

Oops - to prove, not to proof.

Thank you, this is really excellent.

Interestingly, out of the 20 or so variations, the highest incidence is 1:650 with most others being considerably more rare (as few as 1:100,000 in one case), so how the total of these conditions, in any combination/proportion, could possibly produce a figure of 1.7% of the population is beyond me (i.e. it's mathematically impossible).

Some people are complicit in their own naivety and ignorance, which makes them easy to confuse and easy to deceive.

A colleague, whose baby was premature, came on a KIT day. She explained that her baby was born early because she had "an infection in my water". "Which water? I asked. She looked at me, confused. "Amniotic fluid or urinary infection? Womb or pee?" "I don't know. The doctor said it was an infection in my water."

Yes, a year or so later I did have to explain to her that it was unkind to promise someone something that they could never have. That letting a little girl think that she was a boy was unkind because puberty would turn her into a woman and she would then not have the tools to cope with it. "But she can have medicine for that." "It will never turn her into a boy. It would turn her into a damaged, infertile woman with osteoporosis. And the world would still look at her and see a woman, no matter what she has been told throughout her childhood." "Oh. Are you sure?"

🤦🏻‍♀️

The TRA mentality is to reject the male/female sex binary simply because there is variation in how sex is determined (not “defined”) and because of a variation in how sex is expressed in our bodies and behaviour.

All DSD’s are either categorised as male or female. For some people might take a little more investigation to find out which sex they are, but that doesn’t change the definition of male and female.

I think people who push the sex is a spectrum narrative do so because they don’t want to have to face up to the reality that the feeling of a having a gender identity is no more scientific than the feeling of having a soul.

What is so bonkers about the whole DSD/ trans thing is that the trans population doesn’t have any DSD

its like - we must be trans because DSD exists is as logical as because the Eiffel Tower is tall - completely unrelated

Is it people with DSDs, or people who identify as having DSDs? Because there are loads of TRAs who claim to 'be intersex' but much like their claims to be the opposite sex, it's a lie.

I think this is good: differently-normal.com/

As far as I'm aware, they are people who actually have DSDs. But who knows, these days?!

As we've just established, DSDs are incredibly rare. Trans-identifying individuals claiming to be in some way 'intersex' is very common. And trans identification is not that rare. Ergo most DSD claims are now false, and an indicator of trans identification.