Confusing statement about treatment for intersex being a victory for trans community

[IwantToRetire]

I feel a bit bad about making this a thread topic as it is clearly quite something to win the Women's Prize for fiction with your first novel.

And I am not meaning or wanting in any way to make this a personal attack.

But surely calling this trans treatment isn't right? Or have I got it wrong?

Van der Wouden revealed in her acceptance speech that she is intersex. “I was a girl until I turned 13, and then as I hit puberty all that was supposed to happen did not quite happen, or if it did happen it happened too much,” she said. “I won’t thrill you too much with the specifics but the long and the short of it is that hormonally I am intersex.”

“This little fact defined my life throughout my teens until I advocated for the healthcare that I needed. In the few precious moments here on stage I am receiving truly the greatest honour of my life as a woman, presenting to you as a woman and accepting this Women’s prize and that is because of every single trans person who’s fought for healthcare, who changed the system, the law, societal standards, themselves. I stand on their shoulders.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jun/12/womens-prize-debut-yael-van-der-wouden-the-safekeep-rachel-clarke-the-story-of-a-heart

And this isn't the Guardian twisting her words, because other papers have posted snippets and this seems the fullest.

So my confusion is whether it is true that the treatment for a biological women with DSD has only become (more) available since medical intervention for men who want to transition has become more common.

If she wants to identify as part of the trans and queer community that's her right.

I am just hoping someone with the right medical knowledge can explain what she might be referring to.

Sorry if this is a really ignorant question.

That is mostly correct, while exact numbers of intersex and transgender people is not known, just this number would not tell the whole story as many intersex people never even know about the fact, not to mention go into the trenches to pick up the good fight.

Transgender people on the other hand are way more likely to take that stand, and do so loudly, as the respect in rights, and access to medical interventions (if wanted) are literally life saving (there are tons of studies showing the correlation between access to those and suicide rates). And when transgender people gain rights, generally so do intersex people, although UK still remains quite backwards in this regard.

Now whether an intersex person counts themselves as transgender is entirely down to them and either approach as valid.

So my confusion is whether it is true that the treatment for a biological women with DSD has only become (more) available since medical intervention for men who want to transition has become more common.

I suspect its a general improvement in endocrinology understanding and treatment, not that the demands of men to grow boobs leads to a greater understanding of womens health. Which i think she is suggesting?

DSD often become apparent during puberty, and some demand to suppress the puberty of children caught up in trans ideology. But i cant see how the latter can directly inform the treatment for the former?

It sounds to me like TRA are suggesting/threatened that if authorities stop childhood medical transition, research into DSD will be reduced.

I was going to explain more after your first paragraph but then I read the rest. When you grow up and are genuinely interested, and will skip offensive language, I am sure someone will offer to help, but for now... Yeah, grow up first.

My confusion is that is someone who is biologically female and has DSD may receive treatment relating to how their female biology doesn't "devolop" in what is considered to be the normal way. And presumably how this is treated depends on the way developments differs.

Someone who is trans or wants to transition is trying to modify the sex of their body to make it appear or seem to be the opposite sex to the one they were born. Which isn't about their body not developing in what is seen as normal for their sex. ie their body doesn't have a medical condition.

How trans patients respond to treatment may inform treatment for patients with dsd. Just as any other condition may.

But the idea that children with DSD owe a debt of gratitude to adults funding transing children is offensive.

Eh, literary festivals are virtue-signalling circle jerks. No doubt they all felt they had to express hand-wringing sympathy for the transborg, and grandstanding your claimed special alliance with the rainbow alphabet (thus validating the "I" inclusion for guaranteed PR cookies) is a boss power move.

There's nothing about DSDs or transgenderiness in her book.

The “I” being absorbed into the TQ+ umbrella is just another example of how the lines are blurred to make the whole thing more palatable. Now, instead of treating DSD issues on their own terms, they’re yoked to the trans agenda in a way that oversimplifies everything.

DSD people face real, complex, often painful medical and biological issues that can lead to medical interventions, surgeries, or lifelong health concerns: things that are often completely ignored when their experiences are lumped under the TQ+ umbrella. It’s not just a matter of identity; it’s about actual, sometimes debilitating, biological realities.

And DSDs actually prove the biological sex binary. These conditions (e.g. Klinefelter Syndrome, Turner Syndrome, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome), are sex-specific and occur within the framework of male and female biology. They’re variations within the binary, not outside of it. Trying to fit these real, biological conditions into the nebulous and ideologically-driven “TQ+” umbrella only serves to confuse and distort the scientific realities of sex differences. It’s a way of bypassing biology to fit a narrative that ignores the very distinctions that DSDs highlight.

This person could’ve used her platform to talk about the real complexities of being intersex (which has nothing to do with her book anyway), but instead, she just tacks her identity onto the ever-expanding trans bandwagon. It’s lazy, and a way to gain political capital by hitching herself to a more dominant narrative. The messier, more uncomfortable truths get thrown out of the window.

It’s nonsense because of the contradiction.

Campaigners for children with DSDs have long advocated for children to be left alone hormonally and surgically until they’re 18 because of the (correct IMO) belief that these children should be able to make their own decisions about they’re bodies when they are old enough.

Modern trans activists argue the same exact opposite for gender distressed children; they argue that children should be medicalised with hormones and surgery as soon as possible and they are more than capable of making such drastic changes to their bodies at a young age.

Regardless of this person’s sex or DSD diagnosis, it’s laughable to consider that trans activism has helped. It’s doing the exact opposite.

As I understand it, there are over 30 conditions that have been identified that fall under the DSD umbrella, so someone has been paying attention, and long before the 'trans' debacle started.

Exactly. The connection was made by genderists when, having surfed on public sympathy for the 'feminine' style of male homosexual, they were faced with people starting to notice the preponderance of hulking great male 'women' claiming to be lesbians - not at all the sympathetic stereotype.

When they said trans women ARE women, meaning visibly male heterosexuals with an unseemly fondness for talking about their 'female' penises, there was a fair amount of pushback and ridicule. Landing on DSDs as their new sympathy vehicle was clever: it let them cut down the "anyone can see that's a bloke" objectors with a single sweep of faux science. You can't see anyone's sex, they sneered: you can't even be sure you know what sex YOU are unless you've been karyotyped!

Oooh, long words and medical disorders! Sex identification is so fundamental to life, few people have given it any thought. The news that some people actually do have to be 'karyotyped' to find out their biological sex was quite shocking. It suddenly made sex - a fact of life so basic that nobody discusses it - into a great, wondrous mystery understood only by the privileged few (guess who?!) They could come out with any old shite and people accepted it, because only yesterday they'd taken it for granted.

The fact that DSD/intersex organisations were pleading not to be used as a trans talking point meant nothing: they weren't going around 'educating' the public en masse but the genderists were. An intrepid few experts (the real kind) tried to correct the flood of misinformation, mostly unheard yet forcefully attacked by genderists who'd read half a paragraph on Wikipedia.

The success of this line of attack on reality is well illustrated by the huge amount of fawning media coverage lavished on Yael Van der Wouden, thanks to her nonsensical little statement. Winners of the Booker Women's Prize rarely get this much publicity.

Transgenderism's a very impressive, multi-pronged assault on societal structures, common sense, thought and speech. It's exhausting. I wish it would go away.

Scold alert!

What she says about her medical condition and what context she puts it in is up to her. It is deliberately vague though, which is unusual for people who want medical conditions to be better understood in themselves.

This is from AidaP at 02.44

“(there are tons of studies showing the correlation between access to those <refers to trans ‘healthcare’> and suicide rates). And when transgender people gain rights, generally so do intersex people, although UK still remains quite backwards in this regard.”

Thanks to Cass, we’re all well aware of the quality and quantity of studies relating the pharmacological and surgical treatments of trans-presenting young patients to their suicide risk. Spoiler alert, there’s nothing credible.

I’ve never seen anything relating transgender ‘rights’ to a society’s treatment of people with DSD’s (there is no ‘intersex’ third sex); Aida doesn’t choose to evidence the argument.

All of which gives a pretty good indication of which poster needs to ‘grow up’

So the argument boils down to another variation of let’s conflate gender with biological sex to muddy the waters and let’s have a free for all at the latter end of the alphabet soup who of course are the most vulnerable etc etc.

I do think she may be the latest gotcha to be trotted out amongst the scientific illiterati sadly to the detriment of good work done by intersex campaigners seeking better treatment for their conditions.

Look one intersex mildly nichey famous person thinks this, therefore it must reflect the entire position of the whole cohort. I weep for the critical thinking skills of this generation of writers.

If anything I thought the opposite was true - that medical treatment was more likely in the past, to the point of parents sometimes concealing the condition from their children.

This would have long predated any concept of trans rights.

However, perhaps intersex is an identity that some people with DSDs find helpful, It’s not clear what is meant by the speech.

She is so vague about her condition, just saying 'intersex' and talking about trans people that it wasn't clear she even has a DSD.

It's possible she found comfort from other people saying that they were upset their bodies weren't M/F enough and it didn't stop them being women.

If it'd been a different time in history or she hadn't been a vulnerable teenager, she'd probably have thought it offensive that a female hormone imbalance would have actual males saying they were the same as her.

There is a generational thing though. I know a number of women with PCOS. Those in their 40s are very offended to be grouped into that "2% are intersex," guff going around, that having this female medical condition does not mean TRAs can assign them as "not female," for their own ends. I have however met students who call themselves queer or intersex for having it. There's more social currency in being part of the QI+ than being a woman with an illness. It's even possible it makes them happier to do so, at least short term.

It absolutely does not help treatments for DSDs to have trans people clogging up the endocrinology waiting lists or taking funding for research. I would admit I was wrong if a single treatment developed this way could be presented. However, TRAs want basic hormones and cosmetic surgery - all of which has been around for ages.

Personally, I think people (mainly women) with medical conditions are being appropriated and exploited by people who are completely phenotypically one sex but want to act like there are blurred lives they can cross.

Perhaps the author has a DSD which although they were thought to be female at birth based on external genitalia was revealed at puberty that biologically/ hormonally they are male?

If they have been medically/ surgically been able to maintain a female appearance to align with their belief that they were a woman then I could see how that would align them with other people who say they 'feel like' a woman.

But is she biologically female? The wording of that quote (I haven't read the whole article) suggests that she might have a DSD that presents as female until puberty, when the resulting changes reveal that the person is biologically male, and she later had healthcare so she could present as a woman.

So it's possible to have a DSD and be transgender, were 'trans' means choosing to present as the sex you thought you were in childhood, which probably feels more like staying the same rather than transitioning.

Am I the only person interpreting her words in this way?

AidaP: "And when transgender people gain rights, generally so do intersex people, although UK still remains quite backwards in this regard."

People with DSD gained a change in the registration law in Germany about 15 years ago by campaigning, and at that time there was no talk of Trans in connection with it. I remember a few interviews with people with DSD, explaining why they wanted to have the "d" (diverse) entry for their sex. Most impressive to me was a lady, of 60+ years, who was genetically male, but only found out in her 20s, after marriage and being unable to have children. Also around that time they made a law to raise the age for surgical interventions to 18.

The Trans movement only got interested in DSDs later, because of the sex is a spectrum story, and they now have appropriated the "d" registration with the new self-id law (everyone can self-id as diverse now in Germany, you needed a diagnosis of DSD before).
So from my perspective as an older person, the Trans movement hasn't been helpful in the big picture. What's more, the DSD people & friends did campaign for their own issues and gained changes.

Think about the trauma this man went through at puberty on discovering he was male because an error was made.

Now consider the kids being socially transitioned deliberately at 5 or 6 who are being deliberately set up for the situation this male found despite ALL the adults in the child's life being aware of the child's sex.

It's abusive. I know of a child in this situation. I'm told the parents are lovely. Abusive parents can often seem charming. But you don't go along with it and enable the parents knowing it will cause harm to the child because the parents are nice. Yet this is what the school and the rest of the parents in the class do. I'm so glad I don't know them.

I have however met students who call themselves queer or intersex for having it. There's more social currency in being part of the QI+ than being a woman with an illness. It's even possible it makes them happier to do so, at least short term.

Less a generational thing and more an ill informed, attention seeking thing, really. They can insist that PCOS is an 'intersex' condition all they like. Doesn't make it so.

@yetanotherusernameAgain that's how I read it too.

It is thought provoking because, in cases where there's a physical advantage like sports it really does matter... but for a writing award... is being raised as female from birth (and having health care to align your body with how you 'feel') and passing as a woman 'enough'?

Surely the reason for needing a 'woman's' writing award is all about the way women are perceived... not because we believe men are better / different when it comes to writing?

Edit: ...anyone can self-id as diverse now

It depends on the subject matter. If you are writing about how periods and hormones affect you, then yes it very much does matter!