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.

"The Safekeep is a romantic and family saga set in the Netherlands in 1961 which explores the treatment of Dutch Jews in the postwar period."

As someone with a cousin born 'intersex' in the 60s and was made female at 6 months old, then hit puberty, knew he was a he, became so mentally ill because of it, which resulted in their suicide, I find it abominable that the 'trans' community, and the idiotic parents want children as young as 3 (no medical reasons) assigned to a different sex. Don't they do research?, don't they see the result of what happened to thousands of people wrongly assigned as babies?
I hate those that jump on trendy bandwagons with their stupid ideals.
My aunt never got over my cousins death, and blamed herself, even though in those days 'that's what the medical profession did'
Thankfully nowadays these babies are left to see what gender they become, if either, it's their choice.

Yes, that is how I read based on the information we have. This is the key sentence in Yael’s speech

“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,”

I wonder if the quality of the novel actually warrants this rare achievement of having a debut novel win the prize? It is certainly VERY convenient for the WPF on a number of levels.

Why are you claiming that people claiming a trans identity and taking cross sex hormones to change their appearance has any bearing on medical treatment for people with chromosomal abnormalities that affects their reproductive development?

People do not claim a trans identity because of chromosome abnormalities, otherwise there would be a test for ‘trans’. Medical research for people with DSDs is entirely different to the unscientific practice of creating a deliberate hormone imbalance in otherwise healthy people in order to change their appearance. HTH.

In reference to your other comment on PPs post about men wanting to grow boobs - you do know that many men who identify as women call their oestrogen pills ‘titty skittles’? Why would they do that do you think?

There's not enough information in Van der Wouden's words for any clarity, so anyone can latch onto them.

But this has echoes of Imane Khelif.

I’m interested in developing a better understanding of the rights issues that arise because of having a DSD. I imagine them to be the same as those that arise with other health conditions.

I'm not sure what's going on and so I'm reluctant to comment, other than that I find it surprising that an award winning writer does not have the words at their disposal to describe their condition more clearly.

its another land grab I imagine

These days I see 'woman wins woman award' and automatically think 'must be a man'.

If she IS a woman then why go into all the nonsense about intersex/trans in the first place? Why not just say 'thank you how wonderful'?

Another comment of note from the article is that about disliking the idea of ‘tolerance’ and wanting ‘love’ instead.

This kind of narrative is lazy. Humans will always hold different views about what is right or wrong, good or bad. When/where these differences relate to issues that are important to people, they are not going to like, let alone love, those who opposed them. It is entirely reasonable to hope for tolerance, and one up from that, affordance of dignity and respect.

I'm wondering if in this case it's swyer syndrome. If so then it is possible that some treatments they have had would be similar to treatments for trans people.

And when transgender people gain rights, generally so do intersex people

Do they?

I'm at a loss really as to how it helps someone who is going through a life altering medical diagnosis, to be scooped up in the trawler net of LGBTQ+ identity politics.

If nothing else, the TRAs always give fantastic examples of forced teaming, and the damage it does to the groups they force-team with.

Women being the obvious one,

LGBTQ of course, the next biggest

Then 10 or so years ago, when people were more sympathetic to immigrants, the line was Trans people and immigrants

When BLM got big, it was Black and Trans lives matter slotted in everywhere

Trans and Intersex has bubbled along in the background

As soon as there is an actually disadvantaged group, they will latch onto it, leech funding, taking up places in leadership if they can.

It seems unhelpful to partially out oneself. Say, or don’t say. This vagueness isn’t edifying. It simply doesn’t contribute information to the conversation, just confusion.

I'd guess at virtue signalling. It's worked, hasn't it? She's everybody's darling right now. In video interviews, she comes across as a normal female person. Normal female voice, intonations, gestures, etc. No uncommonly large hands or feet. She might have something like CAIS or MRKH - both usually discovered at puberty - or something as pedestrian as PCOS (would explain the "some things happening too much" - I have it and they did!)

I fucking hate the way genderism's made me so very interested in identifying certain people's sex 🧐 Especially in a case like this, where it doesn't really matter.

And when transgender people gain rights, generally so do intersex people

It’s patronising, isn’t it?

“Look how lucky intersex [sic] people are that trans activists are fighting for their rights too. Say thank you, intersex people!”

What rights have trans activists gained for people with DSDs?

The right to confuse the world about biological sex?

The right to commit children to societal stereotypes with medical treatments?

Genuinely, how has trans activism benefited people with DSDs?

I wonder if the motivation to use the platform in this way links to bystander guilt? Perhaps, the issues arising for those with DSDs in sport are being conflated with winning a women’s award it literature.

I don’t see them as comparable. If an author had a male DSD and was treated for this during adolescence, then passed as female, resulting in male advantage not kicking in, and publishers and critics judging an entry as if written by a women, this does not reflect the unfair playing field arising in sport.

As is so often the case with trans issues, the lack of nuance and the application of critical thinking seems likely

I have heard people use this argument as evidence that trans people are the most oppressed. They suggest that when they team up with others (framed as when others team with them to be allies), they experience a backlash because of the support they show.

Of course, I don’t let this go unchallenged. I point out that those making anti-women arguments get push back, no matter who is making the argument. I suggest that the ‘backlash’ goes to prove that it isn’t simply trans people that are being opposed, it’s anyone seeking to erode women’s rights.

I think that, for whatever reason, she is a trans ally and wants to signal support by referring to her own experiences, which are likely to have involved surgery and hormone treatment.

Just because she has a DSD, that doesn't make her an expert on the biology of sex, and I find it quite sad that she's implying that she's not really a woman (by aligning herself with transwomen).

DSDs and trans are mutually exclusive scenarios. People with DSDs have incongruent sex attributes and are always required to make (age-appropriate) choices about medical treatment and/or social and legal sex. (Even if it's the choice of inaction.) They can correct their birth registration retroactively in the UK.

Trans people have congruent sex attributes. They don't require any medical treatment to be healthy and, in the UK, can only change their legal sex via a bureaucratic method that leaves the original birth registration unchanged.

FWIW I think she possibly has a male DSD requiring some treatments also demanded by certain men. (They're well-established and not particularly controversial treatments in themselves. ). That doesn't make it the same thing.

My first thought was PCOS. The key element of PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome is that you have to have ovaries I.e. be capable of producing small gametes = biological female. It is not a DSD.

I am appalled that PCOS is being dragged into the trans debate and being used to significantly, but falsely, bolster the number of people with DSDs.

What rights did "intersex people" not have, that they have now gained thanks to trans people?

I was sent the article and have posted it on another thread (it's on the thread about 'intersex' whales) and it ends with the point that DSDs are nothing to do with gender dysphoria. I felt, on reading it, that the woman in question was confused as to what she was saying - she is speaking English as a second language, I presume, which may be why she talks of 'intersex'.
I suppose there is a link between TiMs' desire for genital cosmetic surgery and that could have helped with research into DSDs and any corrective surgery needed or desired. If that's her point that's fine - but if she is supporting trans ideology then she is on less certain grounds for they are not connected. But I think she is Dutch and the Netherlands are pretty well captured by the trans cult.

More here:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/dutch-london-bryony-gordon-fiction-charlotte-b1232698.html

“The surgery and the hormones that I needed, which not all intersex people need. Not all intersex people feel at odds with their gender presentation.

I mention the fact that I did, because 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 health care, who changed the system, the law, societal standards, themselves. I stand on their shoulders.”

I surmise from this that she thinks that feminising treatments for girls with male DSDs were only invented because they were wanted by certain men, but I don't believe that. If trans wasn't a thing, treatments for DSDs would still have been needed, and they're mostly not rocket science anyway.

Possibly tmi, but turning a penis inside-out is completely different from slightly extending a naturally-occurring inguinal sinus (which is what tends to occur in male DSDs)

But she may not be a biological woman? She hasn't said. She might be biologically male and received feminising hormones when she didn't develop at puberty.