I have a DSD and am fed up.

[DSDFury]

A DSD (Disorder/Difference of Sexual Development) is a congenital medical condition, usually resulting in sterility, as it does in my case. Broadly, it means there is chromosomal or other genetic anomaly which has resulted in the foetus not developing along typical lines for a male or female. Not all the resulting abnormalities are external, and we are certainly not hermaphrodites.

I am sick to death of DSDs being co-opted by the trans movement as "proof" that sex isn't binary. I am not some weird third sex, I am not part of a spectrum, and I don't feel the need to tell everyone about my condition.

I am sick to death of DSDs being misrepresented as an identity (looking at you, Fife NHS). It comes with some shitty elements such as infertility, but that is just one of many, many things that makes me who I am. I am a very ordinary middle-aged woman who shops in M&S and doesn't have blue hair.

I don't want to be in the sodding rainbow, I don't want to be on a flag and I absolutely don't want to be seen as synonymous with trans (looking at you, Women's Institute).

To (possibly) coin a phrase, I have "gender euphoria". I have never doubted for a second that I am female and I was delighted to finally go through puberty once I had been diagnosed. I don't believe that my spirit has been fortuitously put in the correct body or any such nonsense; I am female because I embody a body which has a womb and a vagina rather than a penis and testicles. I look, and sound, entirely female in every respect.

I do want our existence to be acknowledged, as in certain situations (mainly medical, but some legal) it is important to recognise this group of conditions. However I think conflating us with trans hinders this far, far more than helps, as it obfuscates the issue.

I am not particularly concerned about the implications of the Supreme Court ruling, certainly don't regard it as genocide (ridiculous hyperbole) and think it would have been insane for it to go any other way, although I fervently hope that anyone in charge of policy has sufficient knowledge of these conditions to be aware that there will be people whose chromosomes do not match their phenotype/appearance because of a medical condition rather than because they are trans.

People on the Feminism board seem to be extremely knowledgeable, but I bet a sizeable sector of the general population would be surprised by more than one thing I have written,

Thank you for reading.

CAIS women are biological females according to the law. Pre-same-sex marriage they could legally marry men. Under the Equality Act they can legally be included in women-only positive action, single-sex services and clubs and associations, and sue for sex-discrimination without resorting to the 'perceptive' label.

You and I agree about the medical facts. But, given that a CAIS woman experiences life much the same as any other (apart from infertility and a need for treatment), why is it so important to you to insist that she's really a man? What objective does it meet, that wasn't already addressed in my PP?

So first you argue there are XX women with CAIS, and when I suggest there aren't you continue arguing with that premiss.

I'm outa here.

Btw, I've met many sisters of CAIS women and I never got the impression they considered themselves anything but mutual sisters.

I say this because they are biological males. The existence of CAIS females shows this.
I don't think you are correct - CAIS males can be registered and brought up as females for obvious reasons but the law does not say that they are automatically female as far as I am aware - IANAL.

Also, I only wish to exclude them from the female category in sport.

There are XX women with CAIS - CAIS is the genetic disorder. The DSD only occurs in males with CAIS. Females do not get a DSD as a result of carrying CAIS.

I think perhaps you need to re-read both my post and the post I was responding to.

Yes I know how CAIS is inherited.
I think you’re being disingenuous when you suggest that people use the term CAIS males for this reason.

I'm not being disingenuous. I think a lot of people genuinely don't know that females can have CAIS genetic mutation as well, but be unaffected by it. It's an easily comprehensible example of why we say DSDs are sex-specific.

ETA: A CAIS individual with a DSD is always male. A CAIS individual without a DSD is always female. So it's not right to talk about DSDs of CAIS females, was my original point.

To the extent that the case law is developed (not very far, and there probably won't be a need to develop it further), CAIS women are biologically female, which is important for equality law.

The law isn't everything: but I'm intrigued by our differing perspectives, based on identical agreed facts.

To me, this is a very small group of people who have not developed according to karyotype (but have according to genome - I'm not aware of this ever being caused by environmental factors), and the decision about their sex can only be a pragmatic one. This is supported by the case law, which takes into account the preference of the individual and the treatment they choose.

Your belief that people with Swyer Syndrome are female is just as pragmatic. Sure, they have only female structures, and menarche can be induced. But with no working SRY gene or second X, they have neither testes nor ovaries and are strictly speaking sexless. Shouldn't there be a blank on their birth certificate?

Going back to the case law, if a 46XY CAIS woman sued her younger brother so that she could claim a peerage that passes only through the male line, would you support her?

Well, if you read back you’ll see I already mentioned upthread that it’s caused by a mutation on the X chromosome so I was fully aware.

I was responding to this part of your earlier post -
I understand that it is painful to be described as being the opposite sex to how you see yourself, but it has to be like that in the context of discussing DSDs.

It was a general comment about not calling people with XY DSDs female or women I believe? I think you’re backtracking.

Do you think it’s okay to call people with XY DSDs who have a particular mutation in say, SRY, women so?
XX people aren’t affected so no possible confusion.
I apologise if your earlier point was specific to X linked confitions like CAIS. I don’t think it was though.

The law is not itself biology. I'm not basing this on my personal beliefs - there are charts explaining the various DSDs and what sex the individual suffering from it is.

Whoever is scientifically classed as female is female, whoever is classed as male is male. That's my starting point. I have no expertise.

Yes, of course I would support a CAIS male who wanted to inherit over a youger brother with normal sexual development - they may be living as a woman (in the only true sense of that phrase) but they are male.

The only female space CAIS males should definitely be excluded from is women's sport.

Regarding this:
Your belief that people with Swyer Syndrome are female is just as pragmatic. Sure, they have only female structures, and menarche can be induced. But with no working SRY gene or second X, they have neither testes nor ovaries and are strictly speaking sexless. Shouldn't there be a blank on their birth certificate?
As I said, scientists class women with Swyer Syndrome as female. Maybe it is a pragmatic decision by them but at least it's sensible. What's the value of having a blank on the birth certificate?

Edited for clarity.

I suppose that depends on what you think the sex marker on a birth certificate is actually for. Do you think that 46XY CAIS individuals should have an M on their birth certificate? Would that be useful?

I think the claimant would lose my hypothetical peerage case, for various reasons, but sadly I doubt we will ever get to find out.

Some parents of males with CAIS choose to register their children as males and some of the children themselves embrace maleness when they are older. A poster on here some time ago said he has a DSD (I assumed CAIS) and as a gay male it meant that he had a much bigger potential pool of partners. I imagine that he knew about his condition early on. (I;m using male pronouns for clarity.)

An M on the birth certificate of a CAIS male would be correct and it would be useful in a medical and sporting context. It might be an idea to have ID that you can show at, say, a gym which carries a sex marker which is different to the one on your birth certificate (and the amendment would only be permitted in cases of DSD). As I said in my very first post, if paperwork can be amended in order to enable a person living with a male-specific DSD which leads to development of a female phenotype to live a better life I am fine with it as long as there is no detriment to women. There is a detriment in sport but I can't think of any other situation.
Accommodations can be made, but truth is truth. The reason I am calling males male in this context is that we have seen where trying to bend reality around people to spare their feelings leads.
Which brings us back to the point of the thread - the way that TA have co-opted, appropriated and bastardised the language of DSDs or the dilemmas of people living with DSDs and their loved ones.

Edited for clarity

Some parents of males with CAIS choose to register their children as males and some of the children themselves embrace maleness when they are older.

This might be true for PAIS, but CAIS is not usually detected until puberty in the UK.

Male gender identity in CAIS individuals is rare, the first being reported in 2011, and tricky, given the lack of T-response.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20358272/

I think your proposals are too complex, and unnecessary: DSDs and trans are mutually exclusive.

Accommodations can be made, but truth is truth.

@BellaAmorosa
The truth is, when it comes to DSDs, chromosomes don’t always dictate whether someone is male or female. They shouldn’t be looked at alone. Medical, science and legal professionals don’t only look at a karyotype in these situations. Clearly OP doesn’t.
I can’t understand why you think you know better.

I think your proposals are too complex, and unnecessary:

Well, luckily I'm not in charge of anything - I was just making it clear that accommodations can be made for apparently female people living with DSDs.

DSDs and trans are mutually exclusive.
Not entirely, because a DSD can result in feelings of alienation from a person's physical body. They're definitely different things, though.

Edited for typo

And the scientists / doctors understand DSDs to be medical conditions that affect either the male or female sex, it may be dogmatic but it's a fact you'll see upon googling any DSD. You won't find Turners affecting any males for example, ever, would you?

Doggedness = unwilling to bend facts. CAIS males are already perfectly accommodated for within womanhood, we don't need to redefine the term biological female away from it's scientific meaning to do that and although people are probably saying so to be kind, they're further muddying the waters of what biological sex means. A DSD is a medical condition that affects particular sexes or the sexes in different ways. There's absolutely no need to insist someone raised as a girl is biologically female. I'm not going to police my language for someone with a DSD anymore or less than a TiM. I'm happy to call OP a woman or she, but it's unreasonable to insist agreement that she is biologically female when her condition is defined as one that affects the male sex. Words have meanings.

Where there is discordance I don’t see XY DSDs being labelled male or XX DSDs being labelled female by the medical profession. Quite the contrary in fact.

There is no discordance in Turners and there are no males with Turners so it’s not at all a good example.

If you look in the medical literature for these conditions, they will be described as as a condition affecting a particular sex. OPs condition in particular, is described as only affecting the male sex, not the female sex.

there are no males with Turners so it’s not at all a good example
The reason why there are no males with Turners is exactly why it's a good example. It's a condition that only affects females.

You are never answered why you define biological sex purely in terms of chromosomes when this is not standard in the medical/scientific community in the case of DSDs.

Yes it is, why do you think they're called disorders or differences in sex development? They categorised and defined by how the affect on foetuses of certain sexes. We don't need to redefine the sex binary in order to accept OP and others with her condition are raised as girls and women, but that doesn't make them biologically female or as OP put it as biologically female as a biological female without a DSD, if so what's then even the meaning of biologically female ?

Yes we are agreed about Turners. I don’t see syndromes that have discordance between chromosomes and phenotype, eg Sywer syndrome, described as you say.
Mostly they’re described as XY or XX DSDs etc now in my experience. Where in the current medical literature are you seeing them described like that?

You haven’t answered the question.

Why do you think only chromosomes are important in determining whether someone is male or female ?

So you agree that whether these DSDs should be classed as male or female is not a matter of opinion for unqualified people on an internet forum to decide, and is best left to medical professionals and scientists, although I'm not sure why you view their decisions as 'dogmatic'.

I've already googled this and not found anything definitive at all. Most discussions of DSDs, whether it's the NHS or other medical websites or research papers, they seem to talk about 'people with CAIS', and say that these people are usually raised as girls since their genitalia at birth look female and there is no reason to think the child is anything other than a normal female (until they reach the age when puberty should start).

Perhaps you could post some links to back up your statements.

Speaking with reference to DSDs of course.
ETA sorry, just wanted to clarify re my post a few minutes ago.

What do they have a discordance between - their chromosomal sex and their phenotype, because XX and XY have meanings. Even if you read the literature about the definition it basically says wrote XY conditions and XX conditions because those mean male and female but not everyone likes to hear that.
Can you show me where in medical literature you've seen biological female defined to include those with XY chromosomes?