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.

I think some GC people who obsess about this almost seem to think that the TRAs are right. That if sex is somehow not binary it would mean that anyone could be whoever they want to be.

Which of course it doesn't.. Whether, for instance, a woman with CAIS thinks of herself as female or intersex has absolutely no relevance to whether a male person is able to become female.

Thanks

"I can't think of a situation where my condition is likely to cause an issue in day-to-day life."

I suspect that this is the pertinent part. And no, I doubt there is any chance of karyotype or even 'genital' inspections ever coming in despite the catastrophising that we so often see.

If by sport you refer to a DSD with no masculinising on the body, then yes, it is important and highly likely that sex testing will take that into account to allow decisions that will be fair. I would expect that any sex testing done these days would have a list of exceptions that those DSDs would be listed under so that they don't mean further testing, if I remember correctly.

Thanks for the answer

As a redhead I am endlessly annoyed at being co opted into the argument to somehow ‘prove’ that DSDs aren’t rare when:

a) most of the conditions that they lump in to get the 2% figure aren’t actually DSDs and

b) being a redhead is actually pretty rare globally even if it isn’t uncommon in the U.K./Ireland/Scandinavia etc.

and if I (ginger person) am annoyed by this mangling of statistics to uphold a disingenuous protrans argument I can imagine those who have actual, diagnosed-in-childhood/at puberty DSDs must be bloody furious!

(Apologies if someone already said this but I’ve only read the first page of the thread so far, off to read the rest of it now).

Thank you for a thought provoking thread. I think it is very important people with DSD control the narrative about their condition.

I think the fundamental difference for me is that a DSD and the manner it expresses is not a choice but a biological reality. You don’t identify with the biological expression, it’s just who you are.

Yes, this is what I meant. Many definitions of biological sex are scientifically/linguistically accurate for some notion of accuracy (XX/XY, big/small gametes, etc) but they are useless when talking accurately about individuals with DSDs . And yet, every Tom Dick or Harry, or in this case Pam Jill or Mary seem to feel they are experts on DSDs because they want to respond to the onslaught from TRAs' whataboutism.

And, it would be nice if the 99.999% applicability of "two completely clearly separate sexes" could be 100% but I really don't think it works. We've talked above of CAIS - where individuals have XY and are swimming in testosterone but are the epitome of feminine phenotype. Several people above (including a sibling of someone with CAIS) have suggested they should be considered women. I have met and hung out with over a 100 women with CAIS, and most are indistinguishable in histories, sensibilities and appearance from "normal" women. CAIS runs in families, and there are many families with generations of aunts, cousins, great-aunts where it seems calling these family members as males comes across as grotesque. (One scientist gave a talk at a support group using genealogy trees and CAIS adults and family members were perplexed with the squares used in the trees, until they realized that CAIS women were being represented using the symbols for men.)

But what about Partial AIS? It is a very complicated scenario, and very difficult for the individuals who present with a variety of phenotypes and embryological histories, tragic I would say on a personal basis. Most of them make a pragmatic decision on how to live, with least medical intervention. I've heard some of them getting annoyed at questions of gender, for them the main psychological coping mechanism is to not feel like a total freak of nature.

And here we seem to have to have reached a consensus of the famous 5-ARD being males, but I know of a handful who were diagnosed in childhood as having 5-ARD, had orchiectomies, and live their lives as women with even siblings unaware of their conditions. A very different scenario from athletes who may not had the surgery and have had a masculinizing puberty. Two completely differently outcomes with the same condition.

So, in my opinion, guided by many years of both academic study and personal inquiry, I feel DSDs provide exceptions to any attempt at solidifying definitions of sex. And yet, this doesn't mean that Thomas should compete against female swimmers, or Upton should change with female nurses.

This is where blind adherence to "chromosomes are chromosomes" just makes people look stupid. Women with CAIS are not "biologically male" even though they are chromosomally male. They are indistinguishable from XX women to all intents and purposes, which is why many families have only very recently discovered that familial CAIS has been the reason for infertility in female family members going back generations.

Science doesn't tell us that sterility means something went wrong. Science isn't prescriptive in that way. That's a cultural belief, science will just describe how and why a person or animal is or isn't able to reproduce it doesn't go into purpose or right or wrong. Yes humans need to reproduce, any species does, to continue but science doesn't tell us that every human has to reproduce or need to be able to, unless you also think science tells us something went wrong with the % of homosexual animals and humans since they're attracted to those there is no possibility of reproduction ?

I don't mean to be rude (even though you have been) but do you actually know what CAIS means? Because if you did you would realise how ignorant (and insulting) your question is.

Ability to reproduce is one of the main characteristics of life.

Homosexual humans are just as capable of reproduction as the rest of the population, and some of them do indeed reproduce. It is illogical and misleading to conflate the fact that they may choose not to with biological infertility.

It's probably worth pointing out that intersex is not a singular condition. I believe there are about 40 or so variations.

I agree totally with your second paragraph.

There is some reason to think it does give a sporting advantage. It's something that probably requires more research, but there is an unusually high percentage of women with CAIS in elite sport.

I'm not sure that's wildly important, there are any conditions that mean people have to pursue sports i special categories, but I don't think it's accurate to assume there is no relevant effect.

What is "it"? There isn't just one DSD.

Their sexual drive is literally to those they cannot reproduce with. There is nothing wrong with them. Reproduction is necessary as a whole on the species but science says absolutely nowhere that an individual not being able to reproduce means they are faulty or something went wrong. Reproduction isn't the purpose of humans it's a function we have.

Perhaps you wanna read the 40 or so page thread where the majority of this baked think those with CAIS are male and argue with them? I notice your thread hadn't gained much traction

However I only mentioned one in the post, which if I am recalling correctly was because it was the one mentioned in the post I was responding to.

The main issue with this is that it depends on context somewhat. Male and female are scientific categories, and in that context, you can only understand CAIS as a male disorder, where a developmental patway that is intended to work one way has gone another way instead.

That's why in the scientific study mentioned above, they would have used male markers - the whole thing would make no sense if that weren't the case, there would be nothing to study if it weren't recognised that the developmental pathway has gone arwy.

I didn't say there was anything wrong with being gay.

No, you responded to my post which didn't mention any specific DSD. However if you intended to refer solely to CAIS then I can see why you referred to it in the singular.

I don't know what "the majority of this baked" means, but since you're portraying yourself as an expert in this field perhaps you "wanna" share your opinion to enlighten us all?

Also I'm not sure what the relevance is of this thread not having "gained much traction", although nearly 150 people have liked the OP so it's hardly been ignored.

I'm willing to bet nobody on whatever thread this was has ever knowingly met a woman with CAIS.

Sounds like it was a typo to me.

Anyway, I think this topic gets treats on FWR the way it does because the underlying push is that it's really important to be scientifically accurate about the nature of male and female, and DSDs.

When we all have that kind of accurate understanding, it is totally possible to then say, these are the kinds of exceptions that we make, and these are the times we don't make exceptions. Or maybe better to say that things need to be treated with some extra nuance. So a biologically male person with CAIS would almost always function as a woman in society, and it would be in very select circumstances like medical issues, or research, that it would be important to be be aware that's not strictly accurate that this is a female person.

When, instead, you have people trying to fudge the whole thing, in order to gain advantages of one kind or another, it becomes impossible to discuss how to treat unusual situations, and you get people putting male people into women's prisons , or people arguing that being aroused by cross-dressing makes you a woman,

People with CAIS are male. That they have androgen receptors that don’t work and are visibly indistinguishable from females doesn’t change the fact they have XY chromosomes and testes.

People with CAIS are possibly over represented at the Olympics compared to the general population. The rate of CAIS when sex chromosome testing happened was approximately 1 in 1000, compared to a general population rate of 1 in 20,000. However the overall numbers and details are too small to make enough inference regarding overall sporting advantage. These individuals DO have some advantages over females though, including different skeletal angles and most notably, never ever have to worry about periods in training or competition.

Right, but can you understand how that isn't relevant to this thread which was started by a woman who has a DSD but is a perfectly normal woman in society and just wants to be left alone and not co-opted into the trans debate in any way? The point the OP made was that it makes her (and undoubtedly others) feel really shit when "womanness" is reduced to things like menstruating, which she doesn't do. She's not trying to become an elite athlete. I'm not an advocate of "be kind" when it comes to TRAs but in this case? You could just be kind to a person who has a female phenotype and is a woman, whether she menstruates or not, and not use her as a bargaining chip in hypothetical debates.

Yes, it’s very relevant. Because CAIS has been discussed on this page and it is commonly used as a “gotcha” by TRAs to say “well, CAIS people have XY chromosomes and they’re women, so it proves sex is a spectrum, ha!” This isn’t true. CAIS individuals prove that occasionally the development of male individuals goes wrong enough to confuse TRAs. It doesn’t serve anyone any good to deny the fact that CAIS individuals are biologically male, and it’s better to be clear on this and point out that disorders don’t prove a spectrum of normality.