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.

People with CAIS have male chromosomes, yes. Does that make them male when, as you say yourself, they are indistinguishable from XX females? It's not just chromosomes that determine sex - there are other factors at play - and it's rather unnecessarily offensive, at least in the context of this thread, to make a point of saying that people with CAIS are male.

People with Down's syndrome have 47 chromosomes instead of the typical 46. Does that mean they're not human beings?

Well said. "Biologically male" in the context of CAIS is completely meaningless. They are chromosomally male and phenotypically female, where both chromosomes and phenotype are features of biology.

I was responding to the progression of the discussion onto CAIS and the point about sporting advantage. I didn’t jump on the thread just for the sake of it, there was a thread of discussion.

If you want to argue that you don’t want DSDs co-opted by TRAs to pretend sex is a spectrum, it’s also important to not pretend that people with CAIS individuals are biologically female. It’s not unnecessarily offensive, because I am making the same point as you.

Yes, it’s unfortunate that individuals with CAIS have to deal with that paradox, of being biologically male but appear completely female. But it does make them male. It’s one of the few conditions that cloud the discussion. To argue they are not male is to argue the TRA argument. If you call people with CAIS female, then it proves the TRA point, that sex is complicated, it’s a spectrum, etc. To counter the TRA argument, you have to say individuals with CAIS are male, but have an abnormality of a receptor, making them appear female, but still falling within the binary of two sexes.

Your last paragraph is an offensive return that is completely unnecessary. To propose that accurately describing the biology of CAIS is akin to claiming people with Down Syndrome aren’t human is a horrible thing to suggest, they aren’t remotely comparable.

To argue people with CAIS are not male is not to argue the TRA argument because, as @girljulian pointed out, phenotype is also biology. It is ignoring the fact that XY only equals male so long as the rest of the developmental process continues as it should and there isn't, for a example, a fault with the SRY gene.

I simply meant that we typically describe a human as having 23 pairs of chromosomes just as we typically describe a woman as having XX chromosomes. I didn't intend to offend (not that I quite see why you should be the arbiter of what is offensive). If a medical condition doesn't fit the norm and one characteristic contradicts another you need to look at the whole picture.

I understood OP to be saying that there are two common over-simplifications about chromosomes that are both based on out-of-date knowledge.

Previously, we thought it was the Y chromosome that made someone male. Now we know that it is the SRY gene, which is usually found on the Y chromosome but sometimes is not, and sometimes is missing. So people without an SRY gene are classed as female (inc Swyers syndrome people) which means there are - very very occasionally - women with XY chromosomes.

Previously, we also thought that humans have 46 chromosomes. Now we know that some humans (those with Down’s) have 47. Theoretically, we could have stuck to our “humans have 46 chromosomes” previous knowledge, therefore meaning Down’s people cannot be human. But it is much more logical to supersede the previous knowledge with the new knowledge that “most humans have 46 chromosomes but a few have 47” and therefore that people with Down’s are (obviously) human.

And, of course, none of this relates to transness, as per original OP frustration.

You said it's a scientific fact that an organism is redundant if it doesn't reproduce and I said science doesn't prescribe that anywhere because it doesn't. It's also an oft repeated lie by those perpetuating homophobia so whether you're using it to say gay people are wrong or not doesn't matter, stop spreading misinformation and using words like wrong, redundant, faulty etc. Science doesn't place any purpose or meaning on the ability to reproduce, it just describes how it works.

Well given you jumped on here furious that those with DSDs are being "dragged into" this, why not go and read the 40 odd page thread where the majority of this forum think you ought to be called a man, male, and excluded for female spaces? I mean you've clearly created this thread right after that one, why aren't you engaging those posters in discussion? And where are they all?

Classing people with CAIS as women doesn't make the TRA argument that sex is a spectrum. They may have an SRY gene but it's redundant without the ability to process testosterone.

Prof Robert Winston, who is very clear that there are two sexes and humans can't change sex, defines men as having an SRY gene plus functional testosterone receptors and under his definition CAIS means woman.

I feel for you, OP.

Its been a cynical, cruel, manipulative and arrogant co opting of DSDs, and I can imagine has only worsened things for people that actually have to deal with the consequences of having a DSD.

The main problem is as ever, the lies. So that we have people claiming an 'intersex' identity when they seem highly unlikely to have a DSD (men who have fathered children, for example, claiming to have XX chromosomes). Or men who want to identify as women claiming that taking hormones has changed their phenotype. Then there are the sports scouts who seek out people with DSDs to make money.

The first problem has been the deceptions, and then the second problem is the insistence that we not discuss the issues, because it's illegal or rude or cruel to talk about it.

Ok, if phenotype equals female, then TRAs can argue that their phenotype can make them female. Males who have been puberty blocked in particular, can have a phenotype that can look female to the untrained eye. Phenotype is the observable traits. So are puberty blocked males who have been placed on oestrogen actually female?

Are females with a very male observable appearance, like Buck Angel, actually male?

If you use the “phenotype as appearance” argument, it helps the TRAs argue that their appearance determines their sex.

If you say “phenotype is genetically determined” then you have to either acknowledge people with CAIS have an error along the male sex pathway of that phenotypic determination, or you follow the TRA argument, which is those errors aren’t errors at all, just part of the normal expression of sex, which is once again co-opting the disorder component by ignoring it. They want people to believe that those errors aren’t errors at all, just part of normal human sex determination, and hence, sex is a spectrum.

That seems like a very rational definition.

Transgenderism’s modifications of secondary sexual characteristics, and sometimes neutering of primary ones (swap impossible!) is a completely different matter to the natural genetic and developmental biology of people with DSDs.

It’s really important to me, that we accept the difference between technically accurate terminology that is needed is specific situations, and pragmatic behaviour.

CAIS is a male DSD, but pragmatically people with CAIS are women except in specific situations- healthcare, possibly high level sports.

They are, if you like, the exception that proves the rule.

And most importantly, it’s irrelevant to the trans debate. DSD’s are not part of that conversation, they get a conversation of their own.

Well whether they like it or not they are apart of the trans debate ever since woman was defined as biological woman leaving little nuance for people with CAIS. It's not a bargaining chip so much as a new reality based on the SC decision.

It’s really not a matter of ‘nuance’. The biological sex of people with DSDs is a matter of clinical diagnosis at birth or in some cases puberty. In the latter cases they can have their birth certificate amended. For women with CAIS afaik it should be as per Robert Winston’s definition - so they are as a matter of objective clinical fact ‘biological women’.

Well it is nuance since biological woman is being applied to different people's interpretation of that. If we insist woman means adult human female and are insistent on what those with CAIS "would have been if things went right" then categorically those with CAIS are excluded from places designated for biological women

Why should they be part of the trans debate?

The trans debate hinges on whether a man with XY chromosomes and a fully functioning male reproductive system can 'become' a woman, either by just declaring that he is a woman or by taking drugs and having surgery to make his body look like a woman's body. (Similarly for a woman with XX chromosomes who wants to be a man.)

DSDs occur when someone is born with different chromosomes to the norm and/or ambiguous genitalia. This is a medical condition and is not the same as someone wanting to change sex. That really should be fairly obvious.

I guess it may require a small amount of extra clarification from the courts to remove those ‘ifs’. It is not down to the opinion of keyboard warriors, be they feminists or transactivists, to decide the biological sex of people with DSDs. It’s should be purely based on clinical diagnosis.

No, that is a misrepresentation of what I said. I said, "in evolutionary terms an organism is redundant if it can't propagate the species". Can't, not doesn't.

Whether or not you agree with that, I was talking about evolution, not making a value judgement about existing humans who happen to be attracted to other humans of the same sex and so consequently may not have offspring.

And purely in biologically terms, most same-sex people of the (biologically) appropriate age can reproduce. I don't know many lesbians, but those I do know have been pregnant and given birth.

Of course it's different, no one said it wasn't. Why insist then that a woman has to be a biological adult human female? And that those with CAIS need to be called male etc?

If you say “phenotype is genetically determined” then you have to either acknowledge people with CAIS have an error along the male sex pathway of that phenotypic determination

I do accept that. I have no issue at all with "error along the male sex pathway" as a descriptor of the condition. I just think it's unnecessary to actually call them men, and that calling them women does not contradict my argument - because there are other genetic factors at play apart from just chromosomes. XY = male if everything else develops correctly.

Males who have been puberty blocked in particular, can have a phenotype that can look female to the untrained eye. Phenotype is the observable traits. So are puberty blocked males who have been placed on oestrogen actually female?

There is surely a difference between a phenotype which occurs naturally/organically (albeit as the result of an anomaly/mutation) and one that requires surgery and exogenous hormones to create as with a trans-identifying person.

The males in your example above have received both hormones and surgery. And I believe Buck Angel hasn't had "bottom surgery" so wouldn't have a fully female phenotype, no matter how well feminised facially.

Who is insisting that people with CAIS should be called male? DSD Families, a charity for people with DSDs and their families say that CAIS is a female DSD.

46, XY DSD Sensitivity to Androgens :: DSD Families

And this is their statement about the Supreme Court ruling.

Supreme Court Ruling 2025 :: DSD Families

Discussions around the ruling may further exacerbate the oversimplification, misrepresentation, and weaponisation of DSD/Intersex by third parties, resulting in an overemphasis on the body in ways that dehumanise the person.

This is what you seem to be doing.

But you're still misrepresenting biological function as biological purpose by saying it's redundant because it can't do something when science doesn't actually say that. Science just describes how some can or can't reproduce, it doesn't make any comment further than that. When you start oversimplifying to these talking points of the purpose and correct and incorrect then it's an easy slippery slope to repeating the same arguments used to discriminate homosexuality and class it as "wrong"

About 40 odd pages of posters on the previous thread on DSDs, perhaps go read it. Apparently it's asking too much of women to call those with CAIS woman or she. It's not what I'm doing actually, I happen to think those with CAIS are women but then that's because I didnt agree with people's oversimplified description of biological sex .

Thank you. Yes, this is all exactly in line with what I meant.

Funny how you've banged on earlier in the thread about how women with CAIS should stay out of women's spaces then?