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.

Read the OP again (assuming you've already read it). The thread is about the trans movement co-opting DSDs in general, not about the OP personally, just that as someone with a DSD, she believes that TRAs dragging people with DSDs into their movement is offensive to those people. You don't need to know the OP's personal medical information in order to take part in the discussion.

And again they aren't dragging in all DSDs and some of them are actually relevant to the trans debate / overlap with the trans population depending on their DSD. Someone with PAIS assigned female at birth who goes on to feel some kind of gender dysphoria DOES overlap with the trans issue if we start talking about things like changing your sex marker etc which is why I asked OP to clarify if she has a DSD regularly brought up in this debate or not. She doesn't want to share - fine, but it's hardly an irrelevant question.

I think asking repeatedly could be interpreted as demanding.

If you wanted to ask, you could have said something like 'Are you willing to disclose what DSD you have? Fine if you don't want to.'

And once again, you don't need to know any poster's personal medical information in order to have this discussion.

I notice you declined to answer me when I asked your sex, whether you have a DSD yourself (if so, which one?), and whether you identify as trans. Yet you expect others to disclose information about themselves when they are obviously not comfortable doing so.

So you believe that you can have a discussion about this topic without disclosing personal information, but the OP should disclose hers. Why is that? What makes you so special?

As for calling you a man that's the majority of the knowledgeable people on here.

@melonsandlemonsandpears

How can you have any idea how knowledgeable or otherwise the anonymous people posting on this topic are?

Well kind of do to know if she has a DSD which is even relevant to the trans debate to be "dragged" into it, no?

Sorry I missed those as questions, I'm female, no DSD but I have a family member with Turners. She's what I would call a "TRA" although she doesn't feel they've been dragged into the debate as turners is rarely mentioned. She does hate people equating womanhood with fertility though.

I wasn't the one who called them knowledgeable? I was repeating OPs language back

Well it is conveniently tumbleweeds isn't it. Is there a reason this thread should be more policed than others in how people respond or ask questions of eachother? It's fine but it does make her OP a bit of a waste of time doesn't it ?

Also given OP has disclosed her sexual organs and her chromosomes and started a discussion on DSDs it's a bit silly to act like it's so intrusive to ask which DSD she has i.e. which DSD are you talking about? 🤔

Were you going to answer the questions about swyers btw or are you the only one who can police what people answer or not?

I agree, we are all individuals and DSD has many variations.

(When I came on to this thread, I thought you were going to be talking about your dear step-daughter :-). That's Mumsnet's fault with its stupid abbreviations.)

YOU are the one that started talking about CAIS. You brought it up repeatedly and referred to another thread about it. YOU.

I think on that thread I expressed my view that women with CAIS are biologically female, as I’ve done here. I certainly wouldn’t have said they’re male. I’ve only just seen this post after being away from mn for a few hours () but afaik I’ve never had any sort of ‘abuse’ for my stance on this here.

I'd have to look up what Swyer syndrome is and do a load of research before answering questions about it. I'm not an expert on DSDs. To answer your other question I see no reason why we shouldn't discuss it.

She's talking about all of them. It's quite clear in the OP.

This is what she said in the OP, which if you have read, you don't seem to have understood.

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 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.

She says " it is important to recognise this group of conditions". All of them. You don't need to know which one she has to take part in the discussion. Stop making this thread about your desire to know her personal information.

Nope I responded to a comment here about CAIS AND op responded to several deepening the discussion about CAIS 👍🏻

It's not about MY desire it's about the relevance of certain DSDs to the trans discussion given she has a DSD but is biologically female apparently despite non female chromosomes. As I said not all DSDs are relevant to the discussion yet she's lambasting being "dragged into it" It's quite laughable how you're clutching your pearls at someone asking what they're talking about on a topic they were clearly happy to start a thread about but not so much when people are happily discussing the private medical info of people who have never posted on this forum?

So you agree with posters who are called TRAs for holding the same position who are lambasted as "be kind" fools and oversensitive for saying it's not kind to call women with CAIS male but you don't engage in disagreeing with the majority opinion perpetuated here 👍🏻

What do you think of those with PAIS or Swyers being dragged into the trans debate? Particularly around women's sports? Is it completely irrelevant as OP says?

Chromosomes, or karyotypes, don't define sex, precisely because there are variations. In over 99% of cases, it's XX female and XY male, but there are rare cases, as in Swyer, where it's different. Which is why your karyotype is not your biological sex. What matters is whether your body is formed around producing large or small gametes.

The sex screening being used now for athletics will test for the SRY gene that switches on male development (ie, starts the development of testes which then produce testosterone to masculinise the body) and is attached to the Y chromosome but occasionally doesn't work, resulting in an XY female. Basically, women with XY karyotypes will be found to be just that, XY women. But it won't pass XY men with the DSD that Semenya, Khelif and all the others have, who are fully male, potentially even fertile, and just have unusual external genitalia.

And as ever, it's totally irrelevant to trans people with no DSD, which is pretty much all of them.

My understanding is we have no definite confirmation if Khelif for example even has a DSD or if so, what it is, so that's quite a confident stance for you to take that they'll definitely be excluded. As I said earlier, posters are very confident to talk about the genitalia of people without any actual info or consent so I'm confused why it's not okay to ask someone to clarify the DSD they decided to start a thread about when they're happy to tell us what genitalia they have. I mean, have you seen Semenya or Khelifs genitalia or are you making a guess based on the very many online forum discussions about their medical info? The sex testing won't automatically pass anyone as an XY female, they'll have to have further testing and then a rational agreement about whether they're permitted to participate. There's many women's sports fans though that aren't happy with anyone with XY chromosomes taking part in women's sport so there's still loads of debate.

The DSDs of these sportstars or query of them are absolutely relevant to the trans debate though due to the messiness caused by their prevalence in women's sport and also just rubbing up against general trans issues. There was loads of debate on here about Semenya being "fully male" yet if they were assigned female at birth then changing of sex markers etc understandably intertwines with trans people, and more so depending on the DSD and the prevalence of people feeling at disagreement with the sex marker they were assigned. Obviously it's irrelevant to trans people without DSDs but it doesn't stop the two coming up in the same discussions.

What matters is whether your body is formed around producing large or small gametes.

Agree in general with your explanation, but it is a oversimplification as well. There are some very rare, more complex DSDs too. Some people (extremely rarely) have both male and female gonadal tissue, though almost(?) without exception both will not be functional at the same time. Often neither are functional.

Also, other genes are important as well as SRY and again extremely occasionally there are phenotypes you would not expect when SRY functionality is taken into consideration.

I don’t think DSDs are relevant to trans ideology in general. It’s usually quite a different situation.

Well it is relevant when we are defining biological sex and people on the whole are reducing that to a very simplistic definition of XX and XY hence why DSDs keep coming into the conversation. Of you have people adamant that those with CAIS for example should be excluded from that definition (and that's quite a widely held opinion) that understandably brings DSDs into the discussion or sex being complicated. There's also those with DSDs who may need to do things like change their sex marker on their ID if they decide to not continue living at the sex they were assigned at birth and in some DSDs the rate of that is higher than others and when we are making legislation on whether people can or can't do that, it again brings people with DSDs into the discussion on trans people. The insistence that DSDs are irrelevant to the topic has been said many times on here is because it gives some ground to TRAs but then we're asking people to be over simplistic and wrong about science just for the purpose of disagreeing on trans issues. And worryingly many are "learning" about this stuff from such posters, or as OP called them very knowledgeable.

If you're worried about the quality of people's knowledge, link up to references you find trustworthy and useful.

It's unhelpful to just vaguely insinuate people are wrong without providing better evidence/material yourself.

Anonymous forums have both advantages and disadvantages - people can speak more freely, but we can't rely on anyone's say-so because we can't verify anything anyone says. We can, however, offer evidence, references, links to fuller, clearly authored explanations, etc.

I'm not vaguely insinuating people are wrong, I mirrored OPs strange language given she made a lot of posts agreeing that those with CAIS are female while her OP is annoyed at those with DSDs being dragged into the trans discussion by TRAs and that this forum is very knowledgeable about DSDs meanwhile it's more common than not for posters to insist on a simple binary XX/XY binary which completely differs from OPs opinions on those with CAIS which I why I found it a very strange OP both timing wise plus that she's bemoaning the association between DSDs and the trans debate without offering any info on why she feels they should be separated except that she's a biological female despite having XY chromosomes yet it's too much info to provide any info on her DSD to establish the relevance apparently.

There are some very rare, more complex DSDs too.

My post was not intended to be a fully comprehensive account of every DSD there is. It was a response to the point at hand, which was about the difference between karyotype and biological sex.

DSDs are indeed irrelevant to the trans debate because being trans is nothing to do with having a DSD. The existence of a small number of people with some variations outside the standard doesn't mean sex isn't real, that DSD people don't have a sex, that sex is impossible to determine or, crucially, that men should be allowed to identify their way into women's spaces. I've yet to see anyone arguing the toss on DSDs who didn't seem to be going in that direction, including the other poster in this discussion.