The Secret of Me - Documentary

[Igneococcus]

This article about a new intersex/DSD documentary is in the Times. I'm not sure what I think about it yet, (other than that it is incredibly sad) I will have to read it again tomorrow (I'm out tonight).
https://www.thetimes.com/article/5d66ab7e-b55d-4b6e-9305-c47d75a3c944?shareToken=d5f09a8973ff7653c3d3ed3ee4ce0f74

Baffling. Initially calling Money's experiments an 'astonishing success' only for the article to say it failed a couple of paragraphs later.

It's speaks about how intersex/dsds should not be co-opted into the trans debate....while co-opting this tragic story about a man with a dsd into the trans debate.

The man the article is about, never mentions trans issues, this is brought in inexplicably by the author of the piece while simultaneously saying it it isn't a trans story..

Wtaf quite frankly. Where is the editor overseeing this shit?!

The unsubstantiated claim that 1 in 60 children have a DSD, then instantly saying it's actually 1 in 4000!

However, quoting the man who's the subject of the article saying his health issue is nothing to do with transgenderism to then immediately say he's wrong is utterly outrageous.

I think there is a transferable lesson though? Children with ambiguous genitalia should not be operated on until they are old enough to participate in the decision. And maybe should be registered by gonadal sex, given that many (most?) will develop a gender identity aligned with it, and that puberty may bring about (further) virilisation of the genitals.

Things went the other way because of the limits of what was achievable practically. And also because society is fixated on genitals and therefore horrified at the idea of a man living a full and normal life whilst having tiny deformed genitals. Like it matters. We can't see people's genitals, but we can see if they're pubertally male. And trying to craft a woman out of a slightly defective man is ridiculous, unless it really, really is their choice. This man wasn't given the choice.

Anyway, the lesson for people who aren't born with ambiguous genitalia? Don't dick around with their bodies until they're at least twenty-five. And preferably not then.

It’s an interesting article. What, I think, makes it unclear in parts is that too much background information has been omitted. Things like the differences in definition of DSDs leading to different rates of occurrence, for example.

I strongly disagree with This is a story about people convinced they are in the wrong body. It is about what happens when your idea of your gender doesn’t correspond to your sex. It is about people whose very existence appears to contradict the idea of a simple sexual binary.

It is not about people convinced they are in the wrong body. It is about people whose bodies have been made to look like the other sex, without their consent. It is not about what happens when your idea of your gender doesn’t correspond to your sex. It is about what happens when you are taught gendered behaviour, or have it enforced upon, that is associated with the opposite sex.

is a story about what happens when order people’s prejudices about sexual presentation are enforced upon unconventional children, instead of supporting those children to live in a society that might be hostile to them for being different to the norm, but, equally, might not even know or care about the way in which they are different.

@theilltemperedmaggotintheheartofthelaw absolutely. Doctors and other medical professionals should keep out of it unless absolutely necessary e.g. if there is a genuine problem going to the toilet. Even then any intervention should be the minimum possible.

I always get cross with anyone using DSD/Intersex to try and justify trans rights.

I picked this comment out of the article

It is also, though, about the primacy of biology. It is about what happens when ideology outpaces the evidence base.

If that isn’t a chilling warning.