Talk:Intersex

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Justification of missionality: right-wing/conservative views on various issues (e.g. gender relations, transgenderism, etc.) assume that male and female are clearly distinct. The existence of intersex people undermines that assumption of gender essentialism. There is no one single feature that makes a person female or male (despite the overly simplistic assumption of many that sex can be defined in terms of what chromosomes one has). In biological terms, female and male exist on a continuum, even though the vast majority of individuals exist clearly at one end or the other, and only a small minority occupy intermediate positions. The question of sex/gender is not always decidable; at the extremes of the continuum the correct answer is clear; there are places in the middle where the question is essentially undecidable and arbitrary. (((Zack Martin))) 11:02, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

What you wrote above would be a good addition to work into the article. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:08, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

WTF?[edit]

Hermaphroditism and Hermaphrodite redirects here, which is rather troubling because those refers to (occasionally) simultaneous possession of both genitalia and should give a clue/shut up the creationists about which gender appears first. If the template is Biology as opposed to gender, perhaps that should be what to focus on. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 02:28, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

These are different things. I've deleted the redirects.--ZooGuard (talk) 09:26, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Birth Defect should be changed[edit]

I've come to a conflict on whether intersex can be classified as a birth defect. The article sourced on birth defects says, "Birth defects are structural changes present at birth that can affect almost any part or parts of the body (e.g., heart, brain, foot). They may affect how the body looks, works, or both. Birth defects can vary from mild to severe." Through that definition alone, intersex people could be attributed to having a birth defect (abnormal genetics influencing organs in the body in this case). I understand the reasoning for deciding not to say intersex people have birth defects (as of course this might lead parents into taking unsafe surgeries, such as what was cited in the HRW document). Labeling it as not a birth defect is dishonest at best.

The editor who wrote the birth defect section said that (I'm paraphrasing) intersex folk would much rather not be associated with having birth defects as it might lead into forced surgeries (which have their own lists of side-effects).

This feels like pretty piss poor reasoning. How the majority of society and views people who are intersex (particularly babies who can't consent) is something society has to resolve itself. Say someone's born to a Jewish family in nazi germany (late 1935) and this family had decided that they want to label their child as a foster kid, from an orphanage, and 100% totally not Jewish definitely german for this child to avoid the nuremburg laws. This decision, if it fools anyone, would the wisest. It ensures that the child will not have to grow up in constant oppression (as they would be taken right back into a german orphanage, probably). But it is still, by all means, a lie. The child is not a german, perhaps they have some german ancestry, but they were born from a Jewish family. Now let's travel 80 years in the future. A jewish family has a child. The family says the child's ethnicity is jewish. They do not fear any type of laws that would oppress them or a tyrannical government ready to take away all their liberties.

In one instance, a family lied because their society wouldn't accept the truth, in another instance, the family said the truth because there was nothing to fear.

In the end, whether labeling intersex as a birth defect or not won't change much at all in the current climate, it's like the euphemism treadmill. Before, kids with developmental disorders or syndromes or diseases were given a label for that, be it retardation, autism, down syndrome, the list goes on. Now, much of these are instead replaced with, "special needs," or "mentally challenged." As someone that had went to elementary school, this didn't change jack-shit. Instead of calling people retarded (in an derogatory manner), kids would say "special." Got down syndrome? You're "extra-special." Got autism, "special superstar," is what you are. Of course, thankfully person first language came along and stopped that "super special mega star" bullshit with something that might actually be useful for fucks-sake like, "person with down syndrome."

Enough with my rant, I'd like to change the birth defect section to be more honest about it. --BBR (talk) 02:37, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Total number of intersex people correction[edit]

According to Leonard Sax, the true prevalence of intersex is seen to be about 0.018%, almost 100 times lower than Fausto-Sterling s estimate of 1.7%. LINK:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/ Why is the moderator deleting my entries? — Unsigned, by: Interstellar / talk / contribs

I'm not Neb, but I'd guess because Dr. Leonard Sax isn't a credible source? Not to poison any wells, but the guy believes in Intelligent Design (having written a glowing review of Return of the God Hypothesis by Stephen C. Meyer), and pushes the "Hitler was actually Jewish" conspiracy theory, after all. ℕoir LeSable (talk) 07:20, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
But his personal beliefs are irrelevant to the given topic.
Also that entry is present in the Wikipedia page.
Many reviewers are not aware that this figure includes conditions which most clinicians do not recognize as intersex, such as Klinefelter syndrome, Turner syndrome, and late-onset adrenal hyperplasia. If the term intersex is to retain any meaning, the term should be restricted to those conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female.
This is what he states.
According to the NZKA, not all XXY individuals will develop Klinefelter Syndrome, for the Syndrome is simply a form of male hypogonadism, caused by a lack of testosterone: thus XXY is not an intersex condition — Unsigned, by: Interstellar / talk / contribs
There, I've added your correction albeit I think that the way you presented it was meant to show that they are too miniscule to have rights.HighboiWhen the king and the pawn are in the same box 14:41, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
Klinefelter and Turner syndrome as not intersex?? Now I get what the text meant by trying to cut down the percentage as much as possible! Chillpilled (talk) 06:37, 17 January 2024 (UTC)