Arguing with gender ideologues can be a very disparaging and fruitless task.  Many of the argumentative styles they adopt are purely reflexive and will be based in goading or shaming the person they disagree with into silence or compliance.  The ‘social pressure’ dodge will be part three of this series.  However, the topic today is the ill considered use of the term “intersex” and intersexed people in general when used as rhetorical ammunition in a gender identity debate.

The Intersex ploy goes something like this:

There are several deformed ideas going on in this fine slice of twitter, so let’s parse them out.

1. The notion that intersex individuals are somehow outside of the sex binary.

2.  That self identification somehow trumps the biological reality of sex (i.e non binary and trans men).

3.  The notion that this third sex or sex spectrum is somehow supported by credible scientific sources.

 

Firstly, people with intersex conditions are genetically unambiguously male or female.

 

No third sex to be seen here.  Also, from the Endocrine Society this definitive assertion:

“Sex is an important biological variable that must be considered in the design and analysis of human and animal research. The terms sex and gender should not be used interchangeably. Sex is dichotomous, with sex determination in the fertilized zygote stemming from unequal expression of sex chromosomal genes. By contrast, gender includes perception of the individual as male, female, or other, both by the individual and by society; both humans and animals have sex, but only humans have gender.”

Secondly, gender beliefs mirror religious beliefs.  They have no root in the material reality we all share.  Illustrated here.

A big hat tip to Logic vs Pseudoscience for accurately framing the belief in ‘gender identity’.  We should not be expected to play a pivotal role in someone else’s self perception.  Not ignoring the data our senses accurately report is not a crime, nor is it violence against a person with gender identity claims.

Just like we don’t have to accept the religious claim that is our jesus saviour, we can also show the same skepticism for a male that claims to be woman because he self-identifies or feels like it.  Not going along with risibly outlandish claims about reality is a reasonable stance to take.

Thirdly, the bullshit that is mentioned most often in the intersex ploy is a piece by by Anne Fausto – Sterling.   Claiming there are 5 sexes and the percentage of intersex people in the population is 1.7%.  Fausto-Stirling’s claims have been debunked.

AFS ‘walks-back’ her claims –

Yeah, so I’m thinking ‘tongue-in-cheek’ assertions are not quite the rigorous science based arguments gender ideologists would like us to think they are.  As for the second mistake, her figures are based on a category error and corrected in this paper here.

“Anne Fausto-Sterling s suggestion that the prevalence of intersex might be as high as 1.7% has attracted wide attention in both the scholarly press and the popular media. 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. Applying this more precise definition, the true prevalence of intersex is seen to be about 0.018%, almost 100 times lower than Fausto-Sterling s estimate of 1.7%.”

Oops…  So be wary of individuals quoting Fausto-Sterling’s ‘facts’ when it comes to the intersex ploy in particular and gender identity arguments in general.

So much ink has been spilled in the quixotic attempt to placate gender confused males.  It would be sadly funny, but because trans ideology centres itself on the destruction of female boundaries and rights leaving little room for jocularity .

The very definition of women is under attack.  Women = adult human female is now a controversial stance to uphold because it may injure the self perception of males who think they are women.  It is a travesty that we would allow male gender feelings to take precedence over the very material realty of being actually female in today’s society.