The main take away would be that some people are born that are neither male nor female, others are born where assignment isn't clearcut or easy, and such births are more common than the frequency of gold in the earth's crust.
Everyone is born male or female, some just ambiguously so. Intersex is a colloquial misnomer, the correct and more accurate term is “disorder of sex development”.
Your opinion is readily falsifiable by empirical observation:
"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" .. "the prevalence of intersex is about 0.018% (one in 5,500 births)"
What I wrote is not contrary to what Sax writes, in any way. In fact, I fully support what he wrote, and would urge people who are interested in the subject to read his much fuller explanation on his website[0].
As such, I really do not understand your objection, and that’s probably because you don’t understand your objection. Sex in humans determined by the strategy for gamete production, which can only result in a large gamete or small gamete - not by chromosomes. Hence, “intersex” people are still male or female regardless of their disorder. This is well understood, settled science, and is not my opinion. If you think sex is decided based on your chromosomes, then you’ve been misinformed.
> and that’s probably because you don’t understand your objection.
Maybe tone that down a notch or three.
Gametes (egg or sperm) can mix-and-match with other sex markers—commonly, chromosomes, genitals, sex hormones, and secondary sex characteristics—to create a mosaic of sex traits.
We can’t create a sex binary using the reproductive organs (gametes and gonads), because:
* People can have both ovarian and testicular tissue (an ovotestis or gradation of cells)
* People can have ambiguous gonadal tissue
* It is common for all types of gonads (female/male/intersex) to lack gamete production
I refer you to:
> “In anisogamety, an individual's sex condition coincides with the type of gametes it produces; male if it produces male gametes exclusively, female if it only produces female gametes, and hermaphrodite if simultaneously or at different times” [1]
[1] The Biology of Reproduction, Cambridge University Press, Giuseppe Fusco, Alessandro Minelli
which you might be familiar with [0].
Note: " male if ..", "female if ..", and "hermaphrodite if .."
which is ( counts slowly 'cause can't understand stuff real good ) one, two, three buckets.
An individual's sex condition *coincides* with the type of gametes it produces. Gametes are used to determine (in this sense, ascertain) sex because it shows the reproduction strategy.
> which is ( counts slowly 'cause can't understand stuff real good ) one, two, three buckets.
Humans are not hermaphroditic, no mammals are. Not sequentially, not simultaneously. (In fact, the way that sex development occurs it cannot happen, but that is going to be too high level for this discussion, clearly.)
> Gametes (egg or sperm) can mix-and-match with other sex markers—commonly, chromosomes, genitals, sex hormones, and secondary sex characteristics—to create a mosaic of sex traits.
Traits do not define sex, gamete size does (see above), adding them all up will not change that.
> People can have both ovarian and testicular tissue (an ovotestis or gradation of cells)
And only one reproduction strategy, which is why there are no human hermaphrodites, having both types of tissue does not mean there is possible gamete production, as evidenced by the total lack of any actual hermaphrodites in all of recorded human history, if not a knowledge of the process itself.
> People can have ambiguous gonadal tissue
Completely irrelevant.
> It is common for all types of gonads (female/male/intersex) to lack gamete production
Also irrelevant. Someone who has finished their fertile phase still has a reproduction strategy in place. Someone who has a disorder still has a reproduction strategy in place. Someone who is not disordered and still in their fertile phase yet not producing gametes right now still has a reproduction strategy in place.
There are only two reproduction strategies in humans, and only one in any individual, and only one is possible in any individual, and it cannot change.
> Maybe tone that down a notch or three.
It was an accurate observation, which you have only gone on to prove further.
True hermaphrodite is a misnomer, a term for an intersex disorder known as ovotesticular syndrome[0]. To quote the great Wikipedia:
> In the past, ovotesticular syndrome was referred to as true hermaphroditism, which is considered outdated as of 2006. The term "true hermaphroditism" was considered very misleading by many medical organizations and by many advocacy groups, as hermaphroditism refers to a species that produces both sperm and ova, something that is impossible in humans.
To check, we can apply "our" quote - a hermaphrodite would either be sequential, which we know humans are not (I hope we know that much), or able to produce both types of gametes at the same time.
True hermaphrodites cannot do that, and the paper you shared makes no claim that they can or that they have. None of the examples show that either.
Your claim is false.
> Not all humans reproduce.
I'm sorry, but you're bringing the conversation down to a level too silly to bother with there. Every human has a reproductive strategy, and from conception to boot. Whether any individual actual reproduces is irrelevant to that.
Really, that kind of argument is beneath the level of this forum.
I don't think that's true. Or at best it's a tautological argument. Some people have crazy genes like XXY. There's no clear gender that they are "supposed" to be.
I refer you to my comment[0] (flagged for some inexplicable reason), chromosomes are not the method of sex determination in humans (or most animals), and are not even the necessary condition in the process of fulfilling the sexual reproduction strategy in some others.
I don't know how to read that comment, but your idea that everybody is exactly male or female is clearly wrong just by thinking about it.
Sex is clearly a continuum, just like everything in the world. If you smoothly vary someone's physiology and genetics from male to female there will be a region in the middle where it's kind of woolly and you can't really say they are definitely male or female.
Let me give another example. Is a spork a spoon or a fork? It's clearly somewhere in-between. You can't say "this spork is actually a spoon with some anomalous tines".
Now it just so happens that there are very few sporks in the world (due to the huge selection pressure). But they do exist and they aren't obviously "male with errors" or "female with errors".
You can't really argue against this, any more than you can argue that green is actually very blueish red. The English language dictates that it isn't.
You're free to go off and make your own not-English where green is "blueish red" but don't expect anyone to know what the hell you are talking about.
Sex is not colour. Colour does exist on a spectrum, sex does not (in humans or other mammals). Humans are also not cutlery. Both of your analogies are misplaced.
Humans, (along with 95%+ animals) are gonochoric, which means they are either male or female and cannot change that.
There is no spectrum because there are only two types of sex cell (gametes, sperm and ova) thus, only two reproductive strategies available.
We also know that the reproductive strategy coincides with gamete size (small and large, again, sperm and ova) and this is helpfully confirmed by non-gonochoric species that are hermaphrodatic, like clownfish. We know that a clownfish has changed from male to female when their reproductive strategy has changed to the point that they can produce the other type of gamete.
> You can’t really argue against this
It seems like your assumptions have been challenged, it would’ve been better if you’d do some of that yourself, and read some biology by actual biologists, not from activists.
Yes it does. It just has an extremely bimodal distribution.
> Humans, (along with 95%+ animals) are gonochoric, which means they are either male or female and cannot change that.
Sure, when the genetics all goes to plan. But it isn't perfect. Sometimes it doesn't.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about all of this but I can't quite figure out where it is. It's like you've only read a biology textbook and never really thought about it or something.
No, there cannot be a hermaphrodatic human because of the genetics, as only one reproductive strategy can be chosen even when there is a disorder.
Find me the third type of gamete and you’ll have a point.
Edit: I’ll add, traits are a bimodal distribution, sex is binary (because of all I’ve outlined here). If you believe that traits define sex then you are sorely mistaken (see 3rd gamete for why).
Dealt with here[1] but I'm more than willing to post the quote again:
> In the past, ovotesticular syndrome was referred to as true hermaphroditism, which is considered outdated as of 2006. The term "true hermaphroditism" was considered very misleading by many medical organizations and by many advocacy groups, as hermaphroditism refers to a species that produces both sperm and ova, something that is impossible in humans.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex for why it's not straightforward and why the edges are pretty fuzzy.
The main take away would be that some people are born that are neither male nor female, others are born where assignment isn't clearcut or easy, and such births are more common than the frequency of gold in the earth's crust.