3 ms·

Before people start saying "you can't be neither sex" (theres already one deaded), I would like to remind us that intersex people exist and can be indeterminate

Before people start saying "you can't be neither sex" (theres already one deaded), I would like to remind us that intersex people exist and can be indeterminate.

dublinben 10y ago
Nothing in the article suggests that the individual in question is intersex. They have a very clearly defined sex. It is preposterous that the government would adopt a stance of official ignorance in this respect.
- KnightHawk3 10y ago
  We can disagree on if trans people should be allowed to choose no sex, but intersex people should be allowed to choose ambigous / no sex as they may literally not have one (XXY chromosones etc). Therefore it makes sense for the government to offically allow it, and if we allow people to change from male to female and female to male, why not either to no sex?
  - TruthAndDare 10y ago
    Just a note: Having XXY chromosomes does not make you without sex. You'd be male, unless there is something else wrong.
jeffreyrogers 10y ago
I don't really understand why that comment was killed. It seemed reasonably worded to me, and the poster didn't write "you can't be neither sex" he wrote "With rare exception, a person comes into the world as a male or female," which is quite different. I think it's a shame that on HN people can't voice opinions like the one in that comment. To me the comment didn't seem bigoted, but seemed worthy of discussion. Edit: the comment is no longer dead, at least at the time of writing this.
- mikeryan 10y ago
  I don't think the comment should be deleted, but its a naive point and one I think HN should be above. This whole debate isn't a question of biological sex, but gender identity. The comment isn't worthy of discussion because we all know, outside of some very rare cases, that people are born with one biological sex.
- DasIch 10y ago
  There are people who are not clearly male or female both from a biological or sociological perspective. That's not an opinion, it's fact. Emphasizing that being nonbinary is rare only serves to legitimize labelling it as other as something that's not normal and to draw boundaries - where they don't belong - that inevitably bring discrimination with them. The comment may be "reasonably" worded but it's just a thinly veiled call to legitimize discrimination. A difference between that comment and "you can't be neither sex" exists only rhetorically but not in what's conveyed.
  - TruthAndDare 10y ago
    > Emphasizing that being nonbinary is rare only serves to legitimize labelling it as other as something that's not normal Is it normal?
gravypod 10y ago
Isn't someone being defined as being intersex someone who is transitioning to another sex? Wouldn't it just make sense to let the person choose if they would like to be defined as their current sex or what they are transitioning to? So for example, if the person is MtF and they want the government to call them F, they can just ask the government to switch their sex status. Having a "T" class doesn't make much sense since it doesn't really model what is happening. T is not in itself a sex, it's the representation of people transitioning from one sex to another. That inherently means it is not a state but instead it's a mutation.
- KnightHawk3 10y ago
  At the moment, if you are born with abnormal chromosones your genitals can be ambigous at birth, doctors to this day will perform a "corrective" surgery to make you "right" Intersex people are not a fan of it for the most part and are calling for the practice to be illegal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex What you are describing is transgender people which is not intersex people, however both could have an ambigous gender.
  - nostrebored 10y ago
    Intersex people do not have an ambiguous gender, they have an ambiguous sex based on genitalia. However, "In humans, biological sex is determined by five factors present at birth: the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, the type of gonads, the sex hormones, the internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus in females), and the external genitalia". So really none of it is that ambiguous.
    - DasIch 10y ago
      At least until you have an understanding of what gender is, how you yourself fit into that social construct and can articulate it, gender is ambiguous for everyone, intersex or not.
      - nostrebored 10y ago

Before people start saying "you can't be neither sex" (theres already one deaded), I would like to remind us that intersex people exist and can be indeterminate.

dublinben 10y ago

Nothing in the article suggests that the individual in question is intersex. They have a very clearly defined sex. It is preposterous that the government would adopt a stance of official ignorance in this respect.

KnightHawk3 10y ago
We can disagree on if trans people should be allowed to choose no sex, but intersex people should be allowed to choose ambigous / no sex as they may literally not have one (XXY chromosones etc). Therefore it makes sense for the government to offically allow it, and if we allow people to change from male to female and female to male, why not either to no sex?
- TruthAndDare 10y ago
  Just a note: Having XXY chromosomes does not make you without sex. You'd be male, unless there is something else wrong.

jeffreyrogers 10y ago

I don't really understand why that comment was killed. It seemed reasonably worded to me, and the poster didn't write "you can't be neither sex" he wrote "With rare exception, a person comes into the world as a male or female," which is quite different. I think it's a shame that on HN people can't voice opinions like the one in that comment. To me the comment didn't seem bigoted, but seemed worthy of discussion. Edit: the comment is no longer dead, at least at the time of writing this.

mikeryan 10y ago
I don't think the comment should be deleted, but its a naive point and one I think HN should be above. This whole debate isn't a question of biological sex, but gender identity. The comment isn't worthy of discussion because we all know, outside of some very rare cases, that people are born with one biological sex.
DasIch 10y ago
There are people who are not clearly male or female both from a biological or sociological perspective. That's not an opinion, it's fact. Emphasizing that being nonbinary is rare only serves to legitimize labelling it as other as something that's not normal and to draw boundaries - where they don't belong - that inevitably bring discrimination with them. The comment may be "reasonably" worded but it's just a thinly veiled call to legitimize discrimination. A difference between that comment and "you can't be neither sex" exists only rhetorically but not in what's conveyed.
- TruthAndDare 10y ago
  > Emphasizing that being nonbinary is rare only serves to legitimize labelling it as other as something that's not normal Is it normal?

gravypod 10y ago

Isn't someone being defined as being intersex someone who is transitioning to another sex? Wouldn't it just make sense to let the person choose if they would like to be defined as their current sex or what they are transitioning to? So for example, if the person is MtF and they want the government to call them F, they can just ask the government to switch their sex status. Having a "T" class doesn't make much sense since it doesn't really model what is happening. T is not in itself a sex, it's the representation of people transitioning from one sex to another. That inherently means it is not a state but instead it's a mutation.

KnightHawk3 10y ago
At the moment, if you are born with abnormal chromosones your genitals can be ambigous at birth, doctors to this day will perform a "corrective" surgery to make you "right" Intersex people are not a fan of it for the most part and are calling for the practice to be illegal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex What you are describing is transgender people which is not intersex people, however both could have an ambigous gender.
- nostrebored 10y ago
  Intersex people do not have an ambiguous gender, they have an ambiguous sex based on genitalia. However, "In humans, biological sex is determined by five factors present at birth: the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, the type of gonads, the sex hormones, the internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus in females), and the external genitalia". So really none of it is that ambiguous.
  - DasIch 10y ago
    At least until you have an understanding of what gender is, how you yourself fit into that social construct and can articulate it, gender is ambiguous for everyone, intersex or not.
    - nostrebored 10y ago