3 ms·

If 1 in 4500 people are intersex by some definition, then that's about 1.5 million people alive today. Why should we force them to fit into a male or female box

If 1 in 4500 people are intersex by some definition, then that's about 1.5 million people alive today. Why should we force them to fit into a male or female box for the rest of society's convenience?

collegeburner 4y ago
We're not saying "force people" but 1.5 million against 7.5 billion is really small. Like, almost every trait that defines "human" has some people who don't fit that but still are human. This is because it's more about matching most not all traits. Like we still have to define human somehow.
- k__ 4y ago
  1:4500 is just one possible definition. They also mention 1:100 as most inclusive. While this might be a bit too extreme, I could imagine the number to be much higher than 1.5M.
throw_m239339 4y ago
Because "intersex" isn't a sex, it isn't a new gamete. And even so, in (most) case of malformations, some malformation classes only affect male individuals and others female individuals. But I agree that a good compromise would be, and only for this class of people born with a visible congenital ambiguity, to allow them to decide what sex they want to live as.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  This draws a very strange line around people who visibly display sex ambiguity and those who don't in terms of which gender roles are available to whom.
  - throw_m239339 4y ago
    I don't believe sex stereotypes, what you call "gender roles", should ever be codified in any sort of official paper, no more than the party people vote for or the religion they follow. However, the sex of an individual who is born without any sort of ambiguity is useful data in a lot of cases, medical of course, and social to determine who has access to what segregated sex facility and so on and so forth.
    - kelseyfrog 4y ago
      > to determine who has access I can see how this would appear reasonable at first glance, but it has so many thorny edge cases that it requires deep knowledge and systems-level thinking to address humanely.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]

If 1 in 4500 people are intersex by some definition, then that's about 1.5 million people alive today. Why should we force them to fit into a male or female box for the rest of society's convenience?

collegeburner 4y ago

We're not saying "force people" but 1.5 million against 7.5 billion is really small. Like, almost every trait that defines "human" has some people who don't fit that but still are human. This is because it's more about matching most not all traits. Like we still have to define human somehow.

k__ 4y ago
1:4500 is just one possible definition. They also mention 1:100 as most inclusive. While this might be a bit too extreme, I could imagine the number to be much higher than 1.5M.

throw_m239339 4y ago

Because "intersex" isn't a sex, it isn't a new gamete. And even so, in (most) case of malformations, some malformation classes only affect male individuals and others female individuals. But I agree that a good compromise would be, and only for this class of people born with a visible congenital ambiguity, to allow them to decide what sex they want to live as.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
This draws a very strange line around people who visibly display sex ambiguity and those who don't in terms of which gender roles are available to whom.
- throw_m239339 4y ago
  I don't believe sex stereotypes, what you call "gender roles", should ever be codified in any sort of official paper, no more than the party people vote for or the religion they follow. However, the sex of an individual who is born without any sort of ambiguity is useful data in a lot of cases, medical of course, and social to determine who has access to what segregated sex facility and so on and so forth.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    > to determine who has access I can see how this would appear reasonable at first glance, but it has so many thorny edge cases that it requires deep knowledge and systems-level thinking to address humanely.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]