Came across and was stupidly affected by another discourse thread, one side current of the whole “what is biological sex” mess of the last week. In this case views from an intersex person, which does mean I want to acknowledge the challenges faced by this group rather than minimize them; obviously I cannot speak for them, and mostly I can just speculate.
In this case the person was expressing how either full-on denial of “biological sex” as a concept, or equating it with gender, would be denying and making invisible their experiences. This bothers me because as noted, the idea of/how someone being “biologically male/female” matters to me; I experience dysphoria from being concepted on the wrong side of such a division. For this perspective I have usually argued several things:
- “Biological sex” without further definition is poorly defined. This is not the same as denying it, but rather saying that it is not a straightforward, simple, obvious categorization; it is a construct insofar as that we have to decide on boundaries for spectra of bodily properties (effective bimodalities are still continua). That does not make it unreal, only definition dependent.
- Moreover, we can and should reference that biological property of the brain self-identifying (my “opt-out”/”opt-in” terminology) as a deciding factor where necessary in defining “biological sex” for organisms where this makes sense, like ourselves.
- Third, the properties of the sex property continua are not static under transition but changing.
This challenges the position of the person whose words I read in that there are circumstances where we would let gender, in fact, be the deciding factor on the “biological sex” of a person. In response to claims of intersex erasure or validity denial as a result of this, I would respond two things – the first, that the overall composite level leaves intact the various properties (which are the more concrete features affecting either a dyadic or intersex person’s existence). The second, that this may have relevance as a response to the experiences of intersex people – the failure of acknowledging that assigning biological sex first and foremost should be left up to ourselves underlies the oppressions some intersex people do face, as far as I understand it.
(Elaborating briefly there on my own limited understanding – there exists a class of intersex cis people assigned the sex they identify with without anything unusual noted at birth; with intersexuality discovered during puberty or even much later as part of a reproduction issue. These individuals in most cases will see themselves wholly and fully male/female as assigned, whether they acknowledge an intersex label or not in addition. Some such individuals may be trans (and imagine the challenges of being a CAIS XY trans man – you have XY karyotype and testicles, but cannot ever respond to testosterone in any way), and may recognize trans experience as well. More vocal in the discourse are those who were nonconsensually operated on as children to enforce either assignment made, often without being informed. To me it seems that for either group, the problem lies first in not being allowed to make one’s own assignment of “biological sex” and whatever cascades off of that, and second in the experience of having atypical characteristics.)
So I would say that recognizing either scope of experiences and needs comes with no requirement for a coherent “biological sex” concept to omit self-identification as one aspect, nor for that type of concept to not be recognized as complex. Recognition of the biological continua themselves go a long way and are also part of my trans experience – I seek to changed sexed properties of my body also for their own sake, I suspect. That those properties themselves (and the nonconsensual medical treatment downstream of them) affects and informs many intersex experiences is obvious, and while acknowledging and labeling it may be a choice in some regard, it is not an unconstrained source. I am not saying either trans or intersex people choose their bodies, or live lives unaffected by their bodies, quite the opposite. Intersex identity is no more fake than trans body dysphoria is.
The person whose words I read made the odd claim that the sex assignment of bodies is better described as labeling as typical or atypical, than as male or female, but this feels absurd – literally most characteristics typical of a male body would be considered atypical for a female body and vice versa; the typical/atypical, while clearly determining whether an early-diagnosis intersex person experiences surgeries they do not consent to or not, is only defined once one has clarified what it is typical/atypical in reference to. More fully, surely recognizing we are assigned (and later, perhaps, re-assigned under own volition) male or female is not controversial? The course those processes takes then leaves us with cis/trans, dyadic/intersex experiences which we may end up acknowledging.
That is, I posit we can recognize the very real and important influence of sexed body properties for the life histories of intersex people without 1) adhering to a simple composite “biological sex” definition that cannot incorporate self-identification and 2) failing to recognize how sexed body properties can be changed. I do not see where there is visibility or recognition of intersex lived experiences and the impact of the body that is lost under these systems.
The point was well made that comparing dyadic trans people to intersex people fails to recognize the involuntary nature of much of the intersex experience (something, however, which also applies to the trans experience in absence of transition), and also that while the cause may differ, a medically transitioned dyadic body may well occupy much the same region in the spaces of sexed property continua as an intersex body does. To deny this latter part is to say we somehow still are always only confined to our birth-assigned sexes. It is also important to notice both that 1) many intersex individuals experienced tremendous trauma and 2) many dyadic trans people would intensely want to be intersex, even knowing all that, because that would mean in some small ways being further away from one’s assigned sex.
Further the point was made how trans identity could not exist without a gender assignment at birth system; this is wrong; if we self-assigned genders later (sort of what I did?) then the discrepancy with the body norm (regarding, again, sexed body properties) within those sexes/genders would still cause dysphoria and a need to transition.
The quip was made – echoing that which I heard from TERFs – that unless there was a reality to biological sex, then defining us as trans would not work in the first place, in absence of reality of source/target sexes. As noted above, my definitions of male/female, men/women are not independent of sexed body properties, simply recognizing the whole as allowing for opt-out/opt-in (to degrees, thereby enabling nonbinary existence also here). That is, once more, this definition need neither be circular nor deny reality of transition outcomes, and is no more “just a social construct” than anything else.
lost in transition 