Thread by @SwipeWright

About to start reading this with a very open mind. Will write an honest review when finished.

Just read the introduction. Started highlighting sections that stood out as being very confused. Quickly realized that I'd probably use less highlighter overall if I instead highlighted only the reasonable parts...

One thing really stands out. The author of the introduction claims that she menstruates normally, but has a somewhat masculinized body and enlarged clitoris. She had happily lived "as a woman" until discovering that she had an intersex condition (author doesn't indicate which).

The author then asserts this means she is neither male nor female. She doesn't "fit the binary" of male & female. Once she discovered she was intersex, which she describes as being something other than male or female, she then became confused about her "gender identity."

She now claims to be gender-fluid and non-binary. She is upset nobody ever told her she was intersex, because this prevented her from being who she "truly" was. This is so confusing to me.

First, having a masculinized body and enlarged clitoris doesn't make a female less female, or something other than female. She has ovaries and menstruates normally. She is a female, full stop.

Secondly, why on Earth would simply finding out you have what under some definitions qualifies as an intersex condition cause her to suddenly not be comfortable "living as a woman", whatever that means?

Nothing about her body changed once she found out she had an intersex condition. All she now had was a name for a condition she never knew she had. Why would this send someone down a spiral of identity confusion? Dress how you want to dress. Wear makeup or not!

She said she was perfectly happy with a "woman" gender expression until she learned more about her body. Why would this random discovery about her body make her no longer happy expressing herself as she once did?

She also makes it clear that she conceives "man" and "woman" as being essentially stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, respectively. And once she convinced herself that being intersex meant she was no longer female (not true), she was no longer comfortable with femininity.

Now she can choose to identify and express herself any way she desires, but logically this makes absolutely no sense.

If I found out I was an XX male tomorrow, I don't see how this would or should impact my behavior or expression in any way whatsoever.

These are just my initial assessments of the 16 page introduction.

Now, onto Chapter 1...

This from the intro. Umm, no... SHE is the one claiming that females with a large clitoris and masculine features--like her--makes them no longer female, but rather "intersex" which she describes as being something between male and female. So, who's the one erasing females? 🤔

Here's a section where she sets out to define her terms. Yay! Except... you'll find no actual definition of male/female here. Instead, she says she'll just talk about people "born with male traits" or "born with female traits".

But in order to know what a male or female trait is, or what traits are associated with being male or female, this requires understanding what male refer to apart from these individual secondary traits.

I could say that leather jackets are biker traits and that spandex bodysuits are cyclist traits, but this implies I know what bikers and cyclists are apart from their apparel, namely people who ride motorcycles or bicycles, respectively.

And importantly, a biker who dons a spandex bodysuit doesn't make them no longer a biker or suddenly a cyclist because of it. And a cyclist wearing a leather jacket doesn't magically turn them into a biker.

And we are only able to look back and say that leather jackets are "biker-related traits" and spandex bodysuits are "cyclist-related traits" AFTER we fully understand that bikers ride motorcycles and cyclists ride bicycles!

CHAPTER 2: WE ARE ALL MUTANTS

This should be titled to "WE ARE ALL INTERSEX" because that's what she's getting at.

But first she starts with a discussion about eugenics and the Holocaust, saying that many people who did not fit some "normal" or "acceptable" criteria were...

...killed because of it. Sure, that's correct. But the then segues into a discussion about how people with variations of sex characteristics are and have been considered less "valuable." I agree that things like intersex genital mutilation are and were wrong.

She then talks about how most people are either blonde or brunette, but that redheads exist! And redheads used to be persecuted as well! surely if we overcame the notion of a binary of hair color, we can overcome the binary of sex!

But this is a bait and switch.

Hair color is not a good analogy for biological sex. Hair colors are not specialized organs evolved to perform entirely different and specific functions. Hair color has to do with pigment that can indeed vary continuously.

On page 24 is her thesis statement:

"From a scientific, biological perspective, intersex variations comprise a distinct, yet diverse, sexual category. There are many types of intersex variances... Their natural existence provides unwavering evidence that sex is a spectrum."

This is simply incorrect. Intersex is NOT a distinct sexual category, but rather an umbrella term for individuals whose sex is ambiguous, or there is a mismatch between internal and external sex characteristics. The vast majority of intersex conditions are sex-specific.

Her claim that intersex is as common as red hair (1-2%) uses a clinically meaningless definition of intersex that includes individuals whose sex is unambiguously male or female, like herself. These conditions represent variation WITHIN the categories male & female, not new sexes.

Lastly, she states:

"We suspect that the acceptance of biological sex as not exclusively and strictly binary would likewise be non-detrimental to society, despite the fact that sex characteristics convey greater social significance than hair color."

Here she is confusing the statement "there are only 2 sexes" (true) with "everyone can be unambiguously classified as male or female" (false).

The following excerpt from my and @FondOfBeetles' @WSJ essay explains this distinction as clearly as possible.

wsj.com/articles/the-d…