Intersex, too?!
It’s interesting for me to look back on some of my old writing. Although I was already blogging before that on another subject, back in 2005, I started this blog, in which I reflected mainly on the subject of being a Christian who wanted to be a critical thinker and philosopher.
One of the things that is interesting to see was the way my thoughts about gender and sex have evolved. As I mentioned in previous posts, I used to think that same-sex intercourse was a sin, a position that I no longer hold. Something that apparently has remained steadfast however is my belief that there is nothing wrong in any way with being transgender. While I knew transgender people existed since the 1990s, they weren’t really on my radar until around ten years ago, when Republicans decided that they needed a new scapegoat for all the ills of the world since same-sex marriage became legal and fire and brimstone didn’t rain down on the United States.
Back in 2017 in particular, evangelical Christians in America came together to write what was known as “The Nashville Statement”, a transphobic attack on the LGBTQIA community. At that time, while I probably still held conservative views on homosexuality, I came out strong against TNS, because as far as could see it was a nonsensical attack on not just trans people, but intersex people as well. Since that time, the relentless Republican attack on transgender rights has sent me online to interact with a variety of transgender and intersex people. I’ve learned a lot.
In the last ten years I have met:
- A woman with CAIS who is a former Mrs. America
- A woman with a Y chromosome who had given birth to two children
- A person who is biologically neither male nor female
- A transgender woman who is biologically female.
- Multiple transgender people who also have a recognized intersex condition
It’s useful to define the term “intersex” when it comes up in the discussion. There is a concept in biology of 3G sex: genes, gonads, and genitals. (Some have suggested the fourth G is gender, and transgender people should be classified as a form of intersex condition.) With over 90% of the population falling into the norms of female sex being XX genotype, ovaries, and a vagina, and male sex being XY genotype, testicles, and a penis, at least 2% of all people fall outside of those norms, and such people are intersex. One study that I read years ago was done in one of the Nordic countries where they did extensive genetic testing on the population and found that there are a lot of people who have genetic anomalies and don’t know it, meaning that the number of intersex people may be as much as twice what was believed. There are a lot of intersex people who don’t even know they are intersex.
What sense does it make to tell a person who was assigned female at birth and has lived their whole life as a woman that in fact they are not a woman, just because they have a chromosomal anomaly? We can’t even see each other’s chromosomes, and outside of reproductive function, they really play no role in our lives. Yet back in 2017, when fervor to attack transgender people was being stirred up by Republicans, conservative evangelical Christians decided to attack intersex people along with them, and they have not withdrawn the attack. What are we to make of their seriousness in this matter?
In my opinion, the whole house of cards that the right-wing nutjobs have built around the subject of sex and gender is completely pointless outrage. Humans simply don’t fit into two neat and tidy little boxes where everyone is cisgender, heterosexual, and biologically “normal.” It just doesn’t work that way, so why are people trying to police it all? These people need to get a real hobby.
