MadAsAHatter
Well-known member
I did answer your questions. You even answered one of your own questions. What I "scoffed at" was you asking the same question when the answer was clearly right there in my response you quoted. It just showed your lack of knowledge on the subject matter, I don't mean that in an insulting way, just you haven't had sufficient exposure to it.
I'm reengaging with you because of this article you linked. I've seen it before, but reread it to refresh myself. If the bulk of your info is coming from this or similar articles I can understand your confusion. That particular article is somewhat disingenuous. You have to understand that this is just an article, not an abstract that is summing up conclusions of a research paper. It's taking bits an pieces of different research projects and presenting them in a way to justify their viewpoint as laid out in the Beyond the Binary section.
For instance they subtlety showed bias to imply a spectrum by stating by the most inclusive definition, 1 in 100 people have a form of DSD. It manipulates the statistics by including instances that are classified as a DSD, but do not implicate a spectrum of sex. A mother still having some cells left in her body from her male fetus. That is classified as a DSD but doesn't imply she is part male. It says she has foreign male cells in her body that didn't get rejected. Or to look at that another way if the fetus was female and there were leftover cells in the mother's body, that doesn't make her double or super female. It would also include temporary DSD's (for lack of a better description) like if a male has slightly elevated levels of estrogen than average during puberty. That doesn't mean the boy is turning into a girl, just that temporarily there was a little extra estrogen being produced. In actuality, the number of those that have a DSD in which the person's sex can't be defined as biologically male or female is extremely rare. As a quick aside; to reiterate what I answered before, those rare occurrences were classified as hermaphrodite and now I believe use the term intersex.
Another couple of examples that can be grouped together is where it discusses the studies on mice. Those studies were about identifying specific genes and their function, not about proving a spectrum of sex as the article would lead you to believe. The process of identifying gene function was to artificially activate and deactivate individual genes and observe changes to the mouse's body. The studies are presented in a way that implies it is a natural occurrence to further reinforce the author's viewpoint that sex is a spectrum. This is in fact not the case. it is in fact not. The genes were manipulated.
To make it back to my original point, this article and others like it are disingenuous. If you had more exposure to and knowledge on the subject you'd be able to recognize this and better understand the science.
