Intersex: the third sex?

The argument sounds convincing: there are intersex people, so sex is a spectrum. It is not true. DSD is a medical condition, not an additional category.

The figures

The actual proportion of people with a DSD variation — Disorders of Sex Development, also known as Differences in Sex Development — is small. The original article states: "Fewer than 1 percent of people have a genetic abnormality in which biological sex is not entirely clear." Under stricter clinical definitions, the percentage is even well below 0.02 percent. The claim that "approximately 1.7 percent of people are intersex" — a frequently cited activist figure — relies on a broad definition that also includes late menarche and hypospadias.

Thirty variations, two sexes

Dozens of different conditions fall under the heading DSD, each with its own cause. "This concerns DSD (disorder/differences in sex development) or intersex conditions, of which there are as many as thirty variations." Examples:

• Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS) — an XY individual whose body does not respond to testosterone and develops a female phenotype.
• Klinefelter syndrome — XXY, a male phenotype with reduced fertility.
• Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) — an XX girl with an excess of androgens.
• Turner syndrome — XO, a female phenotype without complete puberty.

None of these conditions makes someone "neither male nor female." They are deviations in one of the two known sex-development pathways, not a third pathway.

Why the spectrum claim is incorrect

A spectrum implies a continuous sliding scale with countless intermediate values. The biology of human reproduction involves only two gametes: large, immobile egg cells and small, motile sperm cells. There is nothing in between. Those who produce the large gamete (or are on that developmental pathway) are female; those who produce the small gamete (or are on that developmental pathway) are male. "Intersex is clearly not a third sex and therefore cannot be used as an argument to demonstrate that biological sex is a spectrum."

A rare abnormality is not a new rule

The reasoning that "exceptions exist, so the rule is invalid" is not accepted anywhere else. People are born with six fingers, dextrocardia (the heart on the right side), or one kidney. This does not mean that the normal body plan is called into question. The original article states: "Some have fewer or more, but this does not result in a different model."

Intersex people themselves do not want a third box

Intersex organizations themselves do not ask for a third sex for their children. The Malta Declaration, drawn up by the Third International Intersex Forum in 2013, calls for intersex children to be registered as girls or boys, while recognizing that they may identify differently later in life. Most intersex people simply identify as men or women and primarily want better medical care and an end to unnecessary operations on babies. Their experience is being appropriated by a movement of which they are not a part.

Gender identity and intersex are two different things

Concealing the difference is a rhetorical trick. Transgender identity concerns a psychological feeling in a healthy body with an undisputed sex. DSD concerns a physical, often chromosomal condition of the body itself. Those who lump the two together use the suffering of a small medical group to legitimize a cultural claim. A simple explanation of what intersex means medically can be found at gender123.nl.

In summary

The original article concludes with the key sentence: "Indeed, some people are born with a mix of sex characteristics, but that does not mean that human sex is therefore non-binary." Two sexes, rare medical exceptions, no spectrum. That is the state of biological science.

Sources

This article is an adaptation of "Intersex, the third sex?", published on genderpunt.nl on February 10, 2021.