" I hate to say it, but there are people who hold that absurd point of view. They think not only that there are (phenotypic) differences between members of the same sex, but that some people can somehow be, say, 70% male and 30% female *in terms of their sex*."
It doesn't matter. People can say anything. Just as you can say that intersex people are male and female. You can say things that are not true, a lot of people do.
Has very little to do with whether or not sex is a spectrum, though.
" more accurately: people with DSDs "
To quote Google on this... " In the past, being intersex was known as having a disorder of sex development (DSD), and you might see it referred to this way in some places. But being intersex isn't a disorder, disease or condition. Being intersex doesn't mean you need any special treatments or care."
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/16324-intersex#:~:text=In%20the%20past%2C%20being%20intersex,any%20special%20treatments%20or%20care.
I am not " deformed" because I am a different sex to what you consider normal. Intersex is a genetic trait -- just like being male or female.
" No; some things are discontinuous, especially in nature. At the atomic level, there are discrete energy bands for electrons; the discontinuity of emissions in the photoelectric effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect) shows how photonic energy is quantized, not continuous. Nature is thus discontinuous at its most fundamental level."
In no way does energy being non-continuous mean that " nature is thus discontinous at its most fundamental level." That's like if I said " the world is discontinuous because there are set atomic configurations for elements."
... It should also be mentioned that in this context I was using continuous to describe the nature of the feature -- a measurement of something numerical.
I wasn't saying " continuous energy," I was saying continuous values.
" In biology, we have separate categories of gamete in human. We evolved from asexual single-celled organisms - absolutely! And somewhere along the way, some of those organisms evolved from isogamy to anisogamy, with discrete, different gametes for reproduction. And, if you play the evolution game for long enough, it turns out that one winning strategy is for one gamete to be small, inexpensive and motile, and another to be large, expensive and immotile. In such a strategy, there's no benefit in a third in-between gamete because it loses in any competition with the other two."
I mean yes -- that's a pretty accurate depiction, but it doesn't change the nature of vestigal traits and complicated lineage. In other words, the reason why I am saying this is because intersex sexual characteristics are likely a vestigal characteristic. It is absurd to think we have no connection to hermaphroditism merely because the majority of people are male and female.
"Intersex" people (please: people with DSDs, differences of sex development is the usage favoured by doctors and scientists since 2005) are still male or female. But yes, we all display an array--you could even call it a spectrum--of secondary sexual characteristics. This is uncontroversial, but doesn't mean that the owners of those characteristics are anything but male or female.
No matter what you believe, I will always be intersex and never have a " DSD." That's not only what I as an intersex person know, but also just scientific consensus.
" That's not quite right. From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222286/ : "During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female. After approximately 6 to 7 weeks of gestation, however, the expression of a gene on the Y chromosome induces changes that result in the development of the testes."
Yes, you can look at the genitalia in every stage of development that is between male and female. All you have to do is learn the multitude of variations that many intersex people have. For example,
https://i.imgflip.com/7e0po5.jpg?a469488
You can continue to try and disenfranchise me and other intersex people by saying we are some disorder or not real, or whatever -- but that is what Science says. Sorry it doesn't agree with you. You could have always googled this before you decided to write an article, then you never would have been wrong.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/16324-intersex#:~:text=What%20does%20it%20mean%20to,during%20puberty%20or%20even%20adulthood).
And if you are wondering why I care, that article has your answer.
" In the past, children who were intersex have been given surgery to make their genitals match the sex they were assigned at birth or to remove reproductive anatomy (like gonadal tissue) that doesn’t match their assigned sex. These intersex surgeries often take place before a child is 2 years old."
This falsehood which you are trying to promote has real-world consequences for myself and others like me.
Also I AM a Scientist, and we call intersex people intersex. That's kind of where the name comes from. It was created by the Scientific process. Because before we knew it was genetic, fundamentalists labeled us a disorder. Now you have all of the knowledge that it is just a variation and not a deformity and you're still subscribing to the point of view people had before we learned more about it... Because you are ignorant on the subject.
People like you probably think Pluto is a planet. I'm just saying...
