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Differences in Sex Development (aka "intersex")

Myriad said:
Originally Posted by Steersman:
YOUR very first post that started this thread asked "what fraction of people born with DSDs are really ambiguous between male and female?"

Not quite sure how you expect we can answer that - divination, perhaps? - if we can't agree on what is required to qualify as male and female in the first place ...
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Using your preferred definitions of male and female, what is the answer to the OP question?
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Edited by jimbob: 


You have been warned about incivility so the only reason why I am not binning this post is because a smidgen prompted a reply

But to answer your question, any of those DSDs that don't have any functional gonads are neither male nor female; they're sexless. And those which do have functional gonads of either of two types are therefore male or female.
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pointless incivility snipped
 
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Steersman said:
But to answer your question, any of those DSDs that don't have any functional gonads are neither male nor female; they're sexless. And those which do have functional gonads of either of two types are therefore male or female.
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None of them have functional gonads, they are newborns.
 
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Something of an addenda to my response to GlennB's comment on my earlier one to Rolfe:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13887668&postcount=835
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13887656&postcount=833

There was a link to a RealClearScience article that GlennB apparently quoted from, but this passage in particular seems the crux of the matter:

This means that male and female cells are fundamentally dissimilar on a genetic level.
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https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2013/11/male_and_female_cells_are_not_the_same.html

And many other usages have similar constructions; see "male gamete" and "female gamete" from both Wikipedia and NCBI:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamete
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20298228/

And other constructions such as "male brains", "female brains", "male genitalia", and "female genitalia".

So such constructions are not actually saying that the cells or the gametes or the brains or the genitalia are males or females in themselves. Totally logically incoherent to say so since, by the biological definitions, to have a sex is to have the ability to produce sperm or ova. Which of course cells and gametes and brains and genitalia simply cannot do.

Bit of a puzzle that I've been wondering about for some time. But the answer seems to come from an analysis of the OED definitions for "male" and "of":

male (adjective): of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring.
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of (preposition): expressing the relationship between a part and a whole.
"the sleeve of his coat"
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So constructions like "male cells" MEANS "the cells OF a male", and "female brains" MEANS "the brains OF females".

And "male child" MEANS, presumably, "the child OF an eventual male". If it was actually a male then it would presumably be no longer a child.

Such constructions are placing cells, gametes, brains and genitalia as PARTS of the WHOLE entities "male" and "female", the ones doing the producing of either of two types of gametes. They are not asserting that the parts ARE the wholes. Which too many insist is the case - which has to qualify as incredibly sloppy language, at best.

As Francis Bacon put it:

"Therefore shoddy and inept application of words lays siege to the intellect in wondrous ways"
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Organum

And as 'Henry 'Higgins once put it:

But use proper English you're regarded as a freak.
Why can't the English,
Why can't the English learn to speak?
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;)
 
Steersman said:
And "male child" MEANS, presumably, "the child OF an eventual male". If it was actually a male then it would presumably be no longer a child.
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No, 'male child' means a child who is male. You're presuming your interpretation of the word 'male' is correct, but it isn't. It's idiosyncratic to an absurd degree.
 
Steersman said:
That's just you reading in between the lines again ...
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Yes. Thus my use of the phrase, "it's implicit".

Except yours doesn't work when you apply it to large fractions of the other 7-odd millions of sexually reproducing species on the planet.
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It works just fine once you realize we're using a structural definition of sex, rather than a functional one.

A point you refuse to address - pretty big elephant that you've swept under the carpet there ...
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Well, now that I've explained that we're using the same basic structural definition of sex for all the sexually reproducing species on the planet, I think we can reasonably consider this elephant seen and acknowledged.

Maybe the next elephant we should come to terms with is the fact that everyone is using structural definitions for the sexes, and that these definitions are manifestly intuitive, practical, and scientifically sound. Let me know when you've got a handle on that one.
 
Steersman said:
And "male child" MEANS, presumably, "the child OF an eventual male". If it was actually a male then it would presumably be no longer a child.
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Example usage: "My wife and I used to have three children, but two of them have started producing viable gametes, so now we only have one."

Yeah, that'll fly. Tell you what: go convince the U.S. Census Bureau that they've been foolishly misusing the word "children" since 1790. After they agree to change their definition (found here) to stipulate lack of viable gamete production as a requirement for being counted as a child on official census forms, then we can work more on "male" and "female."
 
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Steersman said:
Don't think you quite get - or want to get - that you don't get to make up your own definitions. As you don't get to drive on any side of the road you want whenever you want.
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... Says the guy trying very hard to make up his own definitions.

And rules of the road are not analogous to word usage in natural languages.

And the only prescribed, stipulative definitions on the table that qualify as intensional ones, as those which specify necessary and sufficient conditions for category membership are the biological ones.

You may wish to try reading - <personal attack snipped> - the entries for "male" and "female" in the Glossary of this article in the Journal of Molecular Human Biology:

https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990
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Those are structural definitions. The author is referring to the phenotypical structures that, when functioning, function in a specific way, distinct from their phenotypical counterpart.

You understand that structurally, there is one phenotype that will when functioning produce the larger gamete in anisogamous systems - the female phenotype structure. "Female", for short.

And you understand that structurally, there is one phenotype that will when functioning produce the smaller gamete in anisogamous systems - the male phenotype structure. "Male", for short.

You understand that phenotypes can be defined and denoted according to their structure.

Do you understand that pretty much everyone besides you is using these structural definitions in pretty much every context where sexual dimorphism in humans is important?

Do you understand we're using the structural definition for sex segregation in prisons? Do you understand we're using the structural definition for sex segregation in sports? Do you understand why it's important to use the structural definition in those contexts?

Do you understand why the structural definition is of supreme practical importance to homosexuals looking for sexual partners?
 
Myriad said:
Example usage: "My wife and I used to have three children, but two of them have started producing viable gametes, so now we only have one."

Yeah, that'll fly. Tell you what: go convince the U.S. Census Bureau that they've been foolishly misusing the word "children" since 1790. After they agree to change their definition (found here) to stipulate lack of viable gamete production as a requirement for being counted as a child on official census forms, then we can work more on "male" and "female."
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What about birth certificates, that have required every neonate to be recorded as either male or female since I can't remember when?
 
theprestige said:
Do you understand why the structural definition is of supreme practical importance to homosexuals looking for sexual partners?
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Actually, of supreme practical importance to absolutely everyone who is looking for a sexual partner, with the exception, presumably, of bisexual people.
 
Rolfe said:
Actually, of supreme practical importance to absolutely everyone who is looking for a sexual partner, with the exception, presumably, of bisexual people.
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I was going in that direction, but decided to leave room for a caveat about people who are really into making babies. But yeah.

And - not entirely seriously - even then... Isn't the functional definition itself kinda structural?

"Hey, I'm looking for a dedicated partner for the purpose of making babies together and raising them according to the family values of our culture. Would you say the gametes you're producing are structurally larger than the gametes I'm producing?"

"Actually, I'm not producing gametes anymore. Sorry."

"No problem! Wanna bang?"
 
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It's not simply that we might want to produce babies that makes heterosexual women go for male sexual partners, trust me on this one.
 
Rolfe said:
What about birth certificates, that have required every neonate to be recorded as either male or female since I can't remember when?
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Well, to be fair, the designation of sex on birth certificates, and the later usage of those designations, has become controversial in some contexts. Perhaps Steersman will want to claim this as an advantage of his idiosyncratic definition that declares pre-pubescent children as sexless. But whatever issues "sex observed and documented at birth" creates would not be thereby eliminated, merely deferred until about a dozen years later (when the children are still minors). Meanwhile, do we make all nine-year-olds use the same bathrooms and locker rooms?
 
I think one of Steersman's posts I wanted to respond to is now in AAH, but I was curious to know if discovering a way to reverse a vasectomy easily and rapidly would make men with a (not yet reversed) vasectomy male? If I recall, the issue was the time needed to reverse it.
 
Myriad said:
Meanwhile, do we make all nine-year-olds use the same bathrooms and locker rooms?
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I suppose we could alter the defintions of boy and girl to include Steersman's preferred prefixes.

Sent from my Nagasaki Stryder using Tapatalk
 
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