>Margaret, please estimate how many more people will no longer have either a
>male or female sexual identity in which the genetic, chromo and hormo
>levels are consonant once better measurement techniques are devised? And if
>more people have one of F-S's other sexual identities, how does this mean
>that biological sexual identity is not given?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'identity' or 'given' in this context, Rakesh.
Most people who deal with the issues professionally will say 'identity' refers to a person's sense of self, i.e., identification. But in your question, you appear to be using it to mean 'attribution', i.e., what other people think the person is.
And by 'given' do you mean 'assigned', 'assumed', 'immutable', or something else again? Your words bear all 3 interpretations.
I can't go further without knowing what you mean.
>>That political desire manifests in other ways. For
>>example: why was a person with only 1 Black
>>great-grandparent considered Black? Logically, it
>>makes no possible sense. Yet it was (and still is, in
>>places) political reality, and many people will say
>>it's 'natural'. Why? What's 'natural' about it?
>
>There is nothing natural about that or, for that matter, kinship systems.
Ah, but most people _including scientists_ *thought* it was natural. Which is still how most people think of sex membership, too. And with as little reason.
>>Making reproductive role more figural than other
>>characteristics is, as Carrol illuminated so
>>beautifully, a political decision.
>
>How have I done that?
Haven't you? Perhaps I've got confused. I thought you were arguing that sex is proven a 'real' and dimorphic attribute by the importance of and dimorphism in reproductive roles. No?
> Almost all serious sex deviance is
>>associated with XY people, for one thing. So since
>>'female' is the default development pattern anyway, and
>>there is good evidence that 'male' development is shaky
>>and fraught with opportunities for error, why don't we
>>just acknowledge that 'male' is only a convenient
>>identifier for 'sperm-producing, limited-capacity
>>females'?
>
>I hope this is meant to be wildly funny because it is.
Tongue in cheek, yes, and I'm glad you enjoyed it
But the underpinnings are well-documented 'good science', and thus could bear exactly that conclusion. Were it politically thinkable to do so. Which of course it isn't.
>>Fausto Sterling did little more than put old wine into
>>new bottles, re-labeling the canonical
>>'pseudo-hermaphrodite' categories. Her notion of
>>multiple genders seems intuitively correct, but the way
>>she packaged it is ...inadequate. Not many intersexed
>>people support her terminology.
>
>Why are they ticked at her? Because she suggests the greater 'sexual
>deviance' of hermaphrodites who have had a male or female identity foisted
>upon them is probably due to socialisation, not hormonal causes?
Not ticked, just underwhelmed. She hasn't offered much that's new, or politically useful. (I don't recall her using the term 'sexual deviance' in that way at all. I'll have to re-read, evidently.)
>>As to the value of 'correction', which would you rather
>>have: funny-looking but sensitive genitals, or
>>'corrected' genitals that neither look fully normal nor
>>retain neurological integrity?
>
>The decision seems more complex than that. For hormonal therapy, it seems
>to matter a great deal how the child had been raised.
Hormonal therapy isn't the issue -- it's the surgery that does the harm.
And the sex of raising doesn't come into it either; it's all down to the person's sexual identity, which may be quite different to the sex of assignment and rearing. There are any number of cases that demonstrate that truth, including a recent disaster from Johns Hopkins.
>Don't know if all surgical correction has above consequence.
It does. It's a surgical axiom that nerves are never as good after being cut, and a very great number of nerves are cut during 'correction'.
>
>Hey, do you know if there any way to take a sperm count at home?
Sorry, no I don't know; I've never felt the need to investigate the question :-)
Margaret