Genetic edge-case in sexual development | Hacker News Reader

Genetic edge-case in sexual development

medhelp.org

33 pointspook11 comments

Doesn't this kind of person put lie to the easy "marriage is between a man and a woman" viewpoint by blurring the distinction between "man" and "woman"? According to the article, this condition isn't even all that rare.

Let's not even get started thinking about the warlike Xambia in the New Guinea highlands, or the guevedoces of Dominican Republic (http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html).

The boundaries between genders, even at a physical level, seem pretty porous.

I was pointed to an interesting article about that very topic the other day:

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Essays/marriage.html

"In particular, in 1967, Polish sprinting champion Ewa Kłobukowska was disqualified (and banned from professional sports!) for being (probably) XXY on the basis of failing the Barr body test, as was Spain's hurdler Maria José Martínez Patino for being XY (CAIS) in the 1980s. Worse, during preparations for the 1968 Grenoble Winter Games, Austrian skier Erika Shinegger was genetically tested, determined to be XY (probably CAIS), and disqualified. This was a great shock to all three women, who were raised female and had no reason to think otherwise. (Erika subsequently did have a sex change, and is now Erik. Maria's competitive eligibility was reinstated in 1988. Ewa retired, married, and gave birth to a son.)"

In general, this is an invalid inference. Consider the heap paradox and the continuum fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy

If by porous you mean far less than 1% of the population is of indeterminate sex, than yes.

To me it seems pretty solid, compared to pretty much anything else you can tell about a person's biology just by looking at them.

Marriage laws have plenty of logical issues even without this kind of issue. Can a woman who was born a man marry another woman?

http://www.texastribune.org/blogs/post/2010/may/04/tribblog-...

Sure, why not. As long as they're both of age and it is consensual.

I think people like the grandparent are looking for technical reasons to allow this sort of marriage under the current statutes. Of course anyone should be able to marry anyone else -- but the legal framework doesn't exist for that yet.

Androgen insensitivity is only one of a number of gender bending genetic disorders, there's about 5 more that are just as common.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRY_gene

So... is she allowed to compete?

same article, with picture: http://www.aissg.org/articles/MARIA.HTM

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