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Comment by ck2 | Hacker News Reader

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Nothing in nature can ever be described with 100% accuracy by any model. But that doesn't mean models are useless. So imagine why we would use the binary sex model instead of three or a spectrum or what have you.

Simple models are useful, but they shouldn't determine who is allowed to live a normal, productive, life without some very compelling justification. Like the "binary sex model" is handy, but nothing about it makes it obvious that we should definitely and always lock gender (another non-binary model often simplified usefully into a binary) directly to biological sex.

There are only two elements in the universe: hydrogen and helium. The binary element model is 98% accurate.

Is a bimodal distribution, or a somewhat reductive “typical male, typical female, intersex” model, so difficult to understand that we can’t use it? I don’t think people are stupid.

Random but nature related: some birds have four sexes

You may be thinking of species like the white-throated sparrow. These have two morphs with distinct behaviours which lead to there being four mating combinations. Still two sexes though.

>1 in 1500 births is DSD and not binary (aka intersex but that term is outdated)

about 1 in 2000 births have less than 4 limbs but i don't see anybody claiming its a spectrum.

You don’t hear about it because everybody understands that disabled people exist and the broad consensus is that we should accept them, and assist them to a reasonable degree. There’s little reason to discuss it. If people born with less than 4 limbs were subjected to the same treatment trans people get, you’d better believe we’d be out here talking about how not everybody has 4 limbs and we should accept that.

> You don’t hear about it because everybody understands that disabled people exist and the broad consensus is that we should accept them, and assist them to a reasonable degree. There’s little reason to discuss it. If people born with less than 4 limbs were subjected to the same treatment trans people get, you’d better believe we’d be out here talking about how not everybody has 4 limbs and we should accept that.

Not intending to debate the ethics of abortion, but one of the reasons foetuses are aborted is due to disability, down syndrome being a notable example.

You’ll note that the people who oppose abortion generally also oppose aborting fetuses with disabilities. And among people who support abortion, a decent proportion also oppose aborting fetuses because of disabilities.

That's plain wrong. For example, the overwhelming majority of people in Iceland supports abortion rights AND abortion of pregnancies where there is the potential for down syndrom and other larger disabilities. Same goes for me, in general.

I don’t understand how that makes me wrong.

> among people who support abortion, a decent proportion also oppose aborting fetuses because of disabilities

You made a claim, but without evidence. Iceland is a population, that demonstrates the contrary.

Not saying you're wrong, but the second sentence is suspect and it's not interesting to argue about why.

Do you think it’s interesting to respond to a general claim with a rebuttal based on a tiny and relatively insular population? The county I live in has 3x more people than the entirety of Iceland.

Here’s a poll of Americans that includes a question about aborting fetuses with Down Syndrome. 44% of pro-choice respondents oppose it. I’m not wrong and there’s no reason to find that sentence suspect. https://www.kofc.org/en/resources/communications/polls/maris...

> Do you think it’s interesting to respond to a general claim with a rebuttal based on a tiny and relatively insular population?

I think it's a microcosm that is more aware of the effects than a population who (mistakenly) thinks the decisions they make are the reasons they experience specific effects, as opposed to the flow of individuals in and out of a virtual bounds of a larger population with very minor influence on socio-political issues.

Good luck with whatever.

> 1 in 1500 births is DSD

> trans people

Those populations have very little to do with each other - if anything.

I mean, congenital limb differences are quite literally a spectrum. An entire limb can be absent, or just part(s) of it, or most of the limb can be present but irregularly formed...

You can even mix and match with which parts are present vs absent. I know someone with an arm that stops just above the elbow but still has several (usable!) fingers extending from it. So no joint, but sorta-yes hand.

As far as I'm aware, no one is born with both sets of working reproductive organs and in most cases there is still a "dominant" gene expression, and only some extremely rare cases where current tests fall short.

So I don't see 1 in 1500 people being oppressed by the court ruling.

Sex is binary to a similar degree that humans are born with 10 fingers and 10 toes. Nothing in nature is fixed 100% of the times, but rather exist on a line of probabilities.

For anyone like me who’s unfamiliar with the acronym.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disorders_of_sex_development

thanks for the link. and the section in controversy is really worth reading for nuance and thoughtful conversation.

the humans with intersex conditions themselves object the term, as it tags them as sick, a "disease". their personal experience based political interventions have lead to the prohibition of cosmetic surgeries on genitals of minors, or forced hormonal sex assignment on minors, in several European countries that is. so they can decide on their own when they are old enough. that's all the personally affected humans ask for, for the next generation: let them be as they are and allow them to decide on their own.

It's really offensive to tell people with DSDs they aren't their sex. Sex is binary. People with DSDs are female or male, except for extremely rare cases.

You can't say "$TRAIT is binary" when you follow that up with "$TRAIT can only be true, false, or sometimes something else". That's not a binary trait by definition.

Some people who are DSD consider themselves binary.

Some people who are DSD take great pride in being non-binary.

People who are DSD have been documented for CENTURIES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex_people_in_history

But that's my whole point, "sex" a spectrum and it's one of the big lies perpetuated by people who insist everything was known and set in stone, when their bible was invented, despite never having microscopes or telescopes or even eyeglasses

>But that's my whole point, "sex" a spectrum and it's one of the big lies perpetuated by people who insist everything was known

Yes I know it's a spectrum, and all 'intelligent' people I know this (the spectrum is unevenly distributed with 2 peaks).

Of all the things in the world that people understand or misunderstand, why, to you, is this particular subject even an issue?

"when their bible was invented"

I can tell you that in Czechia and former East Germany, two most atheist places in the Western world, the concept of sex as a spectrum isn't especially popular either. People can be somewhat socially conservative without believing in the bible.

You do not need microscopes, telescopes, or even eyeglasses to determine sex differences. The existence of chromosomal abnormalities does not mean we need to change the meaning of words.

and you can tell with the naked eye that an intersex baby is intersex, and neither "properly" male or female. except when the baby looks very female but is genetically male due to androgen insensitivity syndrome. then you need that microscope again...

kindergarten level logic fails at physiological sex ambiguity.

and it fails even more so at gender identity issues.

Not following your point, unless it's merely to say that parsing observable reality isn't good enough to determine the precise levels of hormones flowing through someone's body, which, fine. That's certainly true. However ... physiological characteristics are in fact dictated to a large extent by hormones, and as a result one can realistically make a good inference about e.g. who has more testosterone.

my point is: biological sex follows a bimodal distribution with some in-between data points that are not trivially assignable to one or the other pole, called "intersex" humans. they are a biological, medical reality, and they themselves ask to leave children alone and allow them to decide when and if at all they want medical interventions.

Even calling it bimodal obscures the truth, though. When people read "bimodal" they think of the two-humped-camel plot, when reality is like two 60-story skyscrapers a mile apart with an apartment building or two in between.

People routinely can't tell I'm trans. The differences are a lot more subtle than people realize.

>it’s really offensive to tell people with DSDs they aren’t their sex.

Not really true. Some people maybe.

>Sex is binary

Sex is complicated. Traits cluster bimodally, but it would be reductive, scientifically inaccurate, to say it’s a simple binary.

>People with DSDs are female or male

That depends on how female and male are categorized. The line between in the trait cluster and outside of the trait cluster is arbitrary. So it depends where you draw that line.

The point is sex is a spectrum, we don't have to put everyone in little boxes then get upset when things aren't so clearly defined.

Expressed sexual characteristics are a spectrum when there are mutations in the genes involved in the binary system of sex.

not sure what you mean, but there are disturbances in the development of sex, indeed. do you agree to that medical fact?

What? Sex is a spectrum, this is a fact. There are people born with testicles and rudimentary ovaries. There are people born with breasts and long penis-like clitorides. I encourage you to try and not categorize everything into neat little boxes.

Saying it's a spectrum implies to most people there's some sort of Gaussian distribution and there's not.

There's not like 20% of humans with mammary glands and a scrotum, right? Or 10% with no reproductive organs. Or 15% with both sets.

The obvious flip side of 1 in 1500 is that 1499 out of 1500 are binary.

So there's not really a spectrum as most people would understand that word.

The word you're looking for is "bimodal distribution".

The spectrum of sex characteristics is a bimodal distribution with two peaks. and the vast majority of all humans fall close to one of the two peaks peaks. however, they indeed exist medically classified circumstances for bodily sexual expression that is not on one of the peaks but somewhere in between.

and the percentage of those not close to the peaks is heavily contested and varies between 1 in 15000 ( putting extremely high bars on "uh wen can't tell") to 17 in 1000 (counting for example a larger clit as a penis-y ambiguous thing)

bimodal distribution with distinct peaks and a low but non-zero density between the peaks.

To add to the other reply, nearly 100% of people classified as men at birth do have mammary glands and can lactate if they take certain medication. Some men can lactate without medication.

Indeed, and same goes for trans people.

The woman in the article has a DSD that only affects female sex development. Plus she has working ovaries. From either of these facts one can conclude that she is female.

I don't know why you think this is a conservative lie. It is not.

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