[implements]

Should intersex conditions be considered normal human genetic variances (like eye colour), or genetic disorders (like Down Syndrome)?

It’s humane and polite not to describe people as abnormal, but being medically accurate I’d argue that humans are indeed binary sexed, and immutably so.

[sascha_sl]

It really depends where you draw the line of "intersex condition", it's not really a term physicians specialized in the field use anymore, because variance in sexual development is ubiquitous if you look hard enough. "DSD" is typically used when there's a pronounced effect that is physically diagnosable, but it often misses other neurological factors that, for instance, corelate in transgender people.

Then again, a lot of severe conditions that would often fall under the DSD umbrella are often overlooked until they become somehow important. For instance, complete androgen insensitivity, so zero functional testosterone in an XY individual, is often not diagnosed until you notice the lack of periods / cervix.

Calling it bimodal is a much more precise way to go about it that acknowledges we have two broad categories, with lots of exceptions and caveats.

[dragonwriter]

> Should intersex conditions be considered normal human genetic variances (like eye colour), or genetic disorders (like Down Syndrome)?

Doesn't really matter, for this purpose.

> I’d argue that humans are indeed binary sexed, and immutably so.

Unless you defining terms such that the variations are not merely disorders but actually nonhuman, you are clearly wrong; human alignments of sex characteristics are non-binary though bimodal.

[implements]

> human alignments of sex characteristics are non-binary though bimodal.

You either produce sperm, or ova - or neither (which if caused genetically is an abnormal variant).

“Producing the wrong gamete for one’s perceived gender doesn’t construct an additional sex, nor alter the definition of sex such that there are female sperm / male ova producers - this holds even if that perception has genetic as well as psycho-environmental causes” - in my opinion.

But .. we’re philosophical / political at this point .. which is the problem.

[dragonwriter]

> You either produce sperm, or ova - or neither (which if caused genetically is an abnormal variant).

Or both, at least in theory, though true hermaphroditism with both ovulation and spermatogenesis, while theoretically possible and observed on other mammals has not, AFAIK, been conclusively shown in humans.

But, sure, you can redefine “sex” to be restricted to any one of a number of axes of sexual variation that exist in human and result in either a simple quaternary, trinary (or, if you try a little harder than you have, binary) distinction, but what is the point?

[alicemaz]

the commonly accepted estimate for intersex conditions is 1.7% of lives births, via https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11534012/ from this basis it's not much of a stretch to imagine the reality is that there's a greater spectrum of sex difference that is illegible because it hasn't been medicalized. certainly seems like a more plausible explanation than "ok ok, so there's people who don't fit into our perfect platonic ideal categories, but other than the 1.7% of weirdos the categories are still perfect"

it's god of the gaps thinking, people are addicted to drawing clean lines around discrete categories as a vestige of modernism. taxonomy brain. we don't have good ways to say "there are two major clustering points, which most people are roughly close enough to one or the other to call them that, but there's enough overlap and so many dimensions that it makes drawing clean boundaries impossible"

I suspect as gene sequencing gets commoditized and personalized medicine actually becomes practical, we'll find a lot more cases where it makes sense to analyze people on the basis of their individual traits rather than what broad groups we can class them under