Tag Archives: bias

The following correspondence originally took place upon onto my Facebook wall…

Female (XX, or XXX), Male (XY), and Intersex (XXY)

Rayn: Check it out, Karl! Just now, while scrolling my timeline, I noticed a FB friend of mine sharing this article, and Rosalind Franklin is the very first researcher mentioned – just like we were talking about the other day! Synchronicity! 🙂

6 Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130519-women-scientists-overlooked-dna-history-science/

Siobhán L.: Nice article!

Siobhán L.: Also – as you might know – Nettie Stevens has probably played a large role in my own life, in which if they never figured out chromosomal sex – I might be in a very different situation, (I am XXY)

Rayn: Wow! More synchronicity! I was literally JUST talking about the topic of intersex with my husband only a little while after making this post. The reason why is because I had also talked about it with a friend yesterday afternoon, during an interview that she asked to conduct on me regarding the topic of “Diversity and Oppression” for a master’s level course she is currently taking at Rutger’s. At that time, before the interview started, while we we warming up with a discussion on unrealized forms of bias and discrimination, I eventually brought up intersex individuals, and, at one point, even mentioned how this group makes up at least 1% of the population – a figure she found to be surprising. So, right after making the post above, I remembered that portion of my pre-interview discussion, and finally decided to look up the figures again, to know for sure. After I was done, I showed my husband, who was also present during my interview, and then, I once again began railing against the common and accepted practice of surgical intervention shortly after birth for those individuals who express any significant form of having both male and genitalia (just as I had done the first time I looked into intersex about a year ago). I cannot help but see it as nothing more than an arrogant and misguided attempt to “medically” force the false dichotomy of a two-gender society.

Siobhán L.: Agreed – speaking about specifically XXY individuals – about 1/3rd of us are fine with being ID’d as male, about 1/3rd as female (I fall into this group) – but about 1/3rd ID as both, a 3rd gender, or genderqueer. I think this is fairly standard across other types of IS too – but I don’t know as much about them from experience.

Siobhán L.: I also fall into a weird other category of being an XXY individual who’s mother took a synthetic estrogen while pregnant with me – causing more teratogenic effects of having only partially formed male parts, and partially formed female parts (I think it’s probably about 80% male, 20% female – roughly)

Rayn: No doubt, Siobhán. Thank you for your valuable input! I really appreciate it! 🙂