Intersex Conditions Are Not Nearly as Common as Red Hair

I subscribe to evolutionary biologist Colin Wright's new Substack Newsletter, Reality's Last Stand. In his most recent article, "Intersex Is Not as Common as Red Hair," Wright deals with a claim commonly heard from LGBTQ+ activists, the claim that 1.7% of people have intersex conditions, supposedly making it as common as having red hair. Most activists make this claim without any ill-intent. They want to show that intersex conditions are common and the people with these conditions should not be seen as abnormal. The "facts" touted by the activists, however, don't add up.

Many LGBTQ+ activists get their information from a book titled Sexing the Body, by Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000), who got her number from a study asking people to physically describe "idea" males and "ideal" females.  For example,

Their “ideal female” has two X chromosomes, functional ovaries that result in normal feminizing puberty, intact oviducts attached to a functional uterus, cervix, and vaginal canal. This ideal female must also have labia minora and majora present, and a clitoris that ranges between 0.20 and 0.85 cm in length at birth.

These "ideal" definitions fails because they include "many conditions that cannot be considered intersex in any clinically relevant sense." The central error was to equate “differences of sexual development” (DSDs) with “intersex.”  To illustrate Wright referred to a chart of Fausto-Sterling's data (that was created by Twitter user @zeno001):

Using this data, Wright points out how misleading the 1.7% claim is.

. . . 88% of Fausto-Sterling’s 1.7% figure is taken up by one condition: late-onset adrenal hyperplasia (LOCAH). These individuals have completely normal male or female genitalia at birth that align with their sex chromosomes. The sex of these individuals is not ambiguous, so to label LOCAH as an intersex condition is a far cry from what most people and clinicians conceptually envision the term to capture.

The next most prevalent DSD on Fausto-Sterling’s list iclude any chromosomal deviations from classical XX and XY (e.g. Klinefelter syndrome, Turner syndrome, etc.). However, these conditions do not result in ambiguous genitalia and therefore cannot be considered intersex in any clinically relevant sense. . . . .

Lastly, vaginal agenesis, the next most common DSD on the list, is not generally considered an intersex condition, as girls with this condition are genotypically XX, possess perfectly normal ovaries, and can even become pregnant and birth their own children following vaginoplasty. They are unambiguously female.

When these common DSDs are removed, and intersex conditions are more precisely defined as “conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female,” Fausto-Sterling’s 1.7% figure drops dramatically. According to Sax, “Applying this more precise definition, the true prevalence of intersex is seen to be about 0.018%, almost 100 times lower than Fausto-Sterling's estimate of 1.7%.”

With Wright's facts-first approach, the 1.7% claim commonly touted by activists bears no resemblance to reality.  As Wright reassures readers, this overstated statistic has no bearing on our duty to treat all intersex people as fully human. They are due the same kindness and respect as any other person. That should never be an issue for anyone, of course.

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What is a “Mourner’s Veto”?

In his article at Quillette, "Resisting the Mourner’s Veto," Christopher J. Ferguson describes a series of attempts by Woke activists to cancel speech they consider unpopular. This includes Joe Rogan, Abigail Shrier, Jordan Peterson and University of Chicago Professor Dorian Abbot. Each of these attempts has used what Ferguson terms a "Mourner's Veto":

These emotional attempts to suppress controversial or unpopular speech have increasingly made use of what I call the “Mourner’s Veto”—individuals will say that a speaker or a piece of writing has caused them to become distressed or sad or angry or frightened, and they will support these claims with allegations of “harm” or even threats to their “right to exist.” Reasonable debate and discussion then becomes impossible as activists make unfalsifiable but furiously emotive claims about alleged threats to their safety and wellbeing amid much weeping and claims of exhaustion and mental fragility. It is not healthy for the limits of permissible speech to be dictated by the most sensitive person in the room, nor to allow emotional appeals to supplant robust argument as the most effective strategy in a debate.

Ferguson points out three potential problems with the "mourner's veto":

First, the reliance on “lived experience” conflicts with a wealth of psychological research indicating that we routinely misremember, misattribute, selectively interpret, and/or distort (consciously or unconsciously) information to fit our personal narratives. This by no means invalidates the sincerity of every emotional outcry, but it is hopelessly naive to assume that they represent a more authentic or authoritative kind of truth. Second, to the extent that such strategies enhance social capital and power, it is inevitable that bad actors will exploit them, simply making stuff up in support of their agendas. People like this may be a tiny minority, but they can cause a disproportionate amount of havoc and it is not always easy to tell who is cynical and who is not. Third, by their nature, emotional appeals are often aggressive, daring opponents to question the veracity of claims and risk inevitable blowback.

The remainder of Ferguson's article focuses on corporate strategies for dealing with mourner's vetos. These suggestions include a lessened reliance on social media.

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Three Woke Disconnects

This, from a powerful essay by Edie Wyatt at Quillette titled "My White Privilege Didn’t Save Me. But God Did."

The postmodern re-engineering of left-wing political theory has included the redefinition of “privilege” in a way that is separate from economics, a definition of “sex” that is separate from biology, and a definition of “violence” that does not involve actual violence. It’s a language and a narrative that completely abandons the working class, while erroneously taking for granted our loyalty.

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Camille Paglia on the the Far Left (the Woke)

Click through to hear Camille Paglia's brutal, deserved and succinct take-down of the far Left. She, Peterson and many others who describe themselves as classical liberals (this includes me) are finding themselves homeless in light of the deep entrenchment of Wokeness in our meaning-making institutions:

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Yet Another Woke School Caught Misbehaving

Here are documents that pertain to yet another ill-behaved Woke school (this one located in Las Vegas), along with an attorney's well-drafted threat letter. Read them and weep for our children's future . . .

If you'd like to read the full thread, start with Colin Wright's Tweet:

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