"CAIS" (Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome) proves that Transgenderism is Real"

submitted by Kai_Decadence from self.GenderCritical

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[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

We weren't talking about sports, we were talking about the definition of biological sex - male and female - which in all plant and animals across the board is determined by whether a person, animal or plant has anatomy organized around the potential capacity to produce either ova or sperm at some point in life.

In humans and other species, gametes come from gonads, and female gonads are ovaries, male gametes are testes. The fact that someone has CAIS doesn't turn that person's testes into ovaries. Phenotypically, persons with CAIS appear female, and socially most are seen and treated as such. But from a strict biological point of view, they are male coz they have male gonads even though their male gonads can't make sperm.

As biologists define sex, the presence of organs like a uterus and clitoris is not key, coz a lot of sexually-reproducing animals do not gestate young within their bodies, nor have the females developed the capacity for sexual pleasure the way humans have. In birds, for example, eggs are fertilized inside the female's body, but then the female lays her eggs and they gestate and hatch outside the female body. Some other animals lay eggs first, and the male fertilizes them afterwards, outside the body. What's more, a lot of sexually-reproducing organisms are plants, not animals.

Sexual reproduction is actually very varied, but it always involves the merging of a female gamete with a male gamete. And again, male and female gametes come from male or female gonads. I don't think that it's correct to say someone with male sex chromosomes and male gonads is biologically female. Socially, they can be viewed as girls and women, but not biologically. But this is something perhaps it's best to just agree we disagree on and leave it at that.

Since you brought up sports, I don't think it's true, as you claim, that XY individuals

with CAIS have lungs, heart size, bone density, and even most of skeletal structure - same as any female without DSD, so they have no advantage in strenght or speed, so should be same as women without DSD in sports (they may even have disadvantages, as they will lack muscle memory).

Actually, we don't know this, coz very little research has been done either on the athletic performance of either normal XX female bodies or on the bodies of XY people with AIS.

However, it is well known that due to their XY chromosomes individuals with CAIS tend to be noticeably taller than XX women - and height is indeed an advantage in many competitive sports. Moreover, persons with CAIS, particularly those who still have their testes, actually appear to have differences in such factors as bone mineral density, metabolism, cardiovascular risk, BMI, etc that set them apart from both males and females with normal or typical development. Some of these differences might give them athletic advantages over XX competitors in sports, some might not. The full picture isn't clear.

Furthermore, it is clear that in elite-level female athletics, whose participants tend to be young or youngish, XY persons with CAIS are actually WAY over-represented, and they generally perform better than XX athletes - but for reasons that seem to have nothing to do with testosterone and have yet to be elucidated.

According to biologist Emma Hilton, who has studied this at some length,

The frequency of CAIS in the general population is 1 in 20,000. The frequency of CAIS in female athlete cohorts is 1 in 420. CAIS is nearly 50 times more prevalent in female athletes than in female couch potatoes. This is a massive overrepresentation.

CAIS females succeed as athletes way more often than non-CAIS females. How puzzling that the only thing the IOC asserts confers sporting advantage is functionally absent in these females with clear sporting advantage.

Whatever underpins CAIS female sporting advantage, it is independent of functional T.

https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1070097776665608193

Also, can you explain why persons with CAIS would "lack muscle memory" as you say?

Finally, I got the impression that at the end of your post you were saying that if person with CAIS got a uterus transplant - as well as the transplant of at least one ovary - they theoretically should be able to sustain a pregnancy coz their brains would cause them to produce all the hormones needed for pregnancy in just the right amount. And presumably their brains - or genetics - would arrange for them do a vast number of other things necessary to sustain a pregnancy as well, such as growing a placenta and developing the same kidney function as XX people have.

But what is known is that persons with CAIS do not have female hormone profiles, and when they get their testes removed and take female hormones they tend not to fare well if the hormones are dosed to give them levels that XX females typically have:

Interestingly, patients with CAIS seem to have a different hormonal status that does not follow a physiological male or female profile. In particular, postpubertal CAIS patients with intact gonads show increased levels of LH with normal levels of FSH and of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) for the female range; moreover, basal testosterone and oestradiol values, free androgen indices and androgen aromatization indices are in the normal male range. Increased levels of LH, despite testosterone levels, may be attributable to the role of androgen resistance in the normal negative feedback action carried out by androgens on the hypothalamus-hypophysis axis. Thus, Doenhert et al. (2015) suggested the use of a lower dose of HRT in patients with CAIS after gonadectomy, seeing that these patients follow neither a female nor male hormone pattern and that levels of oestrogen are normally below the female range before gonadectomy. This could partially explain the reported reduced wellbeing with doses of current classic HRT [meaning exogenous female sex hormones in doses to match the levels/range of these hormones normally found in XX individuals].

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6480640/

Note that in the hormone profile there is no mention of HCG - human chorionic gonadotropin - which is known as "the pregnancy hormone" coz of its key role especially in the first 11 weeks, nor of progesterone, another key female hormone that is essential to pregnancy and is highly elevated during pregnancy. The adrenal glands of both females and males can produce some progesterone, but they can't produce progesterone in the amounts needed to sustain a pregnancy - only ovaries can. But even ovaries can't produce HCG - only a placenta that a woman has begun growing at the start of pregnancy can.

There have been case reports of ovarian transplants/grafts from various medical centers, but only in XX women. And the ovarian tissue transplanted either were the women's own originally healthy ovaries that had been removed and frozen prior to cancer treatment - then put back in the body later on, or they came from the women's own sisters (identical twin sisters in the majority cases, genetically different sisters in a very small minority). Generally speaking, it appears that removing and freezing a woman's own ovaries, then putting them or parts of them back in her body later, is much more successful than transplanting ovaries or ovarian tissue from another woman.

I have not found any information on PubMed or Google Scholar showing that uterine or ovarian transplants have ever been tried in persons with CAIS. Only one report that at one medical center 10 individuals with CAIS applied for inclusion in a uterine transplant "project" - but what that project entailed and whether the CAIS applicants were accepted is not clear. I also haven't found any evidence to support your claim that

even if woman with CAIS can't get uterus transplant and gestate, the rest of her body is developed to support it, even if it fails on doing so.

Then again, perhaps I missed the evidence. If you could provide some links, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5375051/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6685107/

https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jog.12486

[–]ColoredTwice 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

they are male

So what now, with this logic they must go to male toilets and be grouped with males?

And this means they are men - adult human males as well, as they can't be adult human females, or women. And if they still should be allowed to women's spaces, why other males don't? This all makes little to no sense.

This thread is so ugly. Both TRA and GC are so intersexophobic. And both can't just leave us alone.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Nobody here has said that persons with CAIS should be regarded as boys or men, or that they shouldn't use female spaces. On the contrary, everyone has said that phenotypically and socially, persons with CAIS are girls and women.

But the discussion here is also about the fine points of biology, and in such discussions it's important to use precise terms and accurate descriptions. Doing so is not "phobic" or indicative of animus. I personally have tried to use frank but precise and accurate language in my posts whilst promoting a respectful tone.

You might think that the DSDs/VSCs should never be talked about by persons without these conditions, not even in an effort to get a better understanding them of them and to refute myths and to share scientific information and links to published research. But some of us disagree. Enforcing a code of silence leaves everyone in the dark and allows misinformation and myths to remain alive and to spread.

There are many people on earth who were born with all sorts of rare inherited medical conditions, such as cystic fibrosis, hereditary hemochromatosis, porphyria, primary immunodeficiency diseases - and who over their lifetimes develop other rare, life-changing illnesses that probably are genetic in origin or have a genetic component like Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, lupus and pernicious anemia. Many people with such conditions are stigmatized, ostracized and discriminated against for having them. I and family members of mine have personally been called "defective" and treated unfairly many, many times in our lives for having unusual medical conditions that the general population is unfamiliar with, and which are poorly understood even by a majority of medical professionals. This is deeply unpleasant. However, I don't think it's rude or phobic for people with or without rare medical conditions to discuss them, particularly if the aim in doing so in is to reach a better understanding of them and to counteract the myths and undo the stigma associated with them.

The USA's National Organization for Rare Diseases lists 1,200 specific conditions in its data base. Some of these are known DSDs, but the vast majority affect various other body systems rather than development of sex, although many can and do have repercussions that affect reproductive capacity, sex characteristics and the ability to engage in sex acts and to express sexuality. Many of these conditions are crippling, painful, severely life-limiting and fatal. What's more, many of the conditions in the NORD database are considered "orphan diseases" coz very little effort, time or funding has been put into researching them and coming up with treatment options for them.

https://rarediseases.org/for-patients-and-families/information-resources/rare-disease-information/

You really think the best way to help and show respect for people with these conditions is to say that discussing and looking into them shouldn't be allowed coz doing so is "ugly" and "phobic"?

This thread was started by someone who was coming from a place of profound misinformation re CAIS. I and other posters have responded by trying to set him straight, so to speak - (LOL, Kai, I hope you appreciate my lame attempt at humor) - about the nature of the condition and the terminology/name(s) for it that he was mistakenly using. I personally have taken care to use language that is frank but precise and accurate whilst promoting a respectful tone. No one here has promoted using slurs or ostracizing or "othering" people with CAIS.

IMO, trying to shut down discussion of rare diseases - be they DSDs or any other kinds - is not helpful to people who have these conditions or to the general public. Sunlight is a good thing, even if it makes some people wince and burn.

[–]HOWABOUTNO 1 insightful - 5 fun1 insightful - 4 fun2 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

Nobody here has said that persons with CAIS should be regarded as boys or men, or that they shouldn't use female spaces. On the contrary, everyone has said that phenotypically and socially, persons with CAIS are girls and women.

I disagree. I'm not nice and don't care about what anyone "identifies" as, or what anyone has spent years being raised as.

CAIS have testes. They are male. And they should be treated as such.

They can not enter female spaces. There can be compromise to make a third space for CAIS, so they can feel comfortable around each other. Other than that, there is no compromise.

I value truth more than people's feelings. It upsets CAIS to be treated as male? Maybe. Doesn't matter to me.

If I were in control of this society, noone would be able to treat CAIS as female. CAIS would have a third space for themselves, and that's it.

Everyone from an early age would be tested (DNA test, devices that are used to see the internal organs, etc) to make sure they have no DSDs. If they have DSDs, they would be treated as the sex they are, with the DSD considered.

Even if the tests may be "invasive", I value truth more than anything else. It's better to know if someone has DSDs early, than to wait years for them to grow up and learn "oop guys I'm not the sex you claimed I am"