Help me understand how CAIS is not a problem for us?

submitted by whoamiwhowhowhowho from (self.GenderCritical)

Just to clarify I'm asking this because I'm really having trouble thinking through it and would like opinions, not as a "gotcha" or to start a debate or anything. Pardon the weird formatting of this post. Just trying to lay out my thoughts in an organized way.

I got the impression from the previous thread on CAIS that most people here are comfortable referring to people with CAIS as women. Here where I'm confused. If:

  • Women are adult human females
  • Adults with CAIS are women

Then:

  • Adults with CAIS are human females

But I usually see "female" defined here and in other GC places as some variation of having a reproductive system that is set up to produce ova (even if it does not actually do so). Another definition that tends to come up involves the absence of the SRY gene. People with CAIS have testes and the SRY gene, meaning that going by these definitions of "female," they are not female. So if:

  • Females are people with reproductive systems set up to produce ova OR Females are people without the SRY gene
  • People with CAIS have reproductive systems that are set up to produce sperm, not ova, AND People with CAIS have the SRY gene

Then:

  • People with CAIS are not female

This is incongruous with the opinion that people with CAIS are ought to be considered women if women are adult human females.

I realize CAIS is a DSD, which most trans people do not have, and I'm not arguing for a third sex or anything of that sort. The reason this is bugging me is because it implies that being female, at least using the definitions of the word that are common in GC spaces, is a sufficient condition for being a woman, but it is not a necessary one. If that's the case, what ARE the necessary and sufficient conditions for being a woman? If there are no necessary and sufficient conditions, what argument is there that the non-trans-affirming definition of "woman" is not arbitrarily constructed while the trans-affirming one is?

all 12 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]lefterfield 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

People who have the external characteristics of females(primarily vagina/vulvas) are women.

People who have ambiguous external characteristics but internal characteristics of females(uterus, ovaries) are women.

People who have ambiguous external and internal characteristics but genetically have an inactive SRY gene are women.

Those with an active SRY gene have the potential to produce sperm, and so are male.

That is how I've heard the definition of women created for edge cases, and the progression of how it would be determined. I don't believe it's true that all people with CAIS have testes, but if they had functional ones, they would be male. Really though, getting hung up on edge cases is a distraction. These decisions are made by doctors, and anyone demanding that you personally needs to decide whether an edge case is male or female doesn't seriously care about intersex conditions or people.

Also please note, the rule I gave above is not something I'm interested in debating. I'm not a doctor and I don't give a shit about X person with abnormal characteristics. Ask a doctor.

[–]whoamiwhowhowhowho[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I don't believe it's true that all people with CAIS have testes, but if they had functional ones, they would be male.

For information's sake, they do have functional testes if they are XY (which is the only time it is considered clinically significant anyway).

the definition of women created for edge cases

Thanks for posting this! Do you happen to remember where you heard these criteria? It's interesting to know that there are criteria like this, and I'd like to look into them further. My concern is with whether they draw boundaries in a biologically and philosophically supportable way (since one could list a set of criteria that are affirming just as easily but that we wouldn't agree are true regarding who is a woman), so I'd like to read up on the reasoning behind them.

[–]lefterfield 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I really don't remember, it was a long time ago on r/gendercritical, sorry. As far as I'm aware that's an assessment used by doctors/scientists to sort out between useful biological categories. I don't believe it's philosophical in nature, beyond the social recognition of appearance being more relevant than genes. I'd recommend looking into Alice Dreger's work on intersex individuals.

[–]whoamiwhowhowhowho[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks, I will do that!

[–]Spikygrasspod 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Firstly, even if some difficult-to-categorise cases exist, that doesn't mean the concepts of male and female are bad. They're still very useful and map onto reality exceedingly well. Better than many of our concepts. I don't see anyone deconstructing the concepts of bread and cake as vigorously, for example. No one is panicking about the cut offs between related species, or about how we distinguish and name colours. It is impossible to come up with perfect necessary and sufficient conditions for almost all of our important concepts. If you don't believe me go read up on the philosophical debate on the definition of knowledge, or the sorites paradox. This is a feature of how human thought interacts with the world, and it is absolutely not unique to the categories of sex, which are actually firmer and more reliable than many other categories.

Secondly, I think our understanding of sex has to take into account the fact that sex has an evolutionary history in the species, and a developmental history in the individual. Usually we take one of two evolved developmental pathways to end up at a clear type. But sometimes the mechanisms that drive us along these developmental paths conflict or don't succeed due to genetic variation, environmental influences, etc.

If I understand it right, people with CAIS have the mechanisms that usually sends people down the male pathway (SRY gene, male hormones), but that developmental pathway fails due to insesnsitivity to the hormones, and a female developmental pathway partly succeeds (the development of an externally female phenotype) but not fully (no ovaries). So there are good reasons why they could be categorised either way. Personally, I would say that for the female external phenotype is most socially relevant, and therefore people with CAIS should be treated as female and women for most purposes, except in medical situations where their genetic maleness could be relevant. But yeah, as long as we categorise people by sex, then for fuzzy cases, where people don't fall automatically into one or other category, we have to decide which features are most important and assign them a categorisation on that basis. This isn't a major problem, in my view.

[–]whoamiwhowhowhowho[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

It is impossible to come up with perfect necessary and sufficient conditions for almost all of our important concepts.

That's true, but GC claims "woman" does have necessary and sufficient conditions and bases core arguments on that. That's the issue.

Personally, I would say that for the female external phenotype is most socially relevant, and therefore people with CAIS should be treated as female and women for most purposes, except in medical situations where their genetic maleness could be relevant.

Is this different from the trans-affirming position, which says the same about trans women? At the bare minimum, you could make the same argument for trans women who typically pass.

[–]Spikygrasspod 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

GC claims "woman" does have necessary and sufficient conditions

Do they? I think different GCs probably hold different positions. See, for example, Kathleen Stock, who supports a 'cluster concept' in which no one feature is necessary (not my view). Even if GCs held that gametes and only gametes that determine sex, that would be a viable position, though they'd have to bite the bullet as regards some counterintuitive boundary cases. That's certainly one way of solving this minor problem, and is by no means the most implausible solution.

Is this different from the trans-affirming position, which says the same about trans women? At the bare minimum, you could make the same argument for trans women who typically pass.

I think it’s different. I meant that when there’s a disagreement between chromosomes and phenotype, I would find phenotype more socially important and would thus treat it as the overruling feature for the purpose of categorising ambiguous cases. It’s socially important because the CAIS person will be treated as female from birth, and will thus have female socialisation. They’ll presumably have a similar risk profile to women when it comes to committing/being the victim of violence. And their political interests would largely align with those of women, I would guess. And I would say privacy considerations would favour them changing alongside other people with an externally feminine phenotype rather than other people with SRY genes.

As for trans women, I don’t think they have female phenotypes, not even if they pass. I would say, as a tentative definition, that a phenotype is an evolved body type that develops according to an organism’s internal logic. Seeking a medically created female body as an adult has a very different social significance to being born and growing up female. Firstly, trans women will be socialised male. I have no reason to think they are less likely than other males to display the behaviours of aggression, sexual predation and social domination, though I’m open to new evidence if it exists. Secondly, seeking to medically imitate a female body is not the same as being female, and doesn’t create the same political interests. For example, some men want a feminised body for sexual reasons, because they eroticise feminine subordination, or have a paraphilia, for example. Women, meanwhile, have an interest in escaping relentless sexualisation and eroticisation by men, especially where that sexualisation is tied to harmful sexist stereotypes. So even if I thought that medicine could create a female phenotype (I don’t), I would propose that there are socially relevant differences between a born phenotype and an acquired one, especially where the motivation to acquire the female phenotype may in fact be motivated by distinctively male psychology/behaviour.

[–]whoamiwhowhowhowho[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Do they?

In my experience, yes, but it's interesting to hear that some don't! Thanks, I'll have to look into that further.

I would say, as a tentative definition, that a phenotype is an evolved body type that develops according to an organism’s internal logic. Seeking a medically created female body as an adult has a very different social significance to being born and growing up female.

Could be, but what's stopping someone else from defining it differently?

A very androgynous-looking male child who is treated as a girl from toddlerhood, who goes on blockers early, who goes on to take estrogen, who has SRS early, and who passes well might not experience much male socialization. I fully realize that would be an extreme minority case, but thinking about a scenario like that and knowing I'd still consider that person a boy/man leads me to realize that I (like you, if I'm understanding correctly) differentiate between a female-appearing body that developed naturally and one that was acquired through some sort of intervention, and I apparently make that differentiation no matter what the social circumstances surrounding that person are. I suppose when it comes down to it, I'm trying to find out if there's a good argument out there for why characteristics that developed naturally are fundamentally different (and more important to the reality of who/what someone is) from characteristics that one wouldn't have acquired without intervention, rather than distinguishing between them because of their effects (e.g. different socialization).

Sorry for that word dump. I'm having a hard time processing my own thoughts about this but didn't want to keep putting off responding.

[–]Spikygrasspod 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Could be, but what's stopping someone else from defining it differently?

Of course we can define things differently, but terms should be useful, in that they have power to explain and predict real phenomena. I'd be open to other definitions if they're useful and sensible.

Sorry for that word dump. I'm having a hard time processing my own thoughts about this but didn't want to keep putting off responding.

Nothing to apologise for, I've seen longer sentences :D

A boy who was treated as a girl from an early age and medically altered early on would indeed be a very unusual case, and we might have social reasons to treat them as though they were a woman. But I think the reason that we treat naturally developed features and acquired features differently is that we know perfectly well that nature creates an entire, incredibly complex being when it creates an animal. Our physiological differences from men are profound, ranging from the life alteringly significant ability to conceive, gestate and deliver babies, to the dozens of miniscule differences in a wide range of things like immune function, metabolism, susceptibility to disease, joint laxity etc etc. And not just our physical features but our motivations, desires, and thoughts are shaped by the kind of animals we are, and by our evolutionarily determined reproductive roles and strategies. Nature creates a masterpiece of detail every time it creates an animal, and it's the history of our evolution and development that give us our essential nature. We sometimes pretend this isn't so--we pretend that we are intellectual beings of our own invention, but that just isn't true. Anyway, adding prosthetic breasts is, in my opinion, more analogous to putting on a headband with cat ears than it is to growing breasts in puberty. It's a flesh costume, one that doesn't change the type of animal underneath. In fact it merely reflects the type underneath, since being a trans woman with a desire to mimic femaleness is necessarily an exclusively male experience.

Also sorry if that was messy or incoherent. Very tired :)

[–]FlippyKing 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

This is a Gender Critical sub on SaidIt. Your question is about sex. Sex refers to reproduction, and there are two and only two sexes in sexual reproduction, male and female, and in humans male are men and female are women. How would YOU classify people with CAIS in this very binary pair of reproductive categories?

As for your last question, the whole point of your post, a definition should be accurate and useful. "Affirming" has nothing to do with it. You admit your question about CAIS has nothing to do with trans, so why treat people with CAIS as a trojan horse to sneak males into the category of women? The answer to your last question is obvious: the argument for a "non-trans-affirming" definition (and you need to use such a word salad because reality is "non-trans-affirming" and in fact trans-dyfunction-triggering-and-dysphoria-triggering-but-mostly-self-delussion-triggering) is that trans identified males are not adult human females.

[–]whoamiwhowhowhowho[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There's no need to be hostile. I know what this sub is; I was on /r/gc for years. I'm using those terms that you pointed out because I'm not strictly GC, not because of the reasons you assumed.

Edit: Since you asked:

How would YOU classify people with CAIS in this very binary pair of reproductive categories?

I don't know. That's why I asked the question here instead of somewhere where I would get answers about people with CAIS's identities or something. If I go by the definitions of male and female that I've learned in GC spaces, like I said, I would have to say male. That is a problem because I see them as women. Either I'm being inconsistent with my definition of "woman," or I'm wrong about whether XY people with CAIS are women. I don't want to be inconsistent or wrong, so I'm trying to figure this out.

[–]FlippyKing 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm not being hostile, I'm pointing out that you start and spend a lot of text deep in matters of biological sex, but then at the end you switch to talking about trans and bring up the topic of non-affirming definitions. I think your post is all statements until you ask a question about a trans matter and that part of your post if fully in a transgender context and has nothing to do with the post. The point of your post was to ask a question, and that question is in a context of gender, not sex which is where you start off the post. You will be inconsistent when you conflate sex and someone's sense that they have an identity that is somehow gendered.

This is the primary question in my mind that might lead to a resolution to your problem with regard to how to categorize people with CAIS: is the morphology of the person's genitals that of the male or female of our species? A follow up question might be: can the person impregnate a woman (actual woman, adult human female) during sex? People with CAIS have female genital morphology and the nature of the DSD is such that they develop similar or perhpas lower in some parts of the body bone density to typical women.

But regardless of how you classify them, this has nothing to do with gender. A problem categorizing a person with CAIS has nothing to do with categorizing trans identified males or trans identified females.