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

submitted by whoamiwhowhowhowho from (self.GenderCritical)

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[–]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!