Talk:Intersex/Archive 8

Out of Date Prevalence of late onset CAH
In the original reference by .Anne Fausto-Sterling, "Sexing the Body", she breaks CAH into to classes: classical and Late-onset (nonclassical) p.53, https://eee.uci.edu/13f/32555/home/01.+Sterling+-+Of+Gender+and+Genitals.pdf. She basis her estimate of late-onset CAH primarily on references: Speiser P.W., Dupont B., Rubinstein P., Piazza A., Kastelan A., New M.I. (1985) High frequency of nonclassical steroid 21-hydroxylase deficiency. Am J Hum Genet. 37:650-667. Her estimate would have been peculiar to the demographics of NYC since the report of this paper is "We found nonclassical 21-hydroxylase deficiency to be a far more common disorder than classical 21-hydroxylase deficiency, which occurs in 1/8,000 births. The prevalence of the disease in Ashkenazi Jews was 3.7%; in Hispanics, 1.9%; in Yugoslavs, 1.6%; in Italians, 0.3%; and in the diverse Caucasian population, 0.1%. " http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1684620/ These numbers are confirmed in the Lancet article http://www.utp.edu.co/~maternoinfantil/Hiperplasia%20suprarrenalLancet_2005_review.pdf and in the more recent work of Speiser (2011): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3638875/#R10 Mrdthree (talk) 09:45, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * A good summary is from Speiser et al. 2010 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2936060/. he most common form of CAH is caused by mutations in CYP21A2, the gene encoding the adrenal steroid 21-hydroxylase enzyme (P450c21) (5,6). This enzyme converts 17-hydroxyprogesterone (17-OHP) to 11-deoxycortisol and progesterone to deoxycorticosterone, respective precursors for cortisol and aldosterone. Because this enzyme deficiency accounts for approximately 95% of CAH, we will discuss only 21-hydroxylase deficiency here. Classic CAH has an incidence of The incidence ranges from 1:10,000 to 1:20,000 births.... In addition to the so-called classic salt-wasting and simple virilizing forms of CAH, there is also a mild nonclassic form, which may show variable degrees of postnatal androgen excess but is sometimes asymptomatic (10). The mild subclinical impairment of cortisol synthesis in nonclassic CAH (NCCAH) generally does not lead to Addisonian crises.Nonclassic forms of CAH are more prevalent, occurring in approximately 0.1–0.2% in the general Caucasian population but in up to 1–2% among inbred populations, such as Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jews (11). Mrdthree (talk) 10:03, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I've updated it to reflect the dependence on demographic studied, as it can vary widely - A l is o n  ❤ 19:36, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * looks fine to me. Mrdthree (talk) 07:20, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Page move to intersex
Terms ending in sexuality uaually refer to issues of sexuality; many intersex people do not like 'intersexuality', preferring intersex; it has been more recent medical practice to refer to 'intersex' conditions rather than 'intersexual' conditions and 'intersexuality', I would like to propose that we move this article to 'intersex'. I await feedback before placing the appropriate tag. Mish (talk) 10:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I suggest asking User talk:Tony1, they have been a font of good advice and may have a sound suggestion on how to move forward. Personally I agree with moving to Intersex and including a section addressing intersexuality, if only to explain how it's a widely used and misused term. -- Banj e  b oi   10:57, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree :) - A l is o n  ❤ 15:54, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I was struck by the behavioural sense of "-ality" too. "Intersex", though, is a problematic word itself: sounds like the sex act, the having of sex. But this issue is beyond my knowledge, so I can't say either way. (Also, the opening of the article is odd, and I don't know how it can be fixed; readers not already familiar with the field will feel as though they're diving in at the deep end of the pool.) Tony   (talk)  11:20, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Tony, the term 'Intersex' doesn't sound nearly as bad when it's followed by a noun of some sort. Our own Wikipedia defines sex in the first line thus; "In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety (known as a sex)". This seems straightforward enough, though I know people shuffle uncomfortably when the 'S-word' is mentioned. Hence, I guess, the proliferation of 'gender' instead (unsuitable here as it's too broad. Intersex is very much a physical trait) - A l is o n  ❤ 11:28, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Political correctness is not a valid reason for inventing a fake word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.239.209.172 (talk) 11:13, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Don't be a douchebag, Jeremy - A l is o n  ❤ 08:00, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Unclear sentence
The following sentence is really unclear and could probably be broken up into two sentences and rephrased for clarity:

like all individuals, some intersex individuals may be raised as a certain sex (male or female) but then identify with another gender identity later in life, while most do not; some may not identify themselves as either exclusively female or exclusively male.

Does the "while most do not" refer to most intersex people not "identifying with another gender identiy later in life" or that most intersex people do not "idenfity themselves as either exclusively female or exclusively male"?

Stephenmarianocabrera (talk) 04:46, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:FIXIT. Jytdog (talk) 06:50, 25 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I've restructured this section, also adding information that may clarify. Trankuility (talk) 03:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Added
Hey guys, I added an entry on sexual ambiguity and related topics and people such as Caster Semenya. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or material you can point to that could be added. Thanks, Oliviacharrington (talk) 06:13, 18 November 2013 (UTC)olivia

There are a group of us who are working on a class project and thus making editions to and editing this page. We would really appreciate if any others who frequent this page would tell us if anything we post is inappropriate or formatted incorrect. We've studied a lot about Intersex in our class, but we're not experts, and we do not mean to offend anyone. Apologies if we do. I added the second paragraph to the "Experience of medical procedures and photography" SMDaley (talk) 18:13, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I am part of the group that is working on an educational assignment. I added the "Exclusion from Standard Model" section of this page. Danirosenthal (talk) 18:19, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I am also part of the group that is working on editing/adding onto this page. Ashley Nava (talk) 18:24, 21 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for checking in, guys. As a general rule, every time you add any sentence to Wikipedia, follow any statement you made with a citation. If you do that, then you will avoid most problems. Check this out:
 * User:JasminNavarrete added something about a meter - Someone else will come to Wikipedia behind you and move things around. See how only some of these sentences have citations? If this content is rearranged, then the source will be confused. Put citations after everything to be safe, especially for health related content.
 * User:Danirosenthal tried to add a reference to the reference section and then user:SMDaley tried to use it elsewhere as did user:Taylorbc in a quotation and user:Ashley Nava in another place still. That's cool; this is a problem for Wikipedians and we will sort this out, and thanks for adding references. But for the future, full citations go after its first use in the text, and then at the end Wikipedia automatically numbers and arranges all the citations. This means that there is no need to list anything at the end; Wikipedia will automatically make this list based on when the citation was used. Also, lots of you are citing this book, and others who came before you are citing it also. If you guys stick around message me again or email me for my Skype or phone number and I will teach you how to cite one book multiple times and reference many different pages in it. A lot of this article is coming from that Fausto book, and it is helpful to recognize when this happens so that the reader can judge the influence and bias of the sources.
 * Someone here broke the reference list. That is cool too - it got fixed shortly after. See the difference before and after. If anyone notices doing this again, just post on the talk page "I broke stuff and do not know what went wrong." Someone is volunteering their time to clean up, and it is motivating for volunteers to know that you care to clean up after yourselves and discouraging if you make a mess, leave, and never follow up with what happened or who cleaned up after you.
 * Thanks everyone for improving the article. Visit talk pages often, and never be shy to ask questions! If you have general questions, there are always people who will answer them at the WP:TEAHOUSE.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   16:19, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

This article is a mess :(
It's basically turned into an article on Anne Fausto-Sterling and contains wall upon wall of dry text. Furthermore, it's now sprinkled with the term "Intersexual" as a noun, not an adjective. Some people find this offensive (try saying "the homosexual feels that ..."). Major tidy-up required to make it legible, and a lot of text needs to be pruned off and either made into separate articles or excised altogether. I've no idea where to start, though. I know this article has been targeted by a group and is part of a college project, but the separate paragraphs that have been added stand in isolation without really being integrated into the article as a whole - A l is o n  ❤ 06:27, 30 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with this. The new college project materials are poorly written and don't fit well with the rest of the article. Nsw2042 (talk) 08:48, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm beyond tired of seeing this article deteriorating. As noted on my talk page, I am not a fan of the WP:Education program. As also seen in that discussion, I alerted WP:MED to the fact that a class is editing this article (among others). Fellow WP:MED editor SandyGeorgia would suggest that we revert the student edits. That is what I suggest as well, per Student assignments. I will revert as soon as it's clear that this round of student editing at this article is over, if someone does not beat me to reverting first. Since Nsw2042 was suspected of being a part of the student editing, and I knew that it was likely that Nsw2042 would be, I should have clarified at WP:MED that I didn't believe that Nsw2042 is a part of it; I could tell by the fact that Nsw2042 has been registered with Wikipedia since 2011 (but had only made a few 2011 edits before heavily editing this year), and the style of editing, that Nsw2042 is not a part of that group. Flyer22 (talk) 20:37, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:ENI (if you think it will make any difference). In general, I wholly support reverting any student editing where it can be shown that the time needed to clean it up is disproportionate to the benefit received.  Also, note, there is pretty much zero chance the students will return once their term ends-- they never have yet.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 22:34, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Because of the identified issues, I think that the entire section "Exclusion from Standard Model of Sex and Gender" should be removed (or reduced to a single paragraph), and the sections on 'Sexual Ambiguity' and 'Management' also need to be reduced. There are far more current and recent references than the ones cited, such as Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience‎. Nsw2042 (talk) 21:29, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've made a very significant attempt to tidy up these sections, including by shifting all the material on Fausto-Sterling in "Exclusion from current model" to a new article on the book itself, Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. Nsw2042 (talk) 01:32, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that this article is a mess, but in part that was because editing became difficult due to the differing perspectives of medical and activist interest groups. The problem with acceptability of images is one example, if you want to review the history. This page had also had some spill-over between a long-running conflict between Jokestress and Cantor, as I recall, and I did offer to work with Cantor to help clean the mess up, but he appears to have lost interest in the article. It was originally a heavily medical-orientated article, and had to be renamed Intersex rather than Intersexuality at one point, and work to include aspects that were non-medical. I have not edited this for some time, as I chose to withdraw from the incessant conflict that seemed to ensue edits to articles like these, as well as being too busy with life. But, it is great that somebody is working to tidy this up again. Here's hoping you can do so with getting embroiled with those who have conflicting interests here. One thing I would ask is why the same image of the intersex forum is posted twice, once under the forum, and once in the header paragraph? One is redundant, and I would suggest that the one in the header paragraph should be the one to be replaced. What you replace it with I am not sure, but it ought to be something that is representative of all aspects of the topic. -  Mish Mich  -  Talk  - 23:46, 2 February 2014 (UTC)


 * As seen here (not that section by itself), a lot of the student edits are still in the article. If there hadn't been a number of intersecting edits, such as Nsw2042's edits, since the students stopped (or completed) their project, I would have reverted everything. I might still remove a lot of material when comparing the article to how it was before the students' edits. Flyer22 (talk) 05:14, 23 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I have made a few changes per WP:BOLD, including deleting the section on Exclusion from binary model of sex and gender and WP:SPLIT material Literature about intersex, Films about intersex and Television works about intersex. The newly split articles are fairly short, but none of them yet fully describe their fields. Feel free to review/modify, but I feel this improves readability and relevance, including by reducing main article length to a more manageable size by removing non-central content (I felt that all health and human rights content is central). Trankuility (talk) 14:45, 15 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Trankuility, regarding this edit, I'm not sure that all of those topics needed their own Wikipedia articles (like WP:Spinout states, there is no need for haste), but I thank you for tackling the matter of making this article more readable. Since there is nothing in the Intersex in popular culture section except links now, it would be best to remove its subsection headings and summarize those topics with links to the main articles; this is per MOS:Paragraphs and WP:Summary style. Flyer22 (talk) 15:19, 15 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the welcome feedback. Its my feeling that probably the new split pages only need to appear in the "See also" section: each of them is only but a list, which makes summarisation impractical. Thoughts? As mentioned before, there's plenty of scope to develop the new articles, as none of them adequately reflect material in related categories. Trankuility (talk) 15:26, 15 August 2014 (UTC)


 * If others watching this article are fine with you removing the Intersex in popular culture section and adding its links to the See also section, then okay. I don't much mind that being done. Flyer22 (talk) 15:31, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Trankuility, you can handle this article, correct? I'm taking it off my WP:Watchlist. Flyer22 (talk) 05:01, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Update: Coming back and seeing the current state of the article, it looks even bigger than it did before. In that regard, I have two suggestions for its improvement. The first is to cut any excess. Wikipedia articles should be a summary of the topic; they should not significantly address everything about the topic. My second suggestion is to cut unneeded subheadings. There a number of unneeded subheadings in this article. I've mentioned before that too many subheadings can make an article look significantly bigger than it is and more difficult to navigate through. Per MOS:Paragraphs: "Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheading." You can also use Template:TOC limit. Flyer22 (talk) 17:32, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

content about christianity
has been edit-warring the text below into the article. I cannot figure out what this is meant to say. Moved here for discussion.

The Church of England asserts that marriage can only take place between opposite genders mentioning “biological complementarity”. Biological complementarity is “seen most explicitly” (Church of England 2012: 3) in reproduction and they are not identical (Cornwall, 1). However, the Roman Catholic Church (the Vatican) has decided not to pronounce publicly on intersex because intersex is too complicated to clarify in religious perspective. The Methodist Church is discussing a way to protect intersex and support gender equalities. Most Christians believe that as long as people do not know the true circumstance of those who are intersex, the judgment belongs to God not people.

what is this trying to say? (this also looks copyvio, with the strange chicago-style refs intermixed with WP reference style. Jytdog (talk) 20:48, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

content about "need for support"
has been edit-warring the text below into the article. unclear what the point of this. am guessing this is a student editor, doing this for a class maybe? People whose sex cannot be identified anatomically are called intersexual. Anatomical and biological are not the only factors that define sex. The self-identification is affected by the choice of sexual object happens in two stages, “in two waves”, in Sigmund Freud ’s words (1905: p. 187). First stage is childhood when children make first approach to their sexual object. Second stage is puberty because the sexuality awakens during this period. High quality psychosocial support will help gender identity disorder (intersexual) people self-identify and define their sexes.

this also looks copyvio, with the strange chicago-style refs intermixed with WP reference style. Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Given the edits on other feminism-related pages, I suspect this is for a class. I'll run a copy-vio check real quick. Regardless, I don't know about a "need" for support... bordering too much on treating intersex as a mental illness or something.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 21:13, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Got some hits on the copyvio check, but mostly related to ref titles. No wholesale copyvios.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 21:26, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

content about "limits of law
has been edit-warring the text below into the article. unclear what the point of this. am guessing this is a student editor, doing this for a class maybe?

These days, same sex marriages are possible but marriage with intersex or transsexual is unacceptable. In Australia, the man who was neither a man nor a woman could not get married. Though many jurisdictions want to change the laws to protect intersex, there are many obstacles. Jurisdictions say that they have no choice but to limit the ability of people to change legal sex because of four reasons. First, these limitations prevent fraud. Second, people can use legal sex changes for illegal purposes like same-sex marriage. Third, people who are not actual intersex can change their legal sex to satisfy their sexual fantasies. Fourth, birth record is historical one so it should be kept. Furthermore, we need to face many obstacles to amend laws for intersex. For example, sex-segregated housing and bathroom facilities will cost a lot. Medical systems and laws even education have to be amended.

"these days" is not encyclopedic, ditto jurisdictions wanting to protect. and again unclear what the point here is... 21:15, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Of note, the citation here is a book review (which I guess makes it secondary). While the journal is top notch, book reviews aren't peer-reviewed usually. That said, I think there's something here we can wordsmith and make into a good addition to the article. I honestly know very little about this specific topic, but I have access to the academic journals and might be able to cobble something together.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 21:23, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

content about suicide rate
has been edit-warring the text below into the article.

Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is a rare, with an estimated prevalence of 0.001%-0. 002%. Furthermore, extremely small number of GID people request sexual reassignment therapy. Since GID is uncommon, talking about sexual identity brings discomfort to them and they experience sexual harassment or violence during their life times. 239/420, 59.5% of the GID patients actually have experienced some form of harassment or violence within their lifetime (Lombardi et al., 2001). Due to those accidents and societal distress, the suicidal ideation rate of GID patients is higher than males and females. Within two types of intersexuality (Male-to-Female type (MTF) and Female-to-Male type (FTM), 75% of MTF and 25% of FTM have considered suicidal and 32% of MTF and 32% of FTM have committed self-mutilation (Psychiatry Research, 2011).

again with the citation style mix. need PMID to see if this secondary/primary source for health content. needs review. Jytdog (talk) 21:15, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * This is complete WP:SYNTH. The cited article does not mention intersex at all. Can't include it in the article. Again, I'm assuming good faith of the user (assuming they are a student), but this is much too tangential (WP:COATRACK) and a connection of dots (WP:SYNTH) to include.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 21:20, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

I thought it is important to show how much stress is given to intersex. And suicidal rate shows how much mental pressure is given to them. MTF and FTM are types of gender identity disorder and the main cause of intersex is gender identity disorder — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wingzoneforever (talk • contribs)
 * I totally get where you're coming from, but we as editors can't make connections like that. Sources need to explicitly say "intersex folks experience GID. It increases their risk for suicide". One of the hardest things about editing Wikipedia is learning not to synthesize information.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 21:29, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see any evidence that Gender Identity Disorder is a cause of intersex. Thanks for reverting the additions, Jytdog. Trankuility (talk) 09:16, 19 April 2015 (UTC)