{It follows that Part II will pose the answers}
Dedication
This work is dedicated to Therese, with gratitude
Interduction [sic]
Some contend and often assert that “gender” is synonymous with sex, frequently ingenuously, sometimes not, while others concede that sex is a biological reality and gender is a subjective even delusional socio-political construction which might even mean temperament or personality. To unveil and understand the distinction is capital since beyond its materiality, its implications are vast, the failure of which to grasp, and indeed wrestle with, lead to abysmal consequences. Clarity is required regarding biological sex and sociological gender, as well as regarding physiological disorders of sex and sexual development and of psychological disorders such as “gender” dysphoria and body dysmorphia.
The ideas of the gender spectrum, gender fluidity, gender transition, gender identity, gender expression, and deviant behaviours and lifestyles related to the gender mélange - at times considered as deriving from erotic or even romantic orientations and inclinations, need also to be understood, particularly with respect to the vigorous and militant systemisation of gender mainstreaming. Gender ideology, perilous in itself, has its political activists demanding privilege under the guise of gender equality that would eliminate associated and alleged gaps, biases, stereotypes, and discriminations - and the enlightened and the influential appear to be lapping up such square roots of -1 with abandon.
The “I” in the string of letters starting with the sodomic and polyamoric LGB of the rainbow sequence, is interposed inter Q & A presupposedly forming a group of those who possess ambiguous genitals - and perhaps also those who simply identify as such, if any do. Whether all who present abnormal genitalia wish to be included in this group or not, and what special rights are campaigned for, are separate matters. Questions may arise as to whether the material possession of spurious genitals, irrespective of the degree of malformation, empowers those thus possessed to establish a whimsical gender to identify into, and whether such biological phenomena - grounded in reality, provide a basis to formulate queer theories of gender. Of more importance is whether the spectrum of genital presentations ipso facto justify the theory of a spectrum of sexes that constitute the individuals of our species.
Sex
The sex of a human being specifies whether the individual in question is a male or a female. Genes, chromosomes, genomes, cells, tissues, organs and even physical characteristics and psychological traits might be referred to as male and female, or masculine and feminine. Secondary sexual characteristics such as facial hair, wide hips, muscularity, mammae, long vocal folds or the mensus, could be associated particularly with one sex than with the other. Likewise, even with tertiary sexual parameters such as a proficiency at chess, a nurturing instinct, spacial intelligence, vulnerability to Parkinsons’s disease, neurotism or an attraction to physics. However, a distinction needs to be made between these entities, processes, aptitudes and inclinations which, albeit usually at the extremes, can be sectioned sexually - and the sex of a human being.
Hermaphroditus of Greek myth was a fusion of a male and a female, who embodied both male and female attributes and qualities. Hermaphroditism in biology is the occurrence of both male and female reproductive organs in the same individual organism - and thereby of male and female gametes when sexually mature and if healthy, and it is the norm inter alia for most angiosperms, bryozoans and trematodes. Human individuals with evident genitalial ambiguity were called hermaphrodites.
Sex Origination
“The head of the spermatozoon binds to the zona pellucida, and its apical body the acrosome releases its contents that degrade it locally and thence the oocyte surface membrane the oolemma, creating confluence between the two cells. The oocyte is thenceforth penetrated by the haploid paternal gamete. Cytoplasmic continuity is enabled through this fusion of their membranes, and the two become one. Instantaneous electrical depolarisation of the membrane and subsequent morphological change in the zona pellucida triggered by cortical granule exocytosis into the perivitelline space acts to prevent a competing spermatozoon from gaining entry. This one that the two became is referred to as the primordial embryo and all the genetic material necessary for the new individual is now within a single plasmalemma. At this point in the process of fertilisation, a new male or female human being has been procreated, who did not exist before”[1]
Genes, chromosomes, genome
From the very instance of our origin, in the union of male paternal and female maternal gametes, we are either male or female in sex, depending on whether we inherit an X or a Y chromosome from our father. We cannot survive as a species, unless there are male and female gametes, produced in male and female gonads of male and female parents which unite to conceive of a male or female child. Human reproduction is not only bigametal, but only two mating types exist – male and female.
Further, the oogamic union of both father’s and mother’s gametes are requisite due to genetic imprinting[2] during parental gametogenesis with epigenetic methylation tags which persist through the life of the individual begotten, whereby certain genes can only parent-specifically monoallelically be expressed in the offspring.
Early Sexual Development
Gonads/ genitals
While other factors expressed earlier primes gonadal development towards a testis-forming pathway in males, during late embryohood when males are nigh seven weeks old, a unique protein transcription factor that is encoded by the sex determining region Y (SRY) gene on the short arm of the Y chromosome, in a complex interaction with DAX1 which is required for ovary formation and found on the X chromosome, activates the bipotential undifferentiated proto-gonad which has developed from the genital ridge formed earlier, into specialisation into testis.
Many factors and mechanisms of gonadogenesis are yet unknown, and several autosomal genes such as follistatin (FST) are known to be necessary for proper ovary formation. These processes constituting testis and ovary organogenesis, dependent particularly on presence or absence of paternal genes, is misleadingly called “sex determination”, since it is a gonadal determination driven by already determined genetics – although the term may be applicable to some species of reptiles, fish or insects who do not possess a stable genetic sex determination mechanism.
Histology/ Anatomy
The developing testis in males thereafter secretes hormones that trigger the structural differentiation of internal and external genital organs and ducts, including development of the epididymis, vas deferens and seminal vesicles, and phallus growth and testical descent. The absence of testosterone and anti-Müllerian hormones (AMH) from testicular tissue, were testis present, prevents regression of Müllerian structures and enables development of female genitalia such as the labia, clitoris, vagina, uterus and the oviducts. These processes which are governed by hormones, are misleadingly called “sex differentiation”, since it is a genitalia differentiation. The differentiation of external genitalia proceeds during foetal development.
Sexual Maturity
Secondary sexual characteristics, clearly distinct from the primary characteristics which are the genitalia inclusive of the gonads, and reproductive capability, develop consequent to the onset of puberty.
Errors
In the multi-factoral, multi-dimensional interlinked coordinated complexity of processes that constitute the awesome phenomena of and preceding our origination, and of consequent growth and development, mistakes and defects do occur. Children conceived with more grievous conditions on account of these, often die before birth[3], and those who are born may sustain a plethora of disorders, some of which are related to sexual development, of which some manifest dubiety with regard to sex in the observation of the external genitalia, and some individuals may be justifiably referred to as ambisexual or even mixtosexual. The rare instances of human beings being born with congenital biological sex-ambiguous conditions of various types and degrees – whether observed genitalial or ingrained genetic, arise due to several combinations of causes.
Ambiguous external genitalia may be visually observed prenatally or at birth. When not phenotypically obvious and other suggestive symptoms are absent, disordered sexual development conditions may be diagnosed or become evident due to irregularities such as precocious or retarded adrenarche, or during puberty on account of gynaecomastia or scarcity of pubic hair. Likewise in adulthood, diagnosis may take place when investigating infertility, a prevalent symptom. Apart from anatomically evident, palpable and histologic information, hormone level measurements - such as of Sertoli and Leydig cell function, can be indicative, and imaging, cytogenic analysis and molecular studies can provide further diagnostic and etiological information.
Phenotypic abnormality results from irregularity in hormone-driven processes, and these in turn derive from cytogenetic irregularities some of which regulated gonadogenesis. Diagnosis for the etiologies of the pathophysiological condition faced by individuals who present these anomalous phenotypes is important where determination of treatment is concerned, and also to discern their sex. Other disease conditions such as inter alia renal failure, mental retardation, tumorigenesis, and α-thalassemia, may also occur concurrent with disordered sexual development and these traits - often associated with particular genes or chromosomal conditions, might be collatable and define respective syndromes.
Terminology
Scotsman James Young Simpson in 1849 published a treatise on hermaphroditism in the Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology where, while acknowledging many preceding classifications ancient and modern, he classified human hermaphroditic malformations into “true” and spurious hermaphroditism, including respective sub-divisions. The Germanic Theodor Albrecht Edwin Klebs in 1876 in his Handbuch de Pathologischen Anatomie, proposed a similar but different system, and employed the term pseudo-hermaphroditism (scheinzwitterbildung) in males and females. Definitions were established based on histological criteria related to internal and external genitalia to assess the heterogeneity of phenotypes.
In clinical literature proceeding 2005, abnormal and ambisexual external genitalial presentations and mixtogonadal conditions remain recognised but have been absorbed within the umbrella of Disorders of so-called Sex Development (DSD), which nomenclature admits congenital conditions of atypical chromosomal, gonadal or anatomical development[4], and confers new names to them. The scope of the term DSD extends diagnosis beyond histology and anatomy to cytogenetic and endocrine criteria, and focus on etiology over phenotype, although comparable presentations occur due to multiple causes and likewise common causes may present a variety of phenotypes. DSD encompasses isolated urogenital anomalies as well as multi-organ syndromes. Much remains unknown or not understood and perhaps half of the DSD conditions cannot yet be molecularly explained.
Within this definition of DSD and its gonadal deemphasis, sex chromosomal abnormalities such as the aneuploid chromosomal constitutions that give rise to Trisomy X, Klinefelter[5] and Jacobs syndromes and their variants, and the multi-etiological Turner[6] syndrome, are included. Sex chromosome aneuploidies generally do not present ambiguous genitalia and ambiguity regarding the sex of the individual, nor are they sexual development disorders of a gonadus disparilis nature. However, individuals with Klinefelter and Jacobs syndrome may present gynaecomastia in late puberty due to hormonal imbalance, and mosaical forms of Turner and Klinefelter karyotypes may present ambiguous genitalia and may give rise to both testicular and ovarian tissue formation in a single individual.
With pathophysiological conditions concerning sexual development, medical even surgical intervention may be meet in extreme situations. It might even be prudent to confer a sex for practical rearing and social purposes. Indeed, the expression “sex assigned at birth” is only meaningful with reference to phenotypic hermaphrodites, but it remains an assignation unless the assignment is found to concur sufficiently with the ontological reality.
See Part II: https://open.substack.com/pub/dreshandias/p/intersexual-humanity
[1] https://dreshandias.substack.com/p/when-do-i-begin
[2] https://www.geneimprint.com/site/genes-by-species.Homo+sapiens.imprinted-All
[3] Monosomy X, a chromosomal abnormality with a 45,X karyotype is commonly found in children aborted spontaneously.
[4] Lee PA, et al., Consensus statement on management of intersex disorders. Pediatrics. 2006;118: E488–E500.
[5] Males have additional copies of the X chromosome in Klinefelter syndrome, usually 47, XXY, and more rarely 48, XXXY and 49, XXXXY. Mosaical conditions such as 47,XXY/ 46,XY and 47,XXY/46,XX also do arise.
[6] These symptoms predominantly honour the American Turner, but historically and in other geographies recognise also Ullrich of Germany, the female Bonnevie of Norway, and even Šereševskij of Russia and Morgagni of Italy.
Rev 14:8 -- "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because *SHE HAS MADE ALL NATIONS DRINK of the wine of the wrath of her **fornication.”
*NT Koine Greek: to water, irrigate AND metaphorically, to imbue, ***saturate one's mind
**NT Koine Greek: adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc.
https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/rev/14/8/t_conc_1181008
V9, 10: "Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his ***MARK ON HIS FORHEAD or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation."