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Archive 10 ← Archive 15 Archive 16 Archive 17

Definition of intersex in the lead

I have an issue with this definition of intersex Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".

Although I am aware that the UN is reliable and all that. That definition of intersex acts like that is the only definition of intersex and isn't controversial. Here's the reality many of the sources on this topic mention there is indeed controversy on what classifies as intersex.

I mean come on the lead even says this The number of births where the baby is intersex has been reported differently depending on who reports and which definition of intersex is used. Anne Fausto-Sterling and her co-authors suggest that the prevalence of ″nondimorphic sexual development″ might be as high as 1.7%.[10][11] Leonard Sax says that this figure includes conditions which most clinicians do not recognize as intersex, and that in those ″conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female", the prevalence of intersex is about 0.018%. CycoMa (talk) 03:29, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Dreger's published commentary is probably appropriate to describe the controversial/constantly changing meaning of the term: "In our experience some clinicians have played a sort of moving target game whereby their definition of intersex changes from venue to venue, or moment to moment. We end up spending a remarkable amount of time just trying to agree on which diagnoses (and thus which people) count in the conversation we’re trying to have. This does not usually seem to be a purposeful attempt to stall or derail conversation (although that does sometimes result); rather it seems to stem from a lack of systematic consideration of what the term might mean. For example, some want to call intersex only those born with visibly ambiguous genitalia, or only those who have had a particularly unusual mix of prenatal sex hormones". Maneesh (talk) 16:43, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
@Maneesh: I guess that could be a good idea.CycoMa (talk) 18:01, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
@Maneesh: I recommend you wait for other people to comment before changing anything. So don’t change anything yet.CycoMa (talk) 00:22, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
Don't think it is a particularly WP:BOLD edit, given what you can already see about the rather large differences in prevalence estimates; but feel free to be bold yourself. I'm quite confident that "intersex" is a rather nebulous and political idea, I am sure Dreger has said something to that effect in multiple places. It makes a great deal of sense to start out with the idea before trying to explain the variance in definitions and prevalence. Maneesh (talk) 00:46, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
@Maneesh: you know I’m kinda in a similar mindset too. I think Intersex is mainly a political concept. And I think the vagueness of the concept comes from the fact it’s politicized. But, I can’t go against NOPV. I just think the definition of intersex for this article needs some discussion.CycoMa (talk) 01:16, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
I think a sentence like the one Maneesh has already introduced into the 'Terminology' section is a good idea, though I'm hoping to find a source that more clearly states the lack of consensus. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 01:49, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
The UNHCR isn't a scientific org and shouldn't used in this article.
At best you could include them recognising intersex as "non binary", but not as a reliable source for defining it.
Once again Wikipedia is allowing ideology to dictate reality. 46.7.28.113 (talk) 17:05, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@Crossroads: what do you think?CycoMa (talk) 03:37, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

About what? I'm open to ideas but not seeing a specific proposal here. This wasn't the way because the first sentence should define what the topic is. Crossroads -talk- 04:38, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
I can see the sense in that....but given the definition is *so* ambiguous (political term, iatrogenic vs. congenital etc. etc.) it is hard to come up with something without WP:SYNTH. A proposal: Intersex is a term that, broadly, is associated with atypical sex-associated characteristics but there is no clear consensus definition of intersex and no clear delineation of which specific conditions qualify an individual as intersex. Maneesh (talk) 05:33, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
This contravenes WP:ISAWORDFOR. Perhaps we should keep the first sentence as-is and work on a new second sentence that expresses this point? I'm open to more suggestions for changing the first as well, but I myself can't think of any that are better. Crossroads -talk- 04:15, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
My gut is saying that "intersex" is a sensible exception to ISAWORDFOR. Dreger's exposition about how she accepts the term as useful for political action (while simultaneously endorsing the use of DSD in the clinic), the debate between which conditions are counted as intersex conditions etc. make it difficult to avoid discussing it as something that refers to many things. Another try: "Intersex conditions present as atypical sex-associated characteristics (chromosomes, genitals, hormones etc.), but there is no clear consensus definition of intersex and no clear delineation of which specific conditions qualify an individual as intersex.". Maneesh (talk) 04:58, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm just seeing this and had a simple issue with the word notions defined as beliefs. Don't even think about the fact the citation 1 and 2 deal with torture of individuals. The entire intro is political and the sources don't match the intent. Any attempt to clarify anything in the intro is going to be met with stiff resistance and a moderator with banning permission abusing the privilege. The entire intro is BS copy and paste hack and the sources cited relate to human rights violation and have nothing to do with the intro. This wiki page should be a work in progress. They might as well lock it except for the few people that think they own it. Stjoan1 (talk) 18:51, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

What would be your preferred definition of "intersex", supported by reliable published reference(s) of course?  Tewdar  19:23, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

How about just fixing it. I tried without going into the BS citations on human rights violations and got banned as a result. Activists need to be nonbias and not aggressive over clarifying a word to make it easier to contemplate the intent of the original author. You can't tell me there are not better sources out there that are based on science and not a description from the UN bureaucracy that has no sources of their own. Go ahead, try to fix the intro and check out the lack of simple core values you will be met with. Stjoan1 (talk) 16:17, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

I will also add that the owners of this page need a lot of clarification throughout if they want people to buy in rather than serve as a political platform. We all know this is a hot topic so it needs to be based on facts and not unverified popular beliefs that have gone viral. If it is not in a dictionary or a real encyclopedia than Wikipedia needs qualified people to create a page to beat dictionary and actual professional encyclopedia writers to the punch according to their own professional generally accepted research practices. The only thing, because of the intro, this page is good for is a source for a daily Google Doodle. You all can have this hack page and eat it too. It will avail you nothing. Stjoan1 (talk) 16:31, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Example. Read the entire page. https://www.britannica.com/science/intersex 

Stjoan1 (talk) 16:38, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
But this article is about humans. The Britannica definition is about all species. So we can't use that, can we? Any other suggestions?  Tewdar  16:48, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Read the entire page. The whole thing keep scrolling down for crying out loud. Stjoan1 (talk) 17:19, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Also, just reading the opening it includes mammals. A human is a mammal. This proves we are not qualified to even have this page on Wikipedia. We're obviously not qualified. Stjoan1 (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

What "entire page"... that Britannica entry is a paragraph long. You were blocked (not banned) because you kept adding some nonsense about "notions" over and over (i.e., edit warring). That, along with your tendentious edits on woman, suggest that your intent is not to improve the article but rather to make some WP:POINT. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:41, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

And why do we have a page on Intersex devoted only to humans. It is not unique to humans. Just keep digging proving my point that this page is a hack that is carefully guarded. Stjoan1 (talk) 17:45, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Did you see the very first line of the article, in italics? EvergreenFir (talk) 17:47, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Still not seeing any usable definition for intersex in humans here. Tell you what, why not have another go at suggesting a definition that we can use in the article lede, with a published reference to support it?  Tewdar  17:48, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

And as we can see from the user that started this talk that even logical reasons for the intro question are going to be ignored. You want a page for a Google Doodle than you got one. Stjoan1 (talk) 17:52, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

What do you want the lede to say? "Intersex people are individuals intermediate between a true male and a true female?" 😂  Tewdar  17:55, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

And by the way banned and barred are synonymous. Another reason the guardians of this page couldn't write their way out of a wet paper sack. I'm using Britannica as an example of the bar we need to exceed. We just don't have the resources because this page is locked down for further discussion or edit. An appearance of a conflict of interest is a conflict of interest and the way this page is being managed is full of conflicts of interests mainly in the form of being one sided. At the very least the guards of this page need a controversy section that is unbiased if you continue to keep it locked from anybody that sees a need for clarification. If this is a human rights page than title it as such and I'm fine with that but the title for now is Intersex and the intro is incorrect that was logically pointed out and ignored by the OP. Stjoan1 (talk) 18:05, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

So, still no suggestions on how to improve the lede, then? You want me to suggest something for you, I suppose? And provide a source too, I expect? 🤔  Tewdar  18:13, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
First, from WP:BANNED:

Bans are different from blocks, which are used by administrators to technically prevent a user account or IP address from editing Wikipedia. Blocks are used chiefly to deal with immediate problems such as vandalism, disruptive editing or edit warring. A ban, on the other hand, does not technically prevent editing; however, blocks may be used to enforce bans.

Britannica has only a small paragraph which is parallel to Intersex (biology):

intersex, in biology, an organism having physical characteristics intermediate between a true male and a true female of its species. The condition usually results from extra chromosomes or a hormonal abnormality during embryological development. The sex mosaic, or gynandromorph, is an intersexual organism that has male parts on one side of the body and female parts on the other. Arthropods, mammals, and birds have been known to be gynandromorphic.

Conflict of interest doesn't mean what I think you think it means. EvergreenFir (talk) 18:34, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 19 February 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus, thus not moved. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 12:15, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

– I was surprised to find that Intersex was the article about humans, and it seems a very easy issue to fix. Moving here provides easy opportunity for avoiding parenthetical disambiguation with a less surprising title (WP:PLA). I note that Intersex already begins with Intersex people are individuals…, so it is likely to be the most natural way to title the article about humans. — HTGS (talk) 00:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC) — Relisted. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 00:54, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

  • Support per nom. — Treetoes023 (talk) 01:40, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. — Estar8806 (talk) 15:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Support. Good uses of WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:58, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Support clarifies scope of the people-based article and establishes the broader biological article as a parent to that. SFB 19:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: "A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term." The overwhelming majority of uses of the term "intersex" in academic literature (and elsewhere) are referring to humans. An excellent parallel is that homosexuality is about humans, with a hatnote for homosexual behavior in animals. Accordingly, renaming in this way will break a great many links that formerly went here, but then would go to a short article listing a few non-human species that happen to have these conditions. "Intersex (biology)" could be renamed to "Intersex in non-human animals" or suchlike, but that is not what is being proposed here. Crossroads -talk- 01:20, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
    @ Crossroads and Paintspot:
    1. I don’t see the move as primarily about which article is the primary topic, but about making the scope and language of this page clearer for readers. This is supported by the wording of the lead sentence, which is about Intersex people, and not intersex as a condition. (See also: List of intersex people, Intersex people in history, Intersex people and religion, etc.) In fact, the wording we use—intersex, and not intersexual, intersexuality or intersexism—means that in most (not all) usage around people, we are using the word as an adjective. Further, this article already emphasizes the social aspects more than the biological, which is why I didn’t propose Intersex in humans to try to make this a sub-set / secondary topic to the biology article.
      To this end, the move of Intersex (biology) is only of secondary concern to me; I would have proposed the move of this article even if that article were already perfectly placed.
    2. To me, the better analogy is Gay men, which I would leave in place even if Gay didn’t exist. Homosexuality is primarily a psycho-social topic, not a biological one, and so the study of “homosexuality” in animals is entirely defined by analogue to how we think about homosexuality in humans (consider “homosexual behavior” in animals when it occurs as an expression of dominance, and how distinct that is from how we think of—most—homosexuality in humans, and you’ll see how secondary the physical behavior is to the concept).
      By contrast, intersex is biological at root, and could easily have the biological concept as primary topic (in the same way that Apple is the core concept for that word, despite media coverage and popular interest to the contrary).
    3. Renaming in this way will break a great many links that formerly went here. Please see Cleaning up after a change in topic structure. It is a job, but not a terribly complicated one, to shift link targets. I personally will do that work myself if necessary.
    — HTGS (talk) 23:16, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose (strongly) per reasons listed by User:Crossroads above. The human topic is the primary topic here — and as mentioned above, "an excellent parallel is that homosexuality is about humans, with a hatnote for homosexual behavior in animals." Paintspot Infez (talk) 21:22, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Crossroads and also per WP:CONCISE. Support moving Intersex (biology) to Intersex in animals or some such. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:35, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment It seems to me that if we are seeking consistency then the apposite comparison is with the articles Male and Female, rather than Homosexuality. That comparison would appear to support to the proposed move. CIreland (talk) 23:44, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
    ↑Pinging relevant users so they can see the above comment.↑ (Crossroads—Paintspot—UtherSRG)
  • Oppose. The simplest and most general title should belong to the broad concept, which includes history, culture, biology, medicine, and other subtopics. "Broad" means reflecting the breadth and balance of coverage in sources (as opposed to, say, hierarchical categorization). Appropriately broad coverage will often have the effect of giving more attention in total to subtopics specific to humans, or to a human-oriented perspective even for subtopics not unique to humans in a technical sense. This is ordinary. See examples such as Lung or Pain. A subtopic may or may not have a separate article, as necessary, following Wikipedia:Summary style. For the article focusing on various animals and titled Intersex (biology), I support moving from "(biology)" to "in animals", assuming the existing content of that article. (Note that "non-human animals" is not necessary in the title, for reasons argued at Talk:Sleep in animals#Requested move 3 October 2021.) Adumbrativus (talk) 08:50, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per several above (not going to repeat it all), but support moving from "(biology)" to "in animals" to be more WP:CONSISTENT with similar articles. Intersex people should probably redirect to Intersex instead of to List of intersex people. Intersex person already goes to Intersex, as does Intersex persons. All that said, there is a general consistency problem across the site when it comes to general biological topics. E.g., Albinism is the cross-species article with a side article at Albinism in humans, and one might reasonably expect that to instead be the subject of Albinism main article with a side article at Albinism in animals (I belielve that used to be the case for some years, in fact).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:32, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
    @SMcCandlish and Adumbrativus: I find this take surprising. I don’t see how Intersex in animals (ditto for albinism) is helpful structurally; saying “in animals” implies that it cannot (does not) cover humans, and that seems less helpful for what I imagined would be a WP:summary style structure, where one article gives a broad overview and the other covers the more in-depth human experience of the conditions. It was my long term expectation that the article at “Intersex” (presently the underdeveloped “biology” article) would be about the condition(s) broadly, including sections about the condition as it presents in humans (to this end I have pending edits to the biology article on another computer that are still on hold based on recent opposition here).
    In both the intersex and albinism cases, I would plan that the umbrella “biology” article would cover humans as well (summary style), rather than explicitly cover (non-human) animals. I have a hard time seeing the human article(s) being expanded to cover animal models as well—as we are discussing conditions, not diseases. — HTGS (talk) 07:50, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
    Well, there are many cases of "warring consistencies" in this project, a symptom of the problem that we can't make everyone happy all the time. In the end, we do best when we do what readers are most apt to expect. I would bet that about 99% of lookups of "intersex" (like "homosexual[ity]") are interested in people not in non-human animals, but the same probably cannot be said for "albinism", which is common among domesticated animals and rare in people. That's probably why Albinism changed from being the people article to the general article some years ago.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:44, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
Support per nom --- Tbf69 P • T 19:13, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose The primary topic is about intersex people. Des Vallee (talk) 01:27, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per PRIMARYTOPIC and CONCISION. Adding “people” is unnecessary disambiguation since the title already implies it’s about people. The hatnote to the broader “biology” article is already there and appropriately titled. Nothing to fix or improve when it’s already perfect. —В²C ☎ 21:19, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edit the phrase "Sex assignment at birth...".

Having recently read the Wiki article Intersex, I elected to edit the phrase "sex assignment" as an individual's sex is not assigned to them, i.e. no-one gives it to me, but is a product of fertilisation. The use of the term "assignment" is false and misleading as an individual cannot reject or chose an alternative sex at the point of birth. Note: I am not talking about sex reassignment surgery later in life.

The edit, which simply said that a child's sex at birth usually aligned with their anatomical sex and phenotype, i.e. if it has a penis it is male and if it has a vagina it is female, has been reverted on a couple of occasions. One by an individual stating "Misunderstanding of text" and the other as "something non-understandable".

While not having experience of intersex, or association with an individual who may suffer from malformed genitalia, the fact is that an individual's sex in the normal and natural development of the fetus is not "assigned" but a product of fertilisation. Something which has been known for eons. Would be interested in knowing what the wider Wiki community thinks about removing the phrase "sex assignment" for something that is factually correct. 86.189.234.69 (talk) 16:32, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi, you seem to have a misunderstanding on how Wikipedia works. I found the essay WP:Verifiability not truth to be very enlightening. The sentence may or may not be changed but I think it is important for you to understand that any change will not come from a community desire for "factual correctness", but rather sources which verify the text. (Roundish ⋆t) 20:10, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
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