Hello! Great video! But I have a question. Since people with CAIS are XY with an active SRY gene but do not develop androgen receptors, causing them to develop testes within a general female phenotype, would it be correct to say they are male since they developed the structures to produce small gametes even though these structures are completely merged and not functional?
@Mark L The testes function to some extent - ie producing testosterone which is not used, producing anti-Mullerian hormone which eliminates the Mullerian system and - sometimes - producing immature sperm cells. You repeat Zach's mistake - "the normal female phenotype observed in CAIS." The normal female phenotype does not include testes. CAIS afflicted individuals do not have the most fundamental female phenotype features - ovaries, nor the most immediate secondary female phenotypical features - fallopian tubes, cervix and uterus.
@Mark L Yes, I'm saying they're male. The sex of a member of an anisogamous species is identified by the sex of its gametes. Creatures which do not produce gametes because of diseases of sexual development (which includes some but not all CAIS sufferers) but which have (non functional) gamete factories, ie gonads, can be identified by the sex of their gonads. Thus CAIS sufferers are male. The point is that there is a biological hierarchy of sexually differentiated features. The highest item in the hierarchy is gametes. If you have some that absolutely determines your sex, regardless of ALL other, subsidiary, features. This is because your role in reproduction is absolutely determined by your gametes. Should you not have gametes, your sex can be determined at one remove by identifying the sex of your (non functional) gamete factories. All your other sexually differentiated features are subsidiary to your gametes. They may be very useful in practice in helping your gametes find a complementary gamete of the other sex and produce offspring, but they are all irrelevant until you've got some gametes. Thus in the event of a DSD induced conflict between the sex of the gametes, and the secondary sexual characteristics, the gametes score 100% and the rest zip. None of this biological stuff, however, is relevant to how CAIS sufferers should live their lives in society. If they want to live their lives as if they were women, as best they can, then fine, it's up to them. But as a matter of biological fact, they're not women.
@Mark L "In humans, biological sex is determined by five factors present at birth: the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, the type of gonads, the sex hormones, the internal genitalia (such as the uterus in females), and the external genitalia.[6]" This is confused, partly because "determine" can mean either "defined" or "deduced." Y chromosomes are a good, but not infallible, proxy for what defines sex in animals which have the X and Y chromosome system. What defines sex is gametes, and by extension, gonads, which are the factories which manufacture gametes. A Y chromosome is a good proxy for deducing male sex, because almost all males have a Y chromosome. But it is an imperfect proxy because some males have their SRY gene on an X chromosome and it is the SRY gene which causes bipotential gonads to differentiate into testes. Likewise, sex hormones, internal and external genitalia (and other secondary sexual characteristics) are good proxies too - because they are pretty reliable direct and indirect products of the gonads. It is the testosterone produced by the testes which masculines these downstrean sexual characteristics. Usually. But unusually, as with CAIS, the system doesn't work right. Thus gametes are the defining feature - chromosomes, hormones, genitals etc are not entirely accurate proxies. The proxies and the gametes are usually properly co-ordinated, because evolution, but sometimes there are mistakes. Humans do not have a special sexual biology. You tell the difference between a male and female human and a male and female goat in the same way. The male is the one with small gametes and the female is the one with big gametes.
@Mark L Hermaphrodites (in species where hermaphroditism is functional) are BOTH male and female. They are male because they make male gametes and female because they make female gametes. Their sex, like non hermaphrodites, is still defined by their gametes. They just happen to be both sexes. There are also sequential hermaphrodites, eg which start as male and flip to female under an environmental cue. But again the sex is defined by the gametes. They start as one sex because they make that kind of gamete, and then the become the other sex because they make the other kind of gamete. As for streak gonads, if they are not identifiable as testes or ovaries then they're just undifferentiated gonadal material, and the creature has neither sex. "So I ask you, how can gamete production be the distinction between male and female?" Because the very existence of sexually differentiated males and females is a function of anisogamy. Isogamous species are not sexually differentiated. The fundamental and defining feature of sexual differentiation is anisogamy. All sexually differentiated features, in all species, are secondary evolutionary adaptations supporting the deployment of one or other gamete type. If your prize bull appears to be a fine bull in all respects, except that by some DSD mystery, it makes eggs not sperm, you will get no takers for its gametes. Because it is - despite external appearances - not a bull. It's not male, because it makes eggs not sperm. All of its fine secondary male characteristics are perfectly irrelevant. The organism's sex is defined by its gametes precisely because sex is in the first instance a category of gametes themselves. The notion of describing an organism of having a sex is derivative of that gametic categorisation.
if you're claiming all human intersex conditions necessarily exclusively effect males and females, it might be a good idea to state with clarity which CAIS effects, as well as possibly for another video as unambiguously as possible, explain bi-potentiality, thank you for your amazing efforts to inoculate from error, superb work, keep it up!
I notice that you did not mention gametes. It seems that CAIS is an exception to the rule that the sex is determined by whether the body contains tissue for the production of large or small gametes. The women with CAIS only contain tissue that would in a fertile person be involved in the production of SMALL gametes. No tissue involved in the production of large gametes seems to be present. Am I correct? Or do biologists consider women with CAIS to have male biological sex?
I saw some researches that people with CAIS can get pregnant, as their body is fully female, just without ovaries and uterus after surgical transplantation. So should be considered as female body. However, I've not checked sources, so that could be BS.
"It seems that CAIS is an exception to the rule that the sex is determined by whether the body contains tissue for the production of large or small gametes. " Yes, I think this is where Zach flinches from accepting his basic scheme and invents an exception to the rule, simply on the basis of social convenience. But biologically, creatures with testes are male not female, even if the testes are non functional. That this is a cop out is obvious from (a) the fact that there are degrees of androgen insensitivity, and if he abandons the logic of gamete factories, Zach has no basis for deciding how much androgen insensitivity flips you from male to female and (b) the fact that Zach has to characterise CAIS folk as "phenotypically female" when they obviously aren't. Gonads are part of your phenotype. Much better to stick with the clear logic of the biology and accept that biologically CAIS folk are MALE, but that since their external phenotype is female, then there's no reason why they should not live as women in society (if they so wish.)
There is no flinching needed. In CAIS there is an SRY gene and androgen receptors. The path was started toward being male. It's a male with female anatomy. Zach has clearly stated this in other video comments.
@@michaelamaynard Well, I'd be happy if he does mean this. It is certainly not stated clearly in this video - eg at 3:17 we have "Affected young women never start their periods", which is a peculiar way to refer to a male human. It is also incorrect to say that there is a female phenotype (or female anatomy.) There is a female external phenotype, certainly, but a phenotype is not limited to your external appearance. It includes internal organs. And CAIS folk have testes, partially formed Wolffian structures and no Mullerian structures. These are characteristic of male phenotype. But if he states it clearly elsewhere, so much the better.
I noticed a contradiction... The speaker in another video said that it would be absurd to call an intersex 'man' a woman because he has XX chromosomes. His chromosomes contracted the SRY gene, so his male body plan and the expression of testes determine his sex to be male. AIS 'women' do not look _like_ women, they just look like an undifferentiated male. Gametes are the only thing that can't be intermediate unlike _all_ other characteristics, so they are the ultimate arbiter of sex.
My understanding is that cais women are actually over represented in sports. I believe that T is not the only factor effecting athleticism. There presumably is more on the y chromosome that is involved. Also I thought pubic hair growth was also an effect, being controlled in both sex's by testosterone. Very well handled info btw 👍 My heart really goes out to women effected.
First, I would like to say that, while I have a different approach to sexual identities, your videos are extremely well-produced, so I want to compliment you on that. As per Lee Moore's comment, however, you seem to have painted yourself into a corner on CAIS. In one of your early videos, you say that sex is all about the gametes. By that logic, why aren't you insisting that CAIS individuals are "male", as they have testicles?
I don't think he says people with CAIS are female he says they are observed as female raised as female and identify as female, but he doesn't say they are female.
@@f.e.groenwold2073 on a a biological level, a reproductive system ordered to the production of large gametes. People who have CAIS, are male, but might as well be female. Legally female makes most sense legally for such individuals.
But because CAIS individuals have the body plan that produces sperm (as noted at 2:47) - despite their otherwise 'female' phenotype, they should actually be defined as *male* according to the binary body plan definition of sex advocated by Paradox. However, the narrator ends the video by referring to these individuals as *women* (6:39). I'll leave it to other viewers to decide whether this creates a paradox (or logical contradiction in their definitions!).
It certainly does. It purposely ignores how they have a body plan that produces sperm, and dodges it multiple times throughout the video, even refusing to state their biological sex, saying "They are observed as and raised as females"
My understanding is there is no such thing as having “both genitals”. Alice Dreger has an article on her website about this. In the embryo all genitals start the same (looks kind of like a vagina). For males the vagina seals up and the clit grows into a penis, the labia become scrotum. For females the vagina and clit continue to develop. DSDs can cause the development to stop somewhere in the middle, or certain developments happen and others don’t. This is a simplification but it’s more or less like this.
Genitals are secondary sexual characteristics, albeit important ones, but they are not definitive of sex. What defines sex is gametes, and their factories, the gonads. So the simple answer to your question, is never mind the genitals, look at the gonads. So what about creatures with both types of gonads ? If both are functional then the creature is BOTH male and female, ie hermaphrodite. If only one type of gonad is functional, then the sex is defined by that gonad. If both are non functional, biology doesn't offer a clear answer. We're into semantics. You could say they're neither male nor female; or you could say they're hermaphrodite but non functional. More common than non functional gonads of each type - though still extremely rare - are ovotestes or streak gonads, where the gonadal tissue hasn't differentiated into either type of gonad. Creatures with non functional gonads of these types are probably best described as neither sex.
No one has both genitals . If you mean both gonads then that's a tough question. The individual has a difficulty of sexual differentiation and more info would be needed to determine their sex .
is it safe to say this could be an identity and not a disorder? people don't like everything to be a medical condition, a pathology, a sickness, disorder, anything. it's very unkind. is this a disorder or just intersex variation?
Why are women with CAIS overrepresented in sports, like Maria José Martínez-Patiño, a former Spanish Olympic athlete with CAIS? It's unlikely for them to be Olympic winners, given the low incidence of CAIS in women. What is the probability? There must be some minimal amount at least of receptors that are active to testosterone. There are many questions. Science is still quite behind.
You need to get in on the debate about this on Exulansic’s channel
STILL WOULD BE NICE KIND SIR ❤
Hello! Great video! But I have a question. Since people with CAIS are XY with an active SRY gene but do not develop androgen receptors, causing them to develop testes within a general female phenotype, would it be correct to say they are male since they developed the structures to produce small gametes even though these structures are completely merged and not functional?
Yes
@Mark L The testes function to some extent - ie producing testosterone which is not used, producing anti-Mullerian hormone which eliminates the Mullerian system and - sometimes - producing immature sperm cells.
You repeat Zach's mistake - "the normal female phenotype observed in CAIS." The normal female phenotype does not include testes. CAIS afflicted individuals do not have the most fundamental female phenotype features - ovaries, nor the most immediate secondary female phenotypical features - fallopian tubes, cervix and uterus.
@Mark L Yes, I'm saying they're male. The sex of a member of an anisogamous species is identified by the sex of its gametes. Creatures which do not produce gametes because of diseases of sexual development (which includes some but not all CAIS sufferers) but which have (non functional) gamete factories, ie gonads, can be identified by the sex of their gonads. Thus CAIS sufferers are male.
The point is that there is a biological hierarchy of sexually differentiated features. The highest item in the hierarchy is gametes. If you have some that absolutely determines your sex, regardless of ALL other, subsidiary, features. This is because your role in reproduction is absolutely determined by your gametes. Should you not have gametes, your sex can be determined at one remove by identifying the sex of your (non functional) gamete factories. All your other sexually differentiated features are subsidiary to your gametes. They may be very useful in practice in helping your gametes find a complementary gamete of the other sex and produce offspring, but they are all irrelevant until you've got some gametes.
Thus in the event of a DSD induced conflict between the sex of the gametes, and the secondary sexual characteristics, the gametes score 100% and the rest zip.
None of this biological stuff, however, is relevant to how CAIS sufferers should live their lives in society. If they want to live their lives as if they were women, as best they can, then fine, it's up to them. But as a matter of biological fact, they're not women.
@Mark L "In humans, biological sex is determined by five factors present at birth: the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, the type of gonads, the sex hormones, the internal genitalia (such as the uterus in females), and the external genitalia.[6]"
This is confused, partly because "determine" can mean either "defined" or "deduced." Y chromosomes are a good, but not infallible, proxy for what defines sex in animals which have the X and Y chromosome system. What defines sex is gametes, and by extension, gonads, which are the factories which manufacture gametes. A Y chromosome is a good proxy for deducing male sex, because almost all males have a Y chromosome. But it is an imperfect proxy because some males have their SRY gene on an X chromosome and it is the SRY gene which causes bipotential gonads to differentiate into testes. Likewise, sex hormones, internal and external genitalia (and other secondary sexual characteristics) are good proxies too - because they are pretty reliable direct and indirect products of the gonads. It is the testosterone produced by the testes which masculines these downstrean sexual characteristics. Usually. But unusually, as with CAIS, the system doesn't work right.
Thus gametes are the defining feature - chromosomes, hormones, genitals etc are not entirely accurate proxies. The proxies and the gametes are usually properly co-ordinated, because evolution, but sometimes there are mistakes.
Humans do not have a special sexual biology. You tell the difference between a male and female human and a male and female goat in the same way. The male is the one with small gametes and the female is the one with big gametes.
@Mark L Hermaphrodites (in species where hermaphroditism is functional) are BOTH male and female. They are male because they make male gametes and female because they make female gametes. Their sex, like non hermaphrodites, is still defined by their gametes. They just happen to be both sexes.
There are also sequential hermaphrodites, eg which start as male and flip to female under an environmental cue. But again the sex is defined by the gametes. They start as one sex because they make that kind of gamete, and then the become the other sex because they make the other kind of gamete.
As for streak gonads, if they are not identifiable as testes or ovaries then they're just undifferentiated gonadal material, and the creature has neither sex.
"So I ask you, how can gamete production be the distinction between male and female?"
Because the very existence of sexually differentiated males and females is a function of anisogamy. Isogamous species are not sexually differentiated. The fundamental and defining feature of sexual differentiation is anisogamy. All sexually differentiated features, in all species, are secondary evolutionary adaptations supporting the deployment of one or other gamete type.
If your prize bull appears to be a fine bull in all respects, except that by some DSD mystery, it makes eggs not sperm, you will get no takers for its gametes. Because it is - despite external appearances - not a bull. It's not male, because it makes eggs not sperm.
All of its fine secondary male characteristics are perfectly irrelevant.
The organism's sex is defined by its gametes precisely because sex is in the first instance a category of gametes themselves. The notion of describing an organism of having a sex is derivative of that gametic categorisation.
if you're claiming all human intersex conditions necessarily exclusively effect males and females, it might be a good idea to state with clarity which CAIS effects, as well as possibly for another video as unambiguously as possible, explain bi-potentiality, thank you for your amazing efforts to inoculate from error, superb work, keep it up!
I notice that you did not mention gametes. It seems that CAIS is an exception to the rule that the sex is determined by whether the body contains tissue for the production of large or small gametes. The women with CAIS only contain tissue that would in a fertile person be involved in the production of SMALL gametes. No tissue involved in the production of large gametes seems to be present. Am I correct? Or do biologists consider women with CAIS to have male biological sex?
I saw some researches that people with CAIS can get pregnant, as their body is fully female, just without ovaries and uterus after surgical transplantation. So should be considered as female body.
However, I've not checked sources, so that could be BS.
"It seems that CAIS is an exception to the rule that the sex is determined by whether the body contains tissue for the production of large or small gametes. "
Yes, I think this is where Zach flinches from accepting his basic scheme and invents an exception to the rule, simply on the basis of social convenience. But biologically, creatures with testes are male not female, even if the testes are non functional.
That this is a cop out is obvious from (a) the fact that there are degrees of androgen insensitivity, and if he abandons the logic of gamete factories, Zach has no basis for deciding how much androgen insensitivity flips you from male to female and (b) the fact that Zach has to characterise CAIS folk as "phenotypically female" when they obviously aren't. Gonads are part of your phenotype.
Much better to stick with the clear logic of the biology and accept that biologically CAIS folk are MALE, but that since their external phenotype is female, then there's no reason why they should not live as women in society (if they so wish.)
There is no flinching needed. In CAIS there is an SRY gene and androgen receptors. The path was started toward being male. It's a male with female anatomy. Zach has clearly stated this in other video comments.
@@michaelamaynard Well, I'd be happy if he does mean this. It is certainly not stated clearly in this video - eg at 3:17 we have "Affected young women never start their periods", which is a peculiar way to refer to a male human. It is also incorrect to say that there is a female phenotype (or female anatomy.) There is a female external phenotype, certainly, but a phenotype is not limited to your external appearance. It includes internal organs. And CAIS folk have testes, partially formed Wolffian structures and no Mullerian structures. These are characteristic of male phenotype.
But if he states it clearly elsewhere, so much the better.
@@leemoore5212 I think it's possible to glean the desired information from the video if viewed in aggregate.
So these women are males right?
What about PAIS?
I noticed a contradiction... The speaker in another video said that it would be absurd to call an intersex 'man' a woman because he has XX chromosomes. His chromosomes contracted the SRY gene, so his male body plan and the expression of testes determine his sex to be male. AIS 'women' do not look _like_ women, they just look like an undifferentiated male. Gametes are the only thing that can't be intermediate unlike _all_ other characteristics, so they are the ultimate arbiter of sex.
My understanding is that cais women are actually over represented in sports. I believe that T is not the only factor effecting athleticism. There presumably is more on the y chromosome that is involved. Also I thought pubic hair growth was also an effect, being controlled in both sex's by testosterone.
Very well handled info btw 👍
My heart really goes out to women effected.
First, I would like to say that, while I have a different approach to sexual identities, your videos are extremely well-produced, so I want to compliment you on that. As per Lee Moore's comment, however, you seem to have painted yourself into a corner on CAIS. In one of your early videos, you say that sex is all about the gametes. By that logic, why aren't you insisting that CAIS individuals are "male", as they have testicles?
I don't think he says people with CAIS are female he says they are observed as female raised as female and identify as female, but he doesn't say they are female.
Sex is not an "identity." It's a fact of _what_ you are, not _who_ you are.
I don't "identify" as having two legs. I just do.
@@FronteirWolf But, what is needed to actually 'be' a female, according to you? Or, according to the law?
@@f.e.groenwold2073 on a a biological level, a reproductive system ordered to the production of large gametes.
People who have CAIS, are male, but might as well be female. Legally female makes most sense legally for such individuals.
Thank you for everything you do!
Amazing Video
Informative.
But because CAIS individuals have the body plan that produces sperm (as noted at 2:47) - despite their otherwise 'female' phenotype, they should actually be defined as *male* according to the binary body plan definition of sex advocated by Paradox. However, the narrator ends the video by referring to these individuals as *women* (6:39). I'll leave it to other viewers to decide whether this creates a paradox (or logical contradiction in their definitions!).
It certainly does. It purposely ignores how they have a body plan that produces sperm, and dodges it multiple times throughout the video, even refusing to state their biological sex, saying "They are observed as and raised as females"
Interesting
I have a question about intersex with both genitals. If both genitals are present but not functioning is the person male or female?
My understanding is there is no such thing as having “both genitals”. Alice Dreger has an article on her website about this. In the embryo all genitals start the same (looks kind of like a vagina). For males the vagina seals up and the clit grows into a penis, the labia become scrotum. For females the vagina and clit continue to develop. DSDs can cause the development to stop somewhere in the middle, or certain developments happen and others don’t. This is a simplification but it’s more or less like this.
@@heyborttheeditor1608 Thank for the explaining. Can you link the article? I looked for about 15 minutes and I couldn't find it.
Genitals are secondary sexual characteristics, albeit important ones, but they are not definitive of sex. What defines sex is gametes, and their factories, the gonads. So the simple answer to your question, is never mind the genitals, look at the gonads.
So what about creatures with both types of gonads ? If both are functional then the creature is BOTH male and female, ie hermaphrodite. If only one type of gonad is functional, then the sex is defined by that gonad. If both are non functional, biology doesn't offer a clear answer. We're into semantics. You could say they're neither male nor female; or you could say they're hermaphrodite but non functional. More common than non functional gonads of each type - though still extremely rare - are ovotestes or streak gonads, where the gonadal tissue hasn't differentiated into either type of gonad. Creatures with non functional gonads of these types are probably best described as neither sex.
No one has both genitals . If you mean both gonads then that's a tough question. The individual has a difficulty of sexual differentiation and more info would be needed to determine their sex .
@@leemoore5212 genitals are primary sex characteristics
is it safe to say this could be an identity and not a disorder? people don't like everything to be a medical condition, a pathology, a sickness, disorder, anything. it's very unkind.
is this a disorder or just intersex variation?
Why are women with CAIS overrepresented in sports, like Maria José Martínez-Patiño, a former Spanish Olympic athlete with CAIS? It's unlikely for them to be Olympic winners, given the low incidence of CAIS in women. What is the probability? There must be some minimal amount at least of receptors that are active to testosterone. There are many questions. Science is still quite behind.
#khelif #imanekhelif
This isn't Imane's condition, they probably have ARD-5
Women with CAIS has weak bones usually and weak muscle tone. The body doesn't respond to testosterone,. Imane has different medical condition