Intersex II

As per usual, I’ve been thinking a bit more deeply about my previous post and want to adjust some of my claims.  

I made an argument of this sort:  

1. If intersex conditions are corruptions of either male or female sexual development, then individuals with an intersex condition are either male or female and not both.

2. Intersex conditions are corruptions of male or female sexual development, as an analysis of the function of sexual organs demonstrates.

3. So intersex individuals are either male or female and not both.

The distinction needed to better understand this issue is that between the (a) sexual categories and (b) the categories of people.  Sexual categories, of which there are two: Male and female.  Categories of people, of which there are (possibly) three: Male, female, and male-female.  Think of the categories of Left and Right.  There is no third category here, such as Reft.  There is a binary of just Left and Right.  But even given this point, it doesn’t follow that there are not objects that exist both to the Left and to the Right.  I think the points I made in the last post support the existence of just two sexual categories, but I’m not so sure that they support the existence of just two categories of people.  

To really see this point, we need to get some sort of definition for male and female, and to do so we’re going to make reference to the normative grades I used last time.  A male is an individual that can unite with a female in the grade (2.) sense.  A female is an individual that can unite with a male in the grade (2.) sense.  To successfully unite sexually, I take it that a person’s body and sexual organs must be capable of mutually striving with another’s towards the goal of reproduction, even if there’s no chance of success.  

If hermaphrodites possess the capacity for grade (2.) of both the male and female type, then they would classify as both male and female.  There would then be three categories of people on this scheme; male, female, and male-female.  If this is right, then it seems like there’s a category of people for which sexual activity with either sex does not constitute homosexual behavior, and is thus not condemnable per my argument against homosexuality.  

There’s two paths forward.  We can bite the bullet and agree with the last paragraph.  Or, we can dig our heels in and reject it.  I can think of at least two ways to reject it:  Perhaps we can argue that there really aren’t cases of individuals that are male and female, that is, there aren’t individuals who possess both male and female organs that are both capable of striving towards reproduction, that exhibit grade (2.) of both the male and female sort.  What kind of claim would this be? An inductive one?  Maybe it could be argued for, but it seems like it’d get complex quickly and may align itself against scientific evidence.  It’s at least leaving itself exposed against such scientific evidence that may show individuals with both types of sexual organs that are both capable of such sexual striving.  

Or, if it is the case that there are individuals with both sets of reproductive organs, perhaps we can argue in other ways for the impermissibility of such an individual picking the sex of their partner willy-nilly.  Here's how this argumentative strategy may go: Each person is *meant* to be a male or a female, and an individual suffering from a DOSD is just an individual with a condition that corrupts that underlying development.  How do we find out what they’re *meant* to be? And does this *meant to be* provide any normative force? Maybe we can discover the majority underlying sex by using the criteria listed in the last post, and maybe this fact provides normative force for the hermaphrodite person to choose those people of the opposite sex to their majority underlying sex.  This position seems an improvement over the last, as it admits the possibility of individuals with sexual organs that both strive in a male and female way, but picks the majority one as the one that gives the normative force.  A counterexample to this approach would be an individual with roughly equal male and female organs/phenotype/hormones.  And if such an individual exists, it looks like we’re back to just biting the bullet.  

One last approach would be to say that such individuals are called to celibacy.  They may not exhibit the right kind or enough of the sort of striving to count as capable of achieving grade (2.).  This question depends on how we take the meaning of striving and how the underlying biology works.  If that's the case, then they possess only grade (0.) and are called to celibacy.  That’s a difficult one to accept, but maybe one we should keep in mind.