Argumentative Penguin
2 min readApr 6, 2021

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Alas, I'm afraid they do. There are a small but statitistically relevant number of people who are born 'intersex', with ambiguous genitalia. Medical profesisonals face a selection of quite complicated and difficult decisions at this point - many of which will be about assigning a sex for the infant.

99% of the time being a medical professional is easy and just finding a penis can be done by any caveman who happens to be passing, but sometimes it's a little harder than this. I don't think there's been a consensus criteria for what to do in these particular situations, possibly because of their infrequency but also because of the limitations of medical technology throughout history.

Ovotesticular disorder of sex development, pseudohermaphroditism and pure gonadal dysgenesis will still get you excluded from serving in the US army and If you want to see the true tragic ramifications of eeny-meeny-miny-moe - do a search for David Reimer - a case I studied at University (amongst other things).

This isn't about the left owning science, this is remembering that the simplistic binary ways that most of us live are not applicable to everyone on the planet all of the time. Just because it's a very small minority issue for a handful of people doesn't mean it isn't worthy of discussion. Getting these decisions wrong can cause lots of problems and you should read about Christiane Völling to see how these can sometimes play out.

And here you were, thinking I only argued with the lefty woke brigade. I'm a penguin. Truth is, 'll argue with anyone if I think they're wrong. ;o)

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Argumentative Penguin
Argumentative Penguin

Written by Argumentative Penguin

Playwright. Screenwriter. Penguin. Fan of rationalism and polite discourse. Find me causing chaos in the comments. Contact: argumentativepenguin@outlook.com

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