this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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All intersex people with ovaries, according to JKR: women.
I suspect she'd actually be quite angry at the amount of male-presenting people (complete with penises) that she just affirmed are women.
Its almost like this is a complicated topic that can't be boiled down to black and white by bigots.
We have the technology to turn any one of your cells into pluripotent stem cells, and then differentiate them into ovarian tissues and eggs.
therefore I propose that we get samples of male transphobes, grow eggs from them, therefore transing them by their definition, also we can make sperm from JKR so she can go fuck herself
Pluribus is really doing some Baader-Meinhof shit to me with pluripotency, I swear
Well yes, that's how that works. Sex is defined around the the type of gametes your body is organized around producing. It doesn't matter how you present.
Their point is that an intersex individual with XY gametes can develop ovaries. By jk's definition that person is a woman. Which is wrong.
And that is the simplest of examples, before we ever get to more complicated genetics.
And THAT is only talking about gametes and chromosomes, which is distinct from the social construct of gender identity (all of the behavioral and psychological stuff which is potentially influenced by, but not solely defined by, those genetic things)
I agree that gender identity is separate, but as far as the biology goes, sex is defined by gametes, and determined by chromosomes. Various DSDs like Swyer/Klinefelter/etc are variations within a sex.
I never said otherwise. What is your point? We are discussing JK Rowling's erroneous claim.
I think you should do some self reflection on why it's so important to you that this conversation shift away from the OP towards everyone acknowledging your point the definition of biological sex. Nobody here ever disagreed with you on the meaning of the words in scientific contexts.
You were incorrect to state this, and why I clarified:
Some people want to define woman as something other than "adult female human", but it's incorrect to rely on a redefinition of the word to declare her wrong, when she wouldn't agree with that redefinition in the first place.
TBH the meme in the OP is silly anyways, because it's clear that she was talking about humans in this context, unlike the original "behold a man" reference. When talking about about humans, Rowling is entirely correct.
No. She's very much wrong. Human men can be born with non-functional ovaries. Her statement is factually inaccurate. She didn't say anything about gametes or chromosomes. She said "born with egg producing equipment, even faulty". That is a VERY specific phrasing and she is wrong.
You are obviously just trying to force a conversation about term usage and insisting that the words we use for both gender and sex should only ever be considered under the sex-based definition.
Language changes constantly. It's all made up, literally. Words mean what the populace uses them to mean.
Lastly, nobody in this thread is arguing the science. If you're talking to me, talk to me instead of building a straw man that's easy to feel superior to. I get that calling trans women women makes you uncomfortable. Get over it. Stop trying to shift the conversation to a framing that puts you on sturdier ground when it isn't what people are talking about.
JK Rowling's a TERF. She makes factually inaccurate statements (e.g. the tweet in the OP). That isn't up for debate. It's self evident. If you want to have a conversation about science deniers, do it somewhere else. Because nobody here is denying the science except Rowling.
i don’t think she’d care too much, honestly
remember, she had no problems calling Imane Khelif a man, despite her being a (possibly intersex) cis woman
Khelif is male with a DSD
Where's the evidence of that?
There have been several leaks of medical results, here's a Snopes article about one of them:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/11/20/imane-khelif-medical-records/
Note that the article confuses sex and gender such as here:
Gender is of course not binary, but sex is. The leaked findings show that Khelif is unambiguously male, and has the same condition as Caster Semenya, who is also unambigously male and has fathered several children.
Note that nobody is disputing the leaked findings, merely talking around them, such as saying that it was unethical to leak them. It may have been, but that doesn't change the findings. The IOC itself confirmed that it was a DSD issue. Khelif has refused to take a simple, cheap, non-invasive test that would put the issue to rest, and has even attempted legal action over implementation of sex testing for women's sports.
Is this not enough to stop you from going around claiming she's a male?
Why would it? Note that nobody is saying that the leak is fake or edited. The silence is deafening, but also not the only evidence. There's another undisputed leak the confirms the same:
And the IOC itself saying that it's a DSD case:
In total, there are exactly zero people saying "Khelif is female based on medical records", and several different people saying "Khelif is male based on medical records", combined with the IOC stating that it's a DSD issue, which means that Khelif is male. Khelif could remove all doubt with a simple, cheap, non-invasive sex test, so why hasn't that happened?
The IOC did not state this, they just conflated DSD with transgender in the initial statement. Why do you keep saying the leaks are undisputed? Read my initial quote about Snopes trying to corroborate the claims and being unable to.
What doubt is there exactly, you're pretty convinced that they're a male with nothing but conjecture, smoke and mirrors.
which type(s) of dsd causes someone to have ovaries and a penis?