"Imagine a world in which people with Down Syndrome are a completely unknown group in most circles of society – that is what intersex people face today. This is worthy of mourning; Christians have a responsibility to meet the marginalized far better than what we do currently."
Interestingly, I would wonder how much has been written on this. The secular position is, by and large, that people with Down's syndrome shouldn't exist - hence why there is comprehensive testing and then soft pressure on those who test positively to abort. Of the few articles and books that I found from a quick search for "Christianity and Down's syndrome", one of them notes that we may be living amongst the "last people with Down's syndrome".
Interesting first steps here. Very interesting and adds to my general opinion that these kinds of books are opportunistic and poor theology. Milbank's dismissal of minority theology as a intellectualist racket that neither helps the minority object or interests the laity seems to be proven true again.
Well, this is not a work of "disability theology" insofar as that is a technical term. To my knowledge, disability theology in the narrow sense takes the opposite tack when thinking about Down syndrome etc.; they argue that actually, the disability is ontologically necessary within the person.
Cox very clearly doesn't agree with that position, lol. I think I find myself somewhere in the middle, although I would need to read actual disability theology before being able to really come to a conclusion.
This is such an egregious book. "Therefore, those who presently have intersex bodies will be restored to male or female when raised from the dead." Are you kidding me? The intersex are already male and female, as per their gametes! There is no such thing as a human being that cannot be defined as either "male" or "female", Cox, the biologists have already settled this.
And the idea the random "transitioning is an acceptable option, as long as this does not happen within an existing marriage" is so disgusting.
Cox can't seem to decide whether people with intersex conditions are actually human beings or just an ethereal monolith for her to judge.
David, I am sorry you sacrificed your brain cells for us.
I don't think the account of "sex = gametes" works either, unfortunately. There's too many counterexamples. Are we really going to commit to someone with CAIS, who may've spent her entire life believing that she's a woman, going through female puberty, etc., is a male just because she has testes? Such a person may never even find out that she's intersex...
I also think other cases, like the rarer but still existent true hermaphroditism, or times when people have to get their gametes surgically removed because of health conditions, poses issues for this view.
Sex = gametes/gonads is one of the most foolproof ways to prove sex--at least in our biological understanding of such. (Colin Wright writes extensively on this in his Substack, Reality's Last Stand.)
If a human who on the outside looks female has the ability to produce sperm, then "she" will be male. If this person goes through female puberty in its fullest sense, then she will have menses, thus producing eggs and thus being female.
I'm talking about what someone is born with. Humans are born with sperm or eggs in them already, so this can help solve the issue. Whether the sperm or eggs a person produces post-puberty are fertile or not is a different question. I've yet to read about a case in which a person is born without sperm or eggs (i.e., effectively sexless). There is also no spegg.
Like I said, gametes/gonads help us understand sex biology in a textbook way. If we have a male who looks 100% female (but has no ability to produce eggs and never has, and has the internal wiring to produce sperm), then how he would be raised, socialized, etc. is much more difficult and requires nuance.
I staunchly deny that Gnostic or Pagan have ever had clearly-defined meanings outside of “not orthodox Christian”. That’s the only area of expertise which I can appeal to for this. Other than that, I think that Dr. Tomas Bogardus’ functionalist theory of sex helps ontologically deflate intersex. Would like to hear your thoughts
Sure, but I only care about what we're going to define "male" and "female" as with regards to things like "who can this person marry?" To me, it seems patently obvious that someone with CAIS being told she has to marry a woman because she has testes she's never seen and may not know about is essentially commanding a lesbian marriage.
It doesn't seem patently obvious to me that this would be a lesbian marriage (it's not obviously not one either). One might argue that the person in question is a man, and thus such a marriage would be heterosexual.
Couldn't someone be mistaken about their sex because of a lack of information? I don't see why we should have special access to knowledge about our own sex, since sex is a reality external to one's own mind, and thus accessible to outside analysis.
The fact that one could be wrong about this particular definition of biological sex is precisely why I think it doesn’t work when it comes to defining biblically relevant categories. I think it’s, at the very least, incredibly counterintuitive to say that someone from the 1st century with CAIS who was raised as a daughter and married to a man is who Paul was thinking of when he wrote about same-sex sexual activity.
I see your point. But it seems to me the fact that Paul wasn't thinking about it specifically might not matter. Paul tells us that God disapproves of homosexual behavior, but God disapproves of it for a reason, assuming one isn't a strict Divine Command Theorist. The question then is, does someone with CAIS marrying a man offend against the reason why homosexual behavior is wrong, now that we know that there is such a thing as CAIS. Has our addition knowledge given us reason to believe a certain behavior is wrong which we would have thought acceptable when there were fewer facts. If one accepts the Thomist/Aristotelian reason for homosexuality being wrong, I think there is a strong case that it would.
But one has to take into account whether intersex people have standard sex drives in the first place. From what I know, sex drive is reduced significantly with intersex conditions, and its possible so is the romantic drive (though these two are not necessarily linked, of course). That being said, the question of dating, marriage, and reproduction may be irrelevant to a lot of intersex people.
I guess the best thing would be for it to be dealt with on a case-by-case level, given the various types of intersex conditions, what a person was socialized as & their current perception of self, and what their family (if they’re close to them) thinks is best.
"Imagine a world in which people with Down Syndrome are a completely unknown group in most circles of society – that is what intersex people face today. This is worthy of mourning; Christians have a responsibility to meet the marginalized far better than what we do currently."
Interestingly, I would wonder how much has been written on this. The secular position is, by and large, that people with Down's syndrome shouldn't exist - hence why there is comprehensive testing and then soft pressure on those who test positively to abort. Of the few articles and books that I found from a quick search for "Christianity and Down's syndrome", one of them notes that we may be living amongst the "last people with Down's syndrome".
Interesting first steps here. Very interesting and adds to my general opinion that these kinds of books are opportunistic and poor theology. Milbank's dismissal of minority theology as a intellectualist racket that neither helps the minority object or interests the laity seems to be proven true again.
Well, this is not a work of "disability theology" insofar as that is a technical term. To my knowledge, disability theology in the narrow sense takes the opposite tack when thinking about Down syndrome etc.; they argue that actually, the disability is ontologically necessary within the person.
Cox very clearly doesn't agree with that position, lol. I think I find myself somewhere in the middle, although I would need to read actual disability theology before being able to really come to a conclusion.
So many thoughts. For now, excellent work.
This is such an egregious book. "Therefore, those who presently have intersex bodies will be restored to male or female when raised from the dead." Are you kidding me? The intersex are already male and female, as per their gametes! There is no such thing as a human being that cannot be defined as either "male" or "female", Cox, the biologists have already settled this.
And the idea the random "transitioning is an acceptable option, as long as this does not happen within an existing marriage" is so disgusting.
Cox can't seem to decide whether people with intersex conditions are actually human beings or just an ethereal monolith for her to judge.
David, I am sorry you sacrificed your brain cells for us.
The “orthodox” from Paleo is small o orthodox, not big O — he just means “non-heretical”
I see. Either way, like I said, I'm confused about the argument he's making.
I was just trying to post a comment. No clue why it ended up a reply to you
Yeah, I realized that. Don’t mind me
I don't think the account of "sex = gametes" works either, unfortunately. There's too many counterexamples. Are we really going to commit to someone with CAIS, who may've spent her entire life believing that she's a woman, going through female puberty, etc., is a male just because she has testes? Such a person may never even find out that she's intersex...
I also think other cases, like the rarer but still existent true hermaphroditism, or times when people have to get their gametes surgically removed because of health conditions, poses issues for this view.
Sex = gametes/gonads is one of the most foolproof ways to prove sex--at least in our biological understanding of such. (Colin Wright writes extensively on this in his Substack, Reality's Last Stand.)
If a human who on the outside looks female has the ability to produce sperm, then "she" will be male. If this person goes through female puberty in its fullest sense, then she will have menses, thus producing eggs and thus being female.
I'm talking about what someone is born with. Humans are born with sperm or eggs in them already, so this can help solve the issue. Whether the sperm or eggs a person produces post-puberty are fertile or not is a different question. I've yet to read about a case in which a person is born without sperm or eggs (i.e., effectively sexless). There is also no spegg.
Like I said, gametes/gonads help us understand sex biology in a textbook way. If we have a male who looks 100% female (but has no ability to produce eggs and never has, and has the internal wiring to produce sperm), then how he would be raised, socialized, etc. is much more difficult and requires nuance.
I staunchly deny that Gnostic or Pagan have ever had clearly-defined meanings outside of “not orthodox Christian”. That’s the only area of expertise which I can appeal to for this. Other than that, I think that Dr. Tomas Bogardus’ functionalist theory of sex helps ontologically deflate intersex. Would like to hear your thoughts
Do you have a link to where I could find a good place to start for his stuff?
Sure, but I only care about what we're going to define "male" and "female" as with regards to things like "who can this person marry?" To me, it seems patently obvious that someone with CAIS being told she has to marry a woman because she has testes she's never seen and may not know about is essentially commanding a lesbian marriage.
It doesn't seem patently obvious to me that this would be a lesbian marriage (it's not obviously not one either). One might argue that the person in question is a man, and thus such a marriage would be heterosexual.
Couldn't someone be mistaken about their sex because of a lack of information? I don't see why we should have special access to knowledge about our own sex, since sex is a reality external to one's own mind, and thus accessible to outside analysis.
The fact that one could be wrong about this particular definition of biological sex is precisely why I think it doesn’t work when it comes to defining biblically relevant categories. I think it’s, at the very least, incredibly counterintuitive to say that someone from the 1st century with CAIS who was raised as a daughter and married to a man is who Paul was thinking of when he wrote about same-sex sexual activity.
I see your point. But it seems to me the fact that Paul wasn't thinking about it specifically might not matter. Paul tells us that God disapproves of homosexual behavior, but God disapproves of it for a reason, assuming one isn't a strict Divine Command Theorist. The question then is, does someone with CAIS marrying a man offend against the reason why homosexual behavior is wrong, now that we know that there is such a thing as CAIS. Has our addition knowledge given us reason to believe a certain behavior is wrong which we would have thought acceptable when there were fewer facts. If one accepts the Thomist/Aristotelian reason for homosexuality being wrong, I think there is a strong case that it would.
But one has to take into account whether intersex people have standard sex drives in the first place. From what I know, sex drive is reduced significantly with intersex conditions, and its possible so is the romantic drive (though these two are not necessarily linked, of course). That being said, the question of dating, marriage, and reproduction may be irrelevant to a lot of intersex people.
It doesn’t matter, because some of them definitely want to get married lol.
I guess the best thing would be for it to be dealt with on a case-by-case level, given the various types of intersex conditions, what a person was socialized as & their current perception of self, and what their family (if they’re close to them) thinks is best.