Have you heard this statistic?

[shelly]

I was perusing the internet today and found this statistic which blew me away, just wondering if any of you have heard this number before. If you folks have been formally diagnosed, you are "lucky" in at least one sense, you have a name to call your condition. The rest of us somewhere between male and female people have got to contend with the public and doctors who really don't know what to call us.

I spoke on the phone for 2 1/2 hours to a "true hermaphrodite" who was born with ambiguous genitalia, consisting of a very small penis and a blind ending vagina. At puberty she never got breasts and grew a beard and hair on the chest and formed a masculine bone structure. She got so tired of being mistaken for a man in drag she finally began living as a male full time and is responsible for a landmark California legal precident that allows people to change their gender on legal documents without going under the knife. He is my exact opposite, having been believed to be a girl until puberty and I have been raised as male and did pretty well until recently when I could no longer live in denial about all my female "complications". All the doctors could tell him was that he has a 46xx female karotype and that some of the genes must have just translocated. Also he contracted terrible osteoperosis even though he took a lifetime of homone replacement therapy.

It seems that so many cases of intersex do not have a clearcut label .

Anyway here is the statistic

In the majority of DSD cases, the underlying genetic mutations have not been identified. By identifying new sex determining genes, researchers hope to map the 80 per cent of DSD cases in humans that remain unexplained genetically.

It is 16 years since SRY - Sex-determining Region, Y chromosome - was identified as the master gene for maleness in eutherian mammals, but the genetic pathway through which SRY maketh the male remains enigmatic. By identifying new sex determining genes, researchers hope to map the 80 per cent of DSD cases in humans that remain unexplained genetically.
taken from the following article

biotechnews.com.au/index.php?id=395258364&fp=4 &fpid=5555

Maybe a little encouragement to others who come to this site knowing they are different, but don't know what to call it. Hang in there Also, please don't think that I am calling anyone lucky to have any intersex condition, or that I don't understand the pain it causes. I just think it would be nice to have a name for what I have too.
Thanks for listening
Michelle

[fraulein_Maria]

[quote=shelly;13307]I was perusing the internet today and found this statistic which blew me away, just wondering if any of you have heard this number before.

Anyway here is the statistic

In the majority of DSD cases, the underlying genetic mutations have not been identified.

>>> so far, not good. we know that the vast majority of INDENTIFIED IS individuals are CAH'ers..... the vast majority of THEM are 21 hydroxylase defiency, of which there are 25 KNOWN genetic variations KNOWN to produce it (and counting). throw in the 11 beta CAHer's, the CAIS'ers, the Klinefelter's, and the Turner's, and you have now accounted for something like 98% of ALL intersexed individuals. <<<

By identifying new sex determining genes, researchers hope to map the 80 per cent of DSD cases in humans that remain unexplained genetically.

>>>>> ok. this says something entirely different. this doesn't claim that 80% of IS individuals are genetically unexplained (like the above) it says instead.....

that they hope to map the 80% of IS individuals... whose variation is as yet unexplained... (meaning 80% of that remaining 2%).

I'll be following the link to discover if i'm correct, and that like many a scientist, this one FLUNKED ENGLISH... or worse, that this one FLUNKED STATISTICS.

[fraulein_Maria]

biotechnews.com.au/index.php?id=395258364&fp=4 &fpid=5555

>>> links not working. could you please re-post it? thanks!

[Peter]

I have heard the 80% figure before from some people who support the DSD nomenclature, but it was in a different context than mentioned above. The version that I read was that 80% of XY karyotype intersex people have conditions that cannot be genetically resolved. That is a very different statement than the statement that 80% of all intersex conditions cannot be genetically resolved. So, you might want to have your friend re-check their sources.

Peter

[shelly]

I can't put links on the site until I have posted 5 times so the best I can do is to have you copy it and paste it to your browser search bar.

I don't know if the link says that 80% can't be diagnosed, or that 80% can't be resoved genetically. I just know that 80% is an awful lot of people to have a doctor not be able to help them.

I know that for myself intersex has been a curse because people think penis = male and that I have had so much estrogen running through my system for so many years that I feel anything but male. I am not sure that estrogen blockers woud help at this point because my brain has been altered, my skin has been altered, and I have to bind my breasts in public. I live this male in public, female at home existence that others might find weird, but I think is normal for me and someone like me.

I don't think there is anything a doctor can do at this point but send me all the way over the fence to female, but I don't want to come across as a post op tranny, as the psyciatric community still considers this to be a mental disorder, anyone relate to this and how do you deal with the family members who just won't hear out the truth but just want you to pretend to be something you aren't in their presence? My mom just travelled 5 states to see my sister who lives one mile away, but made it vey clear that she would only see me as male when she was here, and never even ended up showing up. I literally got sick from the stress it created and am depressed to be quite honest aobut it. Hurting myself over other people's hang ups is not an opiton, but I just haven't gotten my stride back yet. OUCH!!! I didn't do this to myself with hormones, is there that little love in this world?

[panduwinata]

Originally Posted by shelly

I am not sure that estrogen blockers woud help at this point because my brain has been altered, my skin has been altered, and I have to bind my breasts in public. I live this male in public, female at home existence that others might find weird, but I think is normal for me and someone like me.

You are exactly like me, shelly! Oh my God.
About our feminized brains: my psychiatrist has told me that the lack of androgen and the surplus of estrogen from my feminized testicles has caused my brain to be irreversibly female. There is no way estrogen blockers would magically transform our brains into male brains.
And about your mom: I have the same relationship with my mom. I'm only 23, yet I'm scared to death about the rest of my life with her. . I'm scared she'll hate me forever. . .
About the statistic: another cause of intersexuality is environmental, during the fetus's stay in the womb. Hormone pollution from cows and some pesticides cause the fetus to develop inaccordingly to hir chromosomes. S/he then becomes intersexed at birth. This, of course, does not show up in genetic tests, and would probably account for some of the 80%.

[steve/lisa]

Shelly it's lisa,I was going threw your posts and reply's and came across one you wrote on true hermaphrodite,In calif.you talked to her for 2 1/2 hours,WOW,If you should ever see or talk to her again please let her know about me,please,please.I have never run across one such as me remember,A 46xx/46xy chimera,Anyway please if you ever run into her and she would like to talk, let her know about me. Lisa.