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DWol  ·  4122 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female are not Enough

I tend to agree with the author, in the sense that, while I would wish for some sort utopic world where people can make whatever decision they wish regarding their sexuality, gender identity etc., it's not really feasible in today's society. You can't deny the fact that the average person finds at least slight discomfort with the idea of hermaphroditism (homesexuality even). Unfortunately, it will probably take a while before this changes.

I suppose it will be the same slow and steady change associated with suffrage, race issues and LGBT rights.

Anyway, I'm rambling now, but I'd like to posit that most issues similar to this one are a result of humanity's tendency to see things which are continuous spectra as discrete points (or even Boolean either/or situations). It's a natural tendency (I believe) to try and simplify things into "normal" and "outlier", and not inherently wrong; it's a type of organisation based on perception. Most people across history see the 4% hermaphrodites not as an example of the blurred glob that is human sexuality and gender identity, but rather as "abnormal" data points which should be forced to conform (for the purposes of simplicity) to a standard model.

I don't really know where to go with what I'm saying, so I'll just abruptly end here after a little conclusion: Stuff like this puts people out of their natural comfort zone and goes against a natural tendency (tendency to simplify, I don't mean to sound like intersex people are unnatural), and therefore change is going to take a long time.