{"id":47,"date":"2019-07-21T12:25:13","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T11:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.nfshost.com\/?p=47"},"modified":"2019-07-23T09:48:48","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T08:48:48","slug":"do-intersex-men-have-periods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/21\/do-intersex-men-have-periods\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Intersex Men Have Periods?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019ve been asked to comment on some of the claims made by Jessica\nYaniv in their recent British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal hearing (there\u2019s\nsome background to the case here<\/a>\nfor those not familiar with it), as well as other comments they have made in\nthe past pertaining to being intersex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s get the easy one out of the way first, Yaniv has said in the tribunal that intersex means people having \u201cboth genitalia<\/a>\u201d. This is a common misconception. I\u2019ve written about ambiguous genitalia and what this means before<\/a> (clue: it\u2019s not both), so I\u2019m not going to go into detail again here (edit: as Yaniv has made repeated claims about having “intersex genitalia in both the tribunal amd media interviews, I’ve written a more detailed blog about ambiguous genitalia. You can find it here)<\/a>. Suffice to say, if Yaniv has a penis, they do not also have a vagina. The claim I am going to explore in more detail is that Yaniv has periods<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To begin with, let\u2019s remind ourselves what a period is. A\nperiod is part of the menstruation cycle, namely monthly bleeding caused by the\nshedding of the lining of the uterus and unfertilised ova. Menstrual blood\nflows from the uterus through the small opening in the cervix and passes out of\nthe body through the vagina. You can find a more detailed description here<\/a>,\nshould you need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it\u2019s fair to assume, as we know that Yaniv cannot\nhave \u201cboth sets of genitals\u201d and that the cases are centred around the waxing\nof genitalia, that Yaniv has a penis. If they had a vulva (there has been a lot\nof talk of waxing vaginas \u2013 let\u2019s be clear the vagina is internal, the vulva\nexternal), then I assume they would not be making up claims of both sets of genitals\nor evading answers about their own body parts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the obvious question is; can a person with a penis\nmenstruate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The condition I\u2019ve seen most used to back up this claim\n(Yaniv isn\u2019t the first, to be fair), is Persistent Mullerian Duct Syndrome\n(PMDS). PMDS occurs when there is a mutation in the AMH gene. I\u2019ve written a\nbit about the AMH gene before<\/a>,\nbut here\u2019s a quick reminder \u2013 female reproductive organs develop from the Mullerian\nduct. In typical male development, the gene AMH causes this structure to break\ndown. In cases of PMDS the gene does not activate, so a uterus and fallopian\ntubes develop alongside male reproductive organs \u2013 a penis and testes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PMDS is rare, and a quick scan of the scientific literature reveals that men with PMDS run an increased risk of certain testicular tumours<\/a>, which really puts to bed the suggestion that men with PMDS ovulate. We know, again from existing, extensive studies into DSDs and discussions around labels such as \u201chermaphrodite<\/a>\u201d, that there has never been a person who has both working ovaries and testes. I did find one example<\/a> of a man with PMDS who was found to have some ovarian tissue, although it is clear from the paper that this was not functioning, and there is no suggestion that the patient reported any symptoms of menstruation. It’s also worth noting that the uterus in PMDS cases is often misplaced and severely underdeveloped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are other, rare DSDs, such as mixed\ngonadal dysgenesis<\/a> (MGD), where a person with a penis can be born with a\nmixture of ovarian and testicular tissue and with internal female organs but with\nmale genitalia (MGD can also present with female genitalia, although whether\nmale or female, the genitalia is likely to appear ambiguous at birth). Again,\nthese cases are not hermaphrodites. MGD can present with any mix of gonadal\ntissue. This can include ovotestes (gonads with a mix of testicular and ovarian\ntissue \u2013 these are non-functioning), streak gonads (where reproductive tissue\nis replaced with functionless, fibrous tissue) and sometimes either a single\nworking testis or ovary. MGD is always apparent at birth, as it would also involve\nambiguous genitalia. If the presence of a functional ovary were detected, this\nwould lead to female sex being recorded. Similarly, a functional testis would\nlead to male sex being recorded. So, even in complex cases like this, we do not\nencounter men having periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have come across two news stories about men menstruating and have seen people refer to these before, so I\u2019m going to try to address these here too. Firstly, there is this case<\/a>, in which a man with PMDS claims to have a complete reproductive system, including ovaries and a history of menstruation. As already stated, it would be impossible for anyone to have both working testes and ovaries, and the man clearly also states that he had a successful operation on an undescended testicle when he was a baby, so it seems likely he is confused about the ovaries. This seems to be related to him having experienced blood in his urine. It\u2019s worth pointing out that blood in the urine<\/a> is not uncommon with PMDS, in fact it is often what alerts adults with PMDS who have gone undiagnosed as babies to their condition. This is thought<\/a> to be caused by hormone imbalances, not menstruation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second case is this<\/a>\none from China. This is much simpler to explain as the person in this case had\nbeen raised as male but was actually female with congenital adrenal hyperplasia\n(CAH), meaning their genitalia had appeared virilised at birth, and so they had\nbeen recorded as the incorrect sex. It\u2019s worth noting that incorrect sex assignment\nis increasingly rare and even in this case did not result in an unambiguous\nmale appearance in adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s probably worth, as a final note, mentioning that no\nother DSDs which result in an unambiguous male phenotype would involve the presence\nof any of the necessary organs for menstruation. XX males, males with Klinefelters,\nMAIS, PAIS, 5-ARD deficiency, etc, all have testes, although not necessarily\nfertile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summary, there is no DSD where someone with male\ngenitalia menstruates. There are a number of complex conditions that can lead\nto a mix of internal organs. These often involve other health implications and\ncan be traumatic and life changing for people to come to terms with upon diagnosis.\nThey are not fun talking points by which other people can validate their gender\nidentities by the spreading of misinformation. It does not help people with\nthose conditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing that does strike me is that as long as intersex is being kicked around in cases involving gender identities, by people with no real knowledge of what it means, there should be an insistence that the evidence and claims cannot be used without an actual DSD expert to assess the validity of them first. It\u2019s disappointing and frustrating to see trans activists being allowed to get away with this, and capitalise on their own and other\u2019s ignorance, to advance a political movement that really has no interest in intersex matters or reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Update: since I wrote this blog, Yaniv has done a radio interview in which they clearly state they have a penis and testicles. Good work to Niall Boylan for cutting through the bullshit here and getting to the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/lTr03b_L30s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been asked to comment on some of the claims made by Jessica Yaniv in their recent British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal hearing (there\u2019s some background to the case here for those not familiar with it), as well as other comments they have made in the past pertaining to being intersex. Let\u2019s get the easy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[14,11,9,31,6,8,13,15,12,10],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gender","category-intersex","tag-cah","tag-canada","tag-dsds","tag-human-rights","tag-intersex","tag-menstruation","tag-mgd","tag-pmds","tag-trangender","tag-yaniv","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}