From a netfriend:

Hi,

I fully appreciate your concerns re the threat of gay marriage but I am also awfully concerned how a strict biological definition of sex will affect thousands of intersexed men and women who have hitherto always had the right to marry. For example, women with complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome are women, but they have XY (male chromosomes) and lack ovaries and a uterus. They do however, have a functional vagina and they invariably identify as female. What is your attitude to them? Also, people with an incongruence of chromosomes and anatomy…. XX men with normal male phenotypes and XY women with normal female phenotyes? Why should such people, most of whom are normal and believe in the dichotomy between male and female be made to suffer? That they believe in the dichotomy is evident from the fact that like all of us they identify as a member of one sex or the other.

I really understand how important it is to retain marriage as an exclusively heterosexual union – it is the cornerstone of our society. Nor do I believe that homosexual people should be allowed to adopt or access reproductive technologies. But it’s not possible to define sex in purely biological terms. Chromosomes are not determinants – they are sex markers, usually accurate but always. Some XX men are fertile men…. some XY women have conceived and given birth to children.

Would you please bear in mind that many of the kind of people I am referring to are already married with families. Their lives could be destroyed by such a definition. It’s even possible that some of the women referred to in The Bible as being barren were actually women with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. If so, The Bible had no problem with their femaleness…why should we?

In conclusion, I do support the battle against gay marriage but I cannot support the victimisation, intentional or otherwise, of people who were born into a physical situation they were not responsbile for. I would appreciate if you could respond and fill me in a little re your opinions on this.

Kind regards

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