My friend's biology teacher told his class that intersex people don't exist

[~RoadToTrista~]

wtf

[Silas]

My sister's history teacher told her class that polytheists didn't exist in modern times.

Both are occurances that I feel deserve slapping to the face.
Tell me your friend corrected the teacher -_-; That's like saying no one in the world is born with an extra finger or toe or something.

[~RoadToTrista~]

No, she thought it was fact.

[Silas]

Oh, sweet lord. -_______-;
I guess it's not something that generally would come up in a biology textbook (although I reckon that's stretching it, unless it's something like a HS textbook), but really, someone who took college-level biology classes really ought to know better.

[~RoadToTrista~]

Somehow I don't think it's covered in college-level biology classes anyway =.=

[pebbles]

Well then your teacher is retarded. Perhaps I should take over the class. XD I have a degree in Biological Sciences and I have been considering going to get teacher training.

[~RoadToTrista~]

Hmm, you know you strike me as someone who is a biology teacher. XD

[xxUltraModLadyxx]

let me guess, her religion tells her that?  the problem is, people like her do sexist. i mean exist (not really.)

[justmeinoz]

This is someone who is supposed to have science qualifications?
I hope the parents are going to petition the school to have them dismissed, as they have obviously never studied biology. 

[ToriJo]

let me guess, her religion tells her that?  the problem is, people like her do sexist. i mean exist (not really.)

That was my guess too.

(disclaimer: I'm a Christian - not all Christians believe hogwash when it comes to gender)

For instance, Focus on the Family has a page on intersexuality where they make it very clear that intersexed people aren't like those transgendered people (no agenda there...and the brain must no longer be part of the body to them).  Then they talk about how intersexed people need love and compassion for their difficult "walk".  Then it talks about how a Christian doesn't really need to worry about intersexuality because it is so incredibly rare (rare enough that 3 of my friends are diagnosed with some intersexed condition - and I don't have thousands of friends!).

They go on to say that even though intersexed does exist, God created humans as male and female, that each sex has a unique role in society, etc.  And then that intersexed people are the eunics talked about by Christ (without Focus directly saying they shouldn't date, have sex, raise kids - but definitely implying that).  Oh, it ends by saying that they don't have all the answers (they = people who think like Focus).  As if anyone besides Focus on the Family's followers thought they did.

Simply put, they see intersexuality as (despite saying it's not) a problem that implies transgendered people might not be horrible which is a problem because it means that people might not need to stay in their assigned gender role.  This affects their real battle - whether or not gay people are horrible, since the sin of gay people is the sin of not following the role of their gender in the eyes of the bigots.  Men don't date men, men date women.  Etc.  (all hogwash of course)

Sadly, it's written in a rather authoritative style (as are similar articles elsewhere) that implies that Focus actually knows something about biology (they've demonstrated plenty of times that they don't - but of course you have to know a bit about biology to know if someone who says they know about biology is full of it or not - and an authoritative style is too often misinterpreted to mean "this person knows what they are talking about"; Confidence is not equal to correctness however).

As for the biology teacher, I'm suspecting that this teacher knows little about other areas of biology.  It is sad when teachers don't know their subject better than their students.

[justmeinoz]

I'd still like to see an article saying they had been sacked.

[fionabell]

Surely there's been some misunderstanding here. I suppose the biology teacher could have missed the existence of intersex(spell check doesn't recognise it. odd) people but it's unlikely.

More likely the teacher was saying that transgender-ism is not biological but of psychological nature and the student brought up intersex. Where upon the teacher who was passionate about the lack of biological proof of transgender-ism, steam-rollered on instead of listening to further digression(about intersexuality).

Or the student might have got it wrong, or the teacher might indeed be ignorant.

[cindianna_jones]

I really hate it when over zealous religious types do this sort of thing. Really. Ask them to prove that Jesus Christ was born. It can't be done.

[Mahsa Tezani]

What are intersex people?

[Joelene9]

  Two anecdotes, one from me and one from my sister, a schoolteacher. 
  Fable:  This I got from a local science teacher: You'll need a powerful telescope to see the 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter. 
  Truth:  You only need the low power of opera glasses to see the moons of Jupiter.  The visibility of the moons are just outside of the resolution of our eyes.  Galileo used a small crude lens to see them and the craters of our moon. 

  This from my sister:  A boy brought in this hideous creature into a Houston area elementary school.  The science teacher didn't know what it was.  This went on the local news for a night.  They found out that it was a simple salamander!  A 'mud puppy'!  You'd think in a bayou like Houston, that someone in that school knew what a salamander is?  My sister says that the kids generally don't venture into the woods as we used to.  They're inside all summer.   

  Certification to be a science teacher is weak at best.  This is the biggest complaint from my club's external outreach people.  Don't expect them to know the oddities of the human condition.  I was lucky to have started school when Sputnik went up! 
  Joelene.

[lilacwoman]

some teachers do stupid very well.

[xxUltraModLadyxx]

What are intersex people?

they're widely known as "hermaphrodites," which is like the word "->-bleeped-<-" here. someone who is intersexed may have been born with an ambigous genitalia that isn't clearly distinct as male or female. they could have some of reproductive organs of one sex and another. they could have chromosomes that are different from the standard XY or XX. they could also have sex hormone complications. there's many conditions. despite popular belief, a mtf transsexual is not intersexed. they aren't intersex if the only part of their body that tells them their gender is female is the brain. they are just transsexual or transgender whatever in the world the word is today. being intersex isn't anything better or higher, but for some reason, there's people in these parts who claim it is.

[Mahsa Tezani]

. being intersex isn't anything better or higher, but for some reason, there's people in these parts who claim it is.

Yeah, in my therapy group there was someone who claimed she was more "woman" than me. I was like, "Thats okay hun". Being transgender isn't a competition.

[drkprincess]

I always wanted to be a ghost. Does this mean I can walk through bank vaults as well? I have heard this and many other things like it my whole life. Is ignorance really bliss?