Seriously, this stuff is a mind-bender for me.  It changes everything, really.  Why?  Because it’s the exceptions into which the norms need to fit to make them “norms.”  The doctrine of imago dei, the hallmark of which is so often misconstrued as rationality must take into account the human being with Down Syndrome.  Is that human being, lacking the reasoning facilities of other human beings, also created in the image of God?  Of course.

And, so, when dictating with whom a person can and not have sex, we simply must deal with the gender ambiguity that afflicts many of our fellow human beings.

Zoe Brain writes,

I’m Intersexed. It’s not particularly rare. 1 in 60 people have
minor Intersex conditions, though it would take a laboratory test to
determine that.

About 1 in 1000 have an Intersex condition that’s obvious.

I have one of the rarest and most spectacular ones.

In the country of my birth, I would only be allowed to marry another
woman – because homosexual marriage is strongly forbidden, and there
I’m legally male. Even though my passport says “female” based on my
anatomy – and despite my chromosomes, which are usually (though not
always) found only in men.

In the country where I live, I could only marry a man, because there
I’m legally female, and homosexual marriage is strongly forbidden. It
took many thousands of dollars worth of MRIs, gene tests, Ultrasounds
of my pelvis etc to determine that I was more female than male, but
that diagnosis is definitive.

I REALLY wish Fundamentalist Christians would MAKE UP THEIR MIND as
to who it is I’m supposed to have sex with. They all say it’s obvious,
but they differ as to what the answer is.

Me, I try to follow Isaiah 56:4-5. 1 Corinthians 13 too. It can be
difficult maintaining a charitable attitude when no matter what I do,
or fail to do, I’m supposed to be condemned to perdition for it.

And R. Hampton writes,

In 1999, the Texas 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio said
chromosomes — not sex-change operations or outward gender
characteristics — determine a person’s gender. That ruling allowed
Jessica and Robin Wicks to be married the following year because one
was born a man (and later had a sex change operation). The rest comes
from an article published by the Cox News Service in September 2000:

Rep. Arlene Wohlgemuth, R-Burleson, the president of the Texas
Conservative Coalition, said … “We don’t object to a marriage license
being issued since we do favor a marriage between a man and woman and
this fits the legal definition of gender. They are legally a man and a
woman. What they do once they are married is up to them.”

But other issues complicate things, said Jack Sampson, a
University of Texas law professor. Not everyone is born with a set of
chromosomes, XX or XY, that clearly defines their gender.
Hermaphrodites and other cases of confused genetics could pose problems.

Klinefelter syndrome: three sex chromosomes 47(XXY)
Turner syndrome: one sex chromsome 45(X)

Because we only have two legally recognized sexes, how do we “assign” gender to those with said afflictions?

We know that gays can legally marry someone of the opposite sex, but who is the opposite sex for someone with said afflctions?

Who indeed?