Intersex

Intersex topics
Human rights and legal issues
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Intersex Awareness Day Intersex Day of Remembrance
Medicine and biology
Disorders of sex development Hermaphrodite Intersex surgery (history) Preimplantation genetic diagnosis Sexual differentiation Orchidometer Phall-O-Meter Prader scale Quigley scale more...
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Androgyny Children's rights Disability rights Gender LGBT Queer theory Rights Sex Sex differences in humans Sexual dimorphism Third gender Transgender

Participants at the third International Intersex Forum, Malta, in December 2013

Intersex, in humans and other animals, describes variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies". Such variations may involve genital ambiguity, and combinations of chromosomal genotype and sexual phenotype other than XY-male and XX-female. Intersex people were previously referred to as hermaphrodites, but the term has fallen out of favor as it is considered to be misleading and stigmatizing. Medical description of intersex traits as disorders of sex development has been controversial since the label was introduced in 2006.

Some intersex infants and children, such as those with ambiguous outer genitalia, are surgically or hormonally altered to create more socially acceptable sex characteristics. However, this is considered controversial, with no firm evidence of good outcomes. Such treatments may involve sterilization. Adults, including elite female athletes, have also been subjects of such treatment. Increasingly these issues are recognized as human rights abuses, with statements from international and national human rights and ethics institutions. Intersex organizations have also issued statements, including joint statements as part of an International Intersex Forum.

In 2011, Christiane Völling became the first intersex person known to have successfully sued for damages in a case brought for non-consensual surgical intervention. In April 2015, Malta became the first country to outlaw non-consensual medical interventions to modify sex anatomy, including that of intersex people.

Like all individuals, intersex people have various gender identities. Some intersex individuals may be raised as a woman or man but then identify with another gender identity later in life, while most do not. Most identify as either a woman or man, while some may identify as neither exclusively a woman nor exclusively a man.

Definitions

According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights:

Intersex people are born with sex characteristics (including genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns) that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies.

Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of natural bodily variations. In some cases, intersex traits are visible at birth while in others, they are not apparent until puberty. Some chromosomal intersex variations may not be physically apparent at all.

In biological terms, sex may be determined by five factors present at birth:

• the number and type of sex chromosomes;
• the type of gonads—ovaries or testicles;
• the sex hormones;
• the internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus in females); and
• the external genitalia.

People whose five characteristics are not either all typically male or all typically female at birth are intersex.

Some intersex traits are not always visible at birth; some babies may be born with ambiguous genitals, while others may have ambiguous internal organs (testes and ovaries). Others will not become aware that they are intersex unless they receive genetic testing, because it does not manifest in their phenotype.

History

Intersex people are treated in different ways by different cultures. In most societies, intersex people have been expected to conform to either a female or a male gender role. Whether or not they were socially tolerated or accepted by any particular culture, the existence of intersex people was known to many ancient and pre-modern cultures. An example is one of the Sumerian creation myths from more than 4,000 years ago. The story has Ninmah, a mother goddess, fashioning humanity out of clay. She boasts that she will determine the fate – good or bad – for all she fashions:

Enki answered Ninmah: "I will counterbalance whatever fate – good or bad – you happen to decide.

Ninmah took clay from the top of the abzu [ab: water; zu: far] in her hand and she fashioned from it first a man who could not bend his outstretched weak hands. Enki looked at the man who cannot bend his outstretched weak hands, and decreed his fate: he appointed him as a servant of the king. (Three men and one woman with atypical biology are formed and Enki gives each of them various forms of status to ensure respect for their uniqueness) ...Sixth, she fashioned one with neither penis nor vagina on its body. Enki looked at the one with neither penis nor vagina on its body and gave it the name Nibru (eunuch(?)), and decreed as its fate to stand before the king.

The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote of "hermaphroditus" in the first century BCE:

Hermaphroditus, as he has been called, who was born of Hermes and Aphrodite and received a name which is a combination of those of both his parents. Some say that this Hermaphroditus is a god and appears at certain times among men, and that he is born with a physical body which is a combination of that of a man and that of a woman, in that he has a body which is beautiful and delicate like that of a woman, but has the masculine quality and vigour of man. But there are some who declare that such creatures of two sexes are monstrosities, and coming rarely into the world as they do they have the quality of presaging the future, sometimes for evil and sometimes for good.

Numerous historical accounts exist, including those of Le Van Duyet (18th/19th-century Vietnam), Thomas(ine) Hall (17th-century USA), Gottlieb Göttlich (19th-century Germany), and Levi Suydam (19th-century USA). The memoirs of 19th-century Frenchwoman Herculine Barbin were published by Michel Foucault in 1980.

During the Victorian era, medical authors introduced the terms "true hermaphrodite" for an individual who has both ovarian and testicular tissue, verified under a microscope, "male pseudo-hermaphrodite" for a person with testicular tissue, but either female or ambiguous sexual anatomy, and "female pseudo-hermaphrodite" for a person with ovarian tissue, but either male or ambiguous sexual anatomy. In Europe, the term 'intersexual' was first to be used before the Second World War.

The term intersexuality was coined by Richard Goldschmidt in the 1917 paper Intersexuality and the endocrine aspect of sex. The first suggestion to replace the term 'hermaphrodite' with 'intersex' came from British specialist Cawadias in the 1940s. This suggestion was taken up by specialists in the UK during the 1960s, by both those who rejected Money's framework (then emerging from the USA), and those who endorsed that approach.

Since the rise of modern medical science in Western societies, some intersex people with ambiguous external genitalia have had their genitalia surgically modified to resemble either female or male genitals. Surgeons pinpointed intersex babies as a "social emergency" once they were born. The parents of the intersex babies were not content about the situation. Psychologists, sexologists, and researchers frequently still believe that it is better for a baby's genitalia to be changed when they were younger than when they were a mature adult. These scientists believe that early intervention helped avoid gender identity confusion. Since the advances in surgery have made it possible for intersex conditions to be concealed, many people are not aware of how frequently intersex conditions arise in human beings or that they occur at all. Dialogue between what were once antagonistic groups of activists and clinicians has led to only slight changes in medical policies and how intersex patients and their families are treated in some locations. Numerous civil society organizations and human rights institutions now call for an end to unnecessary "normalizing" interventions.

Human rights and legal issues

Main article: Intersex human rights

Human rights institutions are placing increasing scrutiny on medical practices and issues of discrimination against intersex people. The Council of Europe highlights several areas of concern:

• unnecessary "normalising" treatment of intersex persons, and unnecessary pathologisation of variations in sex characteristics.
• inclusion in equal treatment and hate crime law.
• facilitating access to justice and reparations.
• access to information, medical records, peer and other counselling and support.
• respecting self-determination in gender recognition, through expeditious access to official documents.

These issues have been addressed by a rapidly increasing number of international institutions including, in 2015, the Council of Europe, the United Nations Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the World Health Organization. These developments have been accompanied by International Intersex Forums and increased cooperation amongst civil society organizations.

However, the implementation, codification and enforcement of intersex human rights in national legal systems remains slow.

Non-consensual medical interventions

Main article: Intersex human rights § Protection from non-consensual medical interventions

Non-consensual medical interventions to modify the sex characteristics of intersex people take place in all countries where the human rights of intersex people have been explored. Such interventions have been criticized by the World Health Organization, other UN bodies such as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and an increasing number of regional and national institutions.

In April 2015, Malta became the first country to outlaw surgical intervention without consent. In the same year, the Council of Europe became the first institution to state that intersex people have the right not to undergo sex affirmation interventions. The Chilean government also announced a suspension of non-consensual medical interventions.

Anti-discrimination and equal treatment

Main article: Intersex human rights § Protection from discrimination

Several countries have so far explicitly protected intersex people from discrimination, including Australia, Malta and South Africa.

Recognition of gender identities

Main article: Intersex human rights § Gender identities and recognition

Like all individuals, some intersex individuals may be raised as a certain sex (male or female) but then identify with another later in life, while most do not.

Recognition of third sex or gender classifications occurs in several countries, however, it is controversial when it becomes assumed or coercive.

In some regions, obtaining any form of birth certification may be an issue. A Kenyan court case in 2014 established the right of an intersex boy, "Baby A", to a birth certificate.

Reparations and justice

Main article: Intersex human rights § Access to justice

Access to reparation appears limited, with a scarcity of legal cases, such as the 2011 case of Christiane Völling in Germany. A second successful case in Germany, taken by Michaela Raab, was reported in 2015.

In the U.S. the "M.C." legal case, advanced by Interact Advocates for Intersex Youth with the Southern Poverty Law Centre is still before the courts.

Access to information

Main article: Intersex human rights § Access to information

With the rise of modern medical science in Western societies, a secrecy-based model was also adopted, in the belief that this was necessary to ensure “normal” physical and psychosocial development.

Intersex in society

Fiction and media representations

See also: Literature about intersex and Intersex characters in fiction

An intersex character is the narrator in Jeffrey Eugenides Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Middlesex.

Television works about intersex and films about intersex are scarce. Amongst these, Faking It (2014 TV series) is notable for providing the first intersex main character in a television show, and television's first intersex character played by an intersex actor.

Civil society institutions

Main article: Intersex civil society organizations

Further information: International Intersex Forum

Intersex peer support and advocacy organizations have existed since at least 1985, with the establishment of the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group Australia in 1985. The Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group (UK) established in 1988. The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) may have been one of the first intersex civil society organizations to have been open to people regardless of diagnosis; it was active from 1993 to 2008.

Civil awareness days

Further information: Intersex Awareness Day and Intersex Day of Remembrance

Intersex Awareness Day is an internationally observed civil awareness day designed to highlight the challenges faced by intersex people, occurring annually on October 26.

Intersex Day of Remembrance, also known as Intersex Solidarity Day, is an internationally observed civil awareness day designed to highlight issues faced by intersex people, occurring annually on November 8. It marks the birthday of Herculine Barbin, a French intersex person whose memoirs were later published by Michel Foucault in Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite.

Flag

Intersex Pride flag

The Intersex Pride flag was created by Organisation Intersex International Australia in July 2013 to create a flag "that is not derivative, but is yet firmly grounded in meaning". The organization aimed to create a symbol without gendered pink and blue colors. It describes yellow and purple as "hermaphrodite" colors. The organization describes it as freely available "for use by any intersex person or organization who wishes to use it, in a human rights affirming community context".

Religion

Hinduism

Sangam literature uses the word pedi to refer to people born with an intersex condition; it also refers to antharlinga hijras and various other hijras. Warne and Raza argue that an association between intersex and hijra people is mostly unfounded, but popular misunderstandings "cause tremendous fear in the parents" of intersex infants and children.

Islam

The Quran had mentioned in Surah Ashura verse (49-50) the intersex as parts of the gifts of God. The words read as follows: “49) To Allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth; He creates what he wills. He gives to whom He wills female [children], and He gives to whom He wills males. (50) Or He makes them [both] males and females, and He renders whom He wills barren. Indeed, He is Knowing and Competent.”

Scholars of Islamic jurisprudence have detailed discussions on the status and rights of intersex based on what mainly exhibits in their external sexual organs. Yet, modern Islamic jurisprudence scholars turn to medical screening to determine the dominance of their sex. The intersex rights includes rights of inheritance, rights to marriage, rights to live like any other male or female. The rights are generally based on whether they are true hermaphrodites, or pseudo hermaphrodite. Scholars of Islamic Jurisprudence generally consider their rights based on the majority of what appears from their external sexual organs.

Judaism

The Talmud contains extensive discussion concerning the status of two intersex types in Jewish law; namely the androginus, which exhibits both male and female external sexual organs, and the tumtum which exhibits neither.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the treatment of intersex babies started to be discussed in Orthodox Jewish medical halacha by prominent rabbinic leaders, for example Eliezer Waldenberg and Moshe Feinstein.

In 2002 at the Reform Jewish seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, the Reform rabbi Margaret Wenig organized the first school-wide seminar at any rabbinical school which addressed the psychological, legal, and religious issues affecting people who are intersex or transsexual, and in 2003 she was also the first to organize a similar school-wide seminar at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

Sport

Main article: Sex verification in sports

Multiple athletes have been humiliated, excluded from competition or been forced to return medals following discovery of an intersex trait. Examples include Erik Schinegger, Foekje Dillema, Maria José Martínez-Patiño and Santhi Soundarajan. In contrast, Stanisława Walasiewicz (also known as Stella Walsh) was the subject of posthumous controversy.

The South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya won gold at the World Championships in the women's 800 meter and won silver in the 2012 Summer Olympics. When Semenya won gold in the World Championships, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) requested sex verification tests. The results were not released, but Semenya was cleared to race with other women. Katrina Karkazis, Rebecca Jordan-Young, Georgiann Davis and Silvia Camporesi argued that new IAAF policies on "hyperandrogenism" in female athletes, established in response to the Semenya case, are "significantly flawed", arguing that the policy will not protect against breaches of privacy, will require athletes to undergo unnecessary treatment in order to compete, and will intensify "gender policing". They recommend that athletes be able to compete in accordance with their legal gender.

In April 2014, the BMJ reported that four elite women athletes with 5-ARD were subjected to sterilization and "partial clitoridectomies" in order to compete in sport. The authors noted that "partial clitoridectomy" was "not medically indicated, does not relate to real or perceived athletic "advantage". Intersex advocates regard this intervention as "a clearly coercive process". In 2016, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on health, Dainius Pūras, criticized "current and historic" sex verification policies, describing how "a number of athletes have undergone gonadectomy (removal of reproductive organs) and partial cliteroidectomy (a form of female genital mutilation) in the absence of symptoms or health issues warranting those procedures."

Language

Research in the late 20th century has led to a growing medical consensus that diverse intersex bodies are normal, but relatively rare, forms of human biology. Clinician and researcher Milton Diamond stresses the importance of care in the selection of language related to intersex people:

Foremost, we advocate use of the terms "typical", "usual", or "most frequent" where it is more common to use the term "normal." When possible avoid expressions like maldeveloped or undeveloped, errors of development, defective genitals, abnormal, or mistakes of nature. Emphasize that all of these conditions are biologically understandable while they are statistically uncommon.

Self-identification with the term 'intersex'

Some people with intersex traits self-identify as intersex, and some do not. Some intersex organizations reference "intersex people" and "intersex variations or traits" while others use more medicalized language such as "people with intersex conditions", or people "with intersex conditions or DSDs (differences of sex development)" and "children born with variations of sex anatomy".

Hermaphrodite

Main article: Hermaphrodite

A hermaphrodite is a plant or animal that has both male and female reproductive organs. Until the mid-20th century, "hermaphrodite" was used synonymously with "intersex".

Currently, hermaphroditism is not to be confused with intersex, as the former refers only to a specific phenotypical presentation of sex organs and the latter to more complex combination of phenotypical and genotypical presentation. Using "hermaphrodite" to refer to intersex individuals is considered to be stigmatizing and misleading. In reality, hermaphrodite is used for animal and vegetal species in which the possession of both ovaries and testes is either serial or concurrent, and for living organisms without such gonads but present binary form of reproduction, which is part of the typical life history of those species; intersex has come to be used when this is not the case.

Disorders of sex development

Main article: Disorders of sex development

"Disorders of sex development" (DSD) is a contested term, defined to include congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex is atypical. Members of the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society and the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology adopted this term in their "Consensus statement on management of intersex disorders". While it adopted the term, to open "many more doors", the now defunct Intersex Society of North America itself remarked that intersex is not a disorder. Other intersex people, activists, supporters, and academics have contested the adoption of the terminology and its implied status as a "disorder", seeing this as offensive to intersex individuals who do not feel that there is something wrong with them, regard the DSD consensus paper as reinforcing the normativity of early surgical interventions, and criticizing the treatment protocols associated with the new taxonomy. Alternatives to categorizing intersex conditions as "disorders" have been suggested, including "variations of sex development". Organisation Intersex International (OII) questions a disease/disability approach, argues for deferral of intervention unless medically necessary, when fully informed consent of the individual involved is possible, and self-determination of sex/gender orientation and identity. The UK Intersex Association (UKIA) is also highly critical of the label 'disorders' and points to the fact that there was minimal involvement of intersex representatives in the debate which led to the change in terminology. In May 2016, Interact Advocates for Intersex Youth published a statement opposing pathologizing language to describe people born with intersex traits, recognizing "increasing general understanding and acceptance of the term "intersex"".

LGBT and LGBTI

Main article: LGBT

The relationship of intersex to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans, and queer communities is complex, but intersex people are often added to LGBT to create an LGBTI community. Emi Koyama describes how inclusion of intersex in LGBTI can fail to address intersex-specific human rights issues, including creating false impressions "that intersex people's rights are protected" by laws protecting LGBT people, and failing to acknowledge that many intersex people are not LGBT. Organisation Intersex International Australia states that some intersex individuals are same sex attracted, and some are heterosexual, but "LGBTI activism has fought for the rights of people who fall outside of expected binary sex and gender norms."

Intersex is contrasted with and separate from transsexuality, which describes the situation in which a person's gender identity does not match the person's assigned sex. It is also contrasted with the broader category of transgender people, which includes transsexual people as well as those whose gender expression and behavior do not match societal expectations for their assigned sexes. Some people are both intersex and trans.

Intersex can also be contrasted with homosexuality or same-sex attraction. Numerous studies have shown higher rates of same sex attraction in intersex people, thus research on intersex subjects has been used to explore means of preventing homosexuality.

In an analysis of the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis to eliminate intersex traits, Behrmann and Ravitsky find social concepts of sex, gender and sexual orientation to be "intertwined on many levels. Parental choice against intersex may thus conceal biases against same-sex attractedness and gender nonconformity."

Population figures

The number of intersex people depends on the definition used. While human rights institutions have called for the demedicalisation of intersex traits, as far as possible, medical definitions are still used at present. The now-defunct Intersex Society of North America stated that:

If you ask experts at medical centers how often a child is born so noticeably atypical in terms of genitalia that a specialist in sex differentiation is called in, the number comes out to about 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births. But a lot more people than that are born with subtler forms of sex anatomy variations, some of which won’t show up until later in life.

Specialist medical attention, may include surgery to assign infants to a given sex category (i.e., male or female). This is controversial due to the human rights implications.

According to Blackless, Fausto-Sterling et al., on the other hand, 1.7 percent of human births are intersex. According to Leonard Sax intersex should be "restricted to those conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female", around 0.018%. This definition excludes Klinefelter syndrome and many other variations.

Given that many conditions excluded from Sax's analysis are termed disorders of sex development, such individuals may be subjected to sex "normalizing" interventions, and so they meet current definitions of intersex in use by UN and other bodies, the statistical analyses by Blackless and Fausto-Sterling have become widely quoted, including by clinicians. The following summarizes those frequency statistics:

Sex Variation	Frequency
Not XX, XY, Klinefelter, or Turner	one in 1,666 births
Klinefelter syndrome (XXY)	one in 1,000 births
Turner syndrome (45,X)	one in 2,710 births
Androgen insensitivity syndrome	one in 13,000 births
Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome	one in 130,000 births
Classical congenital adrenal hyperplasia	one in 13,000 births
Late onset adrenal hyperplasia	one in 1,000 birth.
Vaginal agenesis	one in 6,000 births
Ovotestes	one in 83,000 births
Idiopathic (no discernable medical cause)	one in 110,000 births
Iatrogenic (caused by medical treatment, e.g. progestin administered to pregnant mother)	No estimate
5-alpha-reductase deficiency	No estimate
Mixed gonadal dysgenesis	No estimate
Complete gonadal dysgenesis	one in 150,000 births
Hypospadias (urethral opening in perineum or along penile shaft)	one in 2,000 births
Epispadias (urethral opening between corona and tip of glans penis)	one in 117,000 births

Medical classifications

Signs

Ambiguous genitalia

"Hermaphrodite", 1860, by Nadar

Ambiguous genitalia may appear as a large clitoris or as a small penis.

The Quigley scale is a method for describing genital development in AIS.

Because there is variation in all of the processes of the development of the sex organs, a child can be born with a sexual anatomy that is typically female or feminine in appearance with a larger-than-average clitoris (clitoral hypertrophy) or typically male or masculine in appearance with a smaller-than-average penis that is open along the underside. The appearance may be quite ambiguous, describable as female genitals with a very large clitoris and partially fused labia, or as male genitals with a very small penis, completely open along the midline ("hypospadic"), and empty scrotum.

Fertility is variable. According to some, the distinctions "male pseudohermaphrodite", "female pseudohermaphrodite" and especially "true hermaphrodite" are vestiges of outdated 19th century thinking. According to others, the terms "male pseudohermaphrodite", and "female pseudohermaphrodite" are used to define the gender in terms of the histology (microscopic appearance) of the gonads.

"True hermaphroditism"

A "true hermaphrodite" is defined as someone with both testicular and ovarian tissue.

In 2003, researchers at UCLA published their studies of a lateral gynandromorphic hermaphroditic zebra finch, which had a testicle on the right and an ovary on the left. Its entire body was split down the middle between female and male, with hormones from both gonads running through the blood. This is an example of mosaicism or chimerism and is quite rare.

Ovotestes

Though naturally occurring true hermaphroditism in humans is unknown, there is, on the other hand, a spectrum of forms of ovotestes. The varieties include having two ovotestes or one ovary and one ovotestis, often in the form of streak gonads. Phenotype is not determinable from the ovotestes; in some cases, the appearance is "fairly typically female"; in others, it is "fairly typically male", and it may also be "fairly in-between in terms of genital development."

Intersex activist Cheryl Chase is an example of someone with ovotestes.

Measurement systems

The Phall-O-Meter satirizes clinical assessments of appropriate clitoris and penis length at birth.

The Orchidometer is a medical instrument to measure the volume of the testicles. It was deceloped by Swiss pediatric endocrinologist Andrea Prader.

The Phall-O-Meter is a metric scale, developed by Kiira Triea based on a concept by Suzanne Kessler and later described by Anne Fausto-Sterling in Sexing the Body. The scale combines assessments of acceptable phallus measurements for boys and girls. For a girl, a medically acceptable clitoris can be no bigger than one centimeter. For a boy, an acceptable penis size must be between 2.5 centimeters and 4.5 centimeters. The range between one and 2.5 is unacceptable in either sex.

The Prader scale and Quigley scale are visual rating systems that measure genital virilization or femilization.

Other signs

In order to help in classification, methods other than a genitalia inspection can be performed. For instance, a karyotype display of a tissue sample may determine which of the causes of intersex is prevalent in the case.

Causes

Adult (38), Klinefelter's 46,XY/47,XXY mosaic diagnosis (19): gynecomastia

Main article: Sexual differentiation

The common pathway of sexual differentiation, where a productive human female has an XX chromosome pair, and a productive male has an XY pair, is relevant to the development of intersex conditions.

During fertilization, the sperm adds either an X (female) or a Y (male) chromosome to the X in the ovum. This determines the genetic sex of the embryo. During the first weeks of development, genetic male and female fetuses are "anatomically indistinguishable", with primitive gonads beginning to develop during approximately the sixth week of gestation. The gonads, in a "bipotential state", may develop into either testes (the male gonads) or ovaries (the female gonads), depending on the consequent events. Through the seventh week, genetically female and genetically male fetuses appear identical.

At around eight weeks of gestation, the gonads of an XY embryo differentiate into functional testes, secreting testosterone. Ovarian differentiation, for XX embryos, does not occur until approximately Week 12 of gestation. In normal female differentiation, the Müllerian duct system develops into the uterus, Fallopian tubes, and inner third of the vagina. In males, the Müllerian duct-inhibiting hormone MIH causes this duct system to regress. Next, androgens cause the development of the Wolffian duct system, which develops into the vas deferens, seminal vesicles, and ejaculatory ducts. By birth, the typical fetus has been completely "sexed" male or female, meaning that the genetic sex (XY-male or XX-female) corresponds with the phenotypical sex; that is to say, genetic sex corresponds with internal and external gonads, and external appearance of the genitals.

Conditions

Further information: Disorders of Sex Development

There are a variety of opinions on what conditions or traits are and are not intersex, dependent on the definition of intersex that is used. Current human rights based definitions stress a broad diversity of sex characteristics that differ from expectations for male or female bodies. During 2015, the Council of Europe, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have called for a review of medical classifications that unnecessarily medicalize intersex traits

X/Y	Name	Description
XX	Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH)	The most common cause of sexual ambiguity is congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), an endocrine disorder in which the adrenal glands produce abnormally high levels of virilizing hormones in utero. The genes that cause CAH can now be detected in the developing embryo. As Fausto-Sterling mentioned in chapter 3 of Sexing the Body, "a woman who suspects she may be pregnant with a CAH baby (if she or someone in her family carries CAH) can undergo treatment and then get tested." To prevent an XX-CAH child's genitalia from becoming masculinized, a treatment, which includes the use of the steroid dexamethasone, must begin as early as four weeks after formation. Although many do not favor this process because "the safety of this experimental therapy has not been established in rigorously controlled trials", it does allow physicians to detect abnormalities, therefore starting treatment right after birth. Starting treatment as soon as an XX-CAH baby is born not only minimizes, but also may even eliminate the chances of genital surgery from being performed. In XX-females, this can range from partial masculinization that produces a large clitoris, to virilization and male appearance. The latter applies in particular to Congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency, which is the most common form of CAH. Individuals born with XX chromosomes affected by 17α-hydroxylase deficiency are born with female internal and external anatomy, but, at puberty, neither the adrenals nor the ovaries can produce sex-hormones, inhibiting breast development and the growth of pubic hair. See below for XY CAH 17α-hydroxylase deficiency.
XX	Progestin-induced virilisation	In this case, the excess androgen hormones are caused by use of progestin, a drug that was used in the 1950s and 1960s to prevent miscarriage. These individuals normally have internal and external female anatomy, with functional ovaries and will therefore have menstruation. They develop, however, some male secondary sex characteristics and they frequently have unusually large clitorises. In very advanced cases, such children have initially been identified as males.
XX	Freemartinism	This condition occurs commonly in all species of cattle and affects most females born as a twin to a male. It is rare or unknown in other mammals, including humans. In cattle, the placentae of fraternal twins usually fuse at some time during the pregnancy, and the twins then share their blood supply. If the twins are of different sexes, male hormones produced in the body of the fetal bull find their way into the body of the fetal heifer (female), and masculinize her. Her sexual organs do not develop fully, and her ovaries may even contain testicular tissue. When adult, such a freemartin is very like a normal female in external appearance, but she is infertile, and behaves more like a castrated male (a steer). The male twin is not significantly affected, although (if he remains entire) his testes may be slightly reduced in size. The degree of masculinization of the freemartin depends on the stage of pregnancy at which the placental fusion occurs – in about ten percent of such births no fusion occurs and both calves develop normally as in other mammals.
XY	Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS)	People with AIS have a Y chromosome, (typically XY), but are unable to metabolize androgens in varying degrees. Cases with typically female appearance and genitalia are said to have complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS). People with CAIS have a vagina and no uterus, cervix, or ovaries, and are infertile. The vagina may be shorter than usual, and, in some cases, is nearly absent. Instead of female internal reproductive organs, a person with CAIS has undescended or partially descended testes, of which the person may not even be aware. In mild and partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (MAIS and PAIS), the body is partially receptive to androgens, so there is virilization to varying degrees. PAIS can result in genital ambiguity, due to limited metabolization of the androgens produced by the testes. Ambiguous genitalia may present as a large clitoris, known as clitoromegaly, or a small penis, which is called micropenis or microphallus; hypospadias and cryptorchidism may also be present, with one or both testes undescended, and hypospadias appearing just below the glans on an otherwise typical male penis, or at the base of the shaft, or at the perineum and including a bifid (or cleft) scrotum.
XY	5-alpha-reductase deficiency (5-ARD)	The condition affects individuals with a Y chromosome, making their bodies unable to convert testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT is necessary for the development of male genitalia in utero, and plays no role in female development, so its absence tends to result in ambiguous genitalia at birth; the effects can range from infertility with male genitalia to male underdevelopment with hypospadias to female genitalia with mild clitoromegaly. The frequency is unknown, and children are sometimes misdiagnosed as having AIS. Individuals can have testes, as well as vagina and labia, and a small penis capable of ejaculation that looks like a clitoris at birth. Such individuals are usually raised as girls. The lack of DHT also limits the development of facial hair.
XY	Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH)	In individuals with a Y chromosome (typically XY) who have Congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 17 alpha-hydroxylase deficiency, CAH inhibits virilization, unlike cases without a Y chromosome.
XY	Persistent Müllerian duct syndrome (PMDS)	The child has XY chromosomes typical of a male. The child has a male body and an internal uterus and fallopian tubes because his body did not produce Müllerian inhibiting factor during fetal development.
XY	Anorchia	Individuals with XY chromosomes whose gonads were lost after 14 weeks of fetal development. People with Anorchia have no ability to produce the hormones responsible for developing male secondary sex characteristics nor the means to produce gametes necessary for reproduction due to the lack of gonads. They may develop typically feminine secondary sex characteristics without or despite the administration of androgens to artificially initiate physical sex differentiation (typically planned around the age of puberty). Psychological and neurological gender identity may solidify before the administration of androgens, leading to gender dysphoria, as anorchic individuals are typically assigned male at birth.
XY	Gonadal Dysgenesis	It has various causes and are not all genetic; a catch-all category. It refers to individuals (mostly XY) whose gonads don't develop properly. Clinical features are heterogeneous.
XY	Hypospadias	It is caused by various causes,including alterations in testosterone metabolism. The urethra does not run to the tip of the penis. In mild forms, the opening is just shy of the tip; in moderate forms, it is along the shaft; and in severe forms, it may open at the base of the penis.
Other	Unusual chromosomal sex	In addition to the most common XX and XY chromosomal sexes, there are several other possible combinations, for example Turner syndrome (XO), Triple X syndrome (XXX), Klinefelter syndrome, (XXY) and variants (XXYY, XXXY, XXXXY), XYY syndrome, de la Chapelle syndrome (XX male), Swyer syndrome (XY female).
Other	Mosaicism and chimerism	A mix can occur, where some of the cells of the body have the common XX or XY, while some have one of the less usual chromosomal contents above. Such a mixture is caused by either mosaicism or chimerism. In mosaicism, the mixture is caused by a mutation in one of the cells of the embryo after fertilization, whereas chimerism is a fusion of two embryos. In alternative fashion, it is simply a mixture between XX and XY, and does not have to involve any less-common genotypes in individual cells. This, too, can occur both as chimerism and as a result of one sex chromosome having mutated into the other. Mosaicism and chimerism may involve chromosomes other than the sex chromosomes, and not result in intersex traits.

Medical treatment

Further information: Intersex surgery and History of intersex surgery

Psychosocial support

A 2006 clinician "Consensus Statement on Intersex Disorders and Their Management" attempted to prioritise psychosocial support for children and families, but it also supports surgical intervention with psychosocial rationales such as "minimizing family concern and distress" and "mitigating the risks of stigmatization and gender-identity confusion".

In 2012, the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics argued strongly in favour of improved psychosocial support, saying:

The initial aim of counselling and support is therefore to create a protected space for parents and the newborn, so as to facilitate a close bond. In addition, the parents need to be enabled to take the necessary decisions on the child's behalf calmly and after due reflection. In this process, they should not be subjected to time or social pressures. Parents' rapid requests for medical advice or for corrective surgery are often a result of initial feelings of helplessness, which need to be overcome so as to permit carefully considered decision-making.

It is important to bear in mind and also to point out to the parents that a diagnosis does not in itself entail any treatment or other medical measures, but serves initially to provide an overview of the situation and a basis for subsequent decisions, which may also take the form of watchful waiting.

...interventions have lasting effects on the development of identity, fertility, sexual functioning and the parent-child relationship. The parents' decisions should therefore be marked by authenticity, clarity and full awareness, and based on love for the child, so that they can subsequently be openly justified vis-à-vis the child or young adult.

A joint international statement by intersex community organizations published in 2013 sought, amongst other demands:

Recognition that medicalization and stigmatisation of intersex people result in significant trauma and mental health concerns.

In view of ensuring the bodily integrity and well-being of intersex people, autonomous non-pathologising psycho-social and peer support be available to intersex people throughout their life (as self-required), as well as to parents and/or care providers.

Surgery

Further information: Intersex surgery and History of intersex surgery

Surgical procedures depend on diagnosis, and there is often concern as to whether surgery should be performed at all. Typically, surgery is performed shortly after birth. Surgery may be necessary to assist in bowel and bladder functions. However, defenders of the practice argue that it is necessary for individuals to be clearly identified as male or female in order for them to function socially. Psychosocial reasons are often stated. This is criticised by many human rights institutions, and authors including Morgan Holmes and Alice Dreger, who say that surgical treatment is socially motivated and, hence, ethically questionable; without evidence, doctors regularly assume that intersex persons cannot have a clear gender identity. Parents may be advised that without surgery, their child will be stigmatized.

Unlike other aesthetic surgical procedures performed on infants, such as corrective surgery for a cleft lip (as opposed to a cleft palate), genital surgery may lead to negative consequences for sexual functioning in later life (such as loss of sensation in the genitals, for example, when a clitoris deemed too large or penis is reduced/removed), or feelings of freakishness and unacceptability, which may have been avoided without the surgery. Further, since almost all such surgeries are undertaken to fashion female genitalia for the child, it is more difficult for the child to present as male if that child later identifies as or is genetically male. 20-50% of surgical cases result in a loss of sexual sensation (Newman 1991, 1992).

Additionally, parents are not often consulted on the decision-making process when choosing the sex of the child. The Intersex Society of North America stated that "For decades, doctors have thought it necessary to treat intersex with a concealment-centered approach, one that features downplaying intersex as much as possible, even to the point of lying to patients about their conditions. A lot of people in our culture also had no interest in hearing that sex doesn't come in two simple flavors." Opponents maintain that there is no compelling evidence that the presumed social benefits of such "normalizing" surgery outweigh the potential costs.

Intersex advocates and experts have critiqued the necessity of early interventions, citing individual's experiences of intervention and the lack of follow-up studies showing clear benefits. Specialists at the Intersex Clinic at University College London began to publish evidence in 2001 that indicated the harm that can arise as a result of inappropriate interventions, and advised minimising the use of childhood surgical procedures.

Studies have revealed how surgical intervention has had psychological effects, leading to the impact on well-being and quality of life. Genitoplasty, plastic surgery done on the genitalia, does not ensure a successful psychological outcome for the patient and might require psychological support when the patient is trying to distinguish a gender identity. Other than the possible negative psychological outcomes, surgeries, like with a vaginoplasty, can have physical outcomes, one common one being scarring, which can be a factor to insensitivity. Other cases where vaginoplasty has caused complications, is that the implant or artificial vagina will not stay in place, or need further surgeries. One of the reasons there are many complications is that doctors who do not specialize in genitoplasty or similar surgeries (phalloplasty, vaginoplasty) usually reconstruct the child's ambiguous genitalia.

The Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics describes surgical interventions as problematic, with "harmful consequences may include, for example, loss of fertility and sexual sensitivity, chronic pain, or pain associated with dilation (bougienage) of a surgically created vagina, with traumatizing effects for the child. If such interventions are performed solely with a view to integration of the child into a family and social environment, then they run counter to the child's welfare. In addition, there is no guarantee that the intended purpose (integration) will be achieved."

In 2013, a submission by the Australasian Paediatric Endocrine Association to an Australian Senate inquiry on the Involuntary and coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia acknowledged that there is no firm evidence of good outcomes from appearance-related genital surgeries on infants and children. They state there is "particular concern" regarding post-surgical "sexual function and sensation".

In 2015, an editorial in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) described current surgical interventions as experimental, stating that clinical confidence in constructing "normal" genital anatomies has not been borne out, and that medically credible pathways other than surgery do not yet exist.

Decision-making on cancer risks

In the cases where nonfunctional testes are present, there is a risk that these develop cancer. Therefore, doctors either remove them by orchidectomy or monitor them carefully. This is the case for instance in androgen insensitivity syndrome.

In a major Parliamentary report in Australia, published in October 2013, the Senate Community Affairs References committee was "disturbed" by the possible implications of current practices in the treatment of cancer risk. The committee stated: "clinical intervention pathways stated to be based on probabilities of cancer risk may be encapsulating treatment decisions based on other factors, such as the desire to conduct normalising surgery… Treating cancer may be regarded as unambiguously therapeutic treatment, while normalising surgery may not. Thus basing a decision on cancer risk might avoid the need for court oversight in a way that a decision based on other factors might not. The committee is disturbed by the possible implications of this..."

Medical photography

Photographs of intersex children's genitalia are circulated in medical communities for documentary purposes; an example appears on this page. Problems associated with experiences of medical photography of intersex children have been discussed along with their ethics, control and usage.

"The experience of being photographed has exemplified for many people with intersex conditions the powerlessness and humiliation felt during medical investigations and interventions".

Hormone treatment

There is widespread evidence of prenatal testing and hormone treatment to prevent intersex traits. In 1990, a paper by Heino Meyer-Bahlburg titled Will Prenatal Hormone Treatment Prevent Homosexuality? was published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. It examined the use of "prenatal hormone screening or treatment for the prevention of homosexuality" using research conducted on foetuses with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Dreger, Feder, and Tamar-Mattis describe how later research constructs "low interest in babies and men – and even interest in what they consider to be men's occupations and games – as "abnormal", and potentially preventable with prenatal dex[amethasone]".

Genetic selection and terminations

The ethics of preimplantation genetic diagnosis to select against intersex traits was the subject of 11 papers in the October 2013 issue of the American Journal of Bioethics. There is widespread evidence of pregnancy terminations arising from prenatal testing, as well prenatal hormone treatment to prevent intersex traits.

In April 2014, Organisation Intersex International Australia made a submission on genetic selection via Preimplantation genetic diagnosis to the National Health and Medical Research Council recommending that deselection of embryos and foetuses on grounds of intersex status should not be permitted. It quoted research by Professors Morgan Holmes, Jeff Nisker, associate professor Georgiann Davis, and by Jason Behrmann and Vardit Ravitsky. It quotes research showing pregnancy termination rates of up to 88% in 47,XXY even while the World Health Organization describes the trait as "compatible with normal life expectancy", and "often undiagnosed". Behrmann and Ravitsky find social concepts of sex, gender and sexual orientation to be "intertwined on many levels. Parental choice against intersex may thus conceal biases against same-sex attractedness and gender nonconformity."

Gender dysphoria

The DSM-5 included a change from using Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Dysphoria. This revised code now specifically includes intersex people who do not identify with their sex assigned at birth, using the language of Disorders of Sex Development. This move was criticised by intersex advocacy groups in Australia and New Zealand.

Bibliography

External video

“ What It’s Like To Be Intersex”, Lizz Warner, BuzzFeed

"Intersexion" documentary, Wikipedia page

• Senate of Australia, Community Affairs References Committee (25 October 2013). Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia.
• Blackless, Melanie; Charuvastra, Anthony; Derryck, Amanda; Fausto-Sterling, Anne; Lauzanne, Karl; Lee, Ellen (2000). "How sexually dimorphic are we? Review and synthesis". Am J Hum Biol 12 (2): 151–166. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1520-6300(200003/04)12:2<151::AID-AJHB1>3.0.CO;2-F. PMID 11534012. 
• Georgiann Davis (2001). "DSD is a Perfectly Fine Term": Reasserting Medical Authority through a Shift in Intersex Terminology, in PJ McGann, David J. Hutson (ed.) Sociology of Diagnosis (Advances in Medical Sociology, Volume 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 155–182, DOI: 10.1108/S1057-6290(2011)0000012012.
• Dreger, A.D.; Chase, C.; Sousa, A.; Gruppuso, P.A.; Frader, J. (2005). "Changing the nomenclature/taxonomy for intersex: a scientific and clinical rationale". J. Pediatr. Endocrinol. Metab. 18 (8): 729–33. doi:10.1515/JPEM.2005.18.8.729. PMID 16200837. 
• Alice Dreger (May/June 1998). "Ambiguous sex"--or Ambivalent Medicine? The Hastings Center Report May/Jun 1998, Volume 28, Issue 3 Pages 24–35. http://www.isna.org/articles/ambivalent_medicine
• Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000). Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality.
• Dan Christian Ghattas and Heinrich Böll Foundation (September 2013). Human Rights Between the Sexes.
• Morgan Holmes (editor) (October 2009). Critical Intersex, Ashgate Publishing.
• Katrina Karkazis (2008). Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience.
• National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics, Switzerland (November 2012). On the management of differences of sex development, Ethical issues relating to "intersexuality", Opinion No. 20/2012.
• Organisation Intersex International Australia, (April 2014). Submission on the ethics of genetic selection against intersex traits.
• San Francisco Human Rights Commission (April 28, 2005). A Human Rights Investigation into the medical "normalization" of intersex people (PDF format via Senate of Australia).
• World Health Organization, OHCHR, UN Women, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNFPA and UNICEF (May 2014) Eliminating forced, coercive and otherwise involuntary sterilization, An interagency statement, ISBN 978 92 4 150732 5.
• Zwischengeschlecht (March 2014). IGM – Historical Overview. Hermaphrodites in the 'Developed World': From Legal Self-Determination to IGM, Supplement 1 in: NGO Report to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Periodic Report of Switzerland on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), v2.0, pp. 49–62.