Intersexual, Intersexuality

Sex is often thought of as two distinct categories with no fluidity between or beyond male and female. Males are persons with XY sex chromosomes with a penis and testicles for external genitalia and females have XX sex chromosomes with a clitoris and vagina for external genitalia, all expected to be recognizable at birth. However, sex and gender are not that clear-cut. Intersexual describes the state of not neatly fitting into the sex binary because of esthetic characteristics of the genitals that doctors deem abnormal or because of chromosomal variations from XY or XX. For example, a child's genitals may appear male but there are female internal reproductive organs. Intersex individuals are often diagnosed as so because of ambiguous genitalia as determined by the physicians, though many intersex individuals have unambiguous genitalia. Intersex is not always determined at birth and sometimes becomes apparent at puberty, with infertility, or never.

Intersex challenges a rigid binary conceptualization of sex and gender. Bodies that diverge from the expected norm demonstrate that not all people are clearly male or female. Sex anatomy, as intersex supporters explain it, occurs on a spectrum with many body parts occurring in a variety of shapes and sizes. The majority of intersex infants need no medical intervention to allow for their physiological health. This does not prevent the medicalization (taking a [Page 470]natural occurrence and analyzing it through a medical lens that becomes the authority on the issue) and surgical intervention of these children to “repair” the variation of their genitalia, hormones, or sex organs. This desire to end variance of genitalia and perhaps sex is motivated by a tendency to correct all forms of gender deviance in a society that presumes male and female are the only genders.

The term Hermaphrodite is historically used and often misunderstood as intersex, but this is a misappropriation of the term. Hermaphrodite refers to a person with both female and male genitalia. This is not necessarily the case for intersex individuals. Those labeled hermaphrodites may self-identify as intersex but may not identify as hermaphrodite.

This entry describes the occurrence and determination of intersexuality, surgical interventions for intersexuality, and activism related to intersexuality.