What is intersex and how does it affect a baby?
But intersex traits occur naturally, and it’s not a disease or condition that affects baby’s physical health. When a baby is born, they’re assigned a biological sex — either male or female — based on their genitals. You may have even learned your baby’s sex before birth in a similar way: Nothing between the legs on the ultrasound?
What does intersex mean in medical terms?
Intersex Conditions. Intersex conditions, also known as disorders of sex development (DSD), occur when infants are born with a mix of male and female genitalia. The disorders cause a mismatch in the external and internal reproductive organs. The child's body may not be completely male, nor totally female.
What are the causes of intersex?
The most common cause of intersex conditions is congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), which occurs in 1 out of every 15,000 live births worldwide. There are four main categories of intersex conditions:
What are the different types of intersex conditions?
There are four main categories of intersex conditions: Female with male-looking or ambiguous genitals. In this type of intersex condition, a person has female (XX) chromosomes with normal ovaries and uterus, but the external genitals appear to be male. The clitoris may be enlarged and look like a penis.
Is being intersex a disorder?
Intersex itself is not a disorder, rather a variation. But Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, for instance, is an inherited disorder affecting adrenal function.
Can people with intersex reproduce?
If they have ovaries or ovotestes, that tissue could be used for reproduction in some cases. Some intersex people do have ovaries, a uterus, and a vagina, and could get pregnant by contact with sperm. Fertility is different for each intersex person. Many, but not all, intersex variations do result in infertility.
What causes a baby to be born intersex?
The person has the chromosomes of a woman, the ovaries of a woman, but external (outside) genitals that appear male. This most often is the result of a female fetus having been exposed to excess male hormones before birth.
Do intersex males have periods?
The experience of having a period can vary hugely from person to person, and this true for those who are intersex as well! Just remember there is no normal, only what is 'normal' for your own body. Somebody who has typically female organs but typically male appearance features, may also have periods.
Can intersex get themselves pregnant?
Some intersex people have both testes and ovaries. You may be able to get pregnant on your own, if you also have a uterus. However, if you have testes, they may be releasing more testosterone than would be optimal for conception and pregnancy.
How can you tell if a baby is intersex?
So what does intersex look like?a clitoris that's larger than expected.a penis that's smaller than expected.no vaginal opening.a penis without a urethra opening at the tip (the opening might instead be on the underside)labia that are closed or otherwise resemble a scrotum.a scrotum that is empty and resembles labia.
What happens if a baby is born intersex?
What happens when someone is born intersex? Most of the time when a baby is born intersex, doctors and the family decide on a sex, either male or female, and raise the baby as the gender expected of that sex.
What is the difference between intersex and hermaphrodite?
Main Difference – Hermaphrodite vs Intersex The main difference between hermaphrodite and intersex is that hermaphrodite is an organism possessing both types of gonads whereas intersex is an organism possessing several sex characteristics of both male and females such as chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones or genitals.
Overview
Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".
Sex assignment at birth usually aligns with a child's anatomical sex and phenotype. The number of births with ambiguous genitals is in the range of 0.02% to 0.05%. Other conditions involve atypic…
Terminology
There is no clear consensus definition of intersex and no clear delineation of which specific conditions qualify an individual as intersex. The World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD), the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and many medical journals classify intersex traits or conditions among …
Prevalence
Estimates of the number of people who are intersex vary, depending on which conditions are counted as intersex. 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, …
History
From early history, societies have been aware of intersex people. Some of the earliest evidence is found in mythology: the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote of the mythological Hermaphroditus in the first century BC, who was "born with a physical body which is a combination of that of a man and that of a woman", and reputedly possessed supernatural properties. He also recounted the lives of Diophantus of Abae and Callon of Epidaurus. Ardhanarishvara, an androgyn…
Human rights and legal issues
Human rights institutions are placing increasing scrutiny on harmful practices and issues of discrimination against intersex people. 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 (WHO). These developments have been accompanied by International Intersex Foru…
LGBT and LGBTI
Intersex conditions can be contrasted with transgender gender identities and the attached gender dysphoria a transgender person may feel, wherein their gender identity does not match their assigned sex. However, some people are both intersex and transgender; though intersex people by definition have variable sex characteristics that do not align with either typically male or female, this may b…
In society
An intersex character is the narrator in Jeffrey Eugenides' Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Middlesex.
The memoir, Born Both: An Intersex Life (Hachette Books, 2017), by intersex author and activist Hida Viloria, received strong praise from The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, and Psych…
Biology
The notion of intersex individuals can be understood in the context of sexual system biology that varies across different types of organisms. Most animal species (~95%, including humans) are gonochoric, in which individuals are of either a female or male sex. Hermaphroditic species (some animals and most flowering plants ) are represented by individuals that can express both sexes simultaneously or sequentially during their lifetimes. Intersex individuals in a number of gonoch…