intersex

Examples of intersex in the following topics:

• Sex and Physiology

  • "Sex" refers to physiological differences between male, female, and intersex bodies.
  • In humans, sex is typically divided into male, female, or intersex.
  • Many intersex individuals, however, argue that such a procedure is invasive and unnecessary.
  • Intersex advocates such as Anne Fausto-Sterling label surgery without consent as a form of genital mutilation, and argue that surgery on intersex babies should wait until the child can make an informed decision for themselves.
  • Characterize the physiological differences among male, female, and intersex individuals and the controversies surrounding "corrective" surgery

• Defining Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

  • "Sex" refers to physiological differences found among male, female, and various intersex bodies.
  • Due to the existence of multiple forms of intersex conditions (which are more prevalent than researchers once thought), many view sex as existing along a spectrum, rather than simply two mutually exclusive categories.
  • "Gender" is a term that refers to social or cultural distinctions associated with being male, female, or intersex.
  • The standard model has been criticized for saying that humans are sexually dimorphic: this means each and every human being is either male or female, thus leaving out those who are born intersex.
  • In humans, sex is typically divided into male, female, or intersex (i.e., having some combination of male and female sex characteristics).

• Administering Hormones

  • Some intersex people also receive HRT, either starting in childhood to confirm the gender they were assigned at birth, or later in order to change the gender they were assigned at birth.

• Cultural Change

  • ., males and females) culturally erases the biological and genetic reality of intersex people, and justifies the genital mutilation of people born genetically beyond male/female classification schemes.
  • Changing scientific and medical practices of infant genital mutilation in the case of intersex individuals, however, remains difficult due to cultural beliefs promoting and enforcing two sexes with separate but "complementary" roles.

• Cryptorchidism

  • In contrast, many of the genes causing some of the intersex conditions associated with androgen or AMH deficiency or insensitivity have been identified, and genetic counseling to explain recurrence risk to families is appropriate.

• Age and Sexuality

  • Building on the aforementioned observations, researchers have also noted tremendous variation between heterosexual and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trangender, intersex, queer, and asexual (LGBTIQA) aging processes.

• Gender vs. Sex

  • As noted previously, however, human biology is far more complex than this typology allows, and as a result, there are many genetic variations that are left out of these classification schemes (see the article on Intersex here as well as the citation outlining intersex experience earlier in this text).
  • Most clinical research and debates on the subject, for example, suggest that males are people born with a urethra at the tip of the phallus whereas females have it in the perineum, but in reality, people are born with urethral openings in a wide variety of locations between the phallus and perineum despite the fact that only a fraction of these births are labeled intersex (similar observations have been made concerning distinctions based on genital size, gamete size, chromosomal makeup, and other biological markers).
  • At present, both intersex and transexuality are hotly debated topics within and between scientific communities.

• Gender and Sociology

  • "Sex" refers to physical or physiological differences between males, females, and intersex persons, including both their primary and secondary sex characteristics.
  • When babies are born, they are assigned a gender based on their biological sex—male babies are assigned as boys, female babies are assigned as girls, and intersex babies are usually relegated into one category or another.

• Biology of Sexual Behavior

  • For the purposes of this discussion, we will be examining male and female anatomy; however, it is important to keep in mind the wide variety of intersex anatomy that exists, and that much of the biology below corresponds to different intersex bodies in different ways.

• Gender as a Spectrum and Transgender Identities

  • Transgender is an umbrella term that refers to the state of one's gender identity (in other words, one's self-identification as woman, man, neither, both, or something different) not matching one's assigned sex (their identification by others as male, female, or intersex, based on genetic and biological characteristics).