Intersex people have bodies that are just a little different. Some intersex differences are obvious at birth. The practice seemingly originates from a historical fear that intersex bodily differences mean a person will grow up to be gay or transgender. But intersex people can have any gender and sexuality, just like anyone else. We still have to fight against our bodily integrity being taken from us.
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For example, a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Or a person may be born with genitals that seem to be in-between the usual male and female types--for example, a girl may be born with a noticeably large clitoris, or lacking a vaginal opening, or a boy may be born with a notably small penis, or with a scrotum that is divided so that it has formed more like labia. Or a person may be born with mosaic genetics, so that some of her cells have XX chromosomes and some of them have XY.
True hermaphroditism , sometimes referred to as ovotesticular disorder , [1] [2] is an intersex condition in which an individual is born with both ovarian and testicular tissue. Commonly, one or both gonads is an ovotestis containing both types of tissue. Although it is similar in some ways to mixed gonadal dysgenesis , the conditions can be distinguished histologically.
Intersex is a group of conditions in which there is a discrepancy between the external genitals and the internal genitals the testes and ovaries. The older term for this condition is hermaphroditism. Although the older terms are still included in this article for reference, they have been replaced by most experts, patients, and families. Increasingly, this group of conditions is being called disorders of sex development DSDs. Note: In many children, the cause of intersex may remain undetermined, even with modern diagnostic techniques. The person has the chromosomes of a woman, the ovaries of a woman, but external outside genitals that appear male.
