Intersex people are individuals born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomesgonadssex hormonesor genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights"do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies".
Intersex people were previously referred to as hermaphrodites or "congenital eunuchs". It was the first attempt at creating a taxonomic classification system of intersex conditions. Intersex people were categorized as either having true hermaphroditismfemale pseudohermaphroditismor male pseudohermaphroditism. Intersex people face stigmatization and discrimination from birth, or from discovery of an intersex trait, such as from puberty.
This may include infanticide, abandonment and the stigmatization of families. However, this is considered controversial, with no firm evidence of favorable outcomes. Adults, including elite female athletes, have also been subjects of such treatment.
Some intersex persons may be assigned and raised as a girl or boy but then identify with another gender later video life, while most continue to identify with their assigned sex. Intersex people are born with sex characteristics including genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns that do not fit typical binary notions of male intersex 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 a number of factors present at birth, including: [30]. People whose 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. 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. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote of the mythological Hermaphroditus in the first century BCE, 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.
In European societies, Roman lawpost-classical canon lawand later common lawreferred to a person's female as male, female or hermaphrodite, with legal rights as male or female depending on the characteristics that appeared most dominant. Some video these cultures, for instance the South-Asian Hijra communities, [39] may include intersex people in a third gender category. Although—according to Morgan Holmes —early Western anthropologists categorized such cultures "primitive," Holmes has argued that analyses of these cultures have been simplistic or romanticized and fail to take account of the ways that subjects of all categories are treated.
During the Victorian eramedical authors introduced the terms " true hermaphrodite " for an individual who has both ovarian and testicular tissue, "male pseudo-hermaphrodite" for a person female 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. Some later shifts in terminology have reflected advances in genetics, while other shifts are suggested to be due to pejorative associations.
The term intersexuality was coined by Richard Goldschmidt in Since the rise of modern medical science, 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" when born. 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.
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, inthe 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.
Stigmatization and discrimination from birth may include infanticide, female, and the stigmatization of families. As intersex in the "Intersex human rights" page, the birth of an intersex child was often viewed as a curse or a sign of a witch mother, especially in parts of Africa. Infants, children and adolescents also experience "normalising" interventions on intersex persons that are medically unnecessary and the pathologisation of variations in sex characteristics.
In countries where the human rights of intersex people have been studied, medical interventions to modify the sex characteristics of intersex people have still taken place without the consent of the intersex person.
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 due to their adverse consequences, including trauma, impact on sexual function and sensation, and violation of rights to physical and mental integrity. People born with intersex bodies are seen as different, intersex infants, children, adolescents and adults "are often stigmatized and subjected to multiple human rights violations", including discrimination in education, healthcare, employment, sport, and public services.
Access to informationmedical records, peer and other counselling and support. 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. The Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions states that legal recognition is firstly "about intersex people who have been issued a male or a female birth certificate being able to enjoy the same legal rights as other men and women.
A Kenyan court case in established the right of an intersex boy, "Baby A", to a birth video. 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. Research in the late 20th century led to a growing medical consensus that diverse intersex bodies are normal, but relatively rare, forms of human biology. Foremost, we advocate use of the terms "typical", "usual", or "most frequent" where it is more common to use the term "normal.
Emphasize that all of these conditions are video understandable while they are statistically uncommon. Some people with intersex video self-identify as intersex, and some do not. Some intersex organizations reference "intersex people" and "intersex variations or traits" [94] while others use more medicalized language such as "people with intersex conditions", [95] or people "with intersex conditions or DSDs female of sex development " and "children born with variations of sex anatomy".
A hermaphrodite is an organism that has both male and female reproductive organs. Until the midth 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 a more female combination of phenotypical and genotypical presentation.
Using hermaphrodite to refer to intersex individuals is considered to be stigmatizing and misleading. 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". Alternatives to categorizing intersex conditions as "disorders" have been suggested, including "variations of sex development".
Intersex can be contrasted with homosexuality or same-sex attraction. Intersex can therefore be contrasted with transgender[] which is the condition in which one's gender identity does not match one's assigned sex. The relationship of intersex to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans, and intersex communities is complex, [] but intersex people are often video to LGBT to create an LGBTI community.
Emi Koyama describes how inclusion of female 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. Television works about intersex and films about intersex are scarce. Intersex peer support and advocacy organizations have existed since at leastwith the establishment of the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group Australia in Intersex Awareness Day is an internationally video civil awareness day designed to highlight the challenges faced by intersex people, occurring video on 26 October.
It marks the first public demonstration by intersex people, which took place in Boston on 26 Octoberoutside a venue where the American Academy of Pediatrics was holding its annual conference. Intersex Day of Remembrancealso known as Intersex Solidarity Day, is an internationally observed civil awareness day designed to highlight issues faced by intersex people, occurring annually on 8 November.
In HinduismSangam literature uses the word pedi to refer to people born with an intersex condition; it also refers to antharlinga hijras and various other hijras.
In Islamscholars 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 include 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 pseudohermaphrodite.
Scholars of Islamic jurisprudence generally consider their rights based on the majority of what appears from their external sexual organs. In Judaismthe Talmud contains extensive discussion concerning the status of two intersex types in Jewish law; namely the androgynouswhich intersex both male and female external sexual organs, and the intersex which exhibits neither.
In the s and s, 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 Anitismthe wife of Bathalathe supreme god of the Tagalog peoplewas the hermaphrodite deity Lakapati, who served as queen of the celestial abode and court called Kaluwalhatian. She was also the ancient deity of fertility and is highly regarded as the Tagalog pantheon's most important feminine figure.
Her relationship with the supreme god, Bathala, was symbolic for the ancient Tagalogs female it referred to marriage as a mutual bond between two parties regardless of gender, which was a common practice at the time. Video chant and prayer portrayed Lakapati as an all-powerful deity who had control of one's life. Prominent among deities who received full-blown sacrifices, Lakapati is fittingly represented by a hermaphrodite image with both male and female parts and was worshiped in the fields at planting time.
Her bodily expression is notably feminine. The ancient Tagalogs believed that the hermaphrodite image of Lakapati depicted the "balance of everything". During early Spanish rule, Lakapati was depicted as the Holy Spirit, as the people continued to revere her despite Spanish threats.
Modern interpretations have stated that Lakapati was transgender, although in a historical context, Lakapati was known as a hermaphrodite or intersex and not a transgender person. The South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya won gold at the World Championships in the women's metres and won silver in the Summer Olympics.
The results were intersex released. Semenya was ruled eligible to compete. Katrina KarkazisRebecca Jordan-YoungGeorgiann Davis and Silvia Camporesi have claimed that IAAF policies on "hyperandrogenism" in female athletes, 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 legally recognised gender. In Aprilthe BMJ reported that four intersex women athletes with 5-ARD an intersex medical condition were subjected to sterilization and "partial clitoridectomies" in order to compete in sport.
The authors noted that partial clitoridectomy was "not medically indicated" and "does not relate to real or perceived athletic 'advantage'. There are few firm estimates of the number of intersex people.
The now-defunct Intersex Society of North America stated that:. If you female experts at medical centers how often a child is born so noticeably atypical in terms of genitalia that female specialist in sex differentiation is called in, the number comes out to about 1 in to 1 in births [0. 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.
Blackless, Fausto-Sterling et al. The figure of 1. Individuals with diagnoses of disorders of sex development DSD may or may not experience stigma and discrimination due to their sex characteristics, including sex "normalizing" interventions. Human rights institutions have called for the de-medicalization of intersex intersex, as far as possible. The following summarizes some prevalence figures of intersex traits a fuller 'List of conditions' is provided below, at the end of 'Medical classifications' :.
Population intersex can vary due to genetic causes. In the Dominican Republic5-alpha-reductase deficiency is not uncommon in the town of Las Salinasresulting in social acceptance of the intersex trait.
The overall incidence for the town was 1 in every 90 males were carriers, with other males either non-carriers or non-affected carriers.
