Intersexuality: Understanding a Rare Biological Phenomenom

About 1 in 2000 babies born in each year has ambiguous sexual anatomy that makes their gender unclear. Intersexuality, rare and almost unknown to common people, is any varying degree of intermingling secondary sex characteristics, which causes the inability to classify ones gender as male or female. This includes having external anatomy that doesn't match chromosomal make up, having internal organs that don't match external anatomy, for example the ovotestes disorder in which a person has ovaries and other inner female reproductive organs, but also has testes.

Several things can cause intersexuality, including chromosomal mutation because of diseases like Klinefelter syndrome where men have a XXY chromosome combination or Turner syndrome for girls where only a single X chromosome is present. Other diseases like congenital adrenal hyperplasia, aphallia, androgen insensitivity, and others can cause babies with normal chromosomes to develop sexual anatomy that resembles that either that of the opposite sex or an ambiguous combination of both sexes.

While some intersex individuals are identified at birth, others aren't diagnosed until puberty. Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, which a child is born with two X chromosomes is one of the most common intersex disease with 60% affected by intersexuality suffering from CAH. Besides the dangerous characteristics of CAH, including salt-wasting that induces vomiting, dehydration, and in some cases death, CAH also causes females to develop masculine like sexual anatomy and secondary sex characteristics. Overproduction of male sex hormones causes the clitoris to enlarge and resemble a penis and also causes the development of masculine secondary sex characteristics like facial hair and a deeper voice.

In the 1950s, John Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore began researching and treating CAH. There at Hopkins doctors began to perform the first genital reconstructive or reassignment surgery, which primary purpose was to give the child the appearance of common male or female genitals. Early surgeries were usually performed ignoring chromosomal make up and internal sex organs and most were assigned as females because of convenience.

Early genital surgeries have been criticized for their demoralization, some comparing them to mutilation done in some cultures that perform female circumcisions. "Techniques of surgical genital reconstruction have been mastered" as years have passed, but studies have found genital surgery at infancy lead in unnecessary trauma, loss of sensation, and psychological distress as children began to grow older and realize their bodies were different. eMedicine declares "the understanding of the psychological and social implications of gender assignment has shifted the paradigm away from early reconstruction."

The Intersex Society of North America, provides an ample amount of information as well as support for parents of intersex children and intersex persons. This organization like many others believe that gender is overly simplified by society. ISNA encourages that children not be assigned their gender, probably because many intersex persons grow up and rebel against the gender they assigned especially those who have had surgery. According to the ISNA, "uncorrected" children do not suffer from higher risks of illness neither physical or psychological.

Gender is not something that can be simply explained by anatomy, but other environmental and psychological aspects must come into mind. It is evident when looking to transgendered individuals that someone can be raised as one gender and identify with the other. This along with mythical misconceptions and social ignorance, which misleadingly classifies intersex individuals as hermaphrodites, makes intersexuality even more complex.

Wang, Sheng. "Intersexuality: Male, Female, & In-Between." Medhunters. .