Create Your Own Footnote
Looking at Intersex in Both the Past and Present
The study of intersex is an ever-growing medical field that has a long and controversial history. It is “a group of conditions in which there is a discrepancy between the external genitals and the internal genitals (the testes and ovaries)” and is divided into four categories: 46, XX intersex; 46, XY intersex; true gonadal intersex; and complex or indeterminate intersex (Kaneshiro). It is unclear how many people worldwide are intersex, given the lack of a clear definition of which conditions are classified as intersex and which ones are not. One suggested number is around 1.7% of the population and includes many conditions not typically recognized as falling under the intersex umbrella. At the same time, another suggestion with a more conservative scope estimates around 0.018% (Sax).
Intersex has gone by many different names, with the previously most common being hermaphroditism. In recent years, many of these names have come to be seen as problematic and misleading. There is a push for the condition to be renamed as disorders of sexual development (DSD), which would be “defined by congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex is atypical” (Lee, Peter et al.).
While more research is currently being conducted into the best treatments and practices for DSD, the prevailing treatment is, and has been, gender assignment surgery. This is based on work done in the 1950s and 1960s by Money et al., which claimed that “children are psychosexually neutral until the age of 2 years and that what is required for a stable ‘normal’ gender identity is unambiguous genitalia and unequivocal assurance from parents as to the chosen gender” (Creighton). This opinion has shifted in recent years, with new treatments focusing less on adhering genitalia to the gender binary and more on offering support, leaving surgery as an available option for as long as it is healthy to do so (Kaneshiro).
Works Cited
Creighton, S. “Surgery for intersex.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine vol. 94, no. 5, 2001, pp. 218-20, doi:10.1177/014107680109400505
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. “Integrating disability, Transforming Feminist Theory.” NWSA Journal, vol. 14, no. 3, 2002, pp. 1–32, https://doi.org/10.2979/nws.2002.14.3.1.
Kaneshiro, Neil. “Intersex.” MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 10 Aug. 2021, medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001669.htm.
Lee, Peter et al. “Consensus statement on management of intersex disorders. International Consensus Conference on Intersex.” Pediatrics vol. 118, no. 2, 2006, pp. 488-500, doi:10.1542/peds.2006-0738
Sax, Leonard. “How common is lntersex? A response to Anne Fausto-Sterling.” The Journal of Sex Research, vol. 39, no. 3, 2002, pp. 174–178, https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490209552139.