What is Intersex? Can anyone give me links to websites with information about Intersex?

Answer 1

Do you want laypersons terms that the general populace might be able to comprehend, or do you want upper level comprehension? :O)~

Intersexes are either genital shapes and sizes not congruent with current dominant standards of genital shape and size preferences.

Intersexes are also people whose chromosome patterns might not be xx or xy (such as xxy or xxxy, or xxxo, or xo, or mosaic meaning a mix of chromosome patters across different cells)

Intersexes are also a mix of both of the above two options.

The thing about labeling someone intersex, is that when people from the medical community are deciding whether or not to label someone intersex, they often fluctuate as there is not set standard of criterion across the board.

Some use size standards, such as a phallus that is larger than .9cm is too large for a female, therefore if the doctor feels that the [infant] should have been female according to the doctors preferences looking at genitals and /or chromosomes etc the doctor might trim the phallus or remove it (social construction of the female sex)

And if the phallus is smaller than 2.5cm and/or the doctor feels that the [infant] would be unable to stand while urinating as an adult, on an [infant] the doctor feels should have been male according to the doctors preferences looking at genitals and/or chromosomes etc, the doctor might choose to do genital reconstructions and possibly hormone replacement therapy to construct the [infant] as a female regardless of chromosomes etc.

Sex is on a spectrum, you see, where the categories of male and female are not static, meaning, not absolute categories, but rather made up of cultural preferences, they are invented labels put on varrying places on the sex spectrum in order to validate a cultures claims of categories of sex, to perpetuate the segregation of human beings.

Intersexes are often marginalized or stigmatized by societies in order to preserve the western binary gender and sex systems which declare that there are only two sexes, and only two corresponding genders, that both are biological, and that the placement of certain sex and gender labels on human bodies mean something, signify something, often socially and religeously. For this reason, many intersexes are subjected to cosmetic surgery, isolation, shame, discrimination, invalidation, and less access to vital medical care and information about their bodies. And often when they are given medical care or information, it is in such a way that highlights cultural preferences/standards for "male" and "female" and downplays the validity of a natural human body which does not conform to these cultural preferences.

Answer 2

I believe intersex is the condition where one is born with indeterminate genitalia. As an embryo they are exposed to too much of one sex hormone or another. In a male, the penis and testicles are undeveloped and may even look like a vagina. In a female, the extra testosterone will cause the clitoris to be elongated and the labia may be fused and look like a scrotum.

Answer 3

Intersexed means a person believes they have both male and female attributes and that they are of a different sex than they were born as. For example, a male can believe that he is a female instead. That he was born a female in a male body.

Check out any website on homosexual and transgenderism.

Answer 4

Someone with both male and female genitalia or else physical features that are indistinguishable between the two sexes.

Answer 5

It's when the genitals are neither completely male or female.

http://www.isna.org/

Answer 6

hermaphrodites