What are intersex conditions? Are there resources for intersex people and their parents, friends, partners?
Intersex conditions are a set of medical conditions that features congenital anomaly of the reproductive and sexual system. In other words, a person with an intersex condition is born with sex chromosomes, external genitalia, or an internal reproductive system that is not considered ‘standard’ for either male or female. How common are such things? It’s hard to get exact numbers because many doctors perform unrequested surgery to cover up some genital differences, and shame and secrecy do not encourage good record keeping on the subject. The number of intersex conditions is high and each condition has different statistics. For instance, babies born with chromosomes that are neither XX nor XY is about one in 1,666 births. The total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female one in 100 births. The total number of people receiving surgery to “normalize” genital appearance one or two in 1,000 births. For some more detailed statistics, I refer you to the Intersex Socie
