What is Intersexuality?
Intersexuality is a group of medical conditions that blur or make nonstandard the physical sex of the individual intersexual. They include Klinefelter’s Syndrome (XXY chromosomes), congenital adrenal hyperplasia, androgen insensitivity syndrome, and other rarer syndromes.Some intersexuals are born with genitalia that are “ambiguous”, meaning not completely male or female. Others are genitally normal at birth but develop mixed secondary sexual characteristics at puberty. Intersexuals used to be referred to as “hermaphrodites”, but we now prefer the term intersexual, as it does not have the connotations of being a mythical creature. That connotation has often led to our being dismissed in the minds of many people as not really existing. We do, however, exist, and it is time that people knew it.
Intersexuality is a group of medical conditions that blur or make nonstandard the physical sex of the individual intersexual. They include Klinefelter’s syndrome (tubule dysgenesis, mostly, though not always correlating to karyotype 47,XXY), congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), and many others. We were originally referred to as “hermaphrodites” or “pseudohermaphrodites”, but since these terms tend to make people think of mythical figures, we prefer the term “intersexual”. This is about medical conditions, not myths. Some intersexuals are born with genitalia that are “ambiguous”, meaning not completely male or female. Ohers are genitally normal at birth but develop mixed secondary sexual characteristics at puberty. Some forms of CAH involves endocrinal salt-wasting, which usually requires steroid medication, though it can be possible to go off mineralcorticoid replacement (cf. Michel Reiter’s “Versuch einer Biographie — oder: Alles was ist, muß ge
