There are a small percentage of children born as “intersex,” with genitalia not clearly identifiable as either male or female, or sometimes as a combination of both.
These are of course just another variety of birth defects, and it is obscene that ideologues will exploit these unfortunate children to justify their idiotic belief hat sex/gender is a continuum, not a polarity.
Genuine intersex people are a tiny percentage. This move is based on adults’ “feelings” about “gender,” not on anything to do with infants’ biological sex.
True.
Wiki has this, citations numbered and bracketed:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudohermaphroditism
Use of the term “pseudohermaphroditism” can be problematic, and is now considered redundant.[10] The term “pseudohermaphroditism” was created by Edwin Klebs in 1876,[11][12] long before the genetic roles of the X chromosome and Y chromosome and the social components of gender identity were well characterized, which is why the term is usually used to describe the dissonance between gonadal histology and external genital appearance.
The term “intersexuality” was introduced by Richard Goldschmidt in 1923.[11][13] However, the term “intersex” has also been challenged; the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society and the European Society for Pediatric Endocrinology have adopted a nomenclature system based on disorders of sex development, which covers “congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex is atypical” and thus replaces many disparate terms, including but not limited to those based on “hermaphrodite.”[10][14]
One example of the challenges involved in the use of the term is the case of women with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS). These women often have primary and secondary sexual characteristics typical of other women; however, they are genetically XY and have internal testes, rather than ovaries. They have the same likelihood of a genetically XX woman of enjoying sexual pleasure but are unable to biologically reproduce. Their sexuality (homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual etc.) is unrelated to this syndrome. However scientifically precise the description “male” pseudohermaphrodite may be for such women, it is clearly socially inappropriate. CAIS is considered little better by some, as the S for syndrome in CAIS does not accord with the “normality” many CAIS women feel about their bodies.
In human beings, the sex status is defined at four levels: chromosomal (XY; XX), internal organs (ovaries; testicles), external organs (breasts, vulva + vagina; penis), and psyche (sexual identity). In a XX human the default development process results in a female. In a XY human a set of genes on the Y chromosome trigger a cascade of events normally resulting in a male. A complete female or male developmental process entails the expression of female and male sex hormones, respectively, and of their corresponding receptors in the target tissues. Without these hormones and their receptors, the internal and external sex organs, and psyche, will not develop as expected. Sex hormones, their receptors, and downstream signal transduction proteins are coded by genes that may be genetically defective.
All these factors mean that genetic mutations can block the sexual development process at three stages: (a) before the development of the internal sex organs; (b) after the development of the internal sex organs but before the development of external sex organs; and (c) after the development of external sex organs but before the maturation of the sexual component of the psyche.
While in (a) the XY human will be indistinguishable anatomically and psychologically from a female; in (b) the individual may either be born with ambiguous external genitals or have genitals apparently in the normal range at birth but, at pubertal age, not develop secondary sexual characteristics at all or develop secondary sexual characteristics that do not match the external genitals; and in (c) the individual will be transgendered (formerly referred to as transsexual).
There are other intersexual states that are not the result of the genetic configurations above.
In particular, where either the individual is a chimera - resulting from a fusion of two distinct embryos, one male and one female, during fetal development (not a genetic mosaic), or the individual contains duplicated chromosomes in the genome (XXY; XXXY). In the former case some tissues will be in the XX and others in the XY configuration; in the latter, all cells contain the Y chromosome and may or may not use it. This is a gynandromorph, which has both female and male characteristics at all four levels and may have either ambiguous sex organs (the XY/XX configuration may not be evenly distributed throughout the body) or unambiguous male and female sex organs (hermaphrodite).