​
Frequently asked Questions
Myths and Misconceptions
Are DSDs like being a hermaphrodite?
Contrary to popular belief, as well as older medical misconceptions, people who have DSDs are not hermaphroditic. A true human hermaphrodite, as in someone who can produce both viable eggs and sperm, and is capable of both pregnancy and insemination, has not existed at least according to our current knowledge. Snails are hermaphroditic, for example, but humans are not.
Intersex people have historically been seen as either monsters or gods, and this misconception has caused much stigmatization and fetishization. Modern medicine has not been any kinder, categorizing intersex people into very othering categories and conducting risky cosmetic surgeries on intersex children’s genitalia. In reality, an intersex person often looks no different from a non intersex person when you meet them in your daily life. You have probably met someone intersex in passing or are acquainted with them, but are unaware because you have not seen their unclothed bodies or their medical records. Intersex people are everywhere, living normal lives, with the same hopes and aspirations as anyone else. They can be your classmate, your colleague at the office, your professor or even the doctor you see at the hospital.
There is a popular misconception that those with DSDs are transgender because there is a significant minority who end up living as a different gender in adulthood than childhood. However, the majority of those with DSDs do not have genital/gonadal mismatches, and they stay the gender they were raised. For the minority (around 10-20%) who do change their lived gender, it is usually because they were assigned to a gender that does not correspond to their gonads, and they undergo a puberty in adolescence that doesn’t match their genitalia, and thus change their lived gender. These individuals are also not classed as transgender, because their gender identity is aligned with their body’s sex.
Rather, those with DSDs who have atypical or different gender experiences, can sometimes coin these experiences or their identity as intersex. The vast majority still have a binary gender identity. Those with DSDs frequently refer to their experiences, community and self conceptualization as intersex — an experience outside the typical male or female experience— and will call their medical diagnoses/specific conditions a DSD. Being intersex is much more like the experiences someone with albinism, or an extra limb, may have, as it is a physical difference that affects one’s social and psychological development, and while people like to self describe with the term intersex, “intersex” is not considered a gender identity by most, but rather a descriptor for bodies and experiences.
Do people with DSDs have a sex?
To answer this question, we need to have some better understanding of what kinds of reproductive organs people with DSDs have. Shockingly, most have the exact same or similar gonads to “typical” individuals, just at times with different configurations.
We can understand the different types of gonads that come up in DSDs:
Testes: A number of DSDs result in bilateral testes, or a testis and a streak gonad, making the individual’s gonadal sex to be male. Most typically seen in 46XY DSD, where genitalia or endocrine composition is where difference is seen, testes can also occur in those without a Y chromosome, such as in 46XX SRY+
Ovaries: A number of DSDs will result in bilateral ovaries, with the most common ovarian DSD being CAH (congential adrenal hyperplasia), and differences are seen in genitalia and endocrine composition. In very rare cases, someone with 46XY can have ovaries
.