Today the Italian boxer Angela Carini lasted only 46 seconds in the ring and left the fight, bursting into tears, after a strong blow to the face. “That’s unfair!” she shouted, protesting her opponent. “I have always honored my country with passion and loyalty,” Karini said with tears in her eyes. “This time I didn’t make it because I couldn’t fight anymore. One punch hurt too much and so I said enough.”
The athlete from Algeria is not transgender, but may be an intersex person, in which their genitals or chromosomes do not match their gender.
What does it mean to be born intersex?
The letter “I” in the acronym LGBTI+ corresponds to healthy human bodies that to this day are often pathologized and subjected to gender “normalization” operations in their absence.
Intersex is an umbrella term that refers to inherent physical differences in gender characteristics or reproductive anatomy. The correct rendering of the term in Greek is transsexual, but the community prefers the term intersex.
Intersex physicality differs from typical all-male and/or female in the sense that it typically moves along the spectrum of biological sex. As in every human, so even more especially in intersex people, the anatomy, the internal or external genitalia, are differentiated, but almost always functional and without the need for surgery.
Intersex people are characterized by their different physiology, where they may or may not have a defined anatomical sex. More specifically, an intersex person can be born with more sex chromosomes than the two most common for most people, for example with sex chromosomes of the form XXXY, XXXX, XYY, XXXXY, XXYY, X0 etc (there are about 30 different combinations) or with two reproductive organs, one of which is only partially developed.
Intersex individuals also include XX males and XY females, as well as XX and XY individuals with AIS, CAH, PAIS, MKHK etc.. A common practice until a few years ago (which still continues, in most countries where it is not prohibited by law) was for intersex infants and children, as well as those with ambiguous external genitalia, to undergo surgery or hormonal modification to become more acceptable than society gender characteristics.
However, such interventions are considered controversial, with no evidence that they have a good outcome. These non-reversible interventions may include sterilization or reassignment to a gender not desired by the individual himself when he reaches adolescence or adulthood.
Adults too, among them elite female athletes, have undergone such interventions. Contemporary studies suggest a growing medical consensus that various intersex bodies are normal forms of human biology.
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:
Intersex individuals are born with gender characteristics (genitalia, gonads, chromosomes, or hormonal profiles) that do not correspond to the standard binary conception of the male and female body. Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of natural physical diversity.
In some cases, intersex characteristics are visible at birth while other times they do not become apparent until puberty. Some chromosomal intersex variations may not even be noticed.
In biological terms, sex is determined by a number of factors at birth, including:
the number and type of sex chromosomes,
the type of gonads – ovaries or testes, or gonads (mixed tissue gonads)
sex hormones (the production and the body’s response to them),
the internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus in females) and
the external genitalia.
People who have gender characteristics that are not all-male or all-female at birth are intersex.
Some intersex characteristics are not always visible at birth. Some children may be born with ambiguous genitalia, while others may have ambiguous internal organs (testicles and ovaries). Others may not know they are intersex unless they undergo genetic testing because it may not show up in their phenotype.
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#Intersex #term
