Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
David B. Cooper, Jo Cooper in Palliative Care Within Mental Health, 2018
This combination of letters encompasses both sexuality and gender. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual, indicate sexuality. Lesbian and gay also usually indicate sex in that lesbians are usually women and gays are frequently men, although some use this last term as an all-encompassing one denoting non-heterosexuality. However, people born male who express their gender as feminine can be lesbians and vice versa. Bisexual is not a gendered term and can be applied to any gender and indicates someone whose sexual attraction is not confined to only certain genders. Intersex can refer to a person born with either ambiguous genitalia or genitals of both male and female sexes or any combination of genitalia. A person who identifies as intersex might express their gender in various ways. The letter Q indicates questioning and usually means sexuality but it could also apply to other areas of questioning. Transgender is a blanket term that can apply to those who express their gender differently from the sex assigned at birth and can also include transsexual to indicate people who have altered their bodies to more closely conform to their chosen sex.
Sex and gender blind spots and biases in health research
Sridhar Venkatapuram, Alex Broadbent in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Public Health, 2023
Sex and gender are distinct concepts and should be applied precisely. The use of these two terms interchangeably perpetuates confusion and leads to incorrect analyses. Sex is widely defined and understood as the biological and physiological characteristics that distinguish males and females. And sex is thought to have independent and cumulative effects on disease pathology, progression, health outcomes, and inequities through genetic, cellular, and physiological pathways. Sex is usually understood in binary terms—as genetic differences between females and males based on the former carrying two X chromosomes and the latter carrying an X and a Y chromosome. There is an increasing recognition that sex is not an absolute binary category and includes intersex individuals with variations in sex chromosomes, genes, internal reproductive organs, and hormones and secondary sex characteristics such as external genitalia. Intersex persons have been estimated to make up 1–2% of the population. The estimations can depend on the diagnostic criteria and cultural stigma, which can prevent disclosure (Carpenter 2016; Fausto-Sterling 2000; Jones 2018).
Gender
David B Cooper in Ethics in Mental Health–Substance Use, 2017
The term ‘sex’ is used in everyday language in two ways: it is used to describe the ‘sexual’ or physical ‘sexual act’ (Beasley 2005), and used to identify a person’s designation at birth as either male or female, based on biological and morphological differences, such as differences in anatomy (genitalia/reproductive organs) or biology (sex chromosomes and/or hormones). Within this biological perspective xy chromosome pairing denotes ‘male’ and xx chromosomes ‘female’. However, 2 percent of the population are born intersex with sex characteristics (chromosomes, genitals, and/or hormonal structure) that fall outside the accepted norms of male or female. This very fact clearly indicates that sex is a spectrum and that people with variations of sex characteristics other than male or female do exist, thus challenging the simple binary division of male and female.
Ageing in obscurity: a critical literature review regarding older intersex people
Published in Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 2022
Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a variety of sex characteristics that fall outside accepted binary notions of male and female bodies. Some traits are visible at birth while others are not apparent until puberty.1 In the mid-1950s, Dr John Money theorised that children born with ambiguous genitalia could be successfully raised in whatever gender they were assigned.2 Money’s theory, embraced by medical professionals, led to procedures being performed to enforce sex binaries on intersex infants worldwide. This went largely unchallenged until the 1990s.3 As intersex conditions are generally associated with and considered only in relation to paediatric care, little is understood about the needs of the intersex person throughout the remainder of their life into old age.4,5 The paucity of literature relating to older intersex people3 illustrates how intersex variations are often relegated to paediatric urology and endocrinology and then seemingly forgotten about. Existing literature often includes only a handful of intersex participants.6–8 The oldest of the children operated on under the guidelines of Dr John Money are in their mid-sixties today.
Pregnancy intentions and outcomes among transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people assigned female or intersex at birth in the United States: Results from a national, quantitative survey
Published in International Journal of Transgender Health, 2020
Heidi Moseson, Laura Fix, Jen Hastings, Ari Stoeffler, Mitchell R. Lunn, Annesa Flentje, Micah E. Lubensky, Matthew R. Capriotti, Sachiko Ragosta, Hannah Forsberg, Juno Obedin-Maliver
Transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive (TGE) people (i.e., individuals whose gender identity differs from the gender identity commonly assumed for the sex assigned to them at birth) who were assigned female sex at birth often retain a uterus and may carry pregnancies (Cipres et al., 2017; Fein et al., 2019; Light et al., 2018, 2014; Obedin-Maliver & Makadon, 2016). People assigned intersex at birth or who identify as intersex are those who have “natural variations in sex characteristics that do not seem to fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies” (InterAct Advocates for Intersex Youth & Lambda Legal, 2018). Such variations do not necessarily impact capacity for pregnancy, although some irreversible surgeries completed on children diagnosed as intersex may impair fertility (Human Rights Watch & InterAct Advocates for Intersex Youth, 2017). Despite the fact that individuals from both of these groups can and do carry pregnancies, TGE and intersex people have been excluded from sexual and reproductive health research. Almost all prior research has focused on pregnancies solely among cisgender women (i.e., people whose gender identity aligns with the gender identity commonly assumed for those assigned female sex at birth) (Moseson et al., 2020), which presents a narrow view of reproductive health and family building.
The OHCHR background note on human rights violations against intersex people
Published in Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 2020
Intersex people have any of a diverse range of innate physical variations in sex characteristics that differ from medical and social norms for female or male bodies. These traits mean that intersex people risk or experience stigmatisation, discrimination and violence, including in medical, education and other settings. In many legal systems, intersex people were historically acknowledged using terms like hermaphrodite or barren women, with related jurisprudence governing marriage and inheritance. In modern times, the word hermaphrodite has narrowed in meaning, and given way to the umbrella terms intersex and, controversially, “disorders of sex development” or the ameliorative “differences of sex development”. Intersex bodies have become medicalised and atomised, with individual underlying variations each becoming associated with specific diagnostic terms.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Gonad
- Hermaphrodite
- Phenotype
- Sexual Characteristics
- Klinefelter Syndrome
- Chromosome
- Sex Organ
- Sex Assignment
- Definitions of Intersex
- Late Onset Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia