Clitoridectomy or clitorectomy is the surgical removal, reduction, or partial removal of the clitoris. It is rarely used as a therapeutic medical procedure, such as when cancer has developed in or spread to the clitoris. It is often performed on intersex newborns. Commonly, non-medical removal of the clitoris is performed during female genital mutilation (FGM).
5α-Reductase 2 deficiency (5αR2D) is an autosomal recessive condition caused by a mutation in SRD5A2, a gene encoding the enzyme 5α-reductase type 2 (5αR2). The condition is rare, affects only genetic males, and has a broad spectrum.
Sex verification in sports occurs because eligibility of athletes to compete is restricted whenever sporting events are limited to a single sex, which is generally the case, as well as when events are limited to mixed-sex teams of defined composition. Practice has varied tremendously over time, across borders and by competitive level. Issues have arisen multiple times in the Olympic games and other high-profile sporting competitions, for example allegations that certain male athletes attempted to compete as women or that certain female athletes had intersex conditions perceived to give unfair advantage. The topic of sex verification is related to the more recent question of how to treat transgender people in sports. Sex verification is not typically conducted on athletes competing in the male category because there is generally no perceived competitive advantage for a female or intersex athlete to compete in male categories.
Foekje Dillema was a Dutch track and field athlete. She competed in sprinting where she was a rival of Fanny Blankers-Koen. When she refused a sex verification test, she was banned from competition by the International Association of Athletics Federations in 1950. After her death, it was determined that she was an intersex person.
Intersex medical interventions, also known as intersex genital mutilations (IGM), are surgical, hormonal and other medical interventions performed to modify atypical or ambiguous genitalia and other sex characteristics, primarily for the purposes of making a person's appearance more typical and to reduce the likelihood of future problems. The history of intersex surgery has been characterized by controversy due to reports that surgery can compromise sexual function and sensation, and create lifelong health issues. Timing, evidence, necessity and indications for surgeries in infancy, adolescence or adult age have been controversial, associated with issues of consent.
Clitoromegaly is an abnormal enlargement of the clitoris that is mostly congenital or acquired, though deliberately induced clitoris enlargement as a form of genital body modification is achieved through various uses of anabolic steroids, including testosterone. Clitoromegaly is not the same as normal enlargement of the clitoris seen during sexual arousal.
Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".
Rebecca M. Jordan-Young, is an American feminist scientist and gender studies scholar. Her research focuses on social medical science, sex, gender, sexuality, and epidemiology. She is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College.
Hida Viloria is a Latine American writer, author, producer, and human rights activist. Viloria is intersex, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming, using they/them pronouns. They are known for their writing, their intersex and non-binary human rights activism, and as one of the first people to come out in national and international media as a nonbinary intersex person. Viloria is Founding Director of the Intersex Campaign for Equality.
Anne Tamar-Mattis is an American attorney, human rights advocate, and founder of interACT. She currently serves as interACT's Legal Director.
Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience, a book by Stanford anthropologist and bioethicist Katrina Karkazis, was published in 2008. Described as "thoughtful", "meticulous", and an "authoritative treatise on intersex", the book examines the perspectives of intersex people, their families, and clinicians to offer compassionate look at the treatment of people born with atypical sex characteristics.
Georgiann Davis is an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico and author of the book Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis. Davis formerly held similar positions at University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, she writes widely on intersex issues and the sociology of diagnosis.
Morgan Carpenter is a bioethicist, intersex activist and researcher. In 2013, he created an intersex flag, and became president of Intersex Human Rights Australia. He is now a co-executive director. In 2015, he cofounded a project to mark Intersex Awareness Day.
Maria José Martínez-Patiño is a Spanish former hurdler, whose dismissal from the Spanish Olympic team in 1986 for failing the gender test is a notable moment in the history of sex verification in sports.
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics that "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". They are substantially more likely to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) than the non-intersex population, with an estimated 52% identifying as non-heterosexual and 8.5% to 20% experiencing gender dysphoria. Although many intersex people are heterosexual and cisgender, this overlap and "shared experiences of harm arising from dominant societal sex and gender norms" has led to intersex people often being included under the LGBT umbrella, with the acronym sometimes expanded to LGBTI. Some intersex activists and organisations have criticised this inclusion as distracting from intersex-specific issues such as involuntary medical interventions.
Intersex people in the United States have some of the same rights as other people, but with significant gaps, particularly in protection from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions and violence, and protection from discrimination. Actions by intersex civil society organizations aim to eliminate harmful practices, promote social acceptance, and equality. In recent years, intersex activists have also secured some forms of legal recognition. Since April 11, 2022 US Passports give the sex/gender options of male, female and X by self determination.
Intersex people in France face significant gaps in protection from non-consensual medical interventions and protection from discrimination. The birth of Herculine Barbin, a nineteenth-century intersex woman, is marked in Intersex Day of Remembrance. Barbin may have been the first intersex person to write a memoir, later published by Michel Foucault.
Intersex people are born with natural variations in physical and sex characteristics including those of the chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". Such variations may involve genital ambiguity, and combinations of chromosomal genotype and sexual phenotype other than XY-male and XX-female. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis allows the elimination of embryos and fetuses with intersex traits and thus has an impact on discrimination against intersex people.
The testosterone regulations in women's athletics are a series of policies first published in 2011 by the IAAF and last updated following a court victory against Caster Semenya in May 2019. The first version of the rules applied to all women with high testosterone, but the current version of the rules only apply to athletes with certain XY disorders of sexual development, and set a 5 nmol/L testosterone limit, which applies only to distances between 400 m and 1 mile (inclusive), other events being unrestricted.
