They are acknowledged by our Lord Jesus in his words about “eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb.” With all others they are welcome as faithful followers of Jesus Christ and should embrace their biological sex insofar as it may be known.
Intersex people were affirmed by Jesus in Matthew 19:12, and by Augustine in City of God 16:8.
The Hebrew Bible lacks a term for androgyny or hermaphroditism. The term tumtumim, which identifies persons of indeterminate or “hidden” sex, appears later in rabbinic texts.
Intersex people face stigmatisation and discrimination from birth, particularly when an intersex variation is visible. In some countries (particularly in Africa and Asia) this may include infanticide, abandonment and the stigmatization of families.
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics (including genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns) that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Experts estimate that up to 1.7 percent of the population are born with intersex traits.
An intersex person is called a Khunthaa in the books of Fiqh. Intersex medical interventions are considered permissible to achieve agreement between a person's exterior, chromosomal make-up or sex organs. They are regarded as treatment and not the altering of Allah's creation or imitation of the opposite sex.
At the federal level, "intersex status" became a protected attribute in the federal Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), making it unlawful to discriminate against a person based upon that person's intersex status in contexts such as work, education, provision of services, and accommodation.
True hermaphroditism, the rarest form of intersex, is usually diagnosed during the newborn period in the course of evaluating ambiguous genitalia.
People who are intersex may have a mix of chromosomes, such as XXY. Or they may have some cells that are XY and some cells that are XX. Or they may have just one X chromosome (XO). Other combinations can occur too.
Hermaphroditus was the child of the gods Hermes and Aphrodite. They were an intersex deity and the god of androgyny and effeminate men.
Many of these hermaphroditic species can reproduce asexually, through their own gametes, or sexually, when their eggs are fertilized by sperm cells from other conspecific individuals. The most plausible hypothesis on the evolution of simultaneous hermaphroditism is the limited availability of mating partners.
A person will generally know if they have intersex traits.
The clues are in bodies and past experiences, whether or not those experiences are medical. However, many people who do have differences in their sex traits may never hear the word intersex, or may not know how broad the word can be.
Intersex is not a medical problem, but due to stigma and lack of awareness, intersex people face unique health challenges. This is especially true for younger people who often have less control over their medical care, more health disparities and sometimes receive medically unnecessary procedures.
Gender identity
The congregation explains that men are men and male and that women are women and female due to their sex chromosomes, and that hermaphrodites and people confused about their sex ought to receive medical assistance rather than be treated as a third gender or genderless.
Applying this more precise definition, the true prevalence of intersex is seen to be about 0.018%, almost 100 times lower than Fausto-Sterling's estimate of 1.7%. This statement actually contains two distinct definitions (separated by the word “or”) relating to phenotypes and chromosomes.
In the literature, pregnancy cases that developed through self-fertilization were not reported in humans. However, autofertilization was detected in mammalian hermaphrodites such as domestic rabbit.
Some people are actually born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't fit traditional sex binaries of male and female. This is generally called 'intersex', and intersex people too may have periods.
Intersex variation is a natural biological event that is likely to happen in about 17 in every 1,000 live births (1.7%). The is about the same as the number of people with red hair.
Organisation Intersex International Australia (2014) suggests that people with intersex variations make up 1.7% of births, but estimates range from 1 in 2,000 births (0.05%) to 8 in 200 (4%), and exact figures are unknown.
There are several possible causes: Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (the most common cause). Male hormones (such as testosterone) taken or encountered by the mother during pregnancy. Male hormone-producing tumors in the mother: These are most often ovarian tumors.
Parents often find out their child is intersex at birth, but not always. Healthcare providers sometimes detect atypical sex development during an ultrasound before a baby is born. It's also possible to find out your child has a DSD months or years after birth, such as in early childhood or during puberty.
During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female. After approximately 6 to 7 weeks of gestation, however, the expression of a gene on the Y chromosome induces changes that result in the development of the testes.
How many people are intersex? Most advocacy groups estimate that 1.7% percent of people are born intersex — the equivalent of about 5.6 million U.S. residents.