hedwig and the angry millimeter

1 in 1000. That’s how many babies are born in an intersex condition. That’s people who are not clearly male or female. Sometimes it is a chromosomal aberration (XXY); other times, it is a hormonal aberration; in all cases, the human could end up with “mixed” sexual characteristics (ambiguous genitalia or secondary sex characteristics that don’t seem to match the genitalia that we expect).

1 in 1000 people are neither male or female. Physically. Biologically. Born that way. And yet, we only acknowledge the existence of two sexes. The medical establishment has been aware of this for ages (although they often hide the fact by “fixing” the intersex children); the Olympics have been aware of intersex people for decades (note, however, that the article’s definition of intersex is incomplete as it is not only chromosomal & the Olympics still insists on the male/female categorization since it is more convenient).

How could a minority of people numbering approximately 300,000 people (in this country alone) be so completely invisible? Unacknowledged. And this is not even getting into the subject of people who may appear to be one sex, but identify otherwise. 3 genders, 13 months (moon-cycles) per year. The natural truths that we choose to define out of existence.