If you're fertile, your sex is definitely either male or female.

If you're sterile, you might be genetically intersex...or you might have a medical condition that has made you sterile.

My point is that the genetic mutations that lead to sterile intersex individuals would seem to preclude the idea that "we are all intersex".

Once you starting Othering someone into an "it" via a lack of procreative ability, decency demands that you consider children and post-menopausal women to be its.

Nice strawman. One could simply consider post-menopausal women "post-menopausal women".

And the term "children" has nothing to do with either sex or gender.

Okay, here's my fresh proposition:

Fertile/Infertile

It's a pretty clear distinction.

It's also a socially valid distinction, since one's worth rises and declines with one's procreative potential.

Has that line ever worked?

For ANYONE?

You can program people to be whatever you want them to be and a certain percentage of them will do the opposite.

Given a choice, people will make choices, the more choices, the more variation there is, and the more choices are generated.

People are having sex with vegetables, fruit and mechanical devices so why worry about gender?

however the 8th grade biology class approach is valid when looking at one's own sexual reality, IMO.

"If God made human beings intersex then God's will regarding human sexual behavior is suddenly a lot more difficult to discern."

and even if god did exists, how could anyone possibly know anything about what got "wants" us to do?

It's not Catholic bashing to say that priests molested children and the church covered it up. It's just a fact. And whether other religious leaders have done the same is pretty immaterial to the example as it is used -- climb off your cross, dude.

And it's not a big reach to say that if some priests could be fucked up enough to do that some other priest could be freaked out enough by a person with no or both genders to say "God would understand if you killed yourself."

Every letter in this thread assumes that an intersex person, even if they are lucky enough to escape having their genitals mutilated by their well meaning but misguided parents will eventually want to surgically alter themselves to look more ‘normal’ down there. People also seem to be assuming that intersex people should pick a gender ASAP, that sooner is better for these surgeries. Are either of these assumptions valid? I’m sure many would make the choice to appear either male or female, but wouldn’t some people be happy with their ‘god given’ ambiguous parts? If they are, they should not be pressured to change them.

That said, I agree with the posters who say that the parents should pick a pronoun and a clothing style to use on their child until that child is old enough to pick for himself or herself.

Find a tattoo parlour that does piercing and pay some guy to shove a needle through the head of your penis or your clitoris.

After you have paid the gentleman, ask yourself this, If your kid found out that you did WHAAAAAAT? . . . .

BTW - you may want to be ready to change your mind real quick.

But HEY, it makes for conversation whenever you get on a plane.

First you write...

"From what little I know, it appears as though the parents arbitrarily picked a gender, and they chose wrong. So they now have a son with female genitalia."

Then you write...

"These are wonderful, caring parents. They did what they thought was the right thing, encouraged by the team of doctors they worked with."

Well obviously they are not "wonderful, caring parents". Didn't you not just describe them as having "arbitrarily picked a gender"? Gee, how..."wonderful"? "[W]onderful, caring parents" do not subject their children to destructive surgeries for the sake of social conformity. These parents are at best typical cowards and more likely outright monsters like the "team of doctors" who carried out this mutilation of a child. The lack of malice does not change the irreversible harm they have caused another human being.

"which I guess will be a trying time for him and his parents.:

You "guess" a man who has had his penis amputated by his "wonderful, caring parents" will have a hard time. Careful, don't get too bold in your projections.

And boohoo for what a "trying time" it will be for the parents. I hope their much deserved guilt eats them like a cancer everyday of their life until they are just shells of humanity.

"If they could have a do-over, maybe they would have postponed surgery so that the child could decide eventually whether to have surgical intervention."

"[M]aybe they would have"? Wow, you just come across as a utter postmodern moral coward. You are so afraid of offending or passing judgment, that you end up effectively siding with this kind of banal evil.

It is amazing the opinions people have on Intersex people without knowing all the facts and for most not knowing anyone with this condition or parents of a child who is intersex. As a parent who knew their child would be Intersex before the baby was born and trying to find out as much information as possible about this condition (which is not easy) I take offense that out decision to have surgery on our child and raise him male was mutilating our child.

We didn't decide because it was the easy way out(putting a child thru surgery is never easy), we thought about nothing but our child’s well being even when we had some doctors pressing us to have surgery right away because they are surgeons and that is what they do. In addition Intersex people are genetically male/female where as gays, lesbians and transgender people who are 100% genetically male or female and as we know that doesn't always guarantee you are what you think you are. The truth is; not much is known about this condition and it is not just the sex genes you have to worry about. Any child that is born with a genetic issue needs to worry about possible issues with heart, kidneys, liver or autoimmune issues. Not only does a parent worry that their child will be considered a freak just because of how they were born but also need to worry about their health issues as well.

Our child was born XO, XY, XYY with a testis on one side and streak ovaries on the other, with a normal testosterone for a male child and a small penis then normal with a extreme hypospadias(the urethral opening was not at the tip). He has a mild heart condition which we monitor with a cardiologist. We consultant with physiatrists, with our geneticist, our endocrinologist as well as an excellent doctor who has been working with Intersex children for 20 years and who’s advice we took. Our child is now a happy and healthy 4 ½ year old boy (of that we have no doubt) who has a normal and functioning penis (which he likes). We plan on telling him his makeup and not keeping it a secret which our doctor says is the major issue that intersex children have when they find out about themselves, it wasn’t the surgery that they were upset about but the secrecy on who they are. The main issue is that doctors put a lot of pressure on parents to make a decision quickly (which we didn’t), the medical profession and parents need step back before any decision is made. Our biggest concern was what if we made a mistake and he wants to be a girl, as this has happen to other children and how we would deal with it. Our decision for our child is what we thought was best for him and his life and that nothing we did couldn’t be corrected. There is a saying in the Intersex community when looking at surgery, “it is better to build a pole then dig a hole”. I am not saying which is right or wrong but until you are in a position to have to make a decision like this and hope to good it is the right one, you should keep you opinions to yourself or at least think about it more than making off the cuff statements you have no idea what you are talking about.