Ambiguous genitalia is a rare condition in which an infant's external genitals don't appear to be clearly either male or female. In a baby with ambiguous genitalia, the genitals may be incompletely developed or the baby may have characteristics of both sexes. The external sex organs may not match the internal sex organs or genetic sex. Ambiguous genitalia isn't a disease, it's a disorder of sex development.
The Intersex Society of North America closed its doors and stopped updating this website in For current information, links to intersex support groups, and to connect with intersex advocates, please head to interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth. How small does a penis have to be before it counts as intersex? Below we provide a summary of statistics drawn from an article by Brown University researcher Anne Fausto-Sterling. Note that the frequency of some of these conditions, such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, differs for different populations. These statistics are approximations. Not XX and not XY one in 1, births Klinefelter XXY one in 1, births Androgen insensitivity syndrome one in 13, births Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome one in , births Classical congenital adrenal hyperplasia one in 13, births Late onset adrenal hyperplasia one in 66 individuals Vaginal agenesis one in 6, births Ovotestes one in 83, births Idiopathic no discernable medical cause one in , births Iatrogenic caused by medical treatment, for instance progestin administered to pregnant mother no estimate 5 alpha reductase deficiency no estimate Mixed gonadal dysgenesis no estimate Complete gonadal dysgenesis one in , births Hypospadias urethral opening in perineum or along penile shaft one in 2, births Hypospadias urethral opening between corona and tip of glans penis one in births.
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. In recent years, awareness of intersex people, and recognition of the specific human rights abuses that they face, has grown, thanks to the work of intersex human rights defenders.
True hermaphroditism , sometimes referred to as ovotesticular syndrome , [1] [2] is an intersex condition in which an individual is born with both ovarian and testicular tissue. Commonly, one or both gonads is an ovotestis containing both types of tissue. Although it is similar in some ways to mixed gonadal dysgenesis , the conditions can be distinguished histologically. The first medical attempts to document cases appeared in the 16th century.