How frequently

[Guest Nala]

Hello

I'll be honest, I don't know much about being intersexed. Although I saw one documentary about it on national geographic, it says intersex is as common as born with reddish hair (as we call it, Venetian blond ). But I'm not sure about it.

So my question is: How frequent is it to be born intersexed? And how do people handle with this 'situation'?

Cheers!

Sanne

[Carolyn Marie]

Well, Nala, I found a site with more information than you could ever likely use. You want statistics, girl, have I got statistics:

http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency

Hope it helps.

Carolyn Marie

[Guest Nala]

Haha, thanks a lot Carolyn! You're awesome

[Guest Peggy]

Hi Nala,

You wrote,

...my question is: How frequent is it to be born intersexed?...

As that ISNA page says, it depends on how you define "intersex". One thing, though, no matter how you define it, it is almost impossible to come up with the widely quoted "one in 2,000" statistic. That number appears to have come from nowhere.

If you define intersex as "ambiguous genitalia, such that there is difficulty deciding whether a newborn baby is a boy or a girl", it would be more like 1 in 10,00 or fewer. That's using the numbers from the Blackless et al. article that ISNA themselves quote as authoritative.

....And how do people handle with this 'situation'?

Lots of different ways. One could write a book - books have been written. The ones by John Mney have the most detail about actual real-life intersex persons

Some intersex persons have difficult lives and that can be partly because we live in a prudish society that strongly stigmatizes sexual differences. Gender identity is an issue for some, but not all. Difficulty with a sex life and romantic relationships is often a problem, as is infertility.

Friendly greetings to all,

Peggy