Intersex
History

From early history, societies have been aware of intersex people. Some of the earliest evidence is found in mythology: the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote of the mythological Hermaphroditus in the first century BC, who was "born with a physical body which is a combination of that of a man and that of a woman", and reputedly possessed supernatural properties. He also recounted the lives of Diophantus of Abae and Callon of Epidaurus. Ardhanarishvara, an androgynous composite form of male deity Shiva and female deity Parvati, originated in Kushan culture as far back as the first century AD. A statue depicting Ardhanarishvara is included in India's Meenakshi Temple; this statue clearly shows both male and female bodily elements.

Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370 BC, Greek physician) and Galen (129 – c. 200/216 AD, Roman physician, surgeon, and philosopher) both viewed sex as a spectrum between men and women, with "many shades in between, including hermaphrodites, a perfect balance of male and female". Pliny the Elder (AD 23/24–79), a Roman naturalist, described "those who are born of both sexes, whom we call hermaphrodites, at one time androgyni " (from the Greek andr-, "man", and gyn-, "woman"). Augustine (354 – 430 AD), the influential Catholic theologian, wrote in The Literal Meaning of Genesis that humans were created in two sexes, despite "as happens in some births, in the case of what we call androgynes".

In medieval and early modern European societies, Roman law, post-classical canon law, and later common law, referred to a person's sex as male, female or hermaphrodite, with legal rights as male or female depending on the characteristics that appeared most dominant. The 12th century Decretum Gratiani states, "Whether an hermaphrodite may witness a testament, depends on which sex prevails." The foundation of common law, the 17th century Institutes of the Lawes of England described how a hermaphrodite could inherit "either as male or female, according to that kind of sexe which doth prevaile". Legal cases have been described in canon law and elsewhere over the centuries.

Some non-European societies have sex or gender systems that recognize more than the two categories of male/man and female/woman. Some of these cultures, for instance the South-Asian Hijra communities, may include intersex people in a third gender category. Although—according to Morgan Holmes —early Western anthropologists categorized such cultures as "primitive", Holmes has argued that analyses of these cultures have been simplistic or romanticized and fail to take account of the ways that subjects of all categories are treated.

During the Victorian era, medical authors introduced the terms " true hermaphrodite " for an individual who has both ovarian and testicular tissue, "male pseudo-hermaphrodite" for a person with testicular tissue, but either female or ambiguous sexual anatomy, and "female pseudo-hermaphrodite" for a person with ovarian tissue, but either male or ambiguous sexual anatomy. Some later shifts in terminology have reflected advances in genetics, while other shifts are suggested to be due to pejorative associations.

The term "intersexuality" was coined by Richard Goldschmidt in 1917. The first suggestion to replace the term "hermaphrodite" with "intersex" was made by Cawadias in the 1940s.

Since the rise of modern medical science, some intersex people with ambiguous external genitalia have had their genitalia surgically modified to resemble either female or male genitals. Surgeons pinpointed intersex babies as a "social emergency" when born. An 'optimal gender policy', initially developed by John Money, stated that early intervention helped avoid gender identity confusion, but this lacks evidence. Early interventions have adverse consequences for psychological and physical health. Since advances in surgery have made it possible for intersex conditions to be concealed, many people are not aware of how frequently intersex conditions arise in human beings or that they occur at all.

Dialogue between what were once antagonistic groups of activists and clinicians has led to only slight changes in medical policies and how intersex patients and their families are treated in some locations. In 2011, Christiane Völling became the first intersex person known to have successfully sued for damages in a case brought for non-consensual surgical intervention. In April 2015, Malta became the first country to outlaw non-consensual medical interventions to modify sex anatomy, including that of intersex people. Many civil society organizations and human rights institutions now call for an end to unnecessary "normalizing" interventions, including in the Malta declaration.
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