Intersex people are individuals born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes , gonads , sex hormones or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights , "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". Intersex people were previously referred to as hermaphrodites or "congenital eunuchs ". It was the first attempt at creating a taxonomic classification system of intersex conditions. Intersex people were categorized as either having true hermaphroditism , female pseudohermaphroditism , or male pseudohermaphroditism. Intersex people face stigmatization and discrimination from birth, or from discovery of an intersex trait, such as from puberty.
True hermaphroditism
hermaphroditism | Definition, Types, & Effects | Britannica
A 3-year-old child presented with left sided undescended testis and penoscrotal hypospadias. Chordee correction was performed 18 months back, elsewhere. At laparotomy Mullerian structures were present on left side. On right side testis was normally descended into the scrotum. True hermaphrodite or ovo-testicular disorder of sexual differentiation OVO-DSD is one of the rarest variety of all inter sex anomalies. There have been reports of 46 XY karyotype [ 1 ].
Photos: Bizarre Sex Lives of Hermaphrodite Sea Slugs
Siphotperon sp. A simultaneous hermaphrodite, the slug has both male and female reproductive organs that it uses simultaneously during sex shown here. For its male organ, the slug has a two-pronged penis consisting of a penile bulb that transfers sperm, and a separate, needlelike appendage called a penile stylet that stabs and injects partners with prostate fluid-containing sex hormones called allohormones. Here, a reciprocal copulation between the sea slugs with both penile stylets pst inserted into the mating partners' foreheads h ; the penile bulbs pb are inserted in the mating partners' female genital openings hidden behind the right parapods pa. The close-up photograph of a reciprocal copulation c shows the penile stylet of the left individual inserted into the forehead of the right individual.
Hermaphroditism , the condition of having both male and female reproductive organs. Hermaphroditic plants —most flowering plants, or angiosperms —are called monoecious, or bisexual. Hermaphroditic animals—mostly invertebrates such as worms , bryozoans moss animals , trematodes flukes , snails , slugs , and barnacles —are usually parasitic, slow-moving, or permanently attached to another animal or plant.