intersex
Last reviewed 01/2018
An individual's gender may be defined at several levels:
- at the genetic level - the presence of one or more Y chromosomes usually defines a male
- gonadal sex - gender is assigned according to the histological characteristics of the gonads
- ductal sex - females retain derivatives of the Mullerian ducts, males retain derivatives of the Wolffian ducts
- genital sex - depends on the appearance of the external genitalia
Sexual ambiguity is present when these various methods of gender assignment are not concordant.
There are two main classes of intersex disorders:
- true hermaphrodites
- pseudohermphrodites
It is also important to consider ambiguous genitalia in this context.