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SOCIETY
Born Beyond Binary
Why we need a third sex category
As a standard part of my job, I have to ask people on a daily basis what sex they were recognised as at birth, “Male, female or other”. It’s surprising how many people still state quite emphatically that “There are only two categories”.
Even legal documents such as passports and birth certificates often categorise people as either male or female, despite some individuals being born ‘intersex’. It is estimated that around one in every 1500–2000 live births fall into this category. Such newborns cannot be determined by doctors as either male or female, as their reproductive organs and/or anatomy (and sometimes their genetics) do not fall into a recognised male or female category. So should the law in England and Wales be reformed to recognise a third sex category, alongside the traditionally binary classifications of male and female?
There is no ‘typical’ intersex baby. A baby may have the appearance of female genitalia but the internal anatomy of a typical male, they may have ambiguous genitalia, showing both ‘male’ and ‘female’ characteristics, or they may have ‘mosaic genetics’ where some cells have XX chromosomes and other cells have XY chromosomes. Various societies around the world and throughout the ages have recognised that sex and gender cannot easily be…
