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In the position paper published in the recent issue of Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism, intersex activists (Alice Dreger and Cheryl Chase) and expert physicians join together in calling for changing the taxonomy of intersex conditions. The current taxonomy, which divides intersex conditions to three categories ("female pseudohermaphroditism," "male pseudohermaphroditism," and "true hermaphroditism") was developed in the late 19th century, when doctors believed that one's gonads (testes or ovaries) determined her or his "true sex." That belief was abandoned in the 20th century in favour of John Money's controversial and later rejected theory that one can be raised as a boy or a girl regardless of the gonads. The gonad-based system from the Victorian era lost all of its usefulness at that point, but somehow it survived until now.
In addition to being clinically useless, the old taxonomy is criticised because it is stigmatising. The word "hermaphrodite" misleads people into thinking that the existence of intersex people are just a myth, or worse, that intersex people are the mythical "hermaphroditic" creatures complete with two sets of genitalia (which isn't true). Further, the distinction between "true" and "pseudo" hermaphroditism establishes meaningless ranking of severity. Dreger, Chase and others argue that all terms based on the root "hermaphrodite" should be removed from the medical language describing intersexuality.
Source:
Dreger AD, Chase C, Sousa A, Gruppuso PA, Frader J (2005). "Changing the nomenclature/taxonomy for intersex: a scientific and clinical rationale." Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism. Aug;18(8):729-33. Also see the response by Houk CP, Lee PA, Rapaport R.
Posted by Emi on Oct 7, 2005