Intersex

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.