Welcome back to your favorite educational web series InQueery, where we dive deep into the history — sorry — themstory of LGBTQ+ terms and vocabulary. In this episode, our very own video producer/editor and intersex advocate Maria Tridas explores the history of the word "intersex," from its beginnings as a medical term to its reclamation by the intersex community. Check out the full video (and script below) to learn more about what it means to be intersex.
From its introduction as a medical term to its rebranding in the 1990s, the word “intersex” has been reclaimed by activists. And it’s a word that challenges how doctors treat intersex bodies. So, how much do you really know about the history of the word “intersex”? Stick with me to find out.
Intersex is an umbrella term that refers to people who carry variations in their reproductive and sexual anatomy that differ from what is traditionally male or female. An intersex person can appear to have one kind of genitalia on the outside, and another internally. They might have some XX chromosomes and some XY chromosomes. They can have ambiguous genitalia or not, and know at birth that they’re intersex or find out later. The bottom line is: intersex is a word with a broad meaning. And, we’ve only been using it this way for the past hundred years.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “intersex” has been around since the late 1700s. Before the twentieth century, the term was rare and referred to relations “between the sexes.” It was only in 1917 that a German geneticist named Richard Goldschmidt used the term in the way we understand it today.
In his research, Goldschmidt created the term to describe moths with atypical sex characteristics. And, it extended to humans who — at the time — would have been called “hermaphrodites.” The term “hermaphrodite” was used in eighteenth and nineteenth century medical literature to describe individuals who were intersex. Now considered a derogatory slur, the term evoked a mythical creature and the pursuit of a body with both male and female reproductive anatomy.
Staying in the nineteenth century for a moment, we can get a sense of the discrimination that intersex people have faced throughout history.