Wotan,<br><br>Keep in mind that there are three
categories of gender that come into play when diagnosing or
ruling out intersex conditions. <br><br>1. Chromosomal
Gender is what your karyotype shows, XX, XY, or some
variant like XXXO XYXO, etc.<br><br>2. Phenotypical
Gender is what we see. Female or male genitalia (or
ambiguous as in my case).<br><br>3. Gonadal Gender is what
type of tissue exists, whether testicular, ovarian,
ovoteste, or no gonads at all.<br><br>Some male babies will
look like normal girls when born, and have abdominal
testicles instead of ovaries, (CAIS, PAIS). Cases like this
will often not be diagnosed until puberty when
virilization occurs, (PAIS) or with absence of menarche. In
the salt wasting form of this disorder the babies are
in a life threatening condition of electrolyte loss
and diagnosis is made soon after birth, if not found
through amniocentesis.<br><br>In other cases where the
baby does not look like a normal girl or boy, it is
easier to detect that something rare has occured, but is
that really a boy with an empty scrotum, or could it
be a girl with clitoral hypertrophy and vaginal
atresia?<br> <br>I am a case of ambiguous genitalia, and was
sex tested before an exploratory surgery at age five
to locate a missing gonad on the left side. In
combination with the hypospadic penis, there was strong
suspicion that I could have had an ovary, (true
hermaphroditism). I also had surgeries for bladder outflow
obstruction, kidney reflux, and inguinal hernia repair. I
think they were too busy attending to that stuff to
"fix" my penis, and for that I am eternally grateful,
although that is a topic for another time.<br><br>My main
point here is that this is a very complicated subject,
not just the nuts and bolts stuff, but in the way
this affects our lives. In some cases you can't tell a
baby is or isn't intersexed by looking at the genitals
or breast tissue. Diagnosis has to be done in
context with the other variables to be
valid.<br><br><br>Doug