TAFSIRI YA MKE NA MME KIBAIOLOJIA NA SHERIA

Imenukuliwa kutoka kwa Julie A. Greenberg

DEFINING MALE AND FEMALE: INTERSEXUALITY AND THE COLLISION BETWEEN LAW AND BIOLOGY

Medical experts rcognise that many factors contribute to the determination of an individual's sex. According to medical professionals, the typical criteria of sex include:

1. Genetic or chromosomal sex - XY or XX;

2. Gonadal sex (reproductive sex glands) - testes and ovaries;

3. Internal morphologic sex (determined after three months gestation) - seminal vesicles/prostrate or vagina/uterus/fallopian tubes;

4. External morphologic sex (genitalia) - penis, scrotum or clitoris/labia;

5. Hormnal sex - androgensor estrogens;

6. Phentpic sex (secondary sexual features) - facial and chest hair or breasts;
7. Assigned sex and gender of rearing; and
8. Sexual identity.

For most people, these factors are all congruent, and one's status as a man or women is uncontroversial. For intersexuals, some of these factors may be incongruent, or an ambiguity within a factor may exist.

The assumption is that there are two separate roads, one leading from XY chromosomes at conception to manhood, the other from XX chromosomes at conception to womenhood. The fact is that there are not two roads, but one road with a number of forks that turn in the male or female diretion. Most of turn in the same direction at each fork.

The bodies of the millions of intersexed people have taken a combination of male and female forks an have followed the road less travelled. These invididual have noncongruent sexual attributes. For these inviduals, the law must determine which of th eight sexual factors will determine their sex and whether any one factor should be dispositive for all legal purposes.

As Reproduced at page 246 of Robin D. Barnes, The Nature and Scope of Individual Rights: Emerging Debates in Constitutional Law (2008) Carolina Academic Press.