It is not true that 1.7% of the population is ‘born between the sexes’. The proportion of people with DSDs (‘intersex’ conditions) is 0.018%

DSD   Females   Ideology   Intersex   Males   Research quality  

Conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female, occur in 0.018% of the population1.

The claim that 1.7% of the population is ‘intersex’2 includes conditions which most clinicians do not recognize as intersex, and is often wrongly used to back up the ideological assertion that ‘sex is a spectrum’, or that biological sex is not dimorphic.

The philosopher Kathleen Stock points out that she would be considered as “intersex” under Fausto-Sterling’s “preposterously over-demanding conditions on sex category membership”, as she lost an ovary in early adulthood3, which would count as “intersex” according to Fausto-Sterling.

  1. Sax, L. (2002). How common is intersex? a response to Anne Fausto-Sterling. J Sex Res. 39 (3): 174-8. [Link] ↩︎
  2. Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000). Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books. [Link] ↩︎
  3. Stock, K. (2021). Material Girls. Little, Brown Book Group: p.56 [Link] ↩︎
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