funeralxempire wrote:
Hermaphrodite is reserved for animals where both sets of parts are functional.
In humans (along with other mammals) that's not possible, intersex is more appropriate.
Well, when I was young I think the term "hermaphrodite" referred to intersex people, but I am not sure about this.
I might research beyond what I have posted below.
Is "intersex" a newer more politically correct designation?
BTW, I might research is it is possible for those with both ovaries/womb and testicles to in theory self-inseminate.
Quote:
hermaphroditism, the condition of having both male and female reproductive organs. Hermaphroditic plants—most flowering plants, or angiosperms—are called monoecious, or bisexual. Hermaphroditic animals—mostly invertebrates such as worms, bryozoans (moss animals), trematodes (flukes), snails, slugs, and barnacles—are usually parasitic, slow-moving, or permanently attached to another animal or plant.
In humans, conditions that involve discrepancies between external genitalia and internal reproductive organs are described by the term intersex. Intersex conditions are sometimes also referred to as disorders of sexual development (DSDs). Such conditions are extremely rare in humans. In ovotesticular disorder (sometimes also called true hermaphroditism), an individual has both ovarian and testicular tissue. The ovarian and testicular tissue may be separate, or the two may be combined in what is called an ovotestis. Affected individuals have sex chromosomes showing male-female mosaicism (where one individual possesses both the male XY and female XX chromosome pairs). Most often, but not always, the chromosome complement is 46,XX, and in every such individual there also exists evidence of Y chromosomal material on one of the autosomes (any of the 22 pairs of chromosomes other than the sex chromosomes).
Individuals with a 46,XX chromosome complement usually have ambiguous external genitalia with a sizable phallus and are therefore often reared as males. However, they develop breasts during puberty and menstruate and in only rare cases actually produce sperm. In 46,XX intersex (female pseudohermaphroditism), individuals have male external genitalia but the chromosomal constitution and reproductive organs of a female. In 46,XY (male pseudohermaphroditism), individuals have ambiguous or female external genitalia but the chromosomal constitution and reproductive organs of a mal