Intersex (间性人)

Intersex is an umbrella term for a range of innate variations in which chromosomes, gonads, hormones, or reproductive anatomy don’t fully match typical definitions of “male” or “female.” Some variations are visible at birth, some surface at puberty, and some people never learn they are intersex at all. Intersex bodies are not rare — they have just gone largely undiscussed.

Three distinctions do most of the work. Intersex is about bodily characteristics, not sexual orientation — a confusion built into Chinese, where the common colloquial term 双性人 (shuangxingren, “both-sex person”) sits one character away from 双性恋 (bisexual). It is not the same as transgender — being trans concerns gender identity differing from assigned sex, while intersex people may be cisgender or transgender. And it is not the mythical “hermaphrodite” of lurid imagination — intersex people are ordinary people whose bodily parameters fall outside the most common ranges.

Register note: advocacy and community contexts in Chinese prefer 间性人 (jianxingren, “between-sex person”); 双性人 is common but invites the bisexual mix-up; 阴阳人 (“yin-yang person”) and 不男不女 (“neither man nor woman”) are hurtful — don’t use them. In English, “intersex” is the respectful standard; “hermaphrodite” is outdated and offensive for humans.

What matters most: many intersex children have undergone non-urgent “normalizing” surgeries at an age when they could not speak for themselves. International advocacy converges on one principle — interventions that can wait should wait, leaving decisions about a body to the person who lives in it (see Intersex surgery and Intersex 101).