I think that the key word here is "Intersexed" not the word that you seem to use which is "Intersexual." The word “Sexed” is a word that is commonly used when trying to determine the sex of something or someone where biology is concerned. The word “Sexual” is a totally different meaning and is based around a person’s feelings about or ability to be sexual. So as I have posted before on the previous page combining the two together i.e. “Inter” and “Sexed” it means that the individual has genitals that are perhaps intermingled between the two and that leads to the term Intersexed. At birth is usually the time where we determine the sex. We are "sexed" on sight so to speak. With ambiguous genitalia sometimes however, this is not possible. Sometimes there is a mish mash of the two intermingled (due to the androgen exposure as we know) so much so that babies simply cannot be sexed. Not without further testings and scans to check the internal organs and blood tests. Even when we know the sex of the child, what appears on the outside is still much of an opposite to what is on the inside, so Intersexed again is just the word used to explain that. This is how I perceive the word intersexed and have always done. It therefore does not upset me in the same way that it may other’s. It is merely another label that someone created to determine what the picture is at birth. Like if you took a photo of the genitalia at that time it would tell you the same thing, the same message. These genitals are indistinguishable. The term “Intersexual” to me implies a different meaning in that it says it is referring to a person that has a sexuality preference that is neither one or the other, not being defined. The question about how much one has been exposed to androgens or how affected one is by outer appearance is one that raises a great deal of angst for me. Should it matter how much one has been affected I ask myself? No one can define a point or line and say if you where exposed to more than this amount of androgen in utero you “are” Intersexed and if you were not then you are “not” intersexed. It is simply impossible and especially so where cah is concerned and would just confuse many parents anyway. Intersexed is a word designed for children, not for them to embrace when they are older. Also Aimee, from things you have posted, you were of the most severest from what I can understand where masculinization is concerned. I have picked up though a distinct impression that you lean to an heterosexual lifestyle, so is that really something that affects individuals sexual preferences? Possibly it could but not in your case is it not? I did ask on the other page how long that this word had been in use and I do not know if anyone would have noticed that post. Basically, I was wondering if this word had been used for a long time and adopted by the medical profession for children born with ambiguous genitalia, or whether men or women first used it because they had had surgeries to assist them to completely change gender. That if this word was used by these people after it had already been adopted by the medical profession for children with cah or other conditions which mask the true sexual identity. The reason I ask this is because, the people changing from one gender to another, are doing so by choice. Whether this is within their genetic make-up I do not suppose anyone really knows, but nevertheless much different to an individual exposed to androgens in utero due to cah. The other thing that I have always wondered is if one does change gender in adulthood (and I mean for example being a biological male through and through change to a woman), generally these people as adults and choose to do so because they lean more to that gender. For example some men are more effeminate and for all we know may have been exposed to high female hormone in utero. They claim that they feel like a woman trapped in a male’s body. Is this why they adopted the term Intersexed also and embraced it? Pebbles