it has served to confuse me somewhat after reading some articles, namely the one written by Anne Fausto-Sterling. I thought that I would pass comment here. Also can I just say here what seems to have most confused me is that last week in the thread titled,”You gotta see this talk show example” by Danette, she said that Howard explained the term hermaphrodite and that it could not happen to a human being. This implied that there was no such thing as a Hermaphrodite. Yet when I read the article written by Anne Fausto-Sterling titled “Two Sexes Are Not Enough,” she says: [Editor's note: A "true" hermaphrodite bears an ovary and a testis, or a combined gonad called an ovo-testis. A "pseudohermaphrodite" has either an ovary or a testis, along with genitals from the "opposite" sex.] I had always read about these things and assumed that they do happen from time to time. Is this just a myth? It’s just that she also talks of the “ five sexes” as being a tongue in cheek statement that she made and how it caused a stir and I wonder if this was a tongue in cheek statement also? The other thing I noted was in Jude’s personal story he describes himself as an Intersexual, but that is completely understandle as he again identifies himself as neither one or the other gender for the most part in his story until he finally decided later in adulthood to fully make the transition to the male gender and take male hormone. In my post above, before I went to read his story, you will note that I said that I perceived the word “Intersexual” to be used by someone that feels that they are neither one or the other, I basically meant they would use that term in adulthood. But as I wrote Intersexual seems like a totally different word than Intersex or Intersexed. Yet Anne Faust-Sterling refers to children with ambiguous genitalia as Intersexual not Intersexed. So is Intersexual meaning the same as Intersexed—and is she implying that if one is Intersexed at birth that it increases the chances of one being Intersexual as an adult. Jude had genetic testing as a child, which could not determine whether he was male or female. He had chromosomes for both. I truly perceive him as Intersexual and beyond Intersexed. With CAH girls, although they could be labeled Intersexed at birth, but we know what their true sex is when scans are done and genetic tests. They can be raised in far less confusion about their true sexuality than Jude found himself in and I guess that is where girls with CAH are extremely lucky. As I said I do not have a problem with the word Intersexed where cah is concerned as I always interpreted it as I explained above. The word Intersexual though, is something that I perceive that one adopts when one is confused about one’s gender I felt and perhaps that is what needs to be analyzed here where CAH is concerned as that simply is not the case. Maybe I need educating more on this issue! Pebbles