Shedding Light on Intersex

Dr. Dreger says the spectrums of sex, gender and sexual orientation differences are wide. To clear up any confusion, she explains terms:

"There's issues of sex, which is biology—that's male and female and intersex. Then there's gender, which is boy and girl, and sometimes people switch that. And then there's sexual orientation, which is something else in addition—that's whether or not we're attracted to males or to females or to both."

Dr. Dreger stresses that intersex is different from transgender. "Transgender is about a gender identity. And so when somebody is born, everybody gets a gender assignment. Even kids who are intersex get a gender assignment as boy or as girl. What transgender is, is when you feel the assignment you got was the wrong one. So when you grow up later on and you say, 'You know, they said I was a girl but I'm really a boy,' or vice versa."