THE SCIENCES Published by the New York Academy of Sciences « March/April 1993 + $3.50 THE FIVE SEXES Why Male and Female Are Not EnoughTHE SCIENCES + March/April 1993 THE FIVE SEXES Why Male and Female Are Not Enough by ANNE FAUSTO-STERLING resident of Salisbury, Connecticut, asked the town board of selectmen to validate his right 0 vote 23:2 Whig ina horly contested local election. The ce- {quest raised 3 furry of objections froma the opposition par- 1y, For reasons that must be rare in the annals of American sdemoceacy: it was said that Suydam wax more female than male and thus (some eighty years before suffrage was ex- tended 10 women) could nat be allowed to cast a ballot ‘Tosettle the dispute a physician, one William James Bar- ry, vas brought in ca examine Suydam. And, presumably ‘upon encountering & phallus, the good doceor declared the prospective voter male. With Suydam safely in theie column the Whigs won the election by a majority of one. Bacry’s diagnosis, however, twrned out to be somewhat premature, Within afew days he discovered tha, phallus notwithstanding, Suydam menstruated regularly and had 2 vaginal opening, Both his/her physique and his/her ‘mental predispositions were more complex than was first suspected. She had narrow shoulders and broad hips and fele occasional sexual yearaings for women. Suydam's “jeminine propensities, such asa fondness for gay colors, for pieces of calico, comparing and placing them togech= er, and an aversion for bodily labor, and an inability per- form the same, were remarked by many.” Barry Inter ‘wrote. It ig not clear whether Suydam lost or etained the ‘ote, of whether the election results were reversed ‘Western culture is deeply committed to the idea that there are only two sexes. Even language refuses other possibilities; thus co write about Levi Suydam V have had to invent conventions—s/le and AisfBer—co denore some- one who isclealy neither male nor female ot who is per- haps both sexes at once. Legally, oo, every adult is either man_or woman, and the difference, of course, isnot civ- inl. For Suydam it meane the franchise; coday it means be- ingavailable for, or exempt from, draft registration, as well |: 1843 Levi SuYDAM, # ewenty-three-year-old 20 THE SCIENCES * Merch/Apeit 1993as being subject, in various ways, 10a number of laws gov- cerning marriage, che family and human intimacy. [n many parts of the United States, or instance, two people legal- ly registered as men cannot have sexusl relations without violating anti-sodomy statutes. But if the state and the legal system have an incerest in maintaining a wwo-patty sexual system, they are in defi- ance of nature. For biologically speaking, there are many gradations running from female to male; and depending tan how one calls the shots, one ean argue that along chat spectrum lie at least five sexes—and perhaps even more. For some time medical investigators have recognized the concept of the intersexual body Bur che standard medical literature uses the term intersex 2s a catch-all for three major subgroups with some mixture of male and fe~ male chatacteristies: the so-called «rue hermaphrodites, ‘whom [call hers, who possess one testis and one ovary (the sperm- and egg-producing vessels, or gonads); the male pscudohermaphrodices (the *metms"), who have testes and some aspects of che female genitalia but no ovaries, and the female pseudohermaphrodices (che “ferms”), who have ovaties and some aspects of the male genitalia but lack textes. Each of those categories is in i- self complex; the percentage of male and female charac- teristics, for instance, can vary enormously among mem- bers of the same subgroup. Moreover, che inner lives of the people in each subgroup—their special needs and their problems, attractions and repulsions—have gone unexplored by science, But on the basis of what is kaown, about them T suggest that the three intersexes, herm, merm and ferm, deserve to be considered additional sex- ces each in its own right. Indeed, I would argue further that sex is a vast, infinitely malleable continuum that defies the constraints of even five categories. Deere extremely difficult to estimate the frequency of intersexuality ‘uch less the frequency of each of the {hee additional sexes: it is not the sor of information one volunteers on a job application. ‘The psychologist John Money of Johns Hopkins University, ¢ specialist in the study of congenital sexuaborgan detects, suggests inter Senuals may constitute as many a5 4 percent of births. AS Tpoine out te: my students at Brown University, ina stu dent body of abou 6,000 that Fracion if corre, implies there may be 25 many a8 240 interscxals on exmpus— sorely enough co fora a minority esucus of some kind Ta eeality though, few such students would make ic as ‘Sleeping Hermaphrdite, Roman, Second Century 8. MarchiAprit 19934 THE SCIENCES 2