Op-ed: The 'only two sexes' argument is a political myth, not a scientific reality

The upcoming U.S. midterm elections feature a heavy level of focus on Americans’ sex and gender. Millions of dollars have been spent on political campaign ads picking apart candidate positions on policies that impact transgender people. From sports, to health care, to identification documents and beyond, this election season is full of heated debates about policies that aim to define or restrict Americans’ abilities to live their lives based on their gender or their sex. When discussing these topics, it’s important to define terminology:Sex: Usually assigned at birth, a person’s sex is determined by medical professionals based on biological and physical characteristics such as chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive anatomy.Gender: A person’s gender refers to the behaviors and expressions that a given society ties to someone’s sex.In the U.S., there have been many recent attempts to oversimplify scientific reality to fit neatly into political narratives. For example, the current administration’s day one executive order declared, “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”Calling something an “incontrovertible reality” does not make it true. In fact, scientific reality has long determined the opposite; there are numerous instances in which a person’s sex does not fit neatly into one of two categories: male or female. One of the most notable examples of this reality is the estimated one to two percent of people worldwide who are intersex.InterAct, the country’s leading advocacy group created for and by intersex people defines intersex as “an umbrella term for differences in sex traits or reproductive anatomy. Intersex people are born with these differences or develop them in childhood. There are many possible differences in genitalia, hormones, internal anatomy, or chromosomes, compared to the usual two ways that