ABSTRACT
The concept of disorders of sex development is frequently rejected by gender identity charities and activists who prefer the term "intersex", or "variations of sex development". While gender was an important marker of cultural role and social status before the scientific, social, and political transformations of the late eighteenth century, it was regarded as being independent of biological sex, whereas we now tend to view biological sex and gender largely interchangeably. People who identify themselves as transsexual often feel they were mistakenly born into the body of the "wrong" sex, thereby presenting a clear challenge to the assumption that biological factors determine gender and gender-based identity. Transgenderism arose in the public consciousness in the 1980s and refers to people who wish to be both male and female, which usually concerns men who wish to acquire female characteristics without changing their sex completely.
