I stand corrected.

I’ve been making online videos for a while now discussing intersex people and our variations. Believe it or not, I read almost every comment left. I even respond to a lot of them. I also openly say that I am not a doctor. I am not a scientist. I do a lot of research, but I don’t always get it right.

Example? I was using “phenotype” wrong.

I read the comment. I researched more deeply. I’ve corrected my language. Now, I’m passing that information along because it’s really important in understanding intersex bodies.

A phenotype is the observable set of physical characteristics. So, if we’re talking about a phonotypical female human, for example, those characteristics would include:

In a phenotypical male, we expect to see:

Obviously, there’s a lot of variation even within these phenotypes. And intersex people have even more variations, often sitting outside what would be considered phenotypical. Like how I was born with undescended testicles and a penis that was ambiguous.

The genotype is the genetic makeup of a person. Particularly when talking about intersex folks, this is about chromosomes. While I was born with ambiguous genitalia and named Baby for the first three days of my life, a chromosome text came back XY, which is genotypically male.

For genotypical females, they have XX chromosomes.

But again, intersex people aren’t necessarily genotypical. Women with CAIS are born with phenotypically mixed attributes and XY chromosomes. Men with Klinefelter Syndrome have XXY chromosomes. Women with Turner Syndrome have a missing or partially missing X chromosome. With chromosomal mosaicism, chromosomes can differ from cell to cell.

For a lot of close-minded people, they try to point to genotypes as a “gotcha” in their efforts to deny the existence of intersex people. Jackie Blankenship, an outspoken woman with CAIS, is often called a man online because of her XY chromosomes. But this former Miss America is definitely not a man.

People try to call out Imane Khelif’s genotype (which has never been publicly proven, by the way) to call her a man and disqualify her from boxing. Why? Because she’s very, very good. Also, she might be intersex. That does not make her less of a woman. Also, she doesn’t owe it to the public to disclose her genotype or genitals.

The bottom line is this: neither genotype nor phenotype alone are enough to definitively call someone male or female. The very existence of intersex people proves that this simple binary is incorrect. We, as humanity, are more complex. That’s part of what makes us beautiful.