"Is it a girl or a boy?" It sounds like a pretty straightforward question to ask new parents. But whether someone is a girl or a boy is not always as easy to determine as it may seem. This is because being a girl or boy extends beyond what's between our legs.

Being a girl or a boy involves

  • sex
  • gender
  • gender identity

But what do these terms really mean? Let's start with sex.

Sex

Your sex is biological, a combination of the genetic makeup — chromosomes — and physical parts — sex organs (genitals) — you were born with, and hormonal differences that start long before birth and continue as we progress through puberty and into adulthood.

Usually, a girl has XX chromosomes and female sex organs, and a boy has XY chromosomes and male sex organs. But one in 2,000 infants is born with an intersex condition each year — they have "ambiguous" chromosomes, sex organs, or both. Intersex people may be considered sexually ambiguous in different ways:

  • They may have sex organs that appear to be somewhat female or male or a mixture of both. They cannot, however, have complete female genitals and complete male genitals. That's a myth.
  • They may have a large clitoris.
  • They may have a small penis — less than an inch.
  • They may have sex chromosomes that are different from the usual XX or XY — like XO, XXY, or XYY — or they may have a mix of chromosomes, depending on where the tissue being sampled was taken from.

Sometimes these ambiguities are seen at birth, but sometimes people don't show any ambiguity until puberty. Sometimes the ambiguity is never noticed, so some people have intersex conditions for their whole lives and never know.

Gender and Gender Identity

While people use the term "sex" to indicate whether we are biologically female or male (or both or neither), gender refers to society's expectations about how we should look, think, and act as girls and boys, and women and men. And gender identity is how you feel about your gender — do you feel like a girl or a boy ... or neither or both?

It is often assumed that biological sex will match a person's gender identity — that a person with female genitals and XX chromosomes will identify as a girl, and a person with male genitals and XY chromosomes will identify as a boy — but this isn't always the case.

So it really is a bit more complicated than girls and boys, female and male!

Choosing a Sex?

Intersex babies are assigned a female or male gender shortly after birth, and some parents choose to change the shape of their child's genitals by having surgery performed on them. Some people believe that this surgery should be postponed until intersex people are old enough to decide for themselves whether or not they would like their genitals to be operated on or not.

Most people agree that babies with intersex conditions should be assigned a female or male gender at birth. Some people believe that assigning a gender means performing surgery on their genitals, while others believe that a baby can be assigned a gender without surgery.

One of the toughest things about being a teen is dealing with all the changes going on in your body. This can be even harder if your body doesn't seem to fit into the typical categories. But knowing that there are certain medical conditions that might cause these differences can be really helpful in letting teens with bodies that are different know that they are not alone.

For more information on intersex conditions, check out the Intersex Society of North America and Queer Bodies , the youth project of Bodies Like Ours.