Intersex people are individuals born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". Such variations may involve genital ambiguity and combinations of chromosomal genotype and sexual phenotype other than XY-male and XX-female.

Though these variations are almost never detrimental to a person's health, intersex people are routinely operated on at birth in an attempt to make their genitals and/or gonads conform to a more gender binary appearance. These children are then assigned a single gender and raised male or female; the choice depending on what their condition was, what surgery or other treatments were prescribed, and the opinion of their doctor. Parents are often told to keep the diagnosis and any medical treatments that occurred a secret from the child, so that they can grow up and be a "normal" boy or girl. Problems can occur if the child grows up to identify as a different gender than the one they were assigned, especially if their body was surgically altered to conform to the incorrectly assigned gender.

Not all intersexed conditions are visible on the body, even if the person is nude. Some are just nominal variations on otherwise typical male/female genitalia. Others are not visible from outside the body at all, such as those involving the internal reproductive system, chromosomes, or hormones. Because the typical medical protocol requires secrecy, some people never even discover that their body varies in this way or they do so by accident as an adult, when undergoing testing for some other medical condition.

Intersex issues are often viewed as a subset of LGBTQ awareness, particularly the T (trans) component. In reality, intersexuality is a biological reality, not a gender identity, and there are plenty of people who consider themselves to be simply male or female with an intersex condition, the same as any other individual characteristic such as being tall or having freckles. However, there are also Intersex people with a capital "I", whose intersexuality strongly factors into their gender identity.

For example, someone who feels that their gender identity is informed by their intersexuality might ID themselves as non-binary as a way to recognize that they feel neither male nor female, or that they are a combination of both. Or someone who was assigned female at birth but grows up to identify as male might refer to themselves as an intersex trans man. Intersex people may therefore have a primary gender identification such as male, female, genderqueer, or transwoman/man, along with their intersexuality.

We feel that the important thing to focus on for Poly Speed Dating purposes is the person's gender identity and presentation, which is why we have not made Intersex a category choice on your form. If you are looking to date women, and you meet a woman who you think is attractive and would be fun to date, and identifies as Intersex, you can then respectfully ask her if it's ok to ask what that label means to her and what impact (if any) it has on her romantic life. Then you can make a decision about dating her based on her answer, along with whatever other compatibility and lifestyle issues you may consider important... just like you would with anyone else.

To read more about intersexuality and intersex conditions, please go here.

(Some parts of this page are quoted or adapted from the Wikipedia page "intersex".)