USA has issued the country’s first birth certificate that reads ‘intersex’ as a gender — New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has finally corrected the original birth certificate of 55-year-old Sara Kelly Keenan to ‘intersex’.
‘Intersex’ is a general term for a range of conditions in which a person is born with an anatomy that doesn’t align with typical definitions of male or female. Sara (who uses female pronouns) posted a picture on Facebook with a shirt that reads “intersexxy and perfect”.
Sara had been adopted when she six months old. And when she did not go through puberty and develop a masculine body, her parents sought medical advice. “I was diagnosed as intersex,” she said, “which means I am genetically male with female genitalia and mixed reproductive anatomy.”
She was then told that she is “100% a girl” and that she just couldn’t produce hormones. After so many years, she found the city’s correction of her birth certificate “really validating”.
This is a welcome milestone in progressing past a gender binary that leaves many feeling confused and out-of-place for their entire lives.
Feel like you don’t fit in the box?
Well,