LGBT and intersex

Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies".

LGBT, or GLBT, is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. The initialism has become mainstream as a self-designation; it has been adopted by the majority of sexuality and gender identity-based community centers and media in the United States, as well as many other countries.

The relationship of intersex to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans, and queer communities is complex, and many intersex people are not themselves LGBT, but intersex people are often added to LGBT to create an LGBTI community.

Intersex can be contrasted with homosexuality or same-sex attraction. Numerous studies have shown higher rates of same sex attraction in intersex people, with a recent Australian study of people born with atypical sex characteristics finding that 52% of respondents were non-heterosexual, thus research on intersex subjects has been used to investigate means of preventing homosexuality. In 1990, Heino Meyer-Bahlburg wrote that:

The prenatal hormone theory of sexual orientation is derived from research on lower mammals, and draws limited corroboration from human research on endocrinological abnormalities associated with physical manifestations of intersexuality... human studies of the effects of altering the prenatal hormonal milieu by the administration of exogenous hormones lend support to a prenatal hormone theory that implicates both androgens and estrogens in the development of gender preference ... it is likely that prenatal hormone variations may be only one among several factors influencing the development of sexual orientation

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