Intersex newborns and people with nonbinary gender identity: The beginning of legal recognition

Abstract

Intersex newborns cannot be qualified as male or female at the level of their biological traits. People with nonbinary gender identity are those who do not identify as a man or a woman (at the level of gender identity). In most countries both groups, intersex people and nonbinary people, are in legal limbo. The existence of congenital eunuchs/ hermaphrodites is confirmed in the Bible. Recently, a process has begun to introduce third sex/gender options in documents. I discuss the legal recognition in Germany, where since 2019 there have been used three sex/gender categories: male, female, and diverse (divers). Finally, I present a nonbinary and multilayered conceptualization of sex/gender that goes beyond the system of male/female categorization. It includes a third category in addition to male/female and allows us to describe the clash of layers.