The Third Sex

Tuesday February 17 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld

Someone around you has a secret, a family secret. He or she was born with both male and female genitals. He's not handicapped nor is he mentally challenged. But he is faced with a continuing unresolved personal issue: should life go on this way?

The strain of not being able to share with others is unbearable, as the frustration of medical dead-ends leads to stress and the issue of being physically a man, but feeling like a woman (or vice versa) can become obsessive or even fatal.

The sexual identity of a person is usually the first question one asks about a newborn: "Is it a boy or a girl?" To most parents the answer is a simple one. But what about the parents of a child born with both female and male genitals? It's a reality no one dares to speak about, the so-called third sex. Most people are unaware that this situation exists, and institutions are not designed to recognize a sex outside male and female.

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This is a service of the Organisation Intersex International