Anne Fausto-Sterling and Her Advocacy of Acknowlegding the Existence of More than Two Sexes
Anne Fausto-Sterling is a professor of biology and gender studies at Brown University. In 1993 Fausto-Sterling wrote an article entitled “The Five Sexes: Why Men and Women are Not Enough.” In it she maintained that the notion of a biological sex binary is false. She stated that society should embrace at least five sexes instead of two. The five sexes she documents in her article are ferms (a person with ovaries, some form of male genitalia but no testes), merms (a person with testes, some form of female genitalia but no ovaries), herms (a person with one ovary and one testicle), women and men. Members of the first three categories are classified as intersexed. The standard protocol for intersexed infants is to force them to conform to one of the latter categories. Fausto-Sterling maintained that it is wrong to force them into the sex and gender binaries.
Since writing the article Fausto-Sterling has altered her views. She still believes in the need for the acknowledgement of multiple sexes, but she now concludes that genitals should not solely determine a person’s sex.
