This is fresh air, I'm Terry Gross.

What is gender?

What does it really mean?

Some people don't identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.

Some people identify with more than one gender, and for some, gender fluctuates over time.

My understanding of gender has been broadened by listening to the experiences of people who identify as transgender or non-binary.

A gender variation we don't hear much about is intersex.

People who are intersex have anatomical and or chromosomal variations, some of which are typically defined as male, others as female.

I think we can learn a lot by hearing the experiences of intersex people, their experiences physically, medically, and socially.

I know I learned a lot from the new documentary, Everybody, about three people who were born intersex.

Doctors determined at birth what gender they should be, and in some cases performed irreversible surgery on the infant to make the body anatomically conform to one gender.

Doctors advised the children's parents to keep secret that their child was intersex, including not even telling the child until they were in their teens, which caused profound gender confusion for the children.

With me as one of the people in the film, Alicia Roth Weigel, who was born intersex and identifies as she and they.

She's an advocate for the rights of intersex people. She consults with hospitals, government agencies, and other organizations to build culturally competent healthcare systems, including for intersex people, and to safeguard bodily autonomy.

She's also a human rights commissioner for the city of Austin. She has a memoir that will be published in the fall called Inverse Cowgirl.

Also with me is the director of Everybody, Julie Cohen. She also co-directed the documentary's RBG about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Julia about Julia Child, and Gabby Giffords won't back down.

Her documentary, My Name is Paulie Murray, is about a non-binary black lawyer and poet, who was an early advocate of applying the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause to gender equality.

Murray's work was cited by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in one of her Supreme Court briefs. We're going to be having an adult conversation that will likely involve aspects of sexual anatomy, so parents use your discretion.

By the way, everybody is playing in select theaters around the country. Julie Cohen, Alicia Rothwagel, welcome to both of you and congratulations on the film.

So I want to say, especially to you, Alicia, that I'm going to be asking about the physical, emotional, cultural, social aspects of being intersex.

And I feel comfortable asking you about these things because you talk about them in the film, and I'm sure in other places as well, because you're an advocate for intersex people.

But if I ask anything that you're not comfortable talking about, all you need to do is tell me. And if I unintentionally use any language that is considered inappropriate or offensive, I hope you'll tell me, and that will help educate me and our listeners. Does that sound okay?

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