A new fissure has opened in American society. Members of the transgender community have become critical of transsexuals, since transsexuals ascribe great importance to belonging to one sex or the other. Transgenders, on the other hand, regard such a distinction as a social construct.

Hermaphrodites (represented by the Intersex Society of North America) have also protested nonconsensual sex-reassignment surgery performed upon them as children. The goal of this procedure, which doctors perform on those rare infants who are born with sexual organs of both sexes, is to quickly steer children towards the sex to which they bear the closest anatomical resemblance. Hermaphrodite activists regard the surgery as mutilation, depriving them of an important part of themselves, while medical authorities believe it benefits the child later in life by improving its ability to form a stable sexual identity.

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