this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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Glad to help!
You're suffering from some common misconceptions, namely that genitalia is how sex is defined. It's not! Sex is defined entirely by gametes, because no other definition makes sense across the animal kingdom. The response to all of your questions is, "What gametes do they produce or are organized around producing?".
Chromosomes are how sex is determined in humans, but not how sex is defined. Sex is not defined by sex characteristics. Other species have different sex determination systems, such as the ambient temperature determining the sex of a fetus. Trying to define sex by chromosomes for those species just wouldn't make sense!
To answer your questions for persons A & B, please consult these handy charts:
https://theparadoxinstitute.org/articles/sex-development-charts
You will notice that each viable DSD has male or female listed, because their sex is not ambiguous. Person A would likely have CAIS and therefore be male
Person B would likely be have XX male syndrome and also be male
Person C doesn't exist, as you're imagining; you're suffering from another common misconception. Humans aren't born with fully functional reproductive organs of both sexes. Some species do have that! They have body plans where that is a normal part of development, and you will simultaneously find healthy males, females, and hermaphrodites co-existing (or males+hermaphrodites, or other combinations). Keep in mind that those species still have two sexes, they just have individuals that are male, female, or both sexes (sequentially or simultaneously)
Humans are what's known as gonochoric, because we don't have that. You can find humans born with Ovotesticular syndrome, but that still isn't "produces mature gametes of both types". It's "maybe produces gametes of one type, and has a bit of non-functional tissue of the other gamete type, known as streak tissue". Their bodies are still organized around producing one gamete type or the other.
There are two sexes, because there are exactly two types of gametes in anisogamous species. No more, no less. Note that you'll often see mating types confused with sex, but those are not sexes. Those are isogamous species and interesting, but irrelevant to this conversation.
I hope that helped!