So I used to read a lot of YA social issues fiction from around 2016 - 2020 (some 'LGBTIA+' related) and I've been thinking a lot recently about how intersex conditions were portrayed.

Off the top of my head, most of these books would have

• a main character (always Western, usually American) finding out that they are intersex as an older teenager.
• Being intersex was usually present in a very literal manner as if you could be TRUE intersex and an equal half and half OR as if it means nothing at all and you are an ordinary boy/girl with no specific intersex related medical needs.
• Big parts of the books would involve other characters reacting negatively to said main character being intersex (to varying degrees).
• Sometimes the main character would take part in sports and would subsequently be banned or at least limited from taking part whatever sport they played. This was always present as extremely unfair, but only in relation to the implication that being intersex is meaningless and doesn't refer to any specific medical symptoms.
• If intersex issues from the real world were ever mentioned in a 'look what x person is doing, you can do it too!!' way, the example given was always Caster Semenya.

Anyway, I'm curious as to if anyone else has ever come across these types of plotlines in YA lit/media and what you think about them? I used to lap these plotlines up, but now all they make me think 'this is why I is different to the L or the G and probably shouldn't be in the acronym' though I'm assuming that was never the author's intent, lol