Pliny the Elder (AD 23/24–79) the Roman naturalist described "those who are born of both sexes, whom we call hermaphrodites, at one time androgyni" (from the Greek andr-, "man," and gyn-, "woman"). Augustine (354 – 28 August 430 AD) the influential Catholic theologian wrote in The Literal Meaning of Genesis that humans were created in two sexes, despite "as happens in some births, in the case of what we call androgynes".In medieval and early modern European societies, Roman law, post-classical canon law, and later common law, referred to a persons sex as male, female or hermaphrodite, with legal rights as male or female depending on the characteristics that appeared most dominant. The 12th century Decretum Gratiani states that "Whether an hermaphrodite may witness a testament, depends on which sex prevails". The foundation of common law, the 17th Century Institutes of the Lawes of England described how a hermaphrodite could inherit "either as male or female, according to that kind of sexe which doth prevaile." Legal cases have been described in canon law and elsewhere over the centuries. Some non-European societies have sex or gender systems that recognize more than the two categories of male/man and female/woman. Some of these cultures, for instance the South-Asian Hijra communities, may include intersex people in a third gender category.
Although–according to Morgan Holmes–early Western anthropologists categorized such cultures "primitive," Holmes has argued that analyses of these cultures have been simplistic or romanticized and fail to take account of the ways that subjects of all categories are treated.During the Victorian era, medical authors introduced the terms "true hermaphrodite" for an individual who has both ovarian and testicular tissue, "male pseudo-hermaphrodite" for a person with testicular tissue, but either female or ambiguous sexual anatomy, and "female pseudo-hermaphrodite" for a person with ovarian tissue, but either male or ambiguous sexual anatomy. Some later shifts in terminology have reflected advances in genetics, while other shifts are suggested to be due to pejorative associations.The term "intersexuality" was coined by Richard Goldschmidt in 1917. The first suggestion to replace the term "hermaphrodite" with "intersex" was made by Cawadias in the 1940s.Since the rise of modern medical science, some intersex people with ambiguous external genitalia have had their genitalia surgically modified to resemble either female or male genitals. Surgeons pinpointed intersex babies as a "social emergency" when born. An optimal gender policy, initially developed by John Money, stated that early intervention helped avoid gender identity confusion, but this lacks evidence. Early interventions have adverse consequences for psychological and physical health.