Intersex activists have preferred the word intersex, since the word hermaphrodite is considered to be stigmatizing, as well as "scientifically specious and clinically problematic. "There are no hermaphroditic species among mammals or birds. According to David B. Rivers there is controversy around hermaphroditism in insects with some experts believing it does not occur. Hermaphroditism is said to occur in one or two insect species.A rough estimate of the number of hermaphroditic animal species is 65,000. The percentage of animal species that are hermaphroditic is about 5% in all animal species, or 33% excluding insects. (Although the current estimated total number of animal species is about 7.7 million, the study, which estimated the number, 65,000, used an estimated total number of animal species, 1,211,577 from "Classification phylogénétique du vivant (Vol. 2)" - Lecointre and Le Guyader (2001)). Most hermaphroditic species exhibit some degree of self-fertilization. The distribution of self-fertilization rates among animals is similar to that of plants, suggesting that similar pressures are operating to direct the evolution of selfing in animals and plants. Etymology
The term derives from the Latin: hermaphroditus, from Ancient Greek: ἑρμαφρόδιτος, romanized: hermaphroditos, which derives from Hermaphroditus (Ἑρμαφρόδιτος), the son of Hermes and Aphrodite in Greek mythology. According to Ovid, he fused with the nymph Salmacis resulting in one individual possessing physical traits of male and female sexes; according to the earlier Diodorus Siculus, he was born with a physical body combining male and female sexes. The word hermaphrodite entered the English lexicon as early as the late fourteenth century.
However, their argument was based on paraphyletic Spiralia, assignments of sexual modes for the phylum level than the species level, and methods exclusively based on maximum parsimony.Hermaphroditism is polyphyletic in invertebrates where it evolved from gonochorism: 97  and gonochorism is also ancestral to hermaphroditic fishes. According to Nelson Çabej simultaneous hermaphroditism in animals most likely evolved due to a limited number of mating partners. In plants
It is widely accepted that the first vascular plants were outcrossing hermaphrodites. In flowering plants, hermaphroditism is ancestral to dioecy. Flowers in angiosperms evolved to attract insects as vectors for pollination.Hermaphroditism in plants may promote self fertilization in pioneer populations. However, plants have evolved multiple different mechanisms to avoid self-fertilization in hermaphrodites, including sequential hermaphroditism, molecular recognition systems and mechanical or morphological mechanisms such as heterostyly. : 73, 74

See also
Asexual reproduction
Trioecy
Androgyny
Gonochorism
Gynandromorph
Self-pollination
Self-fertilization
Futanari
Non-binary gender

References
Further reading
External links

Britannica Online Encyclopedia: hermaphroditism (biology)
Current Biology – Gender trading in a hermaphrodite
The Evolution of Self-Fertile Hermaphroditism: The Fog Is Clearing
"Born True Hermaphrodite – Pictorial Profile", about Lynn Edward Harris