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Emily Quinn: Male Or Female Is The Wrong Question—How Can We Rethink Biological Sex?

Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Biology Of Sex

Artist Emily Quinn is intersex. She's one of over 150 million people in the world who don't fit neatly into the categories of male or female. She explains how biological sex exists on a spectrum.

About Emily Quinn

Emily Quinn is an artist and activist. She worked at Cartoon Network on the Emmy Award winning show, Adventure Time. While there she partnered with interACT and MTV to develop the first intersex main character in television history. She came out publicly as intersex in a PSA alongside the character's debut. She later worked as the Youth Coordinator for interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth.

As an activist, she speaks about intersex issues before audiences and through her YouTube channel: intersexperiences. As an artist, her most recent projects include a genderless puberty guidebook and a portrait series of intersex people that will be exhibited at medical schools across the U.S. in 2020.

This segment of TED Radio Hour was produced by Rachel Faulkner and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. You can follow us on Twitter @TEDRadioHour and email us at TEDRadio@npr.org.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Manoush Zomorodi is the host of TED Radio Hour. She is a journalist, podcaster and media entrepreneur, and her work reflects her passion for investigating how technology and business are transforming humanity.
Rachel Faulkner is a producer and editor for TED Radio Hour.
Sanaz Meshkinpour