Editing James Barry (surgeon) (section)

== Intersex controversy ==
<!--NOTE: This article refers to Barry as "Barry" wherever possible, avoiding specifically male or female third person pronouns.-->
Kubba and Young picked up on Major McKinnon's statement that he did not know whether Barry was "male, female, or hermaphrodite" and suggested that it might be more appropriate to say that Barry was "[[hermaphrodite]]" [or [[intersex]]] rather than "female", and "may have had ambiguous genitalia". These suppositions are based on the premise that "Concealment of one's sex for ...  40 years in the British Army, is simply unbelievable".{{sfn|Kubba|Young|2001|p=355}} However, du Preez and Dronfield show how Barry might have been able to conceal this secret from all but a few people, and those who did know did not reveal it while Barry was alive.{{sfn|du Preez|Dronfield|2016}} N. Turner has commented on Kubba and Young's conclusion that the belief in an intersex condition was based on "vanishingly slim evidence".<ref name="turner" />

Holmes also raises the possibility of Barry being intersex, but acknowledges the impossibility of knowing, expressing surprise that this is a problem for so many people. The suggestion that Barry may have been intersex has been criticised for both biological and social reasons.{{sfn|Holmes|2003|p=}} In a review of Holmes's biography, Loudon firmly rejects the implication that Barry might have been intersex.{{sfn|Loudon|2002|p=}}

Some theorists{{who?|date=February 2025}} have voiced the opinion that the intersex theory is an attempt to undermine that someone born female could have achieved as much as Barry did,{{citation needed|date=February 2022}} with one biographer writing, "Dr. Barry couldn't have been a woman, for women and medicine were contradictory terms ... it was still too much to imagine that any female could perform as brilliantly as Dr. Barry had done."{{sfn|Hacker|2001|p=}}