Television usually prefers to rank our community GLTBi. There are plenty of gay males and lesbians. Transgenders are peppered in comedies, or reality ‘tricks’.

With the exception of SBS docos Sinchronicity and A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, bisexuality usually confuses producers. And intersex falls off TV’s radar entirely.

So it was with some trepidation that I approached the UK documentary series My Shocking Story. It’s previously featured medical episodes were called Half Man Half Tree and The Man With No Face. Roll up, roll up for the freakshow!

What Sex Am I? is thankfully not entirely tabloid.

Androgyn Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS) is the state in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t fit the typical definitions of female or male.

There are three subjects profiled here. One is Angel, an 8-year-old Brazilian child raised as female by parents, but discovered to have Y chromosomes at the age of 4. Another is 24-year-old Italian Tiziana who confronts her mother about what she thought was an operation on her uterus at 15.

The principal subject is 16-month-old infant Jacob from the Philippines. Born with a penis, and a uterus, Jacob and his mother travel to the US via the charity Mending Kids International. Consulting American specialists, his mother has the agonising task of deciding what sex Jacob should be. 

Poor little Jacob is the most darling of kids, wide-eyed, full of zest belying his tiny frame. Despite their best medical tests, doctors can’t be 100 percent sure whether he has concealed testes until surgery. But little Jacob contracts a lung infection and his health is too fragile for operation. His is a story that tugs at your heartstrings.

Ethical questions are raised here about the way societies equate “the third gender” and parents conform to norms. Some tell their children about their early upbringing, while others shield them from the truth. Thankfully, there is a fleeting acknowledgement that being born intersex should never be considered shameful.

By the end of this episode it is the spirit of little Jacob that will shine through any anatomical debates. Despite its title, the only real ‘shock’ in this documentary is the fact that television is giving over sixty minutes to talk about intersex in the first place.