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Beard, a Marana High School physics teacher, told students in one of his classes last month about people with androgen insensitivity. These people may appear to be girls, but they have XY chromosomes — the same as males — and often don’t discover this until they become late teens and still haven’t had menstrual cycles.

They are, in other words, intersex, people with biological characteristics of both sexes. Beard was trying to point out the existence of intersex people because one of President Trump’s recent executive orders proclaims there are only two biological sexes.

“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,� that Jan. 20 order says. “These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.�

Trump’s order decried “gender ideology� and “ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex.�

Beard challenged that.

“All of these women look — have female sex organs. They do have male sex organs as well inside their bodies,� Beard said. “Are these guys? Mr. Trump says so.�

One of the students audio-recorded Beard talking, and passed it on to the student’s parent, who passed it on to James O’Keefe, the conservative sting artist who used to be part of Project Veritas. , and the district suspended Beard, as the online .

That ticked off Carr, because Beard is exactly the type of teacher he needed, and eventually found, when he was in high school. Someone who recognized that there are people who biologically are of both sexes. They are intersex. That is the real “biological reality.�

“I would have given anything to have a teacher who acknowledged my existence back in high school,� Carr, 50, told me in a pair of interviews last week. “I was just a freak!�

Eventually he did, but first he went through a confused childhood and hard teen years.

As far as his family knew, when Carr was born and being raised in Crystal River, Florida, he was a boy. He had male genitals. But he didn’t feel that way — he felt like a girl and like a boy. When he hit age 12 or 13, the evidence began showing up in his body, Carr said.

“I started growing breasts and hips, and I thought, ‘Finally everyone is going to believe me.’�

Of course, that’s not what happened. Instead, he entered high school and was mercilessly teased by those who called him by a new nickname, “Booby.� Suicide entered his mind.

When Carr was in 10th grade, he said, a teacher named Mary Lyons approached him. She wasn’t even his teacher at the time — she had taught him in middle school. She told him about intersex people.

That started him on the path of learning he wasn’t a freak after all. He was simply intersex, a term encompassing a myriad of conditions that affects a considerable number of people. Some estimates, such as , put the fraction of the American population at about 1%. Others are higher, others lower.

If 1% is correct, there are about 3.6 million intersex people in the United States. And there could be a couple of dozen intersex students at Marana High School, with its enrollment of about 2,400.

Unfortunately, America’s new, rigid and biologically incorrect gender ideology is trying to erase them, and people like them. It’s a gender ideology that has historically tormented people like Carr.

In 1996, for example, Carr finally got a double mastectomy.

“I was really tired of people making fun of me,� he said. “I thought being androgynous was pretty great personally, but socially it was hell.�

“In 1997 my doctor did some more tests and found that I had no testosterone,� Carr told me. “At this point I was in my 20s and hadn’t hit puberty really. I was kind of stuck as a 12- or 13-year-old girl.�

“Finally, when I was 30, in 2004 or 2005, I saw an endocrinologist for the first time,� Carr said. “He explained to me ‘You’re intersex.’�

The specific condition Carr was diagnosed with: Non Robertsonian chromosome translocation.

At long last, he began hormone treatment, taking testosterone and estrogen blockers, among other treatments. Soon, he started getting broader shoulders, body hair and body odor. He started getting flashes of anger and feeling horny. In other words, he started going through what teen boys go through.

His medical treatment is also basically what trans men receive, Carr noted.

“The big irony is that I had top surgery, I’m on estrogen blockers, and I have to take testosterone every day — and I was born male. I was assigned male at birth,� Carr said. “I’ve had to do all the trans stuff, and I’m not trans.�

So Carr is worried about the reimposition of the old, rigid gender ideology, the one that asserts there are only two biological sexes, only two acceptable genders. And he’s happy people like Beard are daring to show the falsity of those assertions.

“I don’t know what this is going to do to people like me,� Carr said. “I’m especially worried about kids like me who are being told ‘You’re just a freak,’ and ‘It’s all in your head.’�

Beard’s decision to bring up intersex people in a physics class may have been questionable, in that it was out of the blue and not the subject of the class. The Marana school district cited policies requiring teachers to focus on course content and “Providing a learning environment where teachers remain neutral and refrain from sharing their personal beliefs and opinions.�

But he was sharing scientifically accurate information and fostering an open discussion about crucial issues of the day, something that Marana Education Association president Raina York said is embraced by Marana policies.

“It is clear that Mr. Beard upheld his duty as an educator by fostering critical thinking and open discussion in his classroom,� York wrote in a statement. “By following his district’s own guidelines, ensuring that ‘difference of opinion can be voiced without fear and hostility and with mutual respect for all viewpoints,’ Mr. Beard demonstrated what it means to be a dedicated teacher.�

She noted he is scheduled to return to work Monday. That’s good. It would be cowardly for the Marana school district or others to overreact to this new, rigid and biologically incorrect gender ideology. It erases the existence of people like Eric Carr and others like him roaming their schools’ halls in isolation.