Woman, man or in between?
Hermaphrodites' place in society
By GUDRUN NORSTEDT
Västerbottens-Kuriren 5 January 2000
(Translated from the Swedish by Curtis E. Hinkle)
"As I was traveling through Vitry-le-François, I saw a man whom the Bishop of Soissons had given the name Germain at confirmation, but whom all the inhabitants had viewed and known as a girl with the name Marie until she was twenty-two years old. Now he went around with a full beard, was old and unmarried. He said that once he made such an effort to jump that it caused his male organs to appear; and the girls there still sing a song in which they warn each other against too powerful a jump because they could become boys just like Marie Germain."
The 16th century French author Michel de Montaigne's story about Marie Germain is only one of many examples of how hermaphrodites were depicted in Western European literature - as curiosities or freaks. During Montaigne's lifetime
it was not inconceivable that a girl could change into a boy, because women were viewed as a sort of incomplete man. The opposite transformation was not accepted as being something that could occur. Gaspard Bauhin, a contemporary of
Montaigne, explained this by nature's always striving toward perfection and never making the perfect imperfect.
Our contemporary worldviews are different. Girls can no longer change into boys. Women and men have become totally distinct categories, almost separate species, the one from Venus and the other from Mars, and in between there is only empty space. One very common belief is that our sex is determined once and for all the moment of conception when the sperm determines whether an X or a Y chromosome is present. According to this worldview there is no place for hermaphrodites. When a newborn's sex cannot easily be determined, the parents are often extremely confused while wondering how to treat a sexless child. All
our small announcements are either pink or blue. The child is therefore "corrected" early by means of surgical intervention which is not usually a medical necessity.
What really is a hermaphrodite? The terminology can be confusing. Some authors use the word hermaphroditism for all the different conditions in which the physical sex characteristics are ambiguous or atypical while others make a distinction between true hermaphroditism and pseudohermpahroditism. True hermaphroditism signifies that the individual has both ovarian and testicular tissue, which is very rare. Pseudo-hermaphroditism signifies that the individual has one type of gonads but that the external genitalia more or less differ from what would be expected. Often the word intersex is used instead of hermaphroditism mainly because it is felt to be more politically correct. In this article I will use the word hermaphroditism so as to maintain the link to its long medical and literary tradition.
There are many types of hermaphroditism in humans and even more factors which cause it. Often it is a question of how the fetus has been influenced by hormones in a way which varies from the norm. The biological differences between boys and girls are actually not as great as we usually think. Up until the eighth week male and female fetuses have the same genitalia. If they are
subsequently influenced by male hormones they develop a penis and scrotum, otherwise a clitoris and labia. This happens regardless of whether the chromosomes are male or female.
Marie-Germain in Montaigne's essay could never have become a boy as a result of too much effort at jumping. Most likely her transformation took more time and was caused by a lack of the enzyme 5-alphareductase. This condition is hereditary and therefore occurs with different frequency within certain ethnic groups. In some isolated mountainous villages in the Dominican Republic, it is quite common for those affected to be called "huevedoces" which means "those who get balls at 12". Despite the fact that these children have male chromosomes, the lack of 5-alphareductase causes the external genitalia to appear female, not male. Internally the child has testicles which at puberty start producing testosterone in large amounts. The voice deepens, the muscles grow and the clitoris enlarges to become a small penis. The girls become boys.
There have long been doubts that sex hormones not only influence genitalia but also the development of the brain. The few clear distinctions between men's and women's brain function that have been ascertained, such as men being better at spatial relationships and women being better at language skills are usually ascribed to the influence of sex hormones during the first stage of fetal development. Even boys' preference for rough games and girls' interest in dolls are explained this way. Sometimes one even feels that gender identity and sexual orientation are influenced by the hormone balance in the womb.
Animal experimentation has proved that hormones actually influence brain development during the first stage and even has an effect on the adult animal's behavior. If one, for example injects male hormones into a female fetus of a rhesus monkey, she will socialize directly with young males after birth and join them in their rough games. It is, however, difficult to transfer such results to human behavior who tend to behave in a less predictable manner. For this reason, hermaphrodites are like manna from heaven for the researchers. Special interest have been directed to children with an inheritable condition which is usually called CAH (congenital adrenal hyperplasia) and which is characterized by having adrenal glands which produce large amounts of male hormones during this first stage of fetal development. This has no significant effect for male fetuses but with female fetuses the labia can fuse together and resemble more or less a fully developed scrotum while the clitoris enlarges and can develop into a little penis. There is a whole range of intermediate stages. The girl has therefore two ovaries, uterus and a vagina which often comes
together at the urethra. Previously in history, it is almost certain that many such children were raised as boys without testicles but today CAH-girls are surgically "corrected" shortly after birth and receive medicine to reduce male hormone production. They then have a normal female puberty and can have children.
Here, researchers have access to a group of children with female chromosomes, female gonads and female genitalia (although they may have been altered) and a female social gender, whose brains have developed under the influence of high levels of male hormones. CAH-girls are therefore the perfect models for those who wish to study the influence of biology versus that of the environment on children's sex specific behavior and they are present in a large number of studies. The psychologists Anke Ehrhardt and John Money were pioneers in the field during the Sixties and they have many disciples, most recently the psychologist from Uppsala, Anna Servin. To a great extent, researchers' suspicions have been confirmed. CAH-girls are to a large extent "tomboys" with a preference for sports and rough games. The play less with dolls than other girls and the more often have boys as their best friends. They also perform better than other women on tests for spatial conceptualization and relationships in which men have an advantage over women. Anna Servin could even show that girls with severe CAH, those who had been most affected by male hormones during the first stage of fetal development, behaved more like boys than those with less pronounced forms of CAH.
Another group of hermaphrodites which have become the subject of researchers' interest is women with androgen insensitivity. These women have male chromosomes and internal testicles, but since the cells lack the ability to recognize testosterone the external body appears female. It seems natural to give these children a female gender. No one is surprised that they also behave like women, since this can just as well be explained by environment and social factors as by the absence of the influence of testosterone. The interesting aspect though is that androgen insensitive women test more poorly on tests for spatial conceptualization than other women. This supports the theory that the brains development is influenced by testosterone because this hormone is also found in females.
Hermaphrodites have changed from literary curiosities to valuable scientific research subjects. But who is interested in them? Do they have any possibility at having their own distinct differences recognized outside psychological laboratories? In the USA hermaphrodites have formed an organization, the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) and have attacked the prevailing medical doctrines which are used to surgically "correct" children to make them normal boys or girls. For them, these interventions are nothing less than genital mutilation. The hermaphrodites in ISNA are in part demanding their right to be different and also that parents should not be able to make the decision for such interventions which are more cosmetic than medically motivated. It happens often that later in life the child does not feel right within this corrected body.
Whereas homosexuals and transsexuals have long fought for their rights, hermaphrodites have just started their fight for recognition. In Sweden, they are still invisible except in this or that research project. This could be because all Swedish hermaphrodites are content with the crucial decisions which were made at a very early period by doctors and parents. Otherwise, it is likely that it is just a question of time before they come out and take up the struggle for their right to be - different.
Norstedt, Gudrun. "Herms Place In Society." Herms Place In Society. N.p., 5 Jan. 2000. Web. 28 Nov. 2009.
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