In Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel Middlesex, the narrator Cal is an unusual phenomenon – born and raised as a female, he gradually learns of his condition as a pseudo-hermaphrodite, and chooses to live as a man instead. Although Cal is a fictional character, his condition is in fact rooted in several scientifically and historically verified accounts.
Sequential Hermaphroditic Animals, Pseudo-Hermaphrodites
The condition of being able to change genders is referred to as sequential hermaphroditism. Animals which are born male with the ability to become female are said to be exhibiting the trait of protandry. Protogyny, on the other hand, is a trait in which animals are born as females, with the ability to become males later in life. This condition can be found among a few species of vertebrates, mostly fish; and some species of crustaceans, including barnacles and shrimps.
However, biologists argue that true hermaphroditic humans do not exist, and the more appropriate term is “pseudo-hermaphrodite”. This refers to a condition whereby an individual has both male and female external genital organs, sometimes at the same time.
While each person has the potential to form male and female genitalia, in normal human development, the gonads will either form into testes or ovaries. For sexually ambiguous individuals, both sets of the genitalia will develop. In some cases, the gonad itself will share histological characteristics of both testes and ovaries, but will be able to function as neither. Hence, as Greiner (2000) points out, the individual that develops both male and female genitalia is not a true hermaphrodite because he or she possesses no functional reproductive organ.
Since the 1960s, babies born with ambiguous genitalia were "assigned" a sex that seemed appropriate based on the genitalia that they had. Those with large phalluses had their labia closed and became males, while those with smaller but still larger than normal phalluses had them surgically shortened and became females (Gilbert, 2003).
Memoirs of Herculine Barbin
Alexina, or Herculine Barbin, is believed to have inspired Eugenides’ novel, as well as Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. The story of her life is chronicled in the tell-all autobiography Herculine Barbin: The recently discovered memoirs of a 19th Century French Hermaphrodite, which was discovered and published by Michael Foucault in 1980.
Born in 1938 and brought up as a female, Alexina led a confused life growing up, having misgivings about her body, and developing close sexual relationships with girls. It was in 1860 that Dr Chesnet examined Alexina, and determined that she was a man. Thus, she took on the name of Abel, and decided to live as a man after trying as long as possible to reconcile with the "truth" of her differences from other women. She eventually killed herself, perhaps due to alienation and misunderstanding from society.
The Curious Case of Gottlieb Gottlich
A markedly different case is that of the hermaphroditic Gottlieb Gottlich, who instead embraced his unique difference and earned fame and fortune being a medical curiosity across Europe.
Born in 1798 in the Saxon village of Nieder Leuba, Gottlich was baptised and raised as Marie Rosine Gottlich. Her sex came under suspicion when an apparent double hernia drew medical attention, and suspicion arose that she in fact possessed descended testicles. In 1832, Professor Friedrich Tiedermann from the University of Heidelberg examined her and declared her “evidently a man”.
Thus, Gottlich obtained a passport identifying himself as male, and armed with written testimonies of his masculinity, he proceeded to travel the European continent, something he would not have been able to do had he remained a female with limited income. According to Alice Dreger, “At medical schools, he stripped down, posed with a proud expression, and was examined by scores of men of science and medicine who came to see this curious case and render their often conflicting opinions as to his “true sex”.” (Lock and Farquhar, 2007)
Human evolution is a complex process, and although classification assists organisation, there will always be exceptions which defy categorisation. Hermaphrodites, or pseudo-hermaphrodites, have a long history and deserve to be treated with the same respect as received by “normal” people.
References:
Carey, E. (2005) Herculine Barbine and Middlesex. Bryn Mawr College
Greiner, T. (2000) "Can a Human Be Born a True Hermaphrodite?" MadSci Network
Gilbert, S. (2003) Developmental Biology. Sunderland: Sinauer Associates
Lock, M. and Farquhar, J. (2007) Beyond the body proper: reading the anthropology of material life. Duke University Press
Cheryn Tan - Contradiction is a theme inherent in human life that has always fascinated me. Take, for example, the fact that I am a passionate lover of ...
