What happened to hermaphroditism?

Androgyny refers to a person who has both male and female reproductive organs due to abnormal embryonic development. Also known as hermaphroditism or hermaphroditism.

idea

The so-called hermaphroditism is distinguished by reproductive organs. In fact, hermaphroditism is female, but the sexual organs are deformed, such as the clitoris is too long, resembling a penis, with a large Adam's apple and a thick voice. In fact, there are no hermaphrodites in the world, that is to say, there are no people who have two sexual functions at the same time. It is difficult for the medical community to explain the above gender barriers with the current narrow definition of male or female. Should we raise boys or girls for patients with these three characteristics? 1993, Anne Fausto-Sterling, a medical professor and geneticist at Brown University in the United States, suggested that people with the above three androgyny characteristics should not make difficult choices about their sex. She believes that there should be at least five genders between men and women. The five genders she proposed are male, male bias (type II), bisexual (type III), female bias (type I) and female. Dr Anne pointed out that "gender is a huge unity with infinite extensibility", and her new book "The Division of Human Sex" elaborated her new viewpoint in detail. It is impossible for the public to accept the concept of gender from gender to five genders soon. When a newborn baby is born, the first thing parents want to hear from the midwife is "he is a boy" or "she is a girl". Legally speaking, every adult must be male or female. It seems too fast for us to give up the idea of gender at once, but in reality, there are indeed many people's gender characteristics outside our definition of gender, which deserves our consideration. We often regard people with unclear sexual organs or bisexual organs as weirdos, and doctors always want to completely convert them into one of the sexes through advanced medical technology. In the past 30 years, doctors have mostly followed Dr. Mani's theory, that is, if the sex of a baby is not clear at birth, doctors should change the bisexual child into a male or a female through surgery. There is no good technology in medicine to treat penis too small or restore damaged penis, so most children with bisexual characteristics are turned into girls. People take it for granted that a child must have genitals 2.5 cm (one inch) long, and only when this premise is met can he be considered a male.

Genetic perspective

In view of the complexity of the problem, I only say the gender of people. Our concept of gender needs to be updated. There are at least five genders: male, hermaphrodite, hermaphrodite and female. We usually think that genes determine sex. Is that really the case? If someone thinks that she is a woman, looks like a woman, has feminine behavior and female external reproductive organs, but instead of XX chromosome and ovary, she has XY chromosome and internal testis, then is this person a man or a woman? The World Knowledge Expo reported that in the more than 30 years since 1968, the International Olympic Committee examined the chromosomes of all female athletes participating in the competition to see if anyone had the Y chromosome but participated in the women's competition. It is said that athletes with Y chromosome have an advantage over ordinary women in the competition. According to statistics, in every competition, 1 person in every 400 female athletes contains Y chromosome. The International Olympic Committee stopped chromosome examination on 1999 because geneticists and doctors have been arguing about this issue for many years. They think that having XY chromosomes is not equal to men. Medicine also regards sex organs as an important way to distinguish between men and women. If a person's chromosome, body structure and social learning environment all point to the same gender direction (whether male or female), then he or she will unconsciously form his or her own gender consciousness. At present, it is generally believed that men have XY chromosome, androgen, vas deferens and penis; Women have XX chromosome, uterus, estrogen, fallopian tube, breast and vagina. But this is not absolutely correct. If the sex of a child at birth is not clear, doctors and parents will soon decide to determine the sex of the child, but no matter which choice is made, surgery, hormone therapy and psychotherapy are usually needed. Now, more and more people with gender characteristics criticize this kind of operation as harmful to people and demand that society redefine gender. The Androgyny Association of North America has established a national organization linked by the Internet, and they demand the cancellation of surgery for hermaphrodites, so as to enhance the public's awareness of the existence of hermaphrodites and their tolerant social environment. The road of sexual development The growth and development of human embryos is like a car going along the road of sexual development until it becomes a woman, but there are five gender switching intersections on this growth road, which will send out gender switching signals and turn embryos into a road of male development. In an embryo, there are both factors needed to be a man and factors needed to be a woman. Chromosomes will send out signals to determine whether gonads will eventually become testes or ovaries. The newly formed gonads will send out hormone signals, which will determine whether the pipeline connecting the sexual organs (we call it the delivery system) will develop into vas deferens or fallopian tubes. The gonadal hormone signal also determines whether the cells of external sexual organs develop into penis, prostate and scrotum, or clitoris, vagina and labia. The confusion of gender characteristics may be caused by the improper timing of changing signals. After 6 weeks of embryo formation, it began to approach the first sex determination threshold. According to the current knowledge of human beings, Y chromosome is the key to sex determination, which can lead to the development of embryos towards men. Male-oriented embryos reach the second sexual barrier in the 8 th or 9 th week, when gonadal tissue grows and develops into testis. When the testicles begin to secrete hormones, the third gender disorder comes. If the embryo wants to continue to develop into a normal male, the testis must produce enough androgens (including testosterone), and the hormone receptor must accept these androgens. Androgen is the most important signal in the later period of sexual development. Androgen secreted by testis makes embryos develop to the fourth and fifth levels at a faster speed. About a week after androgen production, the embryo will develop to the fourth stage. At this time, androgen stimulates the transportation system of vas deferens to grow to epididymis and vas deferens. After about 10 weeks, the embryo reached the fifth level and the male external reproductive organs began to form. The appearance of androgen stimulates the gradual formation of undifferentiated cells such as penis, scrotum and urethra. Any mistakes in male development, such as defects in sex genes, insufficient androgen, incorrect androgen reception, etc. It will lead to the development of embryos turning to females, which will lead to the emergence of mixed organs. Normal female development begins with the formation of XX chromosome, about 8 weeks after embryonic development. When the embryo enters the female developmental pathway, the gonad tissue becomes ovary, which produces estrogen. After 10 weeks, fallopian tubes were formed without androgen. The uterus, upper vagina, cervix, labia, clitoris, vagina, urethra and other internal and external organs have also been formed. Chromosome diseases If a normal male chromosome has an extra X chromosome, it will lead to Creutzfeldt-Jakob syndrome (XXY). This kind of people carry both male and female chromosomes, so they have male internal reproductive organs and external reproductive organs, but the testicles and penis are not fully developed during adolescence. The common features of this disease are long legs, small testicles and penis, sharp voice and no beard, pubic hair and body hair. People with this syndrome usually live like normal men, but they need to receive androgen, and the possibility of heterosexual transformation is still very high. People who live like women also need to receive estrogen. Turner syndrome (XO) will occur if parents only pass on one X chromosome to the embryo. Because these people have only one X chromosome and no Y chromosome, they have feminine characteristics and live like women. They are short, have no Adam's apple, have little menstruation, have hypoplasia of ovaries, have no body hair, have hypoplasia of external sexual organs, and some people even have no breasts. If the disease is found early and treated with estrogen, these people's external development will change greatly and they can live like normal women. Other types of chromosomal abnormalities will not cause serious problems. For example, people with XYY chromosomes usually grow very tall and get acne. What effect this extra Y chromosome will have is still controversial. Some research results show that people with XYY chromosomes have a higher crime rate, and whether this extra Y chromosome has anything to do with people's aggressive behavior is still inconclusive. There are also many people who have XXX chromosomes, but there will be no serious consequences. These women don't even know that there is an X in their cells. There are three different types of sexual dysfunction between men and women, the main reason is that one or more cross signals appear at five barriers of gender development, and the main components of chromosomes are as follows: XXY, XO, XYY, XXX. Type I intersexuality (also called female hermaphroditism) has ovaries, but its internal and external organs are a mixture of sexes. This type of people all have XX chromosomes, ovaries and fallopian tubes, and doctors usually turn their external sexual organs into female organs through surgery. These people are usually brought up as girls, and most of them can become real women with outside help. The nonstandard mixing of all internal and external sexual organs, as long as there is a testicular system in the abdomen, is called type ⅱ intersexuality (also called hermaphroditism), which is caused by various reasons, generally due to the defects of male embryos, and this defect is mainly caused by the defects of androgen synthesis and androgen reception. Most of these patients have XY chromosomes. Type II intersexuality has a unique form, which we call androgen insensitivity syndrome, or feminization of external genitalia. According to statistics, the incidence of this disease is about 1/2000 ~ 1/65000. These patients have XY chromosomes and testes that produce androgens, but because of their genetic defects or mutations, they can't respond to androgens and can't receive them. Therefore, the uterus and female fallopian tubes were finally produced, and a short and small vagina was developed. Although from the appearance, this kind of patients are completely like women, but there is no pubic hair and no menstruation in adolescence. They are raised as women, and doctors usually remove their inner testicles by surgery to prolong their vaginas, so that they can have a normal sex life. Type III hermaphroditism is the rarest and is called true hermaphroditism. The patient may have both XX and XY chromosomes. At present, people know little about the cause of this gender disorder, and only guess that the cause may be caused by the mutation of sex chromosome gene.

treat cordially

At present, there is no widely accepted treatment standard for bisexuals in the medical field, and this standard cannot be formed soon. However, the medical profession has the responsibility to help those people whose congenital structure is different from that of ordinary people, so that they can stop feeling ashamed and do the surgery they don't want to do. It is necessary to do further research on gender, because only in this way can we find the best treatment. At present, people still have many questions about the physical structure characteristics of bisexuals: does the external social environment in which they live and grow have any influence on them? How much androgen does it take to promote the transformation of XX chromosome into male? Is external reproductive organs more important than genes? With the deepening of people's understanding of sex, perhaps there will be a major breakthrough in the treatment of bisexuals. However, no matter how advanced medicine is, human society must expand the current definition of gender in order to better include people with bisexual chromosomes and bisexual structures in our gender definition.