A hermaphrodite is a man or a woman?

A hermaphrodite is a person who has both female and male sexual characteristics. Where did this unusual name come from? In order to answer this question, let us turn to the ancient Greek mythology. According to legend, the Hermaphrodite is the son of two Olympic gods, Hermes and Aphrodite. Accordingly, his name is an anagram of the names of the parents. God the wicked and Goddess of love and beauty for some reason did not engage in the upbringing of her son. This role was assumed by the neiad. The young man grew and developed. When he was fifteen years old, the nymph Salmakid, who lives in the spring, became very fond of him. They met with glances when the Hermaphrodite leaned over to the water to get drunk. The nymph could not leave its source, but the young man's passion was so strong that he called to the gods and asked him to unite him forever with his beloved. So they became one being - half male, half female.

Characteristic

So, the hermaphrodite is a two-sexed being. The features of its development depend on many factors and can be different. For example, a male child with a penis may appear, and later he will develop lush mammary glands. The opposite situation is also possible: a woman who has testicles in her place - male testicles. Therefore, it is quite difficult to attribute a person suffering from hermaphroditism to a certain gender. By the way, the sufferings of such a creature, its difficulties with self-identification are described in detail in the novel by an American with the Greek roots of Jeffrey Eugenides "The Middle Floor." If you are interested in how the hermaphrodites look, photos of people suffering from this disease can be found in the medical reference book.

Clinical picture

This phenomenon, as a rule, is caused by congenital anomalies of the external genitalia. Its formation occurs up to the eighteenth week of development of the fetus. According to doctors, hermaphroditism is observed in about six percent of cases, but there is no official statistics at this time. The thing is that most patients are diagnosed as "testicular feminization", "ovoteistis", "adrenogenital syndrome", etc. There is a false opinion that the hermaphrodite is a person who must be subjected to compulsory treatment.

Types of the disease

For today in medicine it is accepted to allocate true and false hermaphroditism. The first is widespread in the animal and plant worlds. Worms, fish, shrimp, lizards, leeches - they all have signs of both sexes. True hermaphroditism in humans is characterized by the presence in the body of gonads both male and female. In the second case, gonads of the same sex are observed, and the external genital organs are of another sex. For example, such female hermaphrodites are distinguished by a normal internal structure (uterus, tubes, ovaries), and their secondary sexual characteristics are something resembling a member and a scrotum.

Diagnostics

As you know, the sex of the child is established at birth (or even earlier, on ultrasound) and is fixed in all documents. That is why it is very important to determine it correctly. In hermaphroditism, each specific case must be checked against six criteria (in this connection, the genetic, gonadal, hormonal, phenotypic, psychological and legal sex are distinguished).

Treatment

Of course, any individual solves the problem of correcting and transforming the sex on his own. In principle, sex change is possible and fairly widely practiced. Treatment begins with hormone therapy. If it passes successfully, you can resort to surgery and, finally, fix it all legally.