Hermaphrodites, Innersexed, Different Sexed Not a Choice

I tried looking up information on the Internet about Hermaphrodites. The sad thing is that almost all that came up was pornographic websites. What I was looking for was information on the medical abnormality about inner-sexed people.

Oprah had people on one of her programs that was Hermaphrodites. They weren't transsexuals or transvestites they were inner-sexed. If you have studied any of the differences you will know that there is a vast difference between this group of people. You might even wonder why I am interested. No I am none of the above. I am interested for several reasons. One is it is fascinating. There is so much hoopla about the gay issue and bisexuals, not to mention, transsexuals and transvestites that I like to at least be educated on the subject. I don't like it when people start judging and condemning without even knowing what they are talking about.

The other reason I am interested in this subject is because we had a member in my family that would be my second cousin whom was supposed to be a Hermaphrodite. I wonder now if it is really true. There is a rare hormonal disease and I can't find out any information on it, where if it is not treated, the person will die. I am sure that 80 years ago they were unaware how to treat it. I found out about this disease through a friend who has a relative who is being treated for this and is living a normal happy life. The symptoms are weight gain and hair growth all over the body. I wonder if that isn't similar to the bearded ladies in the circus?

Back to my little cousin. The reason relatives were so convinced that she was a Hermaphrodite was because she was the product of an incestuous relationship between my great-aunt and great-uncle. They were brother and sister. Just to hint at the insanity in my family, my mother said that if they would have gotten fixed and moved to a different state and married, no one would think a thing about it. What? A brother and sister marrying is okay in my mother's book. The sad thing is I have an old photo album and there is photo of this beautiful little girl who looks perfectly normal. As she grew she began turning into this hairy, grotesque, little, monstrosity. I saw a photo of her after her illness progressed. She was so sad and pathetic, and died not long after the photo was taken. I guess everyone felt that because she was a product of this incestuous relationship that it was for the best. Now there has been evidence that it is not necessarily true that you will have a deformed baby if you have had an incestuous relationship that produces a child. Perverted, sick, yes, but it will not necessarily produce a monster.

I didn't realize that Hermaphrodite deformity takes on many forms.

An example: One lady looked completely female on the outside. On the inside as she started developing her body was going crazy. When they did surgery on her they found that she had testes, although her outside genitalia was female. They removed the testes and started her on hormone therapy. She will never be able to have children because she has no female organs on the inside. She is a beautiful woman now in spite of having no internal female reproductive organs. Because she has such a loving, supportive family she has coped very well. She has a loving supportive husband also.

Another Hermaphrodite person was raised as a boy to find out later that he was not just male. He had both male and female organs. He who is now female after having hormone replacement went through the hell of drug and alcohol addiction trying to find where she fit in.

The strangest one, in some ways, was a person who had both sets of genitalia and had large clitoris, but considered herself to be both male and female and had relationships with both sexes. She was gorgeous with a model's body. (It kind of makes me wonder about the extreme models and how healthy of an image they are setting up for girls.)

She was not large busted but still looked rather feminine. She said that she or he was happy the way she was.

One of the worst things that they can do to a baby or young child is to mutilate them, turning them into one sex or the other. Sometimes a well-meaning parent or physician decides to make them into a sex by removing a part of their anatomy that will destroy any future sexual pleasure. Parents need to talk to more than one doctor and hopefully as the child gets older they can determine what is right for them. Each case is different. For example the first case where the young girl was meant to be a girl they were able to remove the non-functioning reproductive organs. They can be tested to see what sex they were meant to be. In the case of the young lady with the testes removed, she was meant to be female. Her chromosomes were female.

It is a very complicated abnormality and thankfully not that common. The developing fetus is female to begin with. It the early stages of it's development it will determine if it is going to stay female or become male. This is when the abnormality becomes real. It is a lot more complicated than I can understand but fascinating to study. I would like to hear if anyone else has any information or first hand experience with this in their family or friends.