Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Intersex
My sister writes:
A student asked me if hermaphrodites have menstrual cycles. It came up in a free discussion I hold once a week during Sustained Silent Reading time. Do they? Some students said there are different types of hermaphrodites (I’d never heard that before). If they have both sexual organs and one is more developed than the other, I guess that is what they meant? Anyway, how can they have a menstrual cycle with both organs whether one is dominant or not.
Figured you’d know the answer to this.
She knows me so well. Answer below the fold.
In all honesty, I didn’t know the answer to this. I knew the basics (there are a lot of different medical conditions involving so-called “ambiguous genitalia,” most of these folks are infertile, so most of the ones who identify as female probably have irregular or absent menstrual cycles) but not much detail. So I did a bit of web surfing, and here’s what I learned.
1. There’s no single syndrome of “hermaphroditism.” That’s not even an accepted term anymore — these folks like to call themselves intersex. There are several different conditions, and so there’s a different answer for each. Here’s one resource on intersexuality.
2. If you consider one of the more common conditions, androgen insensitivity syndrome, menses can be absent or merely irregular (here’s a link).
3. As I understand it, something approaching true hermaphroditism (in which the individual has partial sets of each type of genitalia) is exceptionally rare. I believe this is only seen in chimerism*, a condition in which there’s a twin conception and, VERY early on, the two cell clusters fuse to form one organism. Kind of like the ultimate siamese twin — which is the same idea, only the two fetuses fuse much later in development. In this case, the one cell cluster develops normally into a fetus and then a baby, but genetically, some of its cells derive from one fertilized egg, some from another. Two individuals in one. And if those two individuals were of different sexes, i.e., one XX and one XY, then you have an XXXY chimera. I’m not sure whether these folks have menstrual cycles — I imagine it varies, depending on the nature of the chimera. Each one of these folks is going to be quite unique.
If there’s a simple answer to the question (and there really isn’t), it would be that MOST intersex individuals who are more female than male don’t have normal cycles. But that’s really an oversimplification. The important thing to stress is that the usual concept of hermaphroditism — a functioning set of male and female genitalia together — doesn’t occur in humans, and the closest thing is chimerism, which is rare.
Here’s another link (with pictures!) detailing the different syndromes.
Hope this helps!
***
That was my answer to my sis. If anyone has additional information on the topic, or if I’ve made any errors you’d like to correct, please post them in the comments.
D.
*Sorry, Sis — in my letter to you, I incorrectly called this mosaicism. Mosaicism is quite a different thing.
We identify most strongly with gender, are it must be very difficult to have to deal with this condition. We don’t even have the ability, in English, to describe people who are not either male or female.
Dean —
That’s why most US hospitals perform ‘corrective’ surgery on infants with ‘ambiguous’ genitalia… One article in those results put the numbers at approximately 1:4500. Not *that* common, but that’s still a lot of infants having ‘girl’ forced upon them (since that’s what the majority of the ‘corrections’ wind up being).
i know about this! *raises hand excitedly* dontcha remember how i asked you all those questions last semester for a class?
from what i remember from my class(damn, i wish i had my book here…it’s called “Sexing the Body” by anne fausto sterling, and it’s an amazing amazing book), there are many different forms of intersexuality. there’s even one where you grow up as a girl and then at puberty your balls drop and you turn into a boy. AIS, which you mentioned, is just one common form of intersexuality, but often it’s a case of the genitalia simply not forming correctly–a boy being born with a micro-penis, for example, or a girl with an enlarged clitoris. because, as dean said, our stupid society places so much weight on gender, these babies are often subjected to surgery to make them one or the other.
but in response to your sister’s question…i think it really depends on the individual. because with AIS, you don’t have a uterus, but with other conditions, you could have a uterus AND testicles…so yeah.
that link you gave is pretty comprehensive. i could talk about this shite all day, but i have to get up and have breakfast, so yeah. go learn, people!
Because I’m one of those teachers who students feel comfortable with when it comes to bringing up stuff like this, I guess that’s why I get these questions, but hey, why isn’t her damn science teacher providing these answers? The links are too strong for a student in high school, but surely an appropriate answer could be created. This was informative, so thanks!
With high school students, comfort level is everything. I still remember innocently asking Mr. Miller (remember him?) about the origin of the scientific symbols for male and female. Was VERY embarrassed to hear this old dude talking to me about erect penises and vaginal clefts.
oh, PS? Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is an amazing amazing book about an intersexual (and is definately suitable for high school students, btw). it is fiction, yet as you’re reading it you find yourself forgetting that it’s not real and wanting to meet the main character…Euginede’s writing is so raw and believable. i couldn’t put it down.
shaina — thx for the rec, I’ll have to check it out.