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This is the tale of two children, born with the outward appearance of girls, but lacking the inner passageways of either sex: no cervix, uterus or fallopian tubes, and no seminal vesicles, vasa deferentia or prostate either. They did have gonads, though: one had a boy's testes, the other had a girl's ovaries.
Both the children were reared the way their appearance demanded — as girls. Both were traumatized by their physical abnormality and by society's response to it. But one of them found comfort in her role as a girl, and she eventually grew into a woman whom everyone now recognizes and treats as such. The other was a tomboy who rebelled against everything girlish; eventually she demanded sex reassignment and is a man today. So which was which?
That's obvious, you'll say: the child with the ovaries became a woman, and the child with the testes became a man. Hormones, after all, are the ultimate arbiters of our sexual fate, so how could it be otherwise?
Well, it was otherwise. The child with the testes became a woman, and the child with the 
ovaries became a man. This is the story of how that happened. And, more generally, it's about the biological complexity, the emotional turmoil and the medical politics of intersexes — people who can't be shoehorned into the comfortable categories of male or female.
Sherri Groveman, a forty-one-year-old tax lawyer, lives alone in a ranch-style home in a sun-baked suburb of San Diego. She's a pleasant, forthright, freckle-faced, womanly woman. So why, within a few minutes of the start of our interview, did I innocently ask: "And did you enjoy playing with other boys — girls, I mean?"
I blushed and apologized, but Sherri wouldn't let me get away with it. It was a Freudian slip par excellence — evidence that a part of me considered her a male, regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. And the reason? Because I knew that she had been born with testicles, and that every cell in her body contained an X and a Y chromosome — the genetic signature of a male.
Sherri has a medical condition known as androgen insensitivity syndrome, or AIS. Androgens are the "male-making" hormones, of which testosterone is the leading member. Normally, androgens do their business by attaching to "receptor" molecules in target cells throughout the body and brain, in the same way as a key fits in a lock. In genetic males with AIS, a mutation changes the shape of those receptors, so that androgens no longer "fit" them. An affected fetus may be awash in testosterone, secreted by the developing testes, but the hormone has no effect, so the fetus develops with the outer appearance of a female. In addition, the male reproductive tract (prostate, seminal vesicles and vasa deferentia) fails to develop.
If Sherri's entire body had been female, all might have been well. But there's another hormone that is normally secreted by the developing testis, whose role is to switch off the development of the female reproductive tract: the upper part of the vagina, the cervix, uterus and fallopian tubes. This hormone does function normally in fetuses with AIS, so Sherri ended up lacking the reproductive tract of either sex.
Sherri's condition was recognized a few weeks after birth, because her testes, in the attempt to migrate down into her non-existent scrotum, became lodged in her groin, 
where they could be felt as lumps. They were removed surgically, out of concern that they might become cancerous. (This is a legitimate concern in all cases of undescended testicles, but such cancers rarely occur during childhood, so the operation could have been put off for many years.) Sherri was brought up thinking that she had had hernia surgery, but an occasional remark from her mother, to the effect that "not all girls could become mothers," hinted that more might be amiss.
Because Sherri now lacked gonads of any kind, she would need hormone replacement to bring about the bodily changes associated with female puberty. When she was eleven, her mother prepared her for this by telling her something slightly closer to the truth: that she had been born with "twisted ovaries" that had been removed to prevent cancer. Sherri learned that she would not menstruate and could never bear children, but she did not learn the real cause, nor was she told of possible difficulties in her sex life. "The twisted-ovaries story is a lie heard round the world," she says. "The medical literature recommends that doctors and parents should lie about it — the thought being that we would kill ourselves if we were told the truth." After this ten-minute conversation, she did not discuss the matter with either of her parents for the next twenty-eight years.
With puberty, her private shame threatened to become a public one. She developed most of the outer features of a woman, but she did not grow pubic hair, which depends on androgens in both men and women. So she had to conceal her lower body in school showers and locker rooms, and from future boyfriends. Worse, she found that her vagina was too narrow and short. "Everyone was using tampons," she says, "so I bought some and tried putting one in, but it hurt like hell, because of the narrow entry-way." Her vagina was less than two inches long — too short for intercourse.
Convinced that she had a dirty secret for which she was herself to blame, Sherri became a "gregarious loner" — outwardly sociable, but shunning intimacy with anyone. The only time her condition was discussed was at her periodic endocrinological check-ups. The discussions were not with Sherri, though, but among the doctors and medical students who gathered around her crotch. "They were talking amongst themselves about my genitals," she says, "but I had no idea what they were saying." She was told nothing about her condition, and she was asked nothing about her psychological health.
At age twenty-one, Sherri figured out the cause of her condition on her own by rummaging through textbooks in a medical library. She was devastated — not so much at discovering her intersexed status but at discovering she had been lied to for two decades by parents and doctors. This led to her complete estrangement from the medical profession: she stopped taking estrogens and didn't see a doctor for another fourteen years.
"Finding out about myself in the way I did really damaged me," she says. "I thought, 'How can I embark on a relationship and not tell my partner? I'd be participating in that same lie that was told to me.' And yet I thought I would have to lie. After all, no one told me the information, so I thought it must be so horrible, such a hideous and freakish thing, that if I told anyone else they would bolt."
At the age of thirty-five, however, she did go back to a doctor; she was in a tentative relationship with a man and wanted to know if anything could be done to help her have vaginal intercourse. The 
doctor confirmed that Sherri had AIS, and put her back on estrogens to correct the severe osteoporosis that had been brought on by the lack of hormones. She also recommended that Sherri use vaginal dilators — plastic test-tubes that she was to sit on for fifteen minutes twice a day. Although these dilators do help some women, Sherri did not like them, and she eventually broke off the relationship with her boyfriend.
All those years, Sherri had never met anyone resembling herself, and this, she says, was the deepest cause of her loneliness and shame. A few months after the break-up with her boyfriend, however, she came in contact with an AIS support group that was forming in England, and she flew over to attend the inaugural meeting. "There was nothing I would not have given to participate," says Sherri. "I would have cut off my arm — I was that desperate to look into someone else's eyes and have them know what I was experiencing." She has been back for ten subsequent meetings, and she has herself founded a U.S. support group that works closely with its U.K. counterpart.
Although Sherri identifies as a woman, her identity as an intersex is now just as important to her. Indeed, she is waging a small campaign to have the intersex status more widely recognized: in the "M/F" box on the census form she wrote, "I (intersex)", and she is trying (unsuccessfully so far) to have the same designation included on her driver's license. "I'm not asking for unusual accommodations," she says. "I just want people to acknowledge the reality of intersexes."
James Benson is a forty-five-year-old neuroscientist at a prestigious university. With ample beard, muscular build and male dress and mannerisms, Benson is unquestionably a man, but he was born a girl. Jennifer, as she was named, seemed to be a physically normal girl throughout her childhood, but she was anything but a typical girl in her behavior. She wanted to play with boys and do all the hyperactive, mucky things that boys do. She did not want to associate with girls or do anything remotely feminine. As her childhood progressed, she 
became more and more of a social pariah, ostracized by her peers of either sex.
At puberty, Jennifer developed breasts, but failed to menstruate. When she was sixteen, her mother took her to a gynecologist, who prescribed estrogen shots to "get her going," but these didn't work. Jennifer was not especially keen to menstruate anyway, so she stopped the treatment after about a year. In high school her social life was essentially non-existent. Instead she "over-achieved" academically, and entered MIT — a male-dominated school — a year early.
In college, she fell in love with a man, and they attempted intercourse, but without success: Jennifer, it turned out, had no vagina. This fact had not only escaped her own attention for twenty years, it had also been missed by the doctor who had examined her four years before ("A typical bozo gynecologist," Benson reminisces).
Jennifer went to see her college gynecologist, who arranged for exploratory surgery. It was found that Jennifer had ovaries but no reproductive tract. It emerged that Jennifer's mother had taken progestin hormones during pregnancy, but a connection between that and Jennifer's condition is uncertain. (Jennifer has a twin sister, who was exposed to the same drug in utero but who did not develop Jennifer's condition.) The surgeon recommended that Jennifer have a vagina constructed by plastic surgery, telling her that this operation would make her "normal."
"I remember thinking, 'I'm not going to be normal,'" says Benson, "but back then I was very intimidated by doctors and I was confused by what was going on. I didn't spend time arguing with them like I would now." A tunnel was opened up between her rectum and her bladder, and it was lined with skin taken from her buttocks. It did in fact work as a vagina, after a fashion, but Jennifer's problem was much deeper than that: she did not feel psychologically comfortable having sex as a woman. Eventually she ended the relationship with her boyfriend and invested all her time and energy in her career. Luckily, it was a career in which dress codes and gender expectations were pretty much non-existent.
At about the age of forty, Jennifer was diagnosed with breast cancer, which runs in her family. The surgeon recommended that she have the affected breast removed, but Jennifer persuaded him to remove both breasts, in part for prophylactic 
reasons but also because she had never liked them. "When my mother had to have her mastectomy, it was this incredibly devastating experience, which is typical for most women," says Benson. "But I was delighted when my breasts were taken off. I never wore any prostheses. This got me to realizing that there was something unusual about my gender identity."
Thus, Jennifer had the first stage of sex-reassignment surgery almost by subterfuge. The rest — ovariectomy, testosterone treatment and change of name and legal sex — followed a few years later. James did not have a phalloplasty — the construction of a penis. "I do wish I had one," he says, "but 100,000 dollars for something that can't get an erection and has little feeling and can lead to all kinds of complications? No, thank you." Since James is still sexually attracted to men, he is now a gay man and is tentatively exploring that identity.
At a recent sexology conference in Spain, I had the opportunity to discuss the surgical issues with physician Jos Megens, who runs the celebrated sex-reassignment clinic at the Free University of Amsterdam. Megens conceded that the construction of normal male genitalia in an intersexed or female patient leaves a lot to be desired. For that reason, he said, his clinic has recently begun to offer a surgical procedure which creates a "micropenis" out of the patient's own clitoris. In this operation, the clitoris is lengthened by exteriorizing the portion of the clitoral shaft that is usually hidden within the body, and a newly-fashioned urethra is embedded within it. The resulting organ is no more than four to six centimeters long and is not adequate for vaginal penetration, but it is erectile and it usually has good erotic sensitivity with the capacity for orgasm. Even this small penis can have problems, however: in about half the patients some kind of repair surgery is eventually necessary.
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Luckily, surgical perfection is not the key factor. Even without a penis of any kind, James Benson feels like a new man. "The thing that's so hard to describe is the relief," he says. "I feel it every day, every minute. There's no longer this conflict between my inner self and that outer woman. Years ago, I read about people who changed sex, and I thought they were some kind of perverts — I'm embarrassed to say that now. But changing sex isn't about sexuality, it's about who you feel you are." At some levels, Sherri Groveman and James Benson are very different. Certainly they now look very different — one an unmistakable woman, the other an unmistakable man. Also, Sherri has a clear-cut syndrome, AIS, whereas the underlying cause of James' condition — the unusual combination of absent reproductive tract and cross-gender identity — remains something of a mystery. At a deeper level, though, Sherri and James share a sense that they have been wounded by more than the hand nature dealt them. They feel that they were violated by doctors who saw them purely as medical problems to be solved — as people to be made normal, or as close to normal as was possible, by surgery or hormones. Little or no attention was paid to the people behind the genitalia. More positively, however, both Sherri and James share a sense of triumph: a sense that, against all the odds, they have found their way to who they really are. In the process, they have overcome life-destroying shame and loneliness. Both want to communicate their stories out of a desire to ease the lives of others like them. Intersexes are just beginning to build a community and to become socially and politically engaged. The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) seeks to provide not only a support group for intersexes but also education and advocacy that will help break down the shame and silence that surrounds them. ISNA's founder, Cheryl (née Charlie) Chase, was born with gonads containing both ovarian and testicular tissue — making her what used to be called a "true hermaphrodite." She also had a small penis, but doctors later reassigned her to be female, whereupon the penis became an excessively large clitoris, and it was cut off. In consequence, Cheryl grew up without the capacity to experience orgasm. To Chase, the overriding priority is to overcome the sense of shame associated with intersexuality. This shame is not just psychologically damaging; it is also the main motivation behind the "corrective" surgery done on intersexed children. Most of this surgery is unnecessary, or could be left until the child is old enough to make decisions for him- or herself, says Chase, but doctors and parents want above all to get rid of anatomical deviations; they want to "normalize" the child. Yet this cannot be with any confidence until the child is able to communicate what is "normal" for him or her. Unlike Sherri Groveman, with her one-person war against the "M/F" dichotomy, Chase acknowledges the biological and cultural primacy of the two sexes. "I'm not a radical postmodern theorist who wants to deconstruct sexuality," she says. "I don't think it's realistic or beneficial to encourage parents to bring up children with an intersex identity." What she does want is for doctors to communicate with parents, parents with children and adult intersexes with the public. She herself is a tireless communicator, churning out articles, books and sound-bites, and speaking at meetings with everyone from pediatricians to church folk. Although she faces considerable resistance, there is a gradual movement among pediatricians to rethink the traditional notion of early surgical intervention in the treatment of intersexed kids. To their credit, none of the intersexes I've met attribute their problems simply to victimization by society. "It's going to be totally shitty no matter what, there's no way around it," says Sherri. "But I was never sorry that I was born intersexed. I wouldn't trade. This is who I was meant to be in this world." |
DEFINING SOME TERMS Gonadal intersex (or "true hermaphrodite"): Rare condition in which the child has both ovarian and testicular tissue, either in separate gonads or as hybrid "ovotestes." Reproductive tracts, genital anatomy and gender identity are variable. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (or adrenogenital syndrome): Genetic error in adrenal glands causes excessive secretion of androgens during fetal life. Genitals of female children are masculinized to a variable degree. Psychological effects include an increased likelihood of same-sex attraction in adulthood. Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS, or testicular feminization): An XY (chromosomally male) fetus lacks sensitivity to testosterone, so develops external anatomy and gender identity of female, but lacks internal reproductive tract of either sex. Partial AIS: Like AIS, but with reduced rather than absent sensitivity to androgens. Child may partially virilize at puberty if testes are not removed. Hypospadias: Condition in male children in which the urethral meatus (opening) is located on the underside or at the base of the penis. Represents an incomplete male differentiation of the genitalia, but it is not necessarily considered an intersexed condition, especially in its milder forms. Mayer-Rokitansky-Kustur-Hauser syndrome: Failure of development of vagina, cervix, uterus and fallopian tubes in genetic females. Cause not known. James Benson may have had this syndrome, although his male gender identity is atypical. Vaginal agenesis: Failure of formation of vagina, for a variety of reasons, including MRKH syndrome. Cloacal exstrophy: Severe congenital malformation of pelvis, including (in males) lack of a penis. These boys usually develop a male identity even if castrated and surgically reconstructed as females. Klinefelter's syndrome: Genetic males with one or more extra X chromosomes (XXY, XXXY). Anatomically male but infertile. Turner's syndrome: Affected individuals have one X and no Y chromosome. Ovaries degenerate during fetal life, in other respects anatomically female. Short stature and lack of secondary sexual characteristics without treatment. Hermaphrodite: Old medical term for an intersexed person, given new life by some intersex activists. Support/advocacy groups: Intersex Society of North America AIS Support Group Mayer-Rokitansky-Kustur-Hauser Syndrome Support Group |
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Simon LeVay and hooksexup.com |
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Comments ( 23 )
This issue is also discussed in _Woman: An Intimate Geography_ by Natalie Angiers. As a very good friend of a self-identified transgender, I am pleased to see more discussion of "non-binary sexuality" and something that further opens the dicussion of the differences between sex and gender. And what is truly "normal."
so send the story to Jerry Springer hope to see it tomarrow at 11
Sometimes people refer to a prominent nose as in like a ski jump shape and type nose . . . with that in mind, herein also lies an excellent metaphor for describing "the ski jump" effect/affect. Dealing with the concept of intersexing has its own people, those peoples in particular have the know-how. Because a ski jump nose can be a beautiful thing with or without an angle of repose from the outside looking in. That is always everybody point of view, too! Hereby, it's the getting to know the ins and outs of you, and so when you have an angular, sometimes out of shape nose as a part of you; you again learn from that! You can't buy time away from opposing that; in hope that the ski jump nose or ski jump-looking nose will somehow go away for good. You shape your life and nose accordingly; that is nature's way of putting it just so (the know how), and then letting you take on your own inclinations from there-on in.
An excellent article. Clearly compassion, open mindedness, and a resolute attitude towards discovery and experimentation must become the hallmarks of a succesful modern society.
I didn't get the nose thing.
I am a 46xx genotypical female but I have male penis I have had every test that is avaible to science and they can explain why I hav a penis I am looking for any information that yheir is out their in cyber space if their is none then all I can hope for is that their is surport for me in my brother and sisters out their that suffer the same faith that i do please email me on
Have you ever noticed that intersex related pages on the web have click throughs for support groups but not for personals ads.
Hello, gentlepersons.
Your article https://hooksexup.com/dispatches/levay/intersex/main.asp contains a sidebar on a number of conditions. You have an error of fact in one of them. Specifically, the quotation "Klinefelter's syndrome: Genetic males with one or more extra X chromosomes (XXY, XXXY). Anatomically male but infertile. Increased likelihood of homosexuality in adulthood." is inaccurate.
There have been a number of prospective studies performed around the world on Klinefelter's Syndrome. In these studies, babies in tens of thousands of sequential live births are karyotyped at birth and then followed for decades. Researchers performing these studies have noted certain characteristics, including a very high rate of infertility, but none have noted any increases in the incidence of either homosexuality or of aberrant sexual behaviour as compared to age-matched controls. Please look up the work of Shirley Ratcliffe and of Bruce Bender for more specifics. Here are a few references to get you started:
Bender BG, Harmon RJ, Linden MG, Bucher-Bartelson B, Robinson A. Psychosocial competence of unselected young adults with sex chromosome abnormalities. Am J Med Genet 1999 Apr 16;88(2):200-6.
Bender BG, Harmon RJ, Linden MG, Robinson A. Psychosocial adaptation of 39 adolescents with sex chromosome abnormalities. Pediatrics 1995 Aug;96(2 Pt 1):302-8.
Linden MG, Bender BG, Robinson A. Intrauterine diagnosis of sex chromosome aneuploidy. Obstet Gynecol 1996 Mar;87(3):468-75.
Ratcliffe S. Long-term outcome in children of sex chromosome abnormalities. Arch Dis Child 1999 Feb;80(2):192-5.
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if you wish to discuss this matter further.
-Steve Gerken
My name is Donna I am glad to find other people like my self and starting to understand why I am not like other females. I have the same prolbem as the females in your artcile but I have all my orangs for female but I have my peroids about twice a year if i am lucky but am able to have a chid yet but the doctors say I can have a child.I know how it feel to be different.
I need to get in touch with Sherri Groveman. My story is very similar and have never been able to find a single person who has a similar situation.
I thought the article was brilliant, empathetic and understandable and it really helped me as I'm doing a presentation on gender identity, sexuality and Queer theory and this article was perfect.Thanks
I was intrigued by the article, and have nothing to add to the above (below?) insightful comments.
The year ought to be appended to the date of submissions. (5-29-2001 for this one)
I thought this was an excellent article that not only describes clearly the physiological variations in sex and substrates of gender, but also the social impact of not fitting into a conventional gender category.
Matt Patton
Jacksonville, FL
Another method of becoming intersexed is if you were born a boy and have a circumcision accident. There is a problem here. Parents do it for medical reasons. As far as I have found out, people who aren't circumcised have the same probability of those who are of getting cancer, unless they don't clean themselves. There are similar statistics about likelihood of infections. They also say the same thing about female circumcision, but if women in this country are not circumcised, why does it have to be the men? I have even heard of R.E.C.A.P. a suport group for men who don't like being circumcised, where they can get reconstructive surgery if they want.
I would guess most parents do this to their boys without thinking, because other people do it, or they don't know about this. Circumcision also is of no benefit for baby boys and can lead to loss of blood (or penis) to a large extent, infection, or death. I think this is something Americans should think about. At least, can't they ust wait until the boy is older, and let him decide? That way, he won't feel violated if he is circumcised.
I sure wished they asked me! Now I'm a eunuch.
I would also like to add that circumcision is very dangerous, leaves babies in excruciating pain, very often does irreversable damage, and the pain alone (babies are more sensitive to pain that adults) often causes them to cry so hard that air from their lungs gets into their chest cavities, their heart may fail, and their intestines might rupture. Anasthetic is even more dangerous. The baby suffers a lot of trauma and may not want to brestfeed after ten minutes of being strapped to a board, have its foreskin peeled off and crushed and cut.
The foreskin is very sensitive and slows him down in bed, and sexual contact is much more enjoyable for both partners, as it makes things go smoothly. The glans is not meant to be touched, even by clothing, soap, or sex, as it has no skin on it, and the foreskin, which makes up half to two thirds of the skin of the penis, is completely fused to the glans at birth. It is attached at the base of the penis and to the head. Doctors often think that this is abnormal, or is phimosis, and order it cut off. Phimosis is impossible to diagnose until the foreskin has separated at about age ten or so. The twins which had circumcisions for phimosis when they were babies was obviously a misdiagnosis, although it is a common mistake.
Doctors in the U.S. know very little about foreskins, and so misdiagnoses like this can lead to loss of penis, as the person in the article relates. What's more is that the open wound on the surface of the glans invites memingitis, tuberculosis, gangrene, and all sorts of other diseases, especially since it is exposed to 'diaper gravy.' The foreskin actually is for protection from infections, and removing it and allowing the glans to harden, instead of being red and shiny, does not help.
Furthermore, the secretion called smegma is actually more common in women, and women get more infections than men, but they are not circumcised for 'medical reasons.' What irony! Smegma simply aids the growth of new cells by getting rid of old ones, and serves as a lubricant. Not only that, but doctors usually don't know that the foreskin requires no special cleaning, just relax the foreskin muscles and pull it back and rinse it off. It's that easy. A lot of doctors tell parents who have uncircumcised boys to pull back the foreskin, but this is not possible for very young children, and often causes infection or injury.
I can go on and on, but those are the basics that everyone, and I mean everyone should know, especially doctors.
Again, I'm doing this! Why? I could also add that babies will go into shock and slip into a semi-comatose state, which the doctors often misinterpret as the baby not reacting to the excruciating pain of circumcision. What person with a conscience could do this, much less do even more extensive operations on babies, which it sometimes leads to.
Most people don't think of circumcision as amputation or harmful, even doctors, who usually don't know what foreskins are for in the first place! Go ahead and read below and see for yourself what it is and what it does.
It may surprise you.
hello simon, my name is brian. i am an intx, but considered an intp by the meyers briggs evaluation. in a search for self i tried everything by the enneagram theory i am a type 4 with a 5 wing, and i feel i have sucessfully moved into a healthy one. I am still gay, but i am assuming a celbant lifestyle for many reasons. I am jewish and attractive, but i try to maintain a low profile because I don't want iggnorant people to think i am jesus christ or anyone else. I have noticed trends in popular music, since childhood i have been fascianted with gay musicians. lately elton and george m. Elton is a pisces/aries, essentially ice on fire, perhaps a young discpile or an old re-incarnated apostle.He is the star in the book of destiny. Along with psychology i have emersed myself into astrology and i observe the outside world. I have a penis,so i know i am a man, i don't feel like a woman but i am attracted to men. I have come to a conclusion. That christianity is somehwhat of a flawed experiment. Jesus christ himself was an unhealthy intx, a negatvie type one,by the enneagram, he was morally condeming, hence the red lining in the new testament. Many men have tried to be christ like, including many gay and straight ment alike. We are all human it is almost impossible, but i will never say never, nor will i say yes. I would let christ live because he is iggnorant, but the only way i did find god was through him , after being chased for years by the very iggnorant people that believe he is the son of GOD. so i am a believer and i believe that from what i have learned christianity is the best relgion and that it is the future of the world. After this recent tragedy east and west will combine into one, to prepare for further more advanced discovery into space. I HAVE FAITH. However that brings me to my second of three questions/observations. Are gay men born gay. xx,xy, right? but if men have 2 x chromosones and women have an x and a y then we assume that gay men are not born gay. but then why do some men go back and forth, others are steadfast in their gay born belief theory and some are heterosexual. then i come here expecting a some dissertation and all i see are pictures of individuals who have both parts, there is more to the picture then xx and xy. the original theory was wrong to begin with. I would like to be your student Mr.levay, because as far back as i can remember i felt wierd. I didn't feel i was gay until 9 but from a very young age i felt different like boy george putting on costumes at age 5, things of that nature. I am intelligent capable and my quest for the truth is unstopable. I still sleep at night but with every anwser comes a new question. I would like to meet you and help you in any way i can. With love, respect, and admiration. Brian Jonathon Beal
To add to my previous inquiry. I belive there are gay birds, gay dogs, and other gay animals. I recently have noticed the the colors of god to be gold and blue. I have also noticed queer birds, several times a group sitting on one pole while one sits on the other. THE SPECIAL BIRD. At night just when i went outside to have a cigarette i heard a bird, a lonely one crying out in the dark alone. I am bipolar as well, i take my medication so i am ok.i am not manic nor depressed right now, nor crazy. What i speak i believe to be the truth. I have healthy balanced diet i sleep eight hours a night and i exercise 3/4 times a week. Please get back to me, I am hungry for the truth. bb.
Hello. Your article says this:
"The resulting organ is no more than four to six centimeters long and is not adequate for vaginal penetration, but it is erectile and it usually has good erotic sensitivity with the capacity for orgasm."
But what about anal penetration? Articles about this subject never address that idea. If i was a boy, i would do that, i wouldn't have sex with girls. And is the length measured during an erection or not?
Terrific piece! Right up there with The Sexual Brain -- thanks!
????is it possible for a hermaphdrite to have normal sexual relationship and if a male to father 2 children
Enjoyed reading the article on Sherri Groveman and this other person. I too was born Intersexed. I am 46XY and was raised a a female from birth and have taken HRT since the age of 11 yrs. old when my surgery was performed. I had to use dialators to lengthen my short blind ending vagina but other than that have experiencd no real difficulty being born Intersex physically. The worse thing I have experienced is the lies, secrecy and shame associated with it. Was lied to by my Dr. and my parents(because my Dr. convinced them that if they told me the whole truth I'd commit suicide or crack up). Neither of those scenarios are true. I have been married now for 30 yrs. to a wonderful man and have a great life so for the rest of the Intersex Community and People there is life at the other end of the tunnel. Don't give up. Thanks for allowing me to share my story.
Your an incredible person and I take my hat off to you... sex is such an important part of most adult people, yet you have found your own way of dealing with it...I can not phathom the depths you must have reached in your life, yet i respect and admire your courage... all the best...aussie lad here...cheers peter
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