Ambiguous Genitalia

Paper Summary:

In this paper the author explores the incidents of birth where gender is unclear. He looks at how the sex of a child at birth moulds the child for future life from the color of the blanket he or she is given to the type of toys they play with. The paper cites examples of children born in South East Asia who are neither male or female that are disowned by general society and often turn to prostitution in later years if they are not accepted as performers. They are considered to be neither man nor woman and are often considered freaks. Finally the paper concludes that, with the advancement of modern medicine, there is hope that operations can be performed to give these people a true gender identity.

From the Paper:

"Early in fetal development, males and females are indistinguishable. Male fetuses have primitive male and female sex organs; female fetuses have primitive male and female sex organs. It's the body's hormones that determine which organs develop further and which disappear. The hormones get their 'messages' from the sex chromosomes. So you can begin to understand how if a problem arises anywhere along these lines of 'communication', a baby could be born with ambiguous genitalia or organs of the opposite gender."

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