The history of hermaphroditism began in a colorful and romantic way. In time immemorial, when the gods still intervened with might and main in the fate of people, there was a young man named Hermaphrodite - the fruit of the love of Hermes and Aphrodite.
And then one day, walking along the shore of a lake in Phrygia, he ran into a beautiful nymph Salmakis, who wanted to become his bride. Frightened by such a sharp turn of fate, the young man refused in fear, but the nymph was not a mistake - she immediately complained to Aphrodite. And when Hermaphrodite decided to swim in the lake, Salmakis watched him and hugged him - so much so that it was impossible to separate her, because the god and the nymph merged into a single whole.
So everything was or in another way - it is not known for certain. Perhaps the ancient Greeks embellished something. However, the fact remains: to this day, people are born on our planet who have both male and female sexual characteristics. And sometimes very interesting stories are connected with this.
Indian passions
At the end of April last year, the Indian hermaphrodite Kuttiyama got into a very unpleasant story. The fact is that he was inflamed with love for his relative Laura and, in order to marry her, decided on a sex change operation. To do this, taking a loan of $ 1,150 to pay for the treatment, he surrendered himself to the doctors, who in the shortest possible time cut off and sewn up everything the patient needed. So the hermaphrodite woman Kuttiyama turned into the hermaphrodite man Bina.
Then events began to develop in the style of an Indian melodrama: Laura announced that she was marrying another, and the rejected Bina filed a lawsuit against the offender. Laura's new fiancé, having learned all the piquancy of the story, changed his mind about marrying her. In general, I do not think that in the finale everyone will sing and dance …
Another Indian hermaphrodite from the city of Jaipur lived quietly in the form of a girl until the age of 18, but then, feeling constant pain in the lower abdomen, he turned to doctors. As it turned out, he was raised as a girl in vain, since the female genitals were underdeveloped, but the prostate, testicles and penis were present, which suddenly began to grow. The doctors, with the patient's consent, performed a simple two-hour operation and prescribed the former Indian woman a course of hormonal therapy, which would finally turn the girl into a man. On this occasion, I think, you can both dance and sing.
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Another hermaphrodite, Jonathan Featherstone from the UK, had his gender (or lack thereof?) Served well. One day, a two-sex man was arrested in Jamaica, and not one, but together with 16 kilograms of marijuana, which he smuggled to local drug dealers. The unlucky courier had a long time, but he was saved by the Jamaican Themis, who could not decide where to assign the inhabitant of Foggy Albion - to a women's or men's prison.
Since there is no correctional facility for hermaphrodites in Jamaica (as well as in the whole world), the judge was forced to release Jonathan right in the courtroom, ordering him only to pay a fine of £ 2,600.
But the American justice is not tormented by such doubts, which was shown by the conviction of the hermaphrodite in May 2001. Bank robber Patricia Colleen McGrath, the owner of a penis and a fourth size breasts, was detained by the police while committing another crime. The court was harsh and punished her with 35 years of imprisonment, and when asked in which colony to keep such a beautifully gifted criminal by nature, he answered: in a woman's. True, the judge was guided in making a decision only by Patricia's appearance, which is not entirely correct.
Here is a hermaphrodite running …
Scandals also shake the world of sports when it turns out that this or that athlete is not a man or a woman at all, but something in between. And sometimes they find out too late - when the athlete already manages to win a couple of medals.
In 2005, an extremely interesting detail was revealed in Zimbabwe: the well-known athlete Samukeliso Sitole, who managed to receive a gold medal in Botswana and five bronze and silver medals in competitions on Maurice Island, suddenly began to turn into a man. The athlete himself justifies himself by the fact that he was born a hermaphrodite, and his parents gave him to a sorcerer for some payment, who, with the help of magic, made a woman out of a man of indeterminate sex. However, all good things come to an end sooner or later, and at one point the trickle of money to support the magic dried up. The result was, as they say, obvious - the appearance of a 17-year-old teenager began to change rapidly.
Hermaphrodites, it turns out, were also full at the Olympics, until in 1968 the organizers thought of introducing mandatory sex control for athletes. Then athletes Tamara and Irina Press from the USSR stopped their performances on the international arena (the first of the sisters in shot put and discus throws won two gold medals, in 1960 and 1964), as well as many other Soviet athletes who did not hope to pass the test. As a result, the Soviet Union failed at first the Winter and then the Summer Olympic Games in 1968.
However, it would be wrong to think that athletes of no specific gender trained only in the USSR national team. So, the Czechoslovak athlete Zdenka Kubova was once recognized as a hermaphrodite and removed from the competition. The same fate befell the Polish runner Ewa Klobukowska, who, after a sex test, was deprived of two gold medals and one bronze medal won at the European Championships in Budapest. Finally, the posthumous autopsy of Polish-American Helene Stephens revealed that the 1936 Olympics winner in the 100m and 4x100m relay was more a man than a woman.
… he will conceive and give birth himself!
However, this is not all. The most interesting case involving hermaphrodite occurred in the United States in 2004, when 28-year-old American Gaylorda Raybourne, who was transformed from a hermaphrodite into a woman by surgery, became pregnant. What is unusual about this, you ask? And the fact that she became pregnant … by herself.
From childhood, Gaylord Rayborn Morgan, who was born with signs of both sexes, was raised as a boy. He did not mind, but, having already become an adult, he suddenly felt like a woman and decided to have an operation. The French surgeons of a small private clinic near Paris did everything impeccably, and the life of the newly-made Glide went on serenely for a while, until she felt the first symptoms of pregnancy. The American woman, who had not heard about parthenogenesis (immaculate conception), was very surprised, since she had no sexual contacts either before or after the operation.
The doctors who examined the unusual patient are still lost in riddles: whether there really is a spontaneous cleavage of the egg, or somehow Glida's sperm got into her vagina. The woman refused to terminate the pregnancy …
Yuri DANILOV
"Secrets of the XX century" December 2012