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5.3.2 HERMAPHRODITISM
As a baby grows inside the mother's womb, its internal and external organs (including the sex organs) form and develop gradually to the point of completion we see at birth. However, in some very rare instances something interferes with this development, and the baby is born with the sex organs still uncompleted. In such a case, the baby's sex may be difficult to determine because the unfinished sex organs of both sexes look very much alike. The child may be a male (pseudo-) hermaphrodite (if two testicles are present), a female (pseudo-) hermaphrodite (if two ovaries are present), or a so-called true hermaphrodite (if both testicular and ovarian tissue is present). In some cases, there may be no problem of external appearance, but some internal ambiguity of sex. (See also "The Process of Sexual Differentiation.")
The word "hermaphrodite" has been used since ancient times for a person whose body shows both male and female sexual characteristics. (In Greek mythology, Hermaphrodites, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, was a handsome, but prudish young man. When he rejected the love of a nymph, she embraced him so passionately, that her body merged with his and he literally became "two in one flesh.") Fortunately, modern hormonal and surgical treatment can go a long way toward completing the development of a baby born "sexually unfinished". At the same time, psychological counseling can help the parents to raise their child in the appropriate sexual role, regardless of an initially misleading appearance. If all factors are given their due consideration, the assignment of sex will prove workable and, in time, a definite sexual identity will be established. In other words, although there may be permanent sterility in some cases, persons born as hermaphrodites can today benefit from many advances of medicine and may grow up to be otherwise ordinary men and women.
There are also some cases where men or women whose biological sex is clearly not in doubt express the wish for a "sex change". This phenomenon, known as transsexualism, is more of a psychological than a physiological problem and is therefore not discussed here, but in the section on "Sexual Maladjustment."
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