Third sex

Filed under: Gender
4 Comments

Thanks to eBear () (that's an LJ-specific link in those parens; I'm not sure how best to integrate those into the look of the non-LJ version of my journal) and Stella for the pointer to a fascinating article about the "guevedoche" of the Dominican Republic—intersexed people who are genetically male, but born with female-looking genitals, but develop male secondary sexual characteristics at puberty. The article says that "[v]illagers, who were familiar with the guevedoche over generations, accepted them as a 'third sex' category, sometimes referring to them as machi-embra (male-female)."

I haven't had time to read the rest of the article yet, and probably won't for a while. But looks interesting.

4 Responses to “Third sex”

  1. celia

    There’s a recent book about something like this. Well, not exactly about it, cause it’s fiction, but sort of. I saw it on the Guardian Bad Sex Shortlist, and then read something in depth about it elsewhere–Middlesex. I of course can’t remember where I read about it, but it sounded interesting. Unfortunately, I was unable to get over the Bad Sex excerpt. Aha! Here we go. It was on the same site. Probably linked as one of the ‘if you liked this article’ things. 🙂

  2. Vera

    Fascinating, thanks for posting the links, Jed!

  3. David Moles

    That’s a hell of a list, Celia. I think if I was giving out a prize, it would have to go to the Anchee Min excerpt, but the winner is pretty funny, too.

  4. Celia

    Yeah, “Oh, Chairman Mao” is one of our favorite lines. None of the others have quite the punch of that line. They’re weird, but not so quotable.

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