Hermaphrodite
In biology, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes.
Historically, the term hermaphrodite has also been used to describe ambiguous genitalia and gonadal mosaicism in individuals of gonochoristic species, especially human beings. The word hermaphrodite entered the English lexicon (language) in the 15th century, derived from the Greek Hermaphroditos a combination of the names of the gods Hermes (male) and Aphrodite (female). Recently, the word intersex has come into preferred usage for humans, since the word hermaphrodite is considered to be misleading and stigmatizing, as well as "scientifically specious and clinically problematic
- Protandry
- Where an organism is born as a male, and then changes sex to a female
- Protogyny
- Where the organism is born as a female, and then changes sex to a male.
Other uses of the term
Main article: Intersexuality
Hermaphrodite is used to describe any person incompatible with the biological gender binary but has recently been replaced by intersex in medicine. Humans with typical reproductive organs but atypical clitoris/penis are called pseudohermaphrodites in the medical literature. Pseudohermaphroditism also refers to a human possessing both the clitoris and testicles.
People with intersex conditions sometimes choose to live exclusively as one sex or the other, using clothing, social cues, genital surgery, and hormone replacement therapy to blend into the sex they identify with more closely. Some people who are intersex, such as some of those with androgen insensitivity syndrome, outwardly appear completely female or male already, without realizing they are intersex. Other kinds of intersex conditions are identified immediately at birth because those with the condition have a sexual organ larger than a clitoris and smaller than a penis. Intersex is thought by some to be caused by unusual sex hormones; the unusual hormones may be caused by an atypical set of sex chromosomes.
Sigmund Freud (based on work by his associate Wilhelm Fliess) held fetal hermaphroditism to be a fact of the physiological development of humans.
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