From: kriman@acsu.buffalo.edu (Alfred M. Kriman)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic,soc.men
Subject: Re: Sex Change
Date: 27 Aug 92 06:30:49 GMT
Organization: UB

In article <m-6mp0a.sheaffer@netcom.com> Robert Sheaffer (sheaffer@netcom.com) 
reacts to:
Article <1992Aug13.175500.18443@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> by Eric Scoles
(scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu), who writes (">>"):

[Excerpt from article <1992Aug13.055120.413@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU>
by Derek Abbott (dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU) which began the
grow-a-penis thread.]

>>I've had two biopsych professors, both hard-core physiological psych types,
>>teach this bit to me, and _both_ took great pains to stress cultural factors
>>as the cause for the "normal" late gender identity development.  There's
>>probably more out there on this phenomenon -- do a lit search on the
>>authors.
>
>Yes. Any other explanation would be manifestly Incorrect.
>
>Let's see: these children are wrongly identified as girls, and hence
>socialized as females. But at puberty, their hormones click into place,
>and they not only start to look like males, but to act like males, too.
>And this is supposed to show the strength of "cultural factors"!
>
>Assuming this is correct, what it demonstrates is that cultural factors
>don't have much effect when they stand in the way of biology.

Some of the following is sure to be inaccurate, since memory is fallible,
but hey, that's what the net is for!
   Let's be a little less abstract here.  In the Dominican Republic, where
every instance is traceable to a single ancestor, it is widely appreciated
in the one affected "tribe" (or whatever; I'm wearing my asbestos) that
being male is more fun and less drudgery than being female.  The adolescent
boys who carry this genetic defect are simply thrilled to discover that
they will have all the perquisites and indolent pleasures of being male.
   A necessary informational inter-lewd:  The boys with this condition are
born with undescended testes, and the scrotum is not joined at the middle,
so it resembles female genital labia.  The penis is present but very small,
so it apparently could be mistaken for a large clitoris.  Apparently, in
this tribe they don't bother to inspect newborns' genitalia very closely,
and in a baby this syndrome is not usually recognized.  The eruption
of male sexual characteristics at puberty is therefore something of a
surprise.  The phenomenon is called "huevos a doce" (_eggs_ at [age]
twelve).  The meatus remains at the base of the penis, but this apparently
has not been a sufficient barrier to reproduction.
   A tragedy occurred when some carriers of this syndrome emigrated, and
bore children in the US.  The genital malformations were recognized at
birth, and a decision was (in at least some cases) made to correct the
defects surgically, making the boys infertile, anatomical females.  At
puberty, the testosterone kicked in, but it acted on some rather mauled
individuals.  The emotional counselors had their work cut out for them
(sorry, I couldn't resist).
   This information is about 12 years old, so a lot must have changed by now.

"The whole is more than the sum of the parts."  [Aristotle, _Metaphysics_]
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic,soc.men