The 1st-century BC sculpture 'The Reclining Hermaphrodite', in the Museo Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme in Rome
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Hermaphroditism

In zoology, a hermaphrodite is an organism of a species whose members possess both male and female sexual organs during their lives. In many species, hermaphroditism is a normal part of the life-cycle. Generally, hermaphroditism occurs in the invertebrates, although it occurs in a fair number of fish, and to a lesser degree in other vertebrates. more...

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See below for use of the term in plants.

Note: The term "hermaphrodite" has historically been used to describe people with ambiguous genitalia or biological sex. The broader term intersexual is often used and is preferred by many such individuals and medical professionals. The term is still used by the pornography industry, though often as a synonym for transsexual, as true human intersexuals are rare.

In animals

  • Sequential hermaphrodite: The organism is born as one sex and later changes into the other sex.
    • Protandry: When the organism starts as a male, and changes sex to a female later in life.
      • Example: The seabasses (Family Serranidae). These are a highly sought food fish complex made up of primarily groupers. Since even a small male can produce more than enough sperm to fertilize a huge number of eggs, while a female's egg output increases greatly with an increase in size, this strategy makes sense for an organism (fish in general) where over 90% of the eggs laid will not result in a fish that reaches sexual maturity. It has been shown that fishing pressure actually is causing a change in when the switch from male to female occurs, since fishermen naturally prefer to catch the larger fish. The populations are generally changing sex at a smaller size, due to artificial selection.
    • Protogyny: When the organism starts as a female, and changes sex to a male later in life.
      • Example: Wrasses (Family Labridae) are reef fish that tend to have three distinct sexual types. Small females, immature males and supermales. The small females and the immature males have identical colorations. The supermale is usually brightly colored, and there is only one in a given area of the reef. This supermale dominates the other wrasses of the species, having the choice of females to mate with. When the supermale dies, the largest wrasse in the area, male or female, becomes the new supermale.
  • Simultaneous hermaphrodite (or synchronous hermaphrodite): The organism has both male and female sexual organs at the same time as an adult. Usually, self-fertilization does not occur.
    • Example: Hamlets, which (unlike other fish) seem quite at ease mating in front of divers, allowing observations in the wild to occur readily. They do not practice self-fertilization, but when they find a mate, the pair takes turns between which one acts as the male and which acts as the female through multiple matings, usually over the course of several nights.
  • Gonadal dysgenesis, a type of intersexuality formerly known as "True Hermaphroditism", occurs in about one percent of mammals (including humans), but it is extremely rare for both sets of sexual organs to be functional, usually neither set is functional. In many cases, these manifestations are altered, sometimes only cosmetically, to resemble standard male or female anatomy shortly after birth.

Read more at Wikipedia.org


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Hermaphroditism
From Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood and Adolescence, 4/6/01

In some animals, the simultaneous hermaphrodites, both male and female organs are functional at the same time. In other animals, the sequential hermaphrodites, one sex develops at one time, which later develops into the other sex. Examples of both strategies are found in nature, especially in the invertebrates, and for many creatures, hermaphroditism is the only method of reproduction.

Many experts believe that true hermaphroditic humans do not exist, but some scientists consider true human hermaphrodites as those who possess one testis and one ovary, even though only one of the two function. Pseudohermaphroditism is a condition in which an individual has both male and female external genital organs, but the gonads are of one sex. Female embryos exposed to high levels of androgens (male hormones) develop female internal reproductive organs but male external genitalia. Alternately, genetic defects cause children to be born with female external genital organs, which change at puberty with the development of a penis and the closure of the false vagina.

Some experts estimate that up to four percent of human births involve some form of variation from what is considered normal male or female morphology. Such infants are usually treated with hormonal medication and surgical intervention as soon as possible to avoid the social and emotional stigma attached to sexual deviation.

Further Reading

For Your Information

Books

  • Elia, Irene. The Female Animal . New York: Henry Holt, 1988.

Periodicals

  • Berreby, D. "Sex and the Single Hermaphrodite." Discover 13, 1992, pp. 88-93.
  • Fausto-Sterling, Anne. "Focus on Only Two Sexes Is Narrow." The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter 10, July 1994, p. 1.

Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood & Adolescence. Gale Research, 1998.

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