#hermaphrodites

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[escuerzoresucitado]

[cuties-in-codices]

the land of hermaphrodites

from a copy of the voyages by jean de mandeville in the livre des merveilles du monde, paris, c. 1410-1412

source: Paris, BnF, Français 2810, fol. 195v

[galusandmalus]

yea yeah i know the other examples are WHACK but i do like dionysus and hermaphordites "For instance, Jupiter himself was in love with Ganymede" *a bunch of examples later "Dionysus with Laonis, Ampelus, Hymenaeus, Hermaphrodites"

-CLEMENS ROMANUS et CLEMENTINA

[wtf-fun-factss]

All clownfish are born male. Click to read the full fact.

[intersex-questions]

do you know the general consensus on using the H-slur to refer to plants and/or animals? I know it shouldn't be used for people but I see a lot of people still using it to talk scientifically about animals or plants so I'm curious if I should be correcting them or not

It's entirely acceptable scientifically. There's no reason to correct! It is not usually offensive when being used towards animals or plants or the such. It is just the scientific term. It's okay if an intersex person feels uncomfortable hearing it, but it is okay to use. No need to correct!

Great question though! Totally valid concern.

However, it should only be used for organisms that are always hermaphrodites, if that makes sense. For example, slugs always have both functioning "male" and "female" reproductive systems. Gonochoric (meaning they function on a binary female/male sex system, like all mammals and birds) organisms are not ever hermaphrodites. They are intersex. A dog born with ovotestes would be intersex, not a hermaphrodite. Hermaphrodite is not only offensive when applied to gonochoric organisms, but scientifically incorrect.

For example, an animal like a male calico cat is intersex, and using hermaphrodite would be scientifically wrong and potentially offensive.

Intersexuality is not to be confused for hermaphroditism. They are not the same.

I'm actually going to school for zoology soon so if you have questions about animals I'd love to answer. I know lots about biology in non-human life forms as well.

To recap:

It's okay to call organisms that don't have different sexes hermaphrodites because that is what they are called. (This means an individual organism can and is "supposed" to sexually reproduce with both male and female gametes/sex cells.)

You shouldn't call a gonochoric organism a hermaphrodite, this is offensive. (Gonochoric means that the organism functions on a system of two sexes, male and female. "Opposite" of hermaphrodites.)

Intersex is usually only applied to gonochoric organisms. It is used to refer to an organism that has mixed sex characteristics in an otherwise understood binary sex system of male and female. You may occasionally see it used in reference to hermaphroditic organisms, but this is usually wrong. (There are hermaphrodite organisms that have intersex individuals as a large portion of their population. There are also animals that frequently have intersex individuals as a part of their population. Some scientists believe that these should be classified as another sex, though, as it's a "natural"/"intended" part of the population.)

Examples of organisms you shouldn't call a hermaphrodite:

A female lion who developed a mane later in life. This is intersex.

Female hyenas. Female hyenas have a pseudopenis, very high testosterone/androgens, and are highest in their social caste. This is just how female hyenas are. They are not inherently intersex, either.

Examples of organisms that are hermaphrodites:

Many molluscs, like snails and slugs.

Most plants that flower

Clown fish. Even though they are born as male and become female later on, they are all still hermaphrodites as they don't function on a binary sex system and possess both female and male gametes at one point. (This is called sequential hermaphroditism.)

There are Wikipedia articles on everything I mentioned, but some of the information may be incorrect or misleading. It says that all female moles of certain species are intersex, which I and many others disagree with. Female moles have both ovarian and testicular tissue, but this is an "intended" part of their biology, meaning it isn't a variation of their "intended" sex. It is okay to use the word intersexual to describe this, as intersexual is used to refer to an organism that has sex traits that we usually consider mixed or androgynous (such as ovarian and testicular tissue), but it is something they are "supposed" to have. Such as in a few mole species. However, some people think it is correct to use intersex for animals like this. There is no common consensus. It is important to understand the nuance of how intersex can be used in a given organism and in non-human biology, as it can refer to different things than in humans.

Sorry for answering so much! Zoology is a special interest of mine and I'm planning to go to school for zoology. I also love biology and sexology.

TLDR; There are organisms that are called hermaphrodites because they have male and female gametes. This is not offensive and scientifically correct. Gonochoric organisms (ones that function on a binary male female sex system, like mammals) are not ever to be called hermaphrodites and should be called intersex.

If I made any scientific mistakes and anyone sees, please correct me!

If you have more questions please ask I love talking about biology and zoology.

[nb-in-sf]

The Cage of Zeus by Sayuri Ueda

So this one is really quite Good. The main storyline is a pretty standard thriller, but it's a well-executed one. All the characters have understandable and sympathetic motives, even while violently disagreeing with each other, which is a significant plus for me.

The story revolves around a community of genetically-engineered hermaphroditic humans, called bigenders or Rounds (for "roundtrip gender -- a being constantly moving between masculinity and femininity"). Binary-sexed humans are called "Monaurals", a word whose etymology beyond the "mon-" part is not clear to me. This is an English translation of a Japanese book, so I'm not sure how closely the gender-related vocabulary used here resembles that in the original Japanese. At the very least, a translator's note at the beginning of the book informs us that the use of Spivak pronouns for the bigender characters is a translational convention since in Japanese it's relatively easy to avoid gendered pronouns in regular speech. One character also observes that "Them is fine. Just don't get calling them him or her. They'll call you out for using that language."

The Rounds have been engineered in other ways besides sex to be maximally fit for the task of exploring and colonizing space, which is the main goal of the project (though it's still in its early stages).

Mainstream human society is squicked out by the idea of bigenderism and the Rounds are stuck on a space station orbiting Jupiter and forbidden from traveling to Earth or Mars (the other human-occupied planet in this era) unless they submit to a surgical operation to render them female or male.

Rounds have a "double-I" chromosome in place of Xs and Ys, and their genitalia are described thus --

Outwardly, eir genital area looked much like a woman's. [...] the Round copulatory organ was not external. The penis was stored in a urogenital slit. Like the male genitalia of many whales and dolphins, it became enlarged and protruded from the slit when blood rushed to it upon sexual arousal. [...] So the penis and vagina aren't arranged front to back but side by side. The penis on the right and the vagina on the left. [...] The urethral orifice was located toward the anterior and the anus located toward the posterior in relation to the reproductive organs.

They apparently have smallish breasts and appear generally androgynous. Curiously it's observed that Monaural women usually perceive Rounds as male, while men perceive them as female.

On Round reproduction:

A Round couple can love as a man and be loved as a woman in a single act of intercourse. Not every act leads to pregnancy, of course, but repeated intercourse eventually stimulates the pituitary gland to secrete gonadotropic hormones. [...] as we continue to have sex with a compatible partner, both Rounds experience synchronous ovulation, making possible dual pregnancy. That's why children are always born in pairs. [...] Everything from the efficient insemination method, the short gestation period, to the swift maturation rate is expressly engineered so we can adapt quickly to any nonplanetary environment. Adaptation is our lifestyle.

Apparently the Rounds enjoy having casual sex with each other as "a means of social interaction", but most of them settle down into pair-bonds in which they produce children.

As usual, in a few places the translator fucks up the pronouns, in this case calling Round characters by she/her pronouns. Someone had corrected one of them in the library copy that I read.

It always interests me when a writer (or in this case, translator) using neopronouns for some characters messes up occasionally and forgets to use them, because it kind of lets you know on some level what gender the writer “really” thinks of the characters as instinctively or unconsciously. This is the first time I’ve seen a pronoun slip using “she” rather than “he”, which is maybe not surprising since the author and translator are both women. In some ways though the Rounds do come across to me as rather more "feminine" than "masculine" psychologically. Mainly I think in the fear and disgust they express toward the sexual interest shown in them by (typically male) Monaurals -- they come across as people who are used to fearing men as potential sexual predators. At one point we're told that

Tei was amazed by the Monaurals' unflagging fixation with sex. In certain cases, they couldn't help violating the objects of their affection. Just how were they driven to such madness? [...] On the other hand, at times Tei found emself envying them. That they operated under a gender binary system seemed to intensify their romantic feelings. The passion with which Monaurals lusted after what they lacked was a quality that a sexually uniform race like the Rounds did not have.

This apparently ignores the fact that the occurrence of sex acts between Rounds that aren't "entirely consensual" has been mentioned earlier in the book. Not to mention what we're told of the relationship between Veritas and Harding, a Round and a Monaural man who became sexually involved at some point -- Harding refused to ever take on the "female" role in sex but Veritas wasn't satisfied with only half of eir sexual nature fulfilled, so ey got really pushy about it until Harding publicly called em a freak and a pervert and told em to fuck off. (Strangely Harding is portrayed as the only one really in the wrong in this situation, despite Veritas’ sexually predatory behavior.) This incident resulted in a strict segregation between Rounds and Monaurals being instituted on the station itself, to prevent such situations from recurring.

The Round characters have various feelings about their current separation from human society, with some embracing the opportunity to form their own culture in isolation from Monaural influence and others rejecting it.

All the scientists did was eliminate sexual distinctions. But that change alone can transform human society -- our lifestyles, value systems, our sense of humanity.

At the end of the story, the Rounds are all infected with a virus that forcibly shuts down one of their reproductive systems, rendering them all physically female or male. Nonetheless, the Rounds assert that they are still psychologically bigender and that the unique culture they've formed will survive.

"I am male. But that doesn't mean I self-identify as male. The Monaurals don't suddenly become something else when they lose their sexual function, do they? That goes for us too. We were raised in a society where being bigender is a natural fact of life. My generation has matured inherently identifying as both male and female. Even though we have lost one of our sexual functions, we remain bigender. Karina may have destroyed the Round physiology, but she hasn't destroyed our souls. [...]"

So in the end gender does come down to personal identity and choice, a theme perhaps emphasized even moreso in the translation -- earlier the book introduced a character who was born a Round but hated being confined to the special district and chose to surgically become male in order to live an independent life, and this character is consistently referred to as "he"; but the Rounds at the end of the story who have been made female and male by force yet continue to identify with Round culture are still "ey".

There's also a thread dealing with a minority within the minority: Tei is a Round born with the positions of eir genitals reversed (the penis on the left and the vagina on the right). Ey has significant Angst about this, and eir existence is used to call into question the notion that Round society truly is, or should be, without sexual distinctions.

Naive as Tei was in her [sic] adolescence, ey had been assailed with unbearable doubt and feelings of inferiority. Why am I different from the others? I am not a Monaural. But I'm also not a Round. Then what am I?

"You're wrong," Tei answered with as much conviction as ey could muster. "It happens every once in a while. It's a simple genetic aberration -- not an abnormality."

"Then why didn't you choose surgery? It's a simple reconstructive procedure, yet you chose not to go under the knife. I don't understand it."

"Because people like me are necessary," Tei said. "If there is no one with such differences, nothing to regard as a mark of one's individuality, Round society will become homogenized and eventually stagnate."

"So what you're telling me is that Round society will eventually develop a binary system like the gender distinctions separating Monaurals," Karina said. "If a Round majority and minority were born of physiological differences, you're going to have the same disagreements that exist among Monaurals, regardless of your elimination of gender distinctions. In time, these differences will be the standard by which you discriminate against others."

"If we don't dwell on the numbers, that these differences exist at all will be rendered meaningless."

"I wonder," Karina mused. "Do you really believe you can achieve in three generations what we could not in thousands of years, and overcome such a deeply entrenched way of thinking?"

There is also frequent mention in the book of the other forms of gender nonconformity which exist in the future human society (trans people, intersex people, etc) -- and in particular the phenomenon of "fluid transgenders" who transition from one sex to the other and back again multiple times over the course of their lives.

[strangebiology]

Do you know anything about chromosomes in sexless/hermaphroditic animals? When I look it up, all I find is stuff on intersex people, and if I put -human, I get info on plants

I do not, sadly! Followers?