[Image descriptions in order: a twitter thread by @vagina_museum “Vagina Museum” (verified) which says “In 2014, a 70 year old cis man who had fathered four children went to hospital in Kashmir with an inguinal hernia. Everything about him and his life had so far been ordinary - except that the hernia turned out to be his uterus with an ovarian tube and broad ligament.
“The man had the expected genotype of a cis man: 46XY. He had a cryptorchidism (an undescended testis) on one side, which affects about 1% of people. Everything external about him was as expected - except that he had a uterus, ovarian tube, and broad ligament.
"The man had Persistent Müllerian Duct Syndrome (PMDS). This is a natural variation. Usually, if an embryo is developing as male, a hormone called anti Müllerian hormone is released.]
["The hormone prevents development of Müllerian ducts, the tubes which eventually develop into the gynaecological internal anatomy. In PMDS, not enough of this hormone is released.
"PMDS is considered quite rare, although in order to diagnose it, doctors need to use medical imaging, which isn’t usually done to people without symptoms, and can be entirely unaffordable to do at all in global majority countries.
"The 70 year old father of four isn’t the only man who has discovered a uterus late in life! Last year, a 67 year old father of three from Kosovo went into hospital with a hernia and discovered the swelling was in fact a uterus, ovarian tube and an ovary.
"In 2011, a 35 year old father of two from India went to hospital with severe stomach pain. Imaging revealed that he had a uterus, two ovarian tubes, two ovaries and the upper part of a vagina.
"In 2021, a father of one from the USA went to hospital with abdominal pain. The source of the pain was a tumour on his testis - but he also had a uterus, ovarian tubes, cervix and upper vagina.]
["In all of these cases - and many other case studies of cis men who have discovered they have uteruses, the anatomy was found by accident, because everything else seemed "normal enough”.
“You can read the case study of the 70 year old father of four here. Warning: it includes photos of his uterus.” Attached is a link for an article on sciencedirect.com, titled “Hysterectomy in a male? A rare case report” the preview says “Persistent Mullerian duct syndrome is a rare form of male pseudo-hermaphroditism characterized …”]
[Image in first reblog: a tag by orpheuscas which says #re: there is no definition of ‘woman’ that includes all cisgender women and excludes all others]
