Why are some girls naturally guys?!

Today's blog:

(This is my very first attempt doing this. Let me know if there is too much science, or too little. Too much sex, or too little. Let me know what is not clear, etc. I need more than one opinion to make this more useful. With your help, this should become really juicy and the best thing since chocolate :) )


So, anatomy is only part of what defines a person as male or female. At times, we would rather not think about anything that can happen in between (no puns intended). Well, who wants to be called an "86% guy" anyway?


Consider this... Jane Doe has a well-defined female sexual organ and secondary female sexual characteristics. Jane is an amazing athlete who never menstruated. At the doctor's office, Jane checks the box next to "Female". Next to the "Single" box, which she checked, she writes happily that she just got engaged. She is worried about getting married because her aunt can never have children. What would you vote? Guy or girl? Most people at this point might agree that Jane is a girl.


People have 23 pairs of little packages of DNA inside their cells called chromosomes. The doctor decides to look at Jane's. The chromosomes numbered 23 usually have the shape of "XX" for females and "XY" for males. Jane's chromosomes look like "XY". This is the beginning of the confusion.


See, actually, when babies are still in the womb, their developing genitalia actually look neutral. Within the first seven weeks, you can't actually tell from looking. But if the baby has a Y chromosome, something in that Y chromosomes start signaling the fetus to start destroying cells that would otherwise become the uterus. That something signals the body to start making testes out of the "bipotential" fetal gonads (ei, the little parts of the baby's body that can either become an egg- or sperm-containing glands).


The part of the Y chromosome that actually does the work is a gene called the SRY gene coding for a "testis-determining factor". What that means is that if a person who has a Y chromosome does not have that SRY gene, that person won't have testes and won't look like a male! But actually, for Jane, not only does she have a Y chromosome, but her SRY gene is fully functional. The presence of an SRY gene is one of the criteria used to determine "maleness". Then, what sex is Jane?

There must be other things besides SRY that are involved in the formation of genitals. Obviously, right? Jane has a vagina. Jane's hormone levels look more like those of males than those of females. But hormones are signals and need receptors to tell a person's body what to do. Jane is missing some of the testosterone receptors that are needed to make her develop more male characteristics. So her body makes signals like males and does not respond totally like males.


Now the million dollar questions:

• Is Jane obligated to tell her fiancee that she has a Y chromosome?
  
  
• Should Jane be called male, female, or neither?
  
  
• Should Jane, as great as she is at sports, be allowed to compete in the Olympic against typical women? What do you think?
  
  
• Should an organization be allowed to require someone to get his or her chromosomes checked?
  
  
• Say that modern science is able to help Jane conceive a baby, with a woman, should that technology be put into use?
  

(Jane has complete androgen insensitivity syndrome or CAIS. She is a form of male hermaphrodite, but not a true hermaphrodite because she does not have two pronounced sexes. In real life, 1 out of 20 000 people have this condition. That's actually a lot of people. Imagine that NYC alone has millions of people. The medical community agrees that people with that condition are female. CAIS patients are eligible to compete as women in athletic events.)


Did you know... That pigs can orgasm for 30 minutes straight? Now that's some happy pigs!