Hermaphrodite

Abstract

Hermaphroditus, in Greek myth, was the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. The water-nymph Salmacis, seeing him bathing in a pool, fell in love with him and prayed that they might never be separated. The gods interpreted her request literally and joined the pair into one body. In both his name and his being, therefore, Hermaphroditus combines male and female.“Hermaphrodite” seems to have entered late Middle English, via Latin from the Greek, in John Trevisa's 1398 translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus' De proprietatibus rerum (On the properties of things). Here it described an animal comprising both sexes, male and female, “but always unperfect”. From the 18th century, in botanical or zoological use, the term referred to those species of plants or animals in which the co-existence of male and female organs in individuals was not an aberration but a natural state, for example flowering plants and some varieties of molluscs and worms. When applied to animals, and especially human beings, however, the word usually implied monstrous malformation. This was the case even when it was used in a more figurative sense to describe effeminate men or virile women; Sir Robert T Wilson in his journal in 1803 deplored, “The revolting hermaphrodisy of the ‘blue stocking’.” 19th-century medical men were fascinated by individuals whose bodies displayed characteristics of both sexes. The desire to confirm such ambiguous bodies as either male or female was spurred by the social significance of sex. Doctors searched for the “real” sex of apparently bisexual bodies and gradually the existence of true hermaphrodites (newly, narrowly defined as only those possessing both testicular and ovarian tissue) was denied.In the 20th century, ideas about true sex were eclipsed by gender identity and the perceived need for anatomy to match this. New terminology arose and hermaphrodites became “intersex”. Early surgical intervention was, and still is, the standard response to a sexually ambiguous infant but this approach has been criticised. Intersex spokespersons now demand that, unless necessary for health, genital surgery should be done only at an age when individuals are able to give their consent. But the unease generally provoked by sexual ambiguity exposes our continuing discomfort with transgression of binary categories, whether the boundaries are broken by anatomy, sexuality, or non-conformity with gendered stereotypes of identity. Hermaphroditus, in Greek myth, was the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. The water-nymph Salmacis, seeing him bathing in a pool, fell in love with him and prayed that they might never be separated. The gods interpreted her request literally and joined the pair into one body. In both his name and his being, therefore, Hermaphroditus combines male and female. “Hermaphrodite” seems to have entered late Middle English, via Latin from the Greek, in John Trevisa's 1398 translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus' De proprietatibus rerum (On the properties of things). Here it described an animal comprising both sexes, male and female, “but always unperfect”. From the 18th century, in botanical or zoological use, the term referred to those species of plants or animals in which the co-existence of male and female organs in individuals was not an aberration but a natural state, for example flowering plants and some varieties of molluscs and worms. When applied to animals, and especially human beings, however, the word usually implied monstrous malformation. This was the case even when it was used in a more figurative sense to describe effeminate men or virile women; Sir Robert T Wilson in his journal in 1803 deplored, “The revolting hermaphrodisy of the ‘blue stocking’.” 19th-century medical men were fascinated by individuals whose bodies displayed characteristics of both sexes. The desire to confirm such ambiguous bodies as either male or female was spurred by the social significance of sex. Doctors searched for the “real” sex of apparently bisexual bodies and gradually the existence of true hermaphrodites (newly, narrowly defined as only those possessing both testicular and ovarian tissue) was denied. In the 20th century, ideas about true sex were eclipsed by gender identity and the perceived need for anatomy to match this. New terminology arose and hermaphrodites became “intersex”. Early surgical intervention was, and still is, the standard response to a sexually ambiguous infant but this approach has been criticised. Intersex spokespersons now demand that, unless necessary for health, genital surgery should be done only at an age when individuals are able to give their consent. But the unease generally provoked by sexual ambiguity exposes our continuing discomfort with transgression of binary categories, whether the boundaries are broken by anatomy, sexuality, or non-conformity with gendered stereotypes of identity.