Kwolu-aatmwol (literally 'a female thing changing into a male thing') are children with a specific disorder of sex development seen in the Sambia people of Papua New Guinea. They are classified as girls when they are born but, around the age of 12, start developing male genitalia. This is due to a deficiency in the production of 5α-reductase, an enzyme involved in the metabolism of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone.
The same phenomenon occurs in the Dominican Republic where they are called güevedoces (from Spanish: güevedoce, from Dominican Spanish güevos a los doce "testicles at twelve"), and also in Turkey. Anne Fausto-Sterling states that kwolu-aatmwol and güevedoces "are recognised as a third sex" by their cultures, while the cultures "nevertheless recognize only two gender roles".
Early research[]
The first scientific investigations of these children occurred in the 1970s, when Julianne Imperato-McGinley, an endocrinologist from Cornell University, traveled to the village of Las Salinas in the Dominican Republic to investigate reports of apparently female children becoming male children at the onset of puberty.
The cause was determined to be 5α-Reductase deficiency, and the results were published in the journal Science in 1974. The frequency of the deficiency was found to be unusually high in Las Salinas, with occurrence ratio of 1 güevedoce to every 90 unaffected males.
The transformation of a phenotypically female child into a phenotypically male adult at puberty is the result of a genotypic male (with XY chromosomes) born with a deficiency in the enzyme 5α-reductase. 5α-Reductase is responsible for the reduction of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone. Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is the hormone responsible for the majority of embryonic development of primary male sexual characteristics such as genital size. However, the oxidized form of the hormone, testosterone, promotes secondary sex characteristics. Thus, an XY child without functioning 5α-reductase cannot convert testosterone into the form that develops primary sex characteristics and will have the appearance of female genitalia. At puberty, when large amounts of testosterone are produced, secondary sex characteristics (e.g., deepening voice, hair pattern changes, muscle anabolism, etc.) develop, thus producing a phenotypic male.
Status in society[]
In countries like the United States, intersex children are often operated on immediately after birth to make their genitals appear either typically male or female. Among the Sambia people, kwolu-aatmwol are regarded as a third gender, experiencing ambivalent gender socialisation. In adulthood, they most commonly self-identify as men, but are not necessarily completely treated as such by society.
See also[]
- Gender system
- 5α-Reductase deficiency
See also[]
References[]
Acknowledgements[]
This article was written by Roy Tan.