Rambodoc at large

Indians have a few million Gods and Goddesses, and can’t get enough of them, it seems. An infant with both male and female genitalia is being showered unwanted attention in Ball-sore (Orissa), and being thought as a reincarnation of Lord Shiva and Parvati.
To expose the phallacy of this intro, read this news article.
Scientifically speaking, this is old hat. Ambiguous external genitalia is not very rare (may be seen in up to 1% of all births), but true hermaphroditism (where both testicular and ovarian tissue are present) is less common. Contrary to popular notion, the ‘main point’ of the male is not the penis, but the testicles. Similarly, the vagina or the clitoris in the female are not the determining female organs, but the ovary is. External genitalia can be confusing (ambiguous): if the baby’s testicles have not descended at birth, how can one say whether it has a large clitoris or a small penis? I hope you get this answer! If it a large clitoris, the urinary passage is separate, whereas in the male with a small penis, the urine goes through it. However, things become more muddled in the condition known as Hypospadias, where the urinary passage in male babies opens through the scrotum. Now imagine a tiny scrotum without any balls in them, and a small hole through which urine comes out: could it not be confused with the female anatomy?
This is one of several reasons why there is confusion in identifying the gender of some cases.
Apart from the morbid imaginations of the mind, there are some interesting issues here:
* What should the parents do? Surgical reassignment surgery (popularly called sex change operation) is an obvious option. However, whether to make the baby a boy or girl becomes a troublesome issue. Imagine that one (surgically) makes the baby physically a female, and when ‘she’ grows up, she wants to be a boy (because ‘she’ feels like one). What a disaster that would be! For this reason, many experts counsel that the sex change operation should be done when the child grows up and its sexual orientation is clear, along with its choice.
* Imagine again, that the parents of a baby of undetermined sex opt to wait for the child to grow up. How horrible would the child’s growing years be, without it having an idea of what gender it is, and having to cope up with brutal teasing and harassment at home and school!
* Should society officially declare three, and not two, genders: the third being the intersex? Makes you wonder whether these people (we should really coin a word similar to ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’ for them) would visit, after watching a movie, the male toilet or the female!
India being such a reserved country, should we keep away 1% of Parliament seats and 5% of educational seats for the third sex? Should we ban sex determination by preventing doctors from telling the parents what the sex of the baby is? What if the upset parents, upon hearing that they have given birth to a girl, commit murder of the child? (you really have to click that link to understand the irony of this!)
The whole purpose of this article was to engender some discussion by testicling your imagination!