10 Things You Didn't Know About Hermaphrodites
Like National Geographic Explorer says, "the gender of a newborn child is not always clearly male or female." Hermaphrodites, or more properly intersex people, aren't as rare as you'd think. Here are some facts to put in your Know Basket!
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1. Jabba the Hutt was a hermaphrodite
Actually, all the Hutts are hermaphrodites.
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2. Cartman's mom is a hermaphrodite
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3. You could have both male and female genitalia and not know it
Sometimes, it takes an MRI.
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4. The rumor about Jamie Lee Curtis being a hermaphrodite is (probably) not true
But people love to speculate! Just ask Lady Gaga (who, btw, is definitely a woman).
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5. About 1 in 1500 people are born intersex
But about 1 percent of live births -- 1 out of every hundred -- exhibit some degree of sexual ambiguity.
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6. Hermaphrodite papayas are the best
Male papayas don't reproduce and female papayas need the males in order to do so, but hemraphrodite papayas can germinate themselves, making them awesome. (via)
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7. Sexual characteristics do not equal gender
For instance: The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) still hasn't decided what Caster Semenya's gender status is for competition. (via)
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8. Hermaphrodite comes from the Greek
The boring story is that the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, cleverly named Hermaphroditus, was fused with a female nymph who'd fallen in love with him, and they became one intersex being. (via)
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9. Did you know that connectors can be hermaphrodites?
Now you do!
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10. Ambiguous Genitalia would be a great name for a band
Just sayin'.