Caribbean village: Where female children grow penis at puberty

GIRLS in a remote Caribbean village are becoming boys when they hit puberty due to a rare genetic disorder. One in 90 children born in Salinas in the Dominican Republic grow a penis in a natural transformation from female to male. Known as the guevedoces, which translates as penis at 12, these youngsters are referred to in medical terms as “pseudohermaphrodite”.

The rare genetic disorder is caused by a missing enzyme which prevents the production of the male sex hormone dihydro-testosterone in the womb. It creates what looks like a baby girl on birth. But at puberty, when testosterone flows, their voices break and they grow a male sexual reproductive organ that they become recognised as male.

BBC presenter Dr Michael Mosley said: “Guevedoces are also sometimes called ‘machihembras’ meaning ‘first a woman, then a man.’ “When they’re born they look like girls with no testes and what appears to be a vagina. “It is only when they near puberty that the penis grows and testicles descend.”

Hmm, honey we had a girl or is it a boy? Wow!

Culled from Vanguard