sult of the inherited glandular cquipment.
The second function of the gonads is the procreative function of the male germ (sperm) or the female germ (egg, ovum). This function is the fifth kind of sex, the Germinal Sex. It is—in con- tradistinction to the endocrine sex an inseparable part of the gonads.
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Wherever sperm is found, there is maleness; wherever there is an egg, there is femaleness, no mat- ter what other sex characters may be present. If both sperm and egg, testes and ovaries, are present in the same individual, together with the secondary sex structures of the male and the female, we have a true hermaphrodite. They are rare. The medical literature of the whole world reports hardly more than 60 such cases.
In the more frequent pseudo- hermaphrodites, one or the other sex structure predominates. Ac- cordingly, such condition is re- ferred to as male or female pseu- dohermaphroditism.
In all such instances a test for the genetic sex is essential. It may show "male" in a female pseudo- hermaphrodite and, vice versa, "fe- male" in a male pseudo-herma- phrodite.
How is a person with such ques- tionable or contradictory sex to live? How should a child of that nature be brought up? The logical answer would be: "According to the genetic sex." If, later on, at puberty or during adolescence, psychological orientation toward the male or the female manifests itself, with emotional preferences in either direction, then there is a lead which can be followed.
The person should—in adult life -live in the sex of his or her choosing. In other words, the Psy- chological Sex should be decisive for the person's future life, pro- vided it is well established and not merely a passing mood or an immature erotic wish.
The Psychological Sex is the
sixth kind of sex in our series. Even if an individual in whom genetic, anatomical, endocrine and germinal sex fully harmonize, the psychological sex may be the op- posite of all four. Such people ex- ist--few in proportion to the total population, but still many in num- bers. They have been called "psy- chic hermaphrodites." Theirs is often a tragic life.
Many psychiatrists and especial- ly psychoanalysts ascribe the plight of these people and their "split-sex personality" to purely psychological causes. They say that early conditioning in a faulty environment is responsible.
Yet, psychotherapy has never cured such a patient, except in borderline cases, where the split was not too wide and the patient's mind was still wavering between male and female. In pronounced cases, psychotherapy has nothing to offer and cannot bring the pa- tient's mind into harmony with the body.
Therefore these patients often want their bodies brought into harmony with their minds, and a certain justification for such de- sire can hardly be denied. To live as a member of the opposite sex is their particular pursuit of hap- piness. They want a surgeon to alter their anatomical sex, espe- cially their gonadal sex and they want (and need) hormone treat- ment to influence the endocrine
66.