LAS SALINAS, THE VILLAGE WHERE GIRLS BECOME BOYS

  

LAS SALINAS, THE VILLAGE WHERE GIRLS BECOME BOYS

What might seem like a plot twist from a movie, the Guevedoces of Las Salinas are as real as you and I. 

Planned parenthood defines intersex as “an umbrella term that describes bodies that fall outside the strict male/female binary.”

What might seem like a page out of Middlesex, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides is the real life story of the Guevedoces of Salinas. 

Found in Las Salinas in the Dominican Republic, Guevedoce is a term used to describe children born without a male organ who are raised and identified as girls until their male genitals become apparent during puberty. Meaning “penis at 12,” the first research into Guevedoces was in the 1970s. 

Endocrinologist Julianne Imperato-McGinley from Cornell University visited Las Salinas in the Dominican Republic to investigate reports of female children becoming male children at puberty. 

In her findings, she determined the cause of this condition to be a 5α-Reductase deficiency, which she published in the journal of science in 1974. Imperato-McGinley found that Las Salinas had an unusually high frequency of this deficiency resulting in 1 Guevedoce in 50 unaffected males.

5-a Reductase Deficiency

Responsible for the growth of the penis in utero, the absence of the 5-α-reductase enzymes delays the growth of the male organ in Guevedoces until puberty. This enzyme is responsible for converting testosterone into dihydrotestosterone.

Despite having an XY chromosome, some boys appear female when born; they are then raised as girls, dressed in female clothes, bearing female names. However, at puberty, similar to other boys, the Guevedoces get a second surge of testosterone which their body responds to this time, causing them to sprout muscles, testes and a penis. 

Fertility

Imperato-McGinley, in her findings, associated the Guevedoces with heterosexuality, noting that despite being brought up as girls, they showed strong heterosexual preferences. 

However, one noticeable detail of this condition is that spontaneous fertility is not to be expected. Guevedoes following puberty suffer a range of semen abnormalities, reduced sperm counts, high semen viscosity and, in some cases, lack of primary spermatocytes.

While fertility might be an issue, Guevedoces have proven full control and efficiency of the male, and another interesting finding by Imperato-McGinley proved they have small prostates. 

This finding proved instrumental in developing Finasteride, a drug used in the treatment of enlarged prostrates. Finasteride developed by Roy Vagelos, head of research at the multinational pharmaceutical giant, Merck blocks the action of 5-alpha-reductase, mimicking the lack of dihydro-testosterone seen in the Guevedoces. 

Societal Acceptance

In some countries, intersex children are assigned a gender and operated on immediately after birth to make their genitals appear typically male or female. 

While this is not the case in the Dominican Republic, Guevedoce is viewed as a third gender experiencing ambivalent gender socialisation as girls until their transformation, marked by a joyous celebration. However, while most Guevedoces identify as men at adulthood, others choose to undergo gender assignment surgery to remain females. 

However, this is not to say that they do not have to deal with hostility, especially from children their age.

A BBC documentary Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You explores the rare condition as part of a series on development interviews Johnny, a Guevedoce formerly known as Felicia. 

Narrating his experience dealing with hostility, he said, “They used to say I was a devil, nasty things, bad words, and I had no choice but to fight them because they were crossing the line.”

An interesting proof that nature does its own thing, Guevedoces are not limited to Las Salinas. In 2005, Elizabeth Kelly reported that this condition was also prevalent in the Sambian villages of Papua New Guinea, where the locals referred to the children as “turnims”, meaning “expected to become men”.