Post by porgyman on Apr 7, 2019 22:03:31 GMT -5
Seems that General Casimir Pulaski (yeah, the bridge guy) may have been an intersex.
New evidence suggests that although Pulaski identified and lived as a man, biologically, he did not fit into the binary definitions of male and female, a twist that helps explain why scientists could not previously identify his remains. The revelatory findings are detailed in a new documentary, “The General Was Female?,” which is showing on the Smithsonian Channel on Monday.
The discovery offers historical representation to people who are intersex, a group that has often been stigmatized and overlooked throughout history. About one in 2,000 people is born with ambiguous genitalia, which can lead doctors to perform what advocates say are unnecessary and harmful surgeries, according to the Intersex Society of North America.
But intersex includes a variety of conditions, and many more people have subtler variations in sex anatomy, which may manifest later in life — or not at all. Some estimates suggest that about 1.7 percent of the population has intersex traits, making such characteristics about as common as having red hair.
www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/science/casimir-pulaski-intersex.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR2V-Wv7fesqyrmxgruKSq-y6ArllN8ImX6yHf5iGcnm3uiB0X5D8KPpJ8I
New evidence suggests that although Pulaski identified and lived as a man, biologically, he did not fit into the binary definitions of male and female, a twist that helps explain why scientists could not previously identify his remains. The revelatory findings are detailed in a new documentary, “The General Was Female?,” which is showing on the Smithsonian Channel on Monday.
The discovery offers historical representation to people who are intersex, a group that has often been stigmatized and overlooked throughout history. About one in 2,000 people is born with ambiguous genitalia, which can lead doctors to perform what advocates say are unnecessary and harmful surgeries, according to the Intersex Society of North America.
But intersex includes a variety of conditions, and many more people have subtler variations in sex anatomy, which may manifest later in life — or not at all. Some estimates suggest that about 1.7 percent of the population has intersex traits, making such characteristics about as common as having red hair.
www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/science/casimir-pulaski-intersex.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR2V-Wv7fesqyrmxgruKSq-y6ArllN8ImX6yHf5iGcnm3uiB0X5D8KPpJ8I
