Güevedoce

The first scientific investigations of güevedoces occurred in the 1970s, when Julianne Imperato-McGinley, an endocrinologist from Cornell University, traveled to the village of Las Salinas in the Dominican Republic to investigate reports of apparently female children becoming male children at the onset of puberty.[8] The cause was determined to be 5α-reductase deficiency, and the results were published in the journal Science in 1974. The frequency of the deficiency was found to be unusually high in Las Salinas, with occurrence ratio of 1 güevedoce to every 90 unaffected males.[9]

The transformation of a phenotypically female child into a phenotypically male adult at puberty, which is reported to be celebrated in Dominican culture, is the result of a genotypic male (with XY chromosomes) born with a deficiency in the enzyme 5α-reductase. 5α-Reductase is responsible for the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone via reduction of testosterone. Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is the hormone responsible for the majority of embryonic development of primary male sexual characteristics such as genital size. However, the oxidized form of the hormone, testosterone, promotes secondary sex characteristics. Thus, an XY child without functioning 5α-reductase cannot convert testosterone into the form that develops primary sex characteristics and will have the appearance of female genitalia. At puberty, when large amounts of testosterone are produced, secondary sex characteristics (e.g., deepening voice, hair pattern changes, muscle anabolism, etc.) develop, thus producing a phenotypic male.

Whereas in countries like the United States, where intersex children are often operated on immediately after birth to make their genitals appear either typically male or female, in the Dominican Republic güevedoces are accepted by society as they are and are regarded as a third gender, experiencing ambivalent gender socialisation. In adulthood, güevedoces most commonly self-identify as men (perhaps because of the positions of freedom and power that men hold in their culture), but are not necessarily completely treated as such by society.[6]

• Gender system
• 5α-Reductase deficiency