i read an article in the Times last year that a number of celebrities were XY females. Anyone know who they are? Stupid of me but i can’t help but worry a little…
Why?
Before anyone asks: XY Females are genetically male, but when the person was a fetus, for some reason, the testicles never got “switched on”. Thus, the labia and clitoris never turn into the scrotum and penis, and the person ends up looking like a female, at least as far as genitalia is concerned. However, the person is not female. The individual does not have ovaries or a uterous, and thus cannot have children, even though “she” has a vulva. A lack of functioning gonads also means that the person will not develop any secondary sex characteristics (meaning no facial/chest hair, and no increased upper-body strength, both of which reqire testosterone). If you’re still not sure, think of Saturday Night Live’s “It’s Pat!” skits. I’m sure that women can suffer a similar disfunction; the results would be similar: no estogen --> a very androgenous woman with no breasts, very slim hips, and probably unable to conceive a child.
As for the celebrities, Jamie Lee Curtis gets mentioned alot in this regard, although without any proof that I know of. Supposedly, several female atheletes are really male. Or then again, it may just be the steroids ;).
–It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
Oh, boy, this is going off memory from something I saw on “Discovery” or some such show, but. . .
What I remember is that it is a very tiny portion of the chromosone that determines maleness or femaleness, and occasionally when sperm and egg meet, that tiny portion either doesn’t make it when it should, or makes it when it shouldn’t.
So I could be wrong about this, but I believe this program said that, while very rare, you can have XY females and XX males as the result of the byzantine genetic handshaking that goes on when sperm and egg meet.
Tony Curtis’ and Janet Leigh’s daughter is the one people keep saying this about…
Yes, “people” indeed do keep saying that. They say it and say it and say it without a shred of evidence, in violation of her privacy, and purely for prurient purposes.
So stop saying it already.
XY females don’t ahve to look like Pat. Many years ago I saw an XY female with secondary sexual characteristics rivaling those of Jamie Leigh Curtis. As I recall she produced androgens (male hormones) but her cells had no functional androgen receptors. Her estrogen (female hormone) receptors worked just fine. Her first clue to any abnormality, as I recall, was that she was infertile.