With the onset of puberty at the age of 7, Johnny went through an incredible physiological change: the development of testicles and a penis. The children are known as Guevedoces, roughly translating as “penis-at-12”, referring to the age where their appearance often starts to change.
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For boys, the Y chromosome sends testosterone to be converted into another hormone called dihydrotestosterone; this then allows male sex organs to form.
Around one in 90 children in the village have the genetic disorder.
It’s a term used to describe a small community of males in the Dominican Republic that are born with seemingly female genitals – only to grow testes and penises once puberty arrives.
For his documentary, Mosely met Johnny, a Guevedoce male who was raised as a little girl, Felicita. Now an adult, Johnny said that he had stated wanting to play with boys and toy guns instead of girls, adding that he had been teased at school because “it is hard to imagine a girl that is now is a boy”.
She found that pseudohermaphrodites appeared to be girls at birth but developed muscles, testes and a penis during puberty as a result of an enzyme deficiency with 5-alpha Reductase.
A little boy named Carla is now going through the same transformation, aged nine.
Cases of “guevedoces” have been seen in the Sambian villages of Papua New Guinea, although they view the children as flawed males, while in the Dominican Republic the transformation is welcomed with widespread celebration.
The Telegraph goes on to explore the findings of Cornell endocrinologist, Dr. Julianne Imperato who traveled to this remote part of the Domincan Republic in the 1970s based on “strange rumors of girls turning into boys”. Due to these persistent births, doctors in the island have become experts in identifying whether the child born had guevedoces or was born purely female.
The extraordinary condition will be explored by Dr Michael Mosley on BBC Two’s Countdown to Life – The Extraordinary Making of You tomorrow night.
“When I changed I was happy with my life”, Johnny told the BBC. They are also sometimes called “machihembras“, which means “first a woman, then a man”. Testosterone is required to develop male external genitalia.
Not until puberty, when another huge surge of testosterone is produced, that the male reproductive organs emerge, the Telegraph explains.
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Pharmaceutical firm Merck began researching this side effect in 1974, leading to the creation of a tremendously successful drug called finasteride. Most have decreased amounts of facial hair and smaller prostate glands relative to the average male.
