An incredible case where children until the age of twelve are known as the “guevedoces” and they are educated as girls because they do not have testicles and penis visible. The boys barely have male members at the age of 12. Although it is difficult to believe, in the town Salinas of the Dominican Republic, male babies are born without penis. It is an evil that affects one of every 90 boys who suffer a lot in puberty, since they have to endure the laughter and jokes of some of their peers.
This phenomenon is real and recently has been known by the world, although those who have gone through this experience see it as something natural. In these cases boys are known with the name of “guevedoce” that means that their male members grow at the age of 12 years. When they born seem dolls, since they only have small holes which look like a vagina through which they do their physiological needs and are raised as girls by several factors; one is the ignorance of the parents, and another; the recent knowledge of science about the “guevedoces”.
For medicine, these cases are unique; the trauma for the “guevedoces” children is that when they reach 12 years their body begins to change, their male musculature becomes evident; and in addition, they keep being target of mockery during this process. In the seventies, a research was initiated about girls that were converted in boys and was determined it was caused by lack of an enzyme 5-alpha reductase, which turns testosterone into dihydrotestosterone.
Research showed that in most cases the new male organs work well, and many “guevedoces” live their lives as men; although some of them undergo surgery to keep being females. During the first weeks of life in the womb are not any of both, about eight weeks after conception, the sex hormones appear. If it is genetically male, the “Y” chromosome instructs its gonads to become testicles and sends testosterone to a structure called the tuber, where it becomes into a more potent hormone transforming it into a penis or clitoris.
In many parts of the world penis and testicles are known as “cocks”, which differentiate the fact of being a man or a woman; hence that in the Dominican Republic they use the terminology of “guevedoce” because it is from the twelve years that begin to appear the male organs. They are also known as “malefemales” and they usually refer to them first as women, then as man. In spite of the fact that the “guevedoce” grow as any man, there are some subtle differences; because they tend to have smaller glands in the prostate and less hair on the face than other people of their same sex.