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PR: The author of the first article is contra the notion that JLC is intersexual because all the 'evidence' is hearsay. This is in itself correct of course. For a layman, it is impossible to confirm JLC is intersexual or not.
www.snopes.com/movies/actors/jamie.htm
[Collected on the Internet, 1997]
One story that keeps on circulating around Hollywood is
that Jamie Lee Curtis was born an hermaphrodite and had to
undergo surgery after birth in order to become legally
female! This has been told to me by people who have worked
on films with Jamie and by one physician who claims to have
seen the records at Cedars Sinai, which leads me to
believe, after the whole Richard Gere affair, that Cedars
must have a "coffee table" filing system that invites
browsing.
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[Collected on the Internet, 1997]
Jamie Lee Curtis was born with both sexes . . . that is why her parents chose the name "Jamie Lee", until the surgery could be completed to "make her" a girl.
Origins: What
to make of the child of two successful and famous actors
who grows up to achieve an equal measure of fame in the
same field? What if this gal has a boyish-sounding name and
adopts children rather than bears her own?
A rumor, apparently. And not a very nice one.
According to an oft-repeated whisper, Jamie Lee Curtis is an intersexual (the preferred medical term for persons of ambiguous gender, replacing 'hermaphrodite').
So? Is she, or isn't she?
We may never know. No one but Ms. Curtis, her parents, and her doctors has the definitive answer to this one, and none of them is talking. Curtis has repeatedly declined deigning to provide a response to this rumor, and her physicians — even if they had something to say and wanted to say it — are bound by doctor-patient confidentiality strictures.
This rumor is often lent credibility by people who have heard it repeated as fact by their university professors (especially those with specialties relating to intersexuality). Neither the hearer nor the teller ever seems to be able to provide a credible explanation of how he knows this piece of information to be true, the chain of transmission always tracing back to the notoriously unreliable "Someone else told me about it." As happens over and over, even the most trusted of sources can sometimes take a widespread rumor at face value, then parrot it as fact.
Okay, so we simply don't know. Why, then, is this rumor so widespread?
Jamie Lee is the daughter of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. At the time of Jamie Lee's arrival into this world, her father was a roguishly good-looking leading man, an actor female moviegoers couldn't help but swoon over. Her mother was a beauty and a renowned actress. Their union produced two daughters, Kelly Lee in 1956 and Jamie Lee in 1958.
In their day, Curtis and Leigh were one of Hollywood's up- and-coming couples, two successful, ambitious, famous people who appeared to have it all, with that 'all' including a happy marriage and two fine children. (As is often the case, appearances were deceiving: Curtis and Leigh divorced in 1962 after eleven years of marriage, and there were more difficult times ahead for both of them.) It's thus possible that the current rumor about Jamie Lee stems from an ancient backlash against her parents, long- ago envy expressed as a slander about what the union of two "perfect" people had produced. Just as the fox decries as sour the grapes that hang out of his reach, so might meanspirited folks fed up with hearing about the beautiful people spread a rumor that cuts these stars down to size.
Two facts lend an aura of credence to the rumor that Jamie Lee was born with both male and female bodyparts. The first is her two-way name: According to the rumor, a boyish appellation was bestowed upon her by parents who hadn't yet decided whether to have a boy or a girl "made" of their baby and wanted to be prepared to go either way, but that wasn't the case of it. Janet Leigh explained how she came to choose the name:
At that time, we didn't know ahead of time if it would be a girl or a boy, so when I was pregnant with Kelly, my best friend Jackie Gershwin said, "Why don't you call the baby Kelly, so if it's a girl, it works, and if it's a boy, it works?" And she thought the same thing with Jamie. The babies were named before they were born because Jackie said, "This way, we won't have to worry about it!" If the names were truly chosen before the children arrived, that puts paid to the notion that 'Jamie Lee' was so christened in response to a medical condition that would only have been discovered after her delivery. (Jamie Lee Curtis was born long before the development of medical technology that could identify dual-gendered fetuses.)
The second fact that supports the rumor is Ms. Curtis' own children: They're adopted. Though couples opt for adoptive children over natural progeny for any number of reasons, it is true the operation necessary to correct dual gendering in a female infant would leave her unable to bear children.
Degrees of intersexuality vary in intensity from presence of an additional Y chromosome to being born with a mixed set of genitals. Treatment of cases of blatant intersexuality is generally (but not always) surgical in nature, with reconstruction performed on the infant patient to add or remove body parts so as to end up with a child completely male or female in physical appearance. Hormones are also given towards this end, but there is a limit to what can be corrected medically. Though an appearance of sexual normalcy can be constructed, fully functional reproductive organs cannot.
According to Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, a recognized expert in this field of study, 1-1/2 to 2 percent of all births do not fall strictly within the tight definition of all-male or all-female, even if the child looks "normal." In reaching her numbers, Dr. Fausto-Sterling is counting all incidents of intersexuality, from mild to extreme. The incidence of children with mixed genitalia is pegged at 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 3,000, or 0.033 to 0.05 percent of all births.
(Many technical names have been assigned to describe sexual ambiguity, including testicular feminization, transgendered, and androgen insensitivity syndrome. Rather than get bogged down here in descriptions of them, we direct readers to follow the link in the "Additional Information" section of this page for further discussion of the subject.)
Intersexuality is a reality; some children are ambiguously gendered at birth. However, one particular point needs to be made, and made quite vehemently: The existence of such medical conditions is not reason in itself to suppose that Jamie Lee Curtis has any of them. Using the one to bolster belief in the second is akin to claiming the existence of the Atlantic Ocean somehow proves a particular ship sank in it.
It is a telling commentary on the skewed importance we give any matter relating to sexuality that this rumor exists at all. Numerous children come into the world less than perfectly formed, yet no stigma is attached to those who require surgery to repair a malfunctioning heart, a disorder of the digestive system, or almost any other condition unrelated to gender. Yet when the question of sexuality is raised, it's all whispers behind hands and meaningful looks.
As only someone who has seen True Lies can say, if that's not all woman, then maybe we need to rethink what is. And while we're at it, let's see if we can't rethink what's a fit topic for gossip and what isn't.
Barbara "unfit for humane consumption" Mikkelson
Medical Articles on the Littleton Case and Related Articles on Gender Determination and Human Rights
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PR: The second article covers the actual medical condition of multiple or lacking sex-chromosomes (X or Y). In my opinion this one sounds more informed. JLC is genetically male, but phenotypically female, according to this article. Like I mentioned earlier, medical doctors don't debate *if* she is intersexual.
What are you? Male, Merm, Herm, Ferm or Female? BALTIMORE MORNING SUN (BS) - Sunday March 17, 1996 By: William O. Beeman Edition: F Section: Perspective Page: 1F Word Count: 1,054
ARE THE CATEGORIES "man" and "woman" so obviously clear that they need no further explanation? Legislators throughout the nation trying to prevent the recognition of "gay marriage" contracted in other states obviously think so. They have introduced legislation that would grant official recognition only to marriages between "a man and a woman." Legislation embodying this language has already passed in South Dakota and Utah and may become law in 17 other states, including Maryland, in the next few months.
Maryland's bill, introduced by Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr., the founding pastor of Rising Sun Baptist Church in Woodlawn, says same sex marriages are "against the public policy of this State." If enacted, "only a marriage between a man and a woman" would be valid in Maryland and same-sex marriages that take place in other states or foreign countries would not be recognized.
Perhaps Mr. Burns and the other legislators who are pushing these bills don't realize it, but their passage would unwittingly nullify or prevent millions of supposedly heterosexual marriages.
Why? Because the marriage partners will not meet the medical definition of being "a man and a woman." To make matters worse, most of these couples will not know that they are illegally married.
Between 3 million and 10 million Americans are neither male nor female at birth. Additionally, as adults they may be genetically of the opposite gender from that which they and their parents believe them to be.
The medical term for persons of ambiguous gender is "intersexual." Estimates of the numbers of persons who may be born intersexual ranges from 1 percent to 4 percent of all children born today, according to Dr. Anne Fausto- Sterling of the Division of Biology and Medicine at Brown University. The difficulty in determining clear-cut specification of gender arises because there are at least three ways to define it. Two are biological and one is cultural.
The first biological definition defines gender in terms of chromosomes. Males have an X and a Y chromosome. Females have two X chromosomes. The second biological definition assigns gender in terms of male and female genitalia.
In the third, "cultural" definition, males are people who lookand act "male," and females are people who look and act "female." Americans generally want everyone to fit the third, cultural definition, even when people have biological characteristics that are not strictly in accord with a two-gender system.
One cause of intersexuality seems to be the posession of an abnormal number of chromosomes only one or more than two. A second cause stems from the fact that all humans, no matter what their chromosomal makeup, have the biological capacity to develop either male or female genitalia and secondary sexual characteristics while in the womb. Developmentally, some babies are born with male or female chromosomal makeup and with both male and female genitalia, or with some of the genitalia of the opposite chromosomal sex.
Dr. Fausto-Sterling points out that there is a smooth continuum between 100 percent biologically male and 100 percent biologically female with many possibilities in between. She calls those with both testes and ovaries "herms." Those with testes and some female genitalia but no ovaries are "merms." Those with ovaries and some male genitalia but no testes are "ferms." This gives the possibility of five rough biological groupings: male, merm, herm, ferm and female.
Most intersexual Americans are unaware of their true biological gender because under current medical practice, physicians reassign the gender of intersexual infants at birth. Such infants are surgically altered and given hormonal treatments so that they will fit into one of the two "cultural" categories male or female. The test is usually not chromosomal, but rather based on the "viability" of the genitalia to eventually appear normal.
Often the parents are not fully informed about what is happening to their children.
Dr. Fausto-Sterling calls this medical reassignment a "surgical shoehorn" designed to force intersexed infants into rigid cultural categories that have little to do with biological reality.
As a result, there are perhaps millions of XX males and XY females living in the United States today. These are cultural males with male genitalia who are genetically female, and cultural females with female genitalia who are genetically male. The film star Jamie Lee Curtis is one well-known individual who is genetically male, but phenotypically female.
The current legislative issue in South Dakota, California, and Utah and other states has arisen because a current court test of marriage laws in Hawaii seems likely to result in recognition of same-sex marriage at sometime in the future. Because marriages in one state are generally held to be legal in others, the Hawaii action would effectively legalize same-sex marriage throughout the nation.
The legislators have obviously not consulted with scientists in their zeal to eliminate "gay marriage." Legislation preventing recognition of any marriage except between a "man" and a "woman" will clearly have some surprising unintended consequences. In states with such laws it may be necessary to have a "genetic" test such as is currently performed on Olympic athletes before a marriage license can be issued. Even so, what does an XX male or an XY female do about marriage? This legislation might effectively prevent such people from ever being legally married in their state of residence.
Some legislators have also tried to preclude post-operative transsexuals from marrying by requiring that marriage partners be "potentially fertile." This, of course, would exclude not only the transsexuals, but also all intersexual individuals. It would also exclude women who have undergone hysterectomies or gone through menopause, and men who became infertile as a result of disease, such as having contracted mumps as adults.
This attempt to deny marriage to all but culturally defined males and females through legislating science is eventually doomed to failure because a two-category male/female system can never encompass the variety of human gender construction. A large number of destructive and expensive court cases will arise if such restrictive and ill- conceived marriage laws are passed. It would seem far more reasonable to allow any two persons wishing to ratify a personal relationship to do so without having to satisfy a standard that has little relationship to reality.
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