Sex Change Surgery in the 18th-Century

Hermaphrodites

Hermaphrodites is the biological term for an organism that has reproductive organs of both male and female sexes. Hermaphroditic plants are called monoecious, or bisexual. Hermaphroditic animals are mostly invertebrates and usually parasitic or slow-moving like snails. In humans, hermaphroditism is an extremely rare sex anomaly. A true hermaphrodite is an individual who has both ovarian and testicular tissue [Encyclopædia Britannica]. Today we have a rich knowledge on the subject but back in 1997 it was a different scenario.

Thomas Brand's Report

A 7-year-old girl came to the Soho Square Dispensary for the Relief of the Infant Poor with her parents for treatment. The doctors' opinions differs. The first doctor's opinion was hernia but the second doctor's opinion was hermaphrodites. This case was documented as "the case of a boy who had been mistaken for a girl; with three anatomical views of the parts, before and after the operation and cure." The paper was sitting in the college's rare books library in the University of Kansas. In the early 2000s, Carol Warren — then a professor of sociology of the university — stumbled upon the report.

Thomas Brand's Surgery

According to Brand's report, published in 1787, he noticed an "irregularity" in the patient’s "external parts." After further examination, he concluded that the child’s "part, which had the appearance of the labia pudenda, was in fact the scrotum," and suggested an "operation to free the penis from its confinement." He went ahead and made some alterations, enabling the child—whose name is unknown—"to urinate standing up, wear trousers, and enjoy the privileges of being a male." Brand, who practiced at the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, was "not a quack," according to Mary Fissell, a professor of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins [Alice Robb, New Republic]. This may be may describe one of the earliest instances of sex-change surgery. For Dr Brand he actually corrected the child's gender. Was it possible for Dr Brand to correct the child sex to female?

Gender Roles

The child that Dr Brand operated was a girl for the first 7 years of her life. After having his penis freed from its confinements, this child led a life of a boy and goes into manhood. It show that gender roles can be trained or taught. In am curious about the initial gender adjustment period that this child went through.