What if a woman discovers she's a man?

[SancteGenesius]

I am in a theological anthropology class where we’re dealing with gender complication. An example was given of a female parishioner who had abdominal pains and discovered that her ovaries were really un-descended testicles. Her family discovered this at the age of puberty and didn’t know what to do with the situation. At birth her gender was unknown and so they raised her as a female but now they are leaning to the belief that she is more of a male. Should they continue to raise her as a female or should they raise her now as a male seeing that she has more masculine organs? Thank you for your help.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

It sounds like the person in this situation is physically intersexed, what used to be called a hermaphrodite. I am not an expert, and I can only give my personal opinion, but my guess would be that it would be easier and less emotionally wrenching for this person to continue to identify as the female she was raised to be from birth than to go through the trauma of trying to “become” a man. Unless she felt called to pursue a vocation – either to marriage or to the religious life – and therefore needed to submit the matter to the Church’s authority and discernment, there is no reason anyone but her immediate family and her physician need know of her medical condition.