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Gender reassignment without surgery or guevedo people.
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
In the Dominican Republic, specialists have discovered an unusual type of people who mutate and change sex in adolescence, without surgery or taking any medications. As it turned out, during adolescence, girls changed sex without outside interference, they not only developed secondary male sexual characteristics, but also grew a penis.
The story of the unique children was told in a BBC2 film, which described human development from the first days of conception, the changes that occur in the womb with the embryo and how some factors can affect life in the future.
The main character of the film was a young guy. 24-year-old Johnny from the Dominican Republic, as in other cases, he was initially raised as a girl, since at birth he was taken for a girl due to the lack of pronounced male characteristics. Only during the period of hormonal changes did Johnny begin to develop a penis.
The young man himself said that in childhood his name was Felicita, and like other girls, he wore dresses and braided his hair. After the gender change, Johnny began to be bullied by his peers, at school children called him the devil and the only way out that Johnny-Felicita found for himself at that time was to fight with his offenders.
Another unique child who naturally changed gender was a girl named Carla, who began to turn into a boy at about the age of 7.
Researchers became interested in this phenomenon and decided to find out the reasons for this mutation.
It is worth noting that similar work was carried out 40 years ago and, as it turned out, chromosomes are the cause of mutation.
During the first 14 days of embryo formation, it is asexual, after about 8 weeks, the embryo develops sexual organs. If the embryo is male, the Y chromosome is responsible for the process of testicular formation, and subsequently the testicles begin to produce the male sex hormone testosterone. In the case of a female embryo, the X chromosome is responsible for this process. At 9-10 weeks, the embryo begins to develop a penis or clitoris.
As the study showed, the embryos of mutant children, or as scientists called gevedose, lack the enzyme 5-alpha-reductase, which is why the primary sexual characteristics of newborns were hidden. It is for this reason that gender was determined only in adolescence, when certain changes began in the body, active production of testosterone occurred, and not only secondary but also primary sexual characteristics appeared.
It is worth noting that people who were misclassified at birth are no different from those whose gender was clear from birth. For example, Johnny may not have the facial or body hair that most men have, but he can have normal sex and is capable of having children.
This research has helped scientists develop drugs for men who begin to go bald with age or suffer from prostate adenoma.
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