A 20-year-old university student from Pengshui county, Chongqing Municipality is facing a hard choice: to become a man or a woman after doctors at Southwest Hospital found that she is a hermaphrodite.

Zeng Jing, who was raised as a girl, came to the hospital with her mother for examinations where Doctor Lu Gensheng found Zeng has small breasts, small testis, no uterus, and both a vagina and a small “little brother.” He said Zeng can accept an operation to reshape her body as either male or female, but in either case she would never be fertile. …

When Zeng told doctors that if she could not be a complete woman, she would like to be a man. However, her mother strongly opposed the idea because Zeng was raised as a female for 20 years and if she became a man all their relatives would laugh at them. The university has told her they will accept her as a woman, but not as a man because it would be difficult to explain the change to her roommates. Zeng left the hospital on Saturday to think further about her uncertain future.

Editorial comment:

FIRST, our standard reminder that ‘hermaphrodite’ is neither biologically accurate nor a favoured term amongst intersex people.

Secondly, it is not appropriate that this intersex person should live a life of misery so that their relatives will not laugh at them.

Global Times: Hermaphrodite’s sad tale