hermaphrodite
Enable an AI agent to interpret a person's recorded designation as 'hermaphrodite', distinguish the label from evidence about sex characteristics, and determine appropriate handling without inferring identity or authorising intervention.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
Researched by: Codex + Grok
Purpose and description
Enable an AI agent to interpret a person's recorded designation as 'hermaphrodite', distinguish the label from evidence about sex characteristics, and determine appropriate handling without inferring identity or authorising intervention.
A hermaphrodite is an organism that produces both male and female gametes in one individual, either at the same time or in sequence; in human medicine and civil status the same word is an obsolete, now generally avoided, label for a person born with mixed male and female gonadal or genital characteristics, currently described as an intersex variation or a difference of sex development.
It can be Represent an attributed use of the designation without endorsing it as a diagnosis.; Request clarification of the designation's intended meaning when necessary for an authorised task.; Link specific assertions about sex characteristics to their evidence and mark unresolved contradictions.; Use the person's stated terminology in generated references while preserving clearly marked source quotations.; Flag unsupported mappings to intersex status, diagnosis, gender identity or reproductive capacity.; Qualify, correct or restrict downstream use of the designation according to the evidence and applicable authority..
Distinguishing features
Confirm that the referent is a person within SOC.PER; a designation of an organism's reproductive system belongs outside this scope.
Distinguish an occurrence of the word from an assertion about the person: quotation, insult, archival indexing and self-description have different meanings.
Require an explicit definition before mapping the designation to 'intersex', a named diagnosis or a particular combination of sex characteristics.
Check whether the supporting record actually concerns sex characteristics rather than gender identity, sexual orientation, clothing or appearance.
Do not treat the designation as evidence of reproductive capacity; any such assertion requires its own defined meaning and supporting evidence.
Scope
+ Whether the designation is self-chosen, externally assigned, historical or quoted
+ The particular sex characteristics or diagnostic interpretation the designation is claimed to describe
+ Evidence, uncertainty and temporal context for each assertion associated with the designation
+ The person's preferred terminology and boundaries on use of the designation
+ Conditions for retaining, qualifying, correcting or restricting access to the designation
- The person's complete identity, biography and relationships
- Gender identity and sexual orientation as independent aspects of personhood
- Clinical diagnosis, treatment selection and surgical decision-making
- Nonhuman reproductive systems and species-level hermaphroditism
- Legal sex classification and jurisdiction-specific eligibility rules
Characteristics
- Designation context
- self-description | clinical record | historical record | third-party attribution | quotation | unknown Determines whose assertion is being represented and prevents a recorded word from becoming an unqualified classification.
- Intended meaning
- verbatim definition with source | explicitly undefined | disputed The registry supplies no definition, so the agent must preserve uncertainty about what the designation includes.
- Described sex-characteristic domain
- chromosomal | gonadal | hormonal | internal anatomy | external anatomy | secondary sex characteristics | unspecified; multiple permitted Separates the specific subject of an assertion from assumptions about the person's other characteristics.
- Assertion evidence status
- reported | supported by an identified record | disputed | superseded | unknown Supports assessment of individual assertions without assigning one blanket confidence level to the person.
- Assertion provenance
- Links to the speaker or author, original record, date and relevant passage Makes it possible to distinguish original evidence from copied or reinterpreted labels.
- Preferred reference terminology
- person's stated wording | no preference recorded | declines designation | context-dependent Guides how the agent refers to the person while keeping historical quotations attributable.
- Temporal applicability
- current assertion | historical assertion | superseded assertion | applicability unknown Prevents an old label or observation from being silently presented as a current assessment.
- Permitted use
- Specified audience and purpose, with permission or other applicable authority recorded; otherwise unresolved Separates possessing a record from having authority to disclose it or use it in a decision.
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Also registered as vr.tr.hermaphrodite
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 5 bundles · 9 layers · 16 findings · 24 questions.
Designation and reference Establish what the word refers to and what its use asserts in this particular record.
An undefined registry name cannot safely serve as a biological definition or a person's accepted identity.
Human referent
Resolve whether the entry describes a person, a category of people or a different subject.
Referent and use
Record the target and context of the designation before assigning any properties to it.
- Does this occurrence designate a person, discuss a category, quote a source or describe a nonhuman organism? boundary
- Who applied the word, in which record, and was that record making an assertion about this person? provenance
Local meaning
Preserve the source's meaning and distinguish it from proposed terminology mappings.
Definition and equivalence
Treat equivalence with another designation as a claim requiring an explicit basis.
- What does the speaker or record mean by 'hermaphrodite', and is that meaning explicitly stated? definition
- What supports mapping this particular use to 'intersex' or a named clinical category, and where does the proposed mapping fail? boundary
Sex-characteristic assertions Represent only the specific characteristics that an identified source actually describes.
The designation alone does not specify which characteristics were observed or establish reproductive function.
Described characteristics
Separate assertions about different aspects of sex characteristics.
Characteristic-specific evidence
Keep each reported characteristic linked to its observation, method and uncertainty.
- Which particular sex characteristics does the source describe, and which does it leave unexamined or unspecified? definition
- If a measurement or examination is reported, what value or observation, method, date and interpretive context are available? measurement
Interpretation limits
Separate reported observations from diagnostic or functional conclusions.
Diagnosis and function boundaries
Expose any inference from the designation to a diagnosis or reproductive capacity.
- Is a named diagnosis explicitly documented, or has someone inferred it from the designation or an anatomical description? provenance
- If reproductive capacity is relevant to the authorised task, what independent evidence supports the precise capacity being asserted? boundary
Attribution and reassessment Track how the designation and its supporting assertions entered the record and changed over time.
Copied labels, later interpretations and original observations must remain distinguishable.
Source lineage
Identify original statements and subsequent transformations of their meaning.
Original and derived claims
Distinguish original wording from translation, indexing, quotation and retrospective interpretation.
- What is the earliest available source for this designation, and has it actually been inspected? provenance
- Did copying, translation, indexing or later commentary alter the original wording or claimed meaning? provenance
Temporal and disputed status
Represent corrections and disagreement without silently overwriting their history.
Current status of assertions
Assess the applicability of each assertion separately from the continued existence of its source.
- Which designation or supporting assertion has been corrected, disputed or superseded, by whom and on what basis? provenance
- Should the agent present this wording as a historical quotation, a current attributed assertion or an unresolved claim? action
Personal reference and use Determine how the designation may be used when referring to the person or handling their information.
A label's presence in a source does not establish personal acceptance or authority for subsequent use.
Person-stated terminology
Keep the person's own language distinct from terminology assigned by others.
Accepted and contextual wording
Record stated preferences without treating self-description as clinical evidence.
- Has the person stated that they use, accept or reject this designation, and for which contexts? provenance
- What wording should the agent use in its own reference to the person, and when is an attributed quotation necessary? action
Disclosure and decision boundaries
Connect access and use to a specific purpose and applicable authority.
Authorised use of designation
Determine whether the designation or underlying information is necessary and permitted for a proposed action.
- For the proposed audience and purpose, what permits disclosure of the designation or the underlying sex-characteristic information? action
- Does the proposed decision improperly rely on this designation to infer gender, orientation, fertility, legal status or consent to treatment? boundary
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Kinds and varieties
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Simultaneous hermaphroditism (both gametes produced in the same reproductive period; typical of many plants, gastropods, and oligochaetes)
- Sequential hermaphroditism, protandry (functioning first as male, then as female)
- Sequential hermaphroditism, protogyny (functioning first as female, then as male)
- Ovotesticular DSD, historically called true hermaphroditism (both ovarian and testicular tissue in one person)
- 46,XY DSD, historically called male pseudohermaphroditism (undervirilised XY development)
- 46,XX DSD, historically called female pseudohermaphroditism (virilised XX development, classically congenital adrenal hyperplasia)
- Perfect/bisexual flowers (stamens and pistil in one flower), distinguished in botany from monoecy
- Bidirectional sex change in some teleost fishes
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of hermaphrodite this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Identifiers and schemes
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- ICD-10 - Q56.0 - Hermaphroditism, not elsewhere classified; parent rubric Q56 also holds Q56.1-Q56.4 for pseudo- and indeterminate forms.
- ICD-10 - Q56.1 / Q56.2 / Q56.3 - Male, female, and unspecified pseudohermaphroditism; superseded in practice by DSD language but still encountered in records.
- MeSH - D006611 - Historical heading Hermaphroditism; later cataloguing maps many of these records to Disorders of Sex Development.
- Wikidata - item for biological hermaphroditism, distinct from the intersex item - Biology and human intersex are separate items; do not merge them.
- Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of hermaphrodite this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Standards and regulation
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- WHO ICD-10 Q56 (World Health Organization) - residual statistical codes for hermaphroditism and pseudohermaphroditism
- Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society and European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology, Chicago Consensus 2006 - retires hermaphrodite/pseudohermaphrodite in clinical use for humans
- WHO ICD-11 - re-files the same variation under sexual-development / genital-anomaly headings rather than hermaphroditism
- Yogyakarta Principles plus 10 (2017) - international soft-law principles on bodily integrity and sex characteristics
- Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act (Malta, 2015) - first national ban on non-consensual sex-characteristic surgery in minors
- UN OHCHR / Free & Equal intersex factsheets - treat hermaphrodite as outdated when naming people
- Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of hermaphrodite this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Field zoology and aquaculture: identifying simultaneous hermaphrodites (earthworms, land snails) and sequential sex-changers (many reef fishes) for breeding and stock management
- Botany and horticulture: scoring perfect flowers versus monoecious or dioecious habits; growers of sinsemilla cannabis treat unexpected hermaphrodite flowers as a crop defect
- Hospital archives and billing: older charts and ICD-10 extracts still coded Q56.* for infants with atypical genitalia
- Civil registration: a few older statutes and case files used hermaphrodite as a sex/status word; contemporary practice uses intersex, DSD, or a third-marker category where one exists
- Clinical genetics and paediatric endocrinology: ovotesticular DSD work-up (karyotype, imaging, gonadal histology) is the living successor of true hermaphroditism
- Adult media taxonomies: a genre label that usually depicts fictional dual-sex anatomy and should not be read as a clinical or identity category
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of hermaphrodite this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- External masculinisation score (EMS) - 0 (typical female external phenotype) to 12 (typical male) - score
- Prader genital stage - 0-5 - stage
- Karyotype - 46,XX; 46,XY; mosaics such as 45,X/46,XY; chimeric 46,XX/46,XY - karyotype string
- Serum 17-hydroxyprogesterone (classic 46,XX CAH, historically female pseudohermaphroditism) - often >100 in untreated classic CAH versus typically <10 in unaffected neonates - nmol/L
- Selfing rate in simultaneous hermaphrodites - 0-1 - proportion of offspring from self-fertilisation
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of hermaphrodite this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Using hermaphrodite as a name or slur for an intersex or transgender person, which advocacy bodies and post-2006 clinical consensus treat as stigmatising
- Non-consensual infant genital surgery intended to produce a binary appearance, with later loss of sexual function, fertility, or trust
- Gonadal malignancy risk in some DSD genotypes (especially dysgenetic intra-abdominal gonads), historically bundled under the same label
- Broken longitudinal records when Q56.* codes are mixed with later DSD/intersex codes
- Inbreeding depression after self-fertilisation in simultaneous hermaphrodites
- Unwanted mixed flowers in dioecious or female-only crops (cannabis, some cucurbits), reducing product quality
- Policy confusion that treats hermaphroditism, intersex, and transgender status as one legal class
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of hermaphrodite this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Anglophone clinical practice after 2006 prefers intersex or DSD and treats hermaphrodite as obsolete for people; organismal biology keeps the word
- Older French, German, and Latin medical texts retain hermaphrodisme vrai / Zwitter / hermaphroditismus verus as technical terms
- Some East Asian clinical papers continued true hermaphrodite for ovotesticular DSD later than European paediatric endocrinology
- Legal third-sex or divers markers (Germany, some Australian states, Malta) name civil status, not the zoological condition
- Grower slang (hermie) is common in North American and European cannabis horticulture and is not a medical identifier
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of hermaphrodite this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Intersex - Intersex is the current human-rights and much clinical umbrella for congenital sex-characteristic variation; hermaphrodite is the abandoned human label and, separately, a living zoological term. Test: human vs non-human register, and whether the speaker is using post-2006 DSD/intersex nomenclature.
- Transgender - Transgender names gender identity relative to assigned sex and does not require mixed gonads or genitalia at birth. Test: natal sex-characteristic anatomy and developmental history, not identity or transition status.
- Androgyny - Androgyny is social or aesthetic presentation. Test: clothing, secondary-sex appearance, or role versus gonadal/genital/karyotypic configuration.
- Monoecy - A monoecious plant bears separate male and female flowers on one individual; a hermaphrodite (perfect) flower bears both stamens and pistil in one flower. Test: floral morphology, not just 'both sexes on one plant'.
- Mixed gonadal dysgenesis - Typically a streak gonad plus a testis, often 45,X/46,XY, not an ovotestis. Test: gonadal histology and karyotype.
- Gonochorism (separate sexes) - Individuals are stably male or female. Test: whether one organism produces both egg and sperm function in its life.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of hermaphrodite this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Sources
- Consensus statement on management of intersex disorders - Establishes that LWPES/ESPE abandoned hermaphrodite and pseudohermaphrodite as clinical terms for humans, replacing them with disorders of sex development and the ovotesticular/46,XX/46,XY typology.
- ICD-10 Chapter XVII, Q56 Indeterminate sex and pseudohermaphroditism - Documents the residual diagnostic codes Q56.0 hermaphroditism NEC, Q56.1 male pseudohermaphroditism, Q56.2 female pseudohermaphroditism, and Q56.3 unspecified pseudohermaphroditism.
- Global Disorders of Sex Development Update since 2006: Perceptions, Approach and Care - Confirms continued use of the 2006 DSD taxonomy, notes ongoing controversy over nomenclature, and summarises karyotype, hormone, and histology work-up still used where older hermaphrodite labels once sat.
- Is a person who is intersex a hermaphrodite? - States the intersex advocacy position that hermaphrodite is a mythologised, stigmatising word for people and should not be used as a human identifier.
What the second pass must settle
- Does the registry intend a historical designation, a self-description, a biological category or a particular clinical concept within SOC.PER?
- Which neighbouring registry entries or existing world models already own the intended concept, and should this entry link to one of them?
- How do authoritative sources define and contextualise the term across the languages, periods and settings relevant to this registry?
- What evidence would justify any proposed mapping to intersex terminology or a named diagnosis without collapsing distinct meanings?
- Which rules govern correction, retention and disclosure of these records in the intended deployment contexts?