00:00At the moment, he's quite topical to talk about intersex because there's a lot of controversy
00:06during the Olympics when an Algerian boxer who actually is fighting like a man, however,
00:15physically is supposed to be a woman, and that raised a lot of controversy to decide
00:22what is the genetic basis of this person.
00:31Intersex essentially is a collection of medical conditions that actually may not define the
00:37true gender differentiation between men and women.
00:42Let's get down to the basics.
00:44For men, a typical genetic makeup is XY.
00:49For women, a typical genetic makeup is XX.
00:54When a man or an individual started having an additional chromosome, for example, XXY,
01:04then physically this person is a man, however, they may have some female characteristic.
01:11And this condition was discovered by an American endocrinologist in 1940s called Harry Kleinfelter.
01:19And this is a condition called Kleinfelter syndrome.
01:24Kleinfelter syndrome is more common than you think.
01:27It happens in 1 in 1,000 individuals.
01:31And the risk of getting Kleinfelter essentially is advancing maternal age.
01:37For example, a mother who is conceiving at the age of 40 and above will have an increased
01:44risk by five times to have a Kleinfelter child.
01:50Kleinfelter itself is not a disease, although men with Kleinfelter have certain characteristics.
01:57For example, they have long arms and long legs, they have weaker musculature and also
02:03enlarged breast tissues.
02:06And another characteristic is that their testicles will be smaller, vast majority of them will
02:11be infertile, and a vast majority of them will have lower sex drive and sexual dysfunction as well.
02:19A normal person of Kleinfelter will grow to a normal age of life expectancy, however,
02:26some of them will seek for treatment.
02:28For example, men who has got enlarged breast don't like to have such characteristics,
02:34may opt for removal of breast tissues.
02:37And also, sometimes men who have got Kleinfelter will also ask for testosterone replacement
02:43therapy in order to make them look more musculature.
02:48Although Kleinfelter is a condition that is an intersex, XXY itself will make them look
02:55physically a man who has got an external genitalia that is a man.
03:01Therefore, Kleinfelter can never be mistaken as a woman unless the mutation itself will
03:08have a lot more X in the actual chromosomal abnormality.
03:13And that might raise a lot of question marks about the appearance of the external genitalia
03:20and also somebody who has got such mutation might look a little bit like female.
03:25So for the following week, we are going to talk about another form of intersex which
03:30we discussed before is a condition called hypospadias and that itself might result
03:37in a form of ambiguous genitalia and another form of intersex.
03:43If you are interested in this whole topic, stay tuned for next week's Putting Dr. G
03:48on the Spot.
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