Alexis Season

"So, if the baby is equipped completely like a man, you'll sew up the woman parts?" Jeff said.

"That's one way of putting it, I suppose. And that, actually, is exactly what it looks like. Your baby is forming male genitals just fine, so the female genitals will not be fully formed when it's born. So if you want to give your child the surgery, and I recommend it, you will be having a baby boy."

Anne and Jeff discussed it, and decided that they would, indeed, have surgery done on the baby if the need arose.

There was a problem, however. When the baby was born, it turns out both sets of genitals were fully formed, which is exceptionally rare. Not many people had ever seen such a thing. Anne and Jeff didn't know what to do. It was easy enough to name the baby Alex - whether that would be short for Alexis or Alexander was something else - but what gender role should they give their baby?

Dr. Salinzki explained that the baby might grow up being torn between the two gender roles - perhaps wanting to play with Barbie dolls and GI Joes, or the baby might simply gravitate toward one sex or the other, which, if surgery was to be performed, would leave a 50/50 shot at getting it right. The alternative - not getting surgery and letting the baby grow and decide for itself - would lead to numerous complications in social life. Things as simple as what bathroom to use might lead to endless embarrassments on the part of the child. Besides, they couldn't possibly refer to the baby as "it" instead of "he" or "she".

Faced with a decision, Anne and Jeff decided to go ahead with the surgery to remove the female organs and raise the child as a boy.

They guessed wrong.

Well, half wrong.

Alex did indeed grow up to fulfill the male social role: she played with action figures and videogames and hung out with the boys at school - and Alex's parents were relieved. They appeared to have guessed right.

That is until, at the age of eleven, Alex started growing breasts.