Consultant urologist Dr George Lee Eng Geap, or a.k.a Dr G, delves more into another ambiguous gender condition called Klinefelter syndrome that is affected by the genetic profile of the person.
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NewsTranscript
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.