Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome

[franksolich]

Last night, before going to sleep, I hunkered down and read the medical history of Elizabeth I of England (1533-1603; r. 1558-1603), and came across a most curious thing, mention of something called the "Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome."

These are ostensibly women born with the male XY chromosomes, but owing to the body's failure to produce male sex hormones, develop outwardly as females.  However, they have no ovaries, and only a deformed womb and a shallow vagina.  It's impossible for them to bear children or even, in some cases, to achieve sexual intercourse.

Adults tend to be tall, mannish, and straight-limbed with strident personalities, although they can appear to be very attractive women.

Has anyone ever heard of this?

Elizabeth I



Wallis Warfield Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor

[MrsSmith]

I had never heard of it.  According to the wiki article, male babies with this syndrome can develop with every level from normal male genitals to genitals that appear to be normal female, but are as you mentioned above.  This person really is a male trapped in what appears to be a female body. 

[franksolich]

I had never heard of it.  According to the wiki article, male babies with this syndrome can develop with every level from normal male genitals to genitals that appear to be normal female, but are as you mentioned above.  This person really is a male trapped in what appears to be a female body.

Well, regarding Elizabeth I, I--and probably most--had always automatically assumed she had some certain masculine ways because her circumstances dictated it (being a woman in a man's world), and she of course carried that all off rather well.

But now I'm started to wonder if they were acquired manners, or natural ones.

Many times her speeches referred to herself as a "man" or a "prince" or a "king" in "the frail body of a woman"--most remarkably at Tillbury Cross on the eve of the Spanish Armada in 1588, when she rallied the decrepit and ragged English army with her "let tyrants fear speech," perhaps the most famous speech she ever made; she had to give the speech (on horseback) several times to each massed group of underarmed and underfed soldiers, always referring to herself as a king in the body of a woman.

With this medical stuff, I'm wondering if those things "mannish" about her were actually just plain natural rather than artificially self-created for her circumstances.

Of course, unlike the subway cat and the other dysfunctional primitives, Elizabeth I had a healthy sense of God and of self, and didn't do drugs, and so adjusted rather well to the situation, obviously.

As for the Duchess of Windsor, one need only read the newsmagazines and gossip columns of the 1930s and 1940s to see that her "mannish" style and manners always attracted notice and comment--a mannishness that was further highlighted by the wimpishness of her husband, the former Edward VIII.

[MrsSmith]

Well, regarding Elizabeth I, I--and probably most--had always automatically assumed she had some certain masculine ways because her circumstances dictated it (being a woman in a man's world), and she of course carried that all off rather well.

But now I'm started to wonder if they were acquired manners, or natural ones.

Many times her speeches referred to herself as a "man" or a "prince" or a "king" in "the frail body of a woman"--most remarkably at Tillbury Cross on the eve of the Spanish Armada in 1588, when she rallied the decrepit and ragged English army with her "let tyrants fear speech," perhaps the most famous speech she ever made; she had to give the speech (on horseback) several times to each massed group of underarmed and underfed soldiers, always referring to herself as a king in the body of a woman.

With this medical stuff, I'm wondering if those things "mannish" about her were actually just plain natural rather than artificially self-created for her circumstances.

Of course, unlike the subway cat and the other dysfunctional primitives, Elizabeth I had a healthy sense of God and of self, and didn't do drugs, and so adjusted rather well to the situation, obviously.

As for the Duchess of Windsor, one need only read the newsmagazines and gossip columns of the 1930s and 1940s to see that her "mannish" style and manners always attracted notice and comment--a mannishness that was further highlighted by the wimpishness of her husband, the former Edward VIII.

It would certainly seem to be possible, if I recall correctly, the British royal family had a lot of inbreeding...

On the other hand, there have always been girls that were "tomboys," and most were perfectly normal girls...just as there have always been boys who were quiet and meek who were perfectly normal boys.  God does love variety.

[franksolich]

It would certainly seem to be possible, if I recall correctly, the British royal family had a lot of inbreeding...

There was a lot of inbreeding cutting across all classes, all countries.

It's just that royal inbreeding is better known, because records were kept.  No one kept any records on villeins and peasants; only on the higher-ups.

The same could be said for insanity; insane kings and queens are well-known, but insanity cut across all classes, all countries.  But nobody kept records on villeins and peasants; only on the prominent people.

On the other hand, there have always been girls that were "tomboys," and most were perfectly normal girls...just as there have always been boys who were quiet and meek who were perfectly normal boys.  God does love variety.

This is what fascinated me about this.  I think it's pretty plain that I've read more biographies of Elizabeth I than the average normal person (it was part of my college degree, after all), and it's possibly possible that I've read more biographies of Elizabeth I than any other member here.

For years and years and decades, I just automatically assumed her "male" way of thinking, her "male" mannerisms, were contrived, invented.  She was a woman in a man's world, and doing so would ensure her survival.

But this possibility that the "male" side of her was not invented and acquired, but rather her natural way to be, puts her into a different light (as it does the woebegone Mrs. Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson).

There is no doubt that Elizabeth I (and the Duchess of Windsor) was a female, in both structural anatomy and physical appearance, and that she as well as everybody else, saw herself as a woman.

This possibility that there was a minor confusion in the chromosomes that led to her naturally having some of what are considered "male" characteristics and mannerisms paints a whole new portrait of her.

No one is 100% physically perfect or pure.  That she was a woman is undeniable, but it's equally undeniable that she possessed the "male" way of thinking, the "male" mannerisms, a few very minor "male" characteristics.  I had thought she forced herself to be this way, but apparently it's biologically possible she was naturally this way.

[BEG]

I have heard of it before and that is why I think blanket condemnation of transsexuals is not fair. The majority of people out there just want to fit in, to be in a place where they feel they should be. I have seen some who you get the feeling it's the attention they seek (see UGP) rather than the quest to be normal but I don't think we are being fair by writing them off simply as freaks in the same category.

[MrsSmith]

I have heard of it before and that is why I think blanket condemnation of transsexuals is not fair. The majority of people out there just want to fit in, to be in a place where they feel they should be. I have seen some who you get the feeling it's the attention they seek (see UGP) rather than the quest to be normal but I don't think we are being fair by writing them off simply as freaks in the same category.

The frightening thing today is that the pendulum has swung so far to the other extreme that it's quite possible for the simply-confused adolescent to make terrible choices based on feelings that earlier generations would have seen trend back toward "normal" in a few years.  The pre-teen, teen and young adult years can be terribly hard for kids with inadequate support from loving adults, as many of us recall.  In a society that actively encourages early sex, gender "choices," and sexual identity "choices," how many of our kids are literally being yanked away from the normal life they would have embraced if given a little support from normal, loving parents or mentors?  Our homes are filled with single-parent families and confused children, uncivilized males, unstable females.  We've gone from beginning to understand the physical reasons for some "freaks" and learning, as a society, that they are not freaks but humans that deserve support and assistance, to this huge "social experiment" that treats all children as possible "freaks" and encourages them to literally destroy their chances for a normal, happy, stable life with one spouse and the children of that relationship.

[vesta111]

OOOOOO Boy, Frank is in the mood to start up something-----------What fun.

Woman raised by men tend to watch their care givers more closely then were they raised by all woman.--------Reason far as I can tell, it is more fun to live a male life then a woman's of subjugation constant pregnancy's and boredom or constant chores with no rewards.

To bring in a wild Stag or boar and sit waiting for the meal was much better then to be in the  hot kitchens to cook the beast. No cleaning up pots and pans for the supplier of the beast.

Being treated as an equal and taught to read and write 2-3 different languages, to ride and give the mind to past history,  to hide in a corner and listen to the town Elders discuss problems was better then spending the day hoeing crops in the field.

This needed a male in the family that had a sense of --WHY NOT to teach a young girl to do as she wished.  A male that for some reason strange as it was to see more strength in the female then his sons.     ------ could be the sons were wimps and useless but this daughter stood tall and proud.    Perhaps it was the daughter that killed the Wolfe while her much older brothers hid under the bed.

There had to be some acceptance from a male to allow a female to hunt and fish with them, learn to fight and defend themselves.

Females did not learn this by themselves, they were raised by woman who trained them in what a females place in society was.    Why sit for 8 hours at a spinning wheel when one could be exploring on horse back lands never seen before.

Had I lived back then no way would I want to be a brood hen, to produce child after child, spend my life trying to provide for the kids when their father left for years at a time going to strange places with strange names.----Let him stay home and I would be willing to see the world.

These so called masculine woman were just thought of as that,  they became educated,  refused to live a life of the accepted woman of the day did.

Today we have Men of reputation as warriors in the past and have sons that become hair dressers or become artists working in  blood and piss.---------These very men may have a daughter that becomes a Marine and headed out over seas.

Much depends on the Father and how he will steer his daughters, if he ignores them, then the Mother trumps and the daughter learns her place to be ignored, cook clean and get a job to help out some week man support his children.

All or most all females that are successfully have a male behind her in some way to teach her how to survive.---- --to the womans movement.

[franksolich]

I have heard of it before and that is why I think blanket condemnation of transsexuals is not fair. The majority of people out there just want to fit in, to be in a place where they feel they should be.

That's very true; I'm sure given the imperfection of humans, there's not a single person around who's either 100% pure female or 100% pure male.  It probably varies a little tiny bit to one degree or another, but in the cases cited, Elizabeth I and the Duchess of Windsor, the variation was somewhat more than that (although not physically obvious).

As MrsSmith said, though, in today's society, such variations are considered "correctable," and nature tampered with, usually always with disastrous results.  Best to remain as God and nature made one, and to adapt.....as quite obviously, Elizabeth I and Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson did.  One would hesitate to call either one of them unsuccessful.

One need only look at Elizabeth I's older sister and younger brother, about whom there is no knowledge of any confusion in the chromosomes, comparing their fates with hers.

Edward VI, 1537-1553 (r. 1547-1553), who was always frail and sickly; died of bronchopneumonia and tuberculosis at the age of 16 years.

Mary I, 1516-1558 (r. 1553-1558), who died of ovarian cancer at the age of 42 years; I dunno where I read it, but I guess ovarian cancer is the worst cancer for one to have.

Elizabeth I, 1533-1603 (r. 1558-1603), of course died of simple old age (the Duchess of Windsor died at the age of 90, in 1986, so one assumes it was just old age in her case too).

Now, vesta brought up the usual vestastuff; there is a significant difference between physically, having male characteristics, and those characteristics evolving from one's environment.  My mother was the oldest of six girls in her family.  Her father wanted a son, very badly.  (He did get one, in the end, but that was a long time coming.) 

But given daughters, he made the best of what he considered a bad situation; they were girls raised as if boys.  Because of the practices and manners of the time, they did the girl things too, but they also did many of the boy things.  Every single one of them ended up with a healthy sense of self, enjoying nothing but the most amiable of relations with members of both sexes, happily and for life married, and "liberated" long before the women's-libbers came around.

But that was probably environmental; and this is where I appear to have always made a mistake when assessing Elizabeth I and the Duchess of Windsor--in those cases there appeared to be an actual mild confusion in the chromosomes.

[vesta111]

Oh my dear Frank, how to compare the lives of the people who lived 200+ years before we were born.

Your family was educated and were living in the 1900's    We are speaking of people that lived in the way back time, except the Dutches of Windsor that was an big strange stuff to the Crown.

Can you imagine, the time,  here comes a divorced woman into the next kings life-----no problem as having a misstress was almost expected.

Who was this woman, no one seemed to care, she was a nobody.    

I would have loved to have been able to hide behind the draperies to see what happend next.  Albert became king, and for some reason he refused to follow the Church of England.

He placed his mistress over the church and the Crown.    Did he do this for love of her or to
use her as a beard as he was Gay.    

So Albert and so called wife went off with all kinds of money and a royal name for his woman to live a grand life that is so convoluted what can we say.

Interesting that when a few years ago the estate of the Dutches was auctioned off the mass amount of jewelry  she had gathered up was worth millions.

Mean while the brother George had a bit of a problem, London was being bombed by the Germans.  ------One of those Thank God the bullet missed me times for Albert.

[franksolich]

Oh my dear Frank, how to compare the lives of the people who lived 200+ years before we were born.

We are speaking of people that lived in the way back time, except the Duchess of Windsor that was an big strange stuff to the Crown.

Oh now, vesta, dear, madam.

We live in a different, but the human body hasn't changed much, if at all.

Can you imagine, the time,  here comes a divorced woman into the next kings life-----no problem as having a mistress was almost expected.

Who was this woman, no one seemed to care, she was a nobody.    

I would have loved to have been able to hide behind the draperies to see what happened next.  Edward VIII became king, and for some reason he refused to follow the Church of England.

He placed his mistress over the church and the Crown.  Did he do this for love of her or to use her as a beard as he was gay.

Edward VIII, who married the mannish Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson, wasn't gay, but he had a whole lot of other psychological problems.

This is sort of beside the point, and unrelated--but you'd enjoy this tidbit anyway, vesta dear--but Edward VIII was the English king known to have the smallest male sexual organ (Charles II, the largest), going back at least to 1066.

His relations with his father, and his relations with his mother, explained it all.

So Edward VIII and so called wife went off with all kinds of money and a royal name for his woman to live a grand life that is so convoluted what can we say.

Interesting that when a few years ago the estate of the Dutches was auctioned off the mass amount of jewelry she had gathered up was worth millions.

Edward VIII had given her the jewelry of his grandmother Queen Alexandra (wife of Edward VII), and for decades the royal family tried getting it back, but with no success.  When the collection came up at auction, even the royal family couldn't afford to buy them, and so the oil sheiks walked away with them.

(This, by the way, was private jewelry, not the crown jewels.)

Meanwhile the brother George had a bit of a problem, London was being bombed by the Germans------one of those Thank God the bullet missed me times for Edward VIII.

You keep confusing Edward VIII with his younger brother George VI, vesta, dear.

Edward VIII was known as "David" until his accession; George VI as "Albert" until the abdication.

And actually, most thought "good riddance" when Edward VIII left, and were grateful that George VI was around as king during the second world war.  George VI was a stammerer-and-stutterer, but he was of all things a paragon of Englishness, compared with his limpid older brother.

[vesta111]

Oh now, vesta, dear, madam.

We live in a different, but the human body hasn't changed much, if at all.

Edward VIII, who married the mannish Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson, wasn't gay, but he had a whole lot of other psychological problems.

This is sort of beside the point, and unrelated--but you'd enjoy this tidbit anyway, vesta dear--but Edward VIII was the English king known to have the smallest male sexual organ (Charles II, the largest), going back at least to 1066.

His relations with his father, and his relations with his mother, explained it all.

Edward VIII had given her the jewelry of his grandmother Queen Alexandra (wife of Edward VII), and for decades the royal family tried getting it back, but with no success.  When the collection came up at auction, even the royal family couldn't afford to buy them, and so the oil sheiks walked away with them.

(This, by the way, was private jewelry, not the crown jewels.)

You keep confusing Edward VIII with his younger brother George VI, vesta, dear.

Edward VIII was known as "David" until his accession; George VI as "Albert" until the abdication.

And actually, most thought "good riddance" when Edward VIII left, and were grateful that George VI was around as king during the second world war.  George VI was a stammerer-and-stutterer, but he was of all things a paragon of Englishness, compared with his limpid older brother.

But Frank, George had a killer wife that stood beside him and refused to leave London amid the
Horrid bombings.    Yes they did send their daughters to the country for safety, but, they stood their ground and did not desert their subjects.

Sad that in our time Bush demanded to fly to New York after 911 and found he had little power to do so.   He had to go into hiding against his will.----So much for the power of our leaders. Fancy the President being told he could not do as he pleased by armed guards telling him that they had their orders and he had no choice but to do as he was told.

What a difference had he shown up 3 hours after the attack, he wanted to, but he lost his place in history to  make a damn good off the cuff speech and rally round the flag boys.   

I wonder what would have happend had George and wife been forcibly taken to Scottland.
As long as the leader was willing to stand and defend his people, there fore came the strength of the nation.


Amazing people, I have not yet seen the movie about them yet, but hope to soon.