Question: is it possible to be half man and half woman?

Fiona Hatch answered on 13 Mar 2012:

Whether we’re male or female depends on our genes. Our genes makes us what we are. Your genes code for everything, so if you have brown hair or brown eyes, there are genes that will code for those particular things. We get our genes from our parents, one set from our mother and the other set from the father. As we have so many genes, to help scientists look through them all, we have separated out the genes into things called chromosomes. As humans we have 23 pairs.

One set of chromosomes determine what gender you will be at birth. There are two chromosomes the X and the Y chromosome. If you have XX chromosomes then you will be a girl, if you have an XY chromosome then you will be a boy. It is genetically impossible to be both of these. So you can never get someone that is half man half woman.

What can sometimes happen is you get an extra X chromosome. In females this does not matter as you would be female anyway but this can also happen in males where you have a XXY chromosome. Because of the Y you will be born a male, but you may produce some female hormones, or not as much testosterone because of that. But this does not make the man half female – he just has a genetic mutation.