Such uneccessary shame and sadness to this woman’s story, based on ignorance and fear. And I take issue with the word hermaphrodite although the article does go on to explain intersex in somewhat better terms.

Q.

• Caroline Kinsey, 42, was born with both male and female sex organs but was raised as a boy
• She didn’t find out she had Disorder of Sex Development until she was 19
• She began dressing as a woman two years ago and now plans gender surgery

By Chris Parsons

Last updated at 1:54 PM on 27th February 2012

Condition: Caroline Kinsey, who was raised as a man called Carl, only found out she had both male and female sex organs aged 19

A woman with both male and female sex organs lived as a man for over 40 years because her parents didn’t tell her she was born a hermaphrodite for two decades.

Caroline Kinsey has lived almost all her life as a man as her parents hid her intersex medical condition from her until she was 19.

She underwent surgery as an infant and was brought up as Carl John Baker.

But after years of mockery at school and assuming that ‘everybody’s body looked like hers’, her parents finally revealed the truth about her condition when she was 19.

After a short, failed marriage to a woman and a period suffering depression, Caroline decided to dress as a woman two years ago and now wants to take on a permanent ‘female persona’.

She revealed her condition was kept from her ‘for as long as possible’ by her parents on medical advice and because her mother and father ‘didn’t know any better’.

She said: ‘From being young I have always known I was different. I could never quite put my finger on why.

‘A doctor told my mother they should deny me my first birthright, the chance to be a woman, in favour of my second birthright, being a man,

‘The doctor said it would be easier to hide my female genitalia than the male one, so knowing no different that is what they did.

‘They were also advised to keep my secret from me and the rest of the world for as long as possible.’

Caroline was born in Bull Hill Hospital, Darwen, Lancashire, in 1968 to Monica and Rudolph Baker.

But, after her delivery, their good news was shattered when a nurse said their new baby daughter also had male genitalia.

Caroline was brought up as Carl John Baker in the family home, in Darwen.

In 1970, she and her younger brother Martin were taken into care after social workers discovered they had been left alone at the family home.

She added: ‘I had a really feminine sounding voice, but I was never told I was different to anyone else and I assumed everybody’s body looked like mine.