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The girl who is a boy

'She' has accepted the quirk of fate. But the world around her is not ready.

Eighteen-year-old Rashmita, studying at the Gopalpur Science Women's college in Orissa, applied for a transfer certificate to a general college after learning she has both male and female characteristics. But to her dismay, the college authorities turned it down.

Doctors of the MKCG medical college and hospital in Berhampur classify Rashmita as a rarest of rare cases, with inadequacy of female hormones and non-development of secondary sexual characteristics.

Hers is a one-in-a-million case wherein the male hormones in the body have become dominant and the female hormones dormant, medical college principal Dr Hemanta Sahoo said.

Even her classmates did not notice anything amiss except the somewhat coarse voice.

Rashmita became Rashmi Ranjan Routo, started wearing men's clothes, wanted to mix with the boys and study with them. The college principal Rama Rao, however, found the request unacceptable as Rashmita had never behaved ''abnormally.''

Rashmita's parents said that when only five years old, she had all the features of a male child but the doctors insisted on declaring her a ''girl.''

UNI

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