Hermaphrodite

"Look—as far as I'm concerned, Steady Freddy can put on falsies and go woo the hermaphrodite vote in Quartz."

―Cordelia's thoughts on playing politics

Hermaphrodites were a genetically-altered subspecies of humans with both male and female organs, created approximately 200 years BMVK during the rush of experimentation brought on by the invention of the uterine replicator. Beta Colony had a population of hermaphrodites, most of whom lived in the community Quartz. Hermaphrodites often preferred to be referred to by the gender-neutral "it" rather than "he", "him", "she", or "her". In polite address, the term "honorable herm" was approximately equivalent to "gentleman" or "lady".

List of herms

• Bel Thorne

• Consul Vermillion

• Ker Dubauer was not a herm, but pretended to be one.

Ba

Unlike the ba of Cetaganda, who had no sex organs at all, Betan hermaphrodites had dual sex organs.

Behind the scenes

There exists speculation that hermaphrodites were created with an extra chromosome, called the Z chromosome. There is no textev for this beyond the fact that Cetagandan Haut and Ba had such a system (mentioned in Diplomatic Immunity). No known authorial statements exist to confirm this belief, however.