Woman or intersex? They revealed the true sex of a hero of the independence of the United States 240 years after his death

After finding his bones a little over two decades ago, there remained a mystery about the true bad of Casimir Pulaski, considered the "father of the cavalry" of the United States. Was not he a man but a woman? The mystery has recently been resolved by a group of scientists.

The origin of the doubt began after, after several years of research, find the remains of Pulaski and the specialists will notice a detail which forced them to carry out more exhaustive badyzes: the skeleton seemed to be a woman by the shape of the pelvic cavity. Were not the general's bones or, in fact, was the general not a man?

They had to wait over 20 years for the scientific advances and financial support necessary to give an answer.

First, thanks to the mitochondrial DNA of Pulaski's grandmother, the identity could be confirmed: I was the general, the same who would have saved the life of the father of the American fatherland, George Washington. It then remained to be solved the mystery of bad.

The anthropologist and director of the Pulaski study, Virginia Hutton Estabrook, responded to this in the documentary "The Hidden Stories of the United States: The General Was a Woman?", Which will be screened on April 8 on Smithsonian Channel.

For Estabrook, Pulaski was interbadual, that is to say had a difference between your bad chromosome and its bads. In other words, the general had physical characteristics of man and woman, to varying degrees. "It's the only way to explain the combination of the two characteristics that we see in the skeleton," said the anthropologist.

"One of the ways to distinguish the skeletons of men from women is the difference of the basin. In women, the pelvic cavity has a more oval shape. He has less heart than the basin of men. Pulaski was very feminine, "said Estabrook in a recent interview. NBC News.

For his part, the forensic anthropologist of Arizona State University, when he found the remains of Polish general Charles Merbs, said that Pulaski did not think to be a woman or an interbadual. "Maybe he could think that something was wrong (…) At that time, people just did not know these things," he said.

L & # 39; interbaduality

According to United Nations data cited by The country, currently the 1.7% of the population was born with interbad traits. In this regard, the North American Interbad Society explained that interbaduality did not always appear at birth. "Sometimes we do not discover that a person has interbad anatomy before having reached the age of puberty, to be sterile at adulthood or at the time of autopsy: Some people live and die with interbad anatomy without anyone (including themselves) knowing it

From the page of the organization Planning parenthood they point out that There are many variations of interbaduality. For example, they explain: "Some people are born with bads that appear to be totally male or totally female, but their internal organs or the hormones that they secrete during puberty do not fit."

Pulaski was born in Poland in 1745 and in 1777 he crossed the Atlantic to join the ranks of George Washington's army during the American Revolutionary War. C & # 39; considered a hero in both countries. He died at the Battle of Savannah, Georgia, in 1779.