Why would people think that incest produces hermaphrodites?

Because people are ignorant.

”(really sheltered, super religious family)”
Well, there you go.

I think she is confusing hermaphroditism with hemophilia. Any recessive gene, like hemophilia, is more likely to manifest in a small gene pool, like the royal families of Europe..

Or maybe sheer ignorance, as @rangerr wrote.

Incest does increase the likelihood of a genetic disorder manifesting if that disease is recessive (like hemophilia, mentioned above), and some types of hermaphroditism are carried on recessive genes.

The novel Middlesex tells the story of a brother and sister who each carry genes for 5-alpha-reductase deficiency who go on to have a family together.

Incest increases the chances of undesirable genetic traits already existing in families, such as the hemophilia @jaytkay described.

I have not heard of any specific mention of any form of hermaphrodism.

Oh there are many types of hermaphrodism, from no visual indication of the condition to varying degrees of it.

I think she confuses it with the fact that hermaphrodites produce insects.

Because they are idiots?

@nikipedia Middlesex is a wonderful book, but I did not get why hermaphroditism was necessary for the story. But I am kinda literal-minded and a lot of things escape me

Reading the National Enquirer?

People have no idea what is even meant by the word hermaphrodite. Suffice it to say, it is a mythical creature. Ambisexual infants with ambiguous genitals are not hermaphrodites, and the syndrome has nothing to do with incest (or gender)

Annie Oakley is rumored to have been an hermaphrodite, as was Calamity Jane (Wild Bill Hickock“s GF). Jamie Lee Curtis is also among this group of rumored special people.

All false. Check Snopes.com

Sorry, no matches were found containing calamity jane.
Sorry, no matches were found containing calamity jane was a hermaphrodite.

Snopes doesn’t know

@davidbetterman if anything is true is that the people you mention might have be intersex – a true hermaphrodite doesn’t exist in the human species.

How do you know?

@davidbetterman Because I know biology – a true hermaphrodite is an organism that has both female and male functioning reproductive organs (like the worm c.elegans) and no human has ever or will ever have two functioning reproductive organs working in one body.

So you don’t really know, you are just repeating something you learned in school?
I’m not being argumentative, just pointing out that just because some teacher taught you this in school doesn’t make it so.
There are billions of people living on earth right now, and many times that have been here over the centuries.
You can’t possibly know this for a fact. But thanks for trying to enlighten me.

@davidbetterman well, what are you repeating when you cite rumors as evidence?

Because they are uneducated, misinformed, ignorant, or just plain hateful. Take your pick.

All I know is that my sister and I both do our child.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir : So… since there can’t be an actual hermaphrodite, what should people say instead?

@troubleinharlem intersex.

There are true hermaphrodites in human society. Most people when they are born as hermaphrodites have surgery to become one gender based on what the parents decide. Some people live their entire life as a hermaphrodite and only a select few around them will know that they are. I ask all of you non believers if you were a hermaphrodite would you tell anyone that you were and if you did what do you think they would do or say to you.