9 ms·

Polish general who fought with Washington may have been female

209 points by uxhacker 8y ago

DoreenMichele 8y ago
My son once remarked that the incidence of secret female soldiers pretty much has to be higher than we suspect because, by definition, if they succeeded, everyone thought they were male. If you died on the field of battle during a bad battle, you might be left there or buried in a mass grave. You didn't necessarily get an individual burial. Re amenorrhea. Being underweight and exercising a lot can cause amenorrhea.* In Canada, they did an experiment to let women into the infantry on the condition that they meet the same standards as men. Only two women made it through. One quit before being assigned to a unit. The other quit a few weeks after getting assigned. She said she thought it would get easier once she was in a unit. She thought training was intentionally harder than normal routine for the military. But it never got easier. Unlike male firefighters, female firefighters have to lift weights to be able to do their job. A big guy can do a fireman's carry without being a body builder. This is generally not true for women. I have serious health issues. As a teen, my periods tended to be 3 to 8 months apart. I was quite skinny when I first began menstruating. My belief is that my irregular periods were largely rooted in how underweight I was. I also was nearly 17 when I began menstruating. So I strongly suspect that women who successfully passed themselves off as male in very physically demanding jobs probably had their periods suppressed to at least some degree. The very act of trying to physically keep up with the demands of the job may have helped hide their gender by reducing or eliminating their periods. In times and places where sex outside of marriage was very much frowned upon, it wouldn't necessarily be weird to just be celibate. This would further help hide the person's sex, both by not exposing their body to another and by eliminating the risk of pregnancy. This also was an era that was not awash in information like we are today. If a baby was born with an oddity, it might be the only time anyone dealing with the child had seen or heard of such a thing. Even physicians had limited information compared to what you can google up in a few minutes these days. In my youth, I was told at times that I was extremely feminine. One woman who played baseball told me she couldn't imagine me playing a sport because I was so very feminine. (I actually did gymnastics for a time, though not competitively.) After being homeless for a bit, I began getting addressed as "sir" by people who saw me from the back. I'm tall for a woman and had short hair, but both things had been true before I was homeless and no one mistook me for a man. I suspect two things made the difference: 1. I stopped wearing a bra. Bra straps are visible through clothing, even from the back, and signal gender. 2. I think my demeanor and body language changed. So, if you dress in men's clothes and adopt male body language, I think that goes a long way towards convincing others you are male. Also, I was extremely flat chested until I had my first baby. I gained a cup size with each of my two pregnancies, putting me at an average size. Talking to other women, this seems to be pretty normal. So it seems if you don't ever have a baby, you may not become very busty. Being flat chested definitely makes it easier to pass for male. * https://healthfully.com/486066-underweight-and-amenorrhea.html https://healthfully.com/486066-underweight-and-amenorrhea.ht...
- Zarath 8y ago
  Very interesting post. Thank you for sharing :)
uxhacker 8y ago
This is a better link: https://asunow.asu.edu/20190405-discoveries-asu-bioarchaeologist-uncovers-200-year-old-mystery https://asunow.asu.edu/20190405-discoveries-asu-bioarchaeolo... Primary source and more detail.
- sctb 8y ago
  OK! We've updated it from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/06/casimir-pulaski-polish-general-woman-intersex https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/06/casimir-pula....
ashleyn 8y ago
The impression I'm getting from new historical findings, is that the Continental Army basically took anyone who could stand up straight and shoot.
- diminoten 8y ago
  And got super lucky in who ended up being the folks in charge. Or maybe Washington really was great at identifying talent.
  - protomyth 8y ago
    Well, given the Generals he didn’t like turned out to be pretty bad, I tend to think he knew who was actually good.
- lainga 8y ago
  European officers knew it, too, and had a habit of coming to America and demanding to be commissioned into the upper ranks. Von Steuben initially tried that, was refused, and only came back as a volunteer because rumours of homosexuality had kneecapped his chances of promotion back in Prussia.
- skybrian 8y ago
  They weren't so keen on officers recruited by Silas Deane who didn't speak English and lacked military experience. Lafayette got in partly by offering to serve without pay.
- markbnj 8y ago
  Sure, and they also had a big problem in that the initial terms of enlistment were fairly short, as was common with militias, and given the conditions and lack of monetary support from the fledgling government it was difficult to get soldiers to reenlist. I don't think these issues were unique to one side, though. The British basically perfected the art of rounding up drunks and vagrants and turning them into soldiers and sailors. Anyway, the continental army was a ragged mess for literally the entire war. If it weren't for the staggering incompetence of British generals and the ancient animosities of European powers who saw the colonies as a pawn, the continentals might very well have lost. In the end if there's a tl;dr on the American Revolution it probably reads something like "Thanks for the new country, France!"
expertentipp 8y ago
Pułaski była kobietą!
- idlewords 8y ago
  You can say "Pułaski był" or "Pułaska była", but you can't say what you just said. This is not 'Nam, there are rules.
  - akavel 8y ago
    It's a paraphrase of a quote from a well known Polish comedy film Seksmisja. Highly recommended if you know Polish language and some culture/history! Also, you may then find out that numerous quotes from the film have entered the popular language :) https://youtu.be/lwleaxA0ps0?t=266 https://youtu.be/lwleaxA0ps0?t=266
    - idlewords 8y ago
      You are right, and I fear the Polish Council is going to rule against me on this one.
      - akavel 8y ago
        Most probably yes... per the same inner motive, per which you yourself couldn't resist writing your initial comment! X-P
    - mamon 8y ago
      Except in the movie it's only part of the joke. They keep naming famous historical figures this way, until one of the men shouts in frustration: "Yeah, and who else? Curie-Skłodowska?" :)
    - mcorning 8y ago
      Kocham che!
  - lmilcin 8y ago
    You certainly aren't expert on polish culture, otherwise you would instantly recognize the reference to a famous polish movie.
Causality1 8y ago
The article says two people got the gender of pictures of babies wrong and then says "his parents could have done the same thing" but that makes no sense. It makes no mention of Pulaski possibly being intersex or having any other condition which would interfere with looking at his genitals to determine sex. It also says Pulaski always considered himself male but has absolutely nothing to back up that claim. People back then were ignorant but not so ignorant as to mistake a vagina and a menstrual cycle for being a "weird man".
- Causality1 8y ago
  The article paints the picture of a person who, rather than being transgender, or intersex, or just not liking the role of women in the 18th century, had mind-bogglingly idiotic parents who raised him the wrong gender as a "whoopsie" and never thought to question it. I find that rather unlikely, especially considering the other women from that time period who assumed male identities to break out of restrictive gender roles.
  - has2k1 8y ago
    > ... had mind-bogglingly idiotic parents who raised him the wrong gender ... Though uncommon, XX children can have ambiguous genitalia at birth. Today (1) we have some idea on what it is and we can deal with it at various stages of growth in-utero, at birth, during infant development, at adolescence or even later? Faced with a similar situation the past, parents gambled (aided with biases and superstitions). Is that sufficient to call it idiocy, I do not think so. 1. https://childrensnational.org/choose-childrens/conditions-and-treatments/diabetes-hormonal-disorders/differences-in-sex-development https://childrensnational.org/choose-childrens/conditions-an...
    - Causality1 8y ago
      Exactly my point. That could easily have been what happened but that's not what the article says.
    - ladberg 8y ago
salex89 8y ago
If you like this kinds of stuff, a similar story: Milunka Savic. A Serbian war heroine who was discovered to be female after being wounded in battle. Although not accounted as LGBT, she just wanted to fight... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milunka_Savi%C4%87 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milunka_Savi%C4%87
- ohaideredevs 8y ago
  What does LGBT have to do with wanting to fight?
  - toyg 8y ago
    One is very likely to be LGBT if s/he is a transvestite.
    - austincheney 8y ago
      Transvestism is a unique behavioral pathology that has nothing to do with sexual orientation.
      - TomMckenny 8y ago
        I'm not sure wearing the wrong clothes is much of a pathology.
        cannabis_sam 8y ago
        I’m not even sure the clothes are wrong..
        austincheney 8y ago
        Its classified as a pathology of gender dysphoria in the APA DSM-5. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathology#Psychopathology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathology#Psychopathology * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria#Diagnosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria#Diagnosis
akavel 8y ago
Just googled up some articles from the Polish press, and they seem to hint at Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, which "[would often] involve excessive or deficient production of sex steroids and can alter development of primary or secondary sex characteristics in some affected infants, children, or adults." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_adrenal_hyperplasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_adrenal_hyperplasia That said, it seems everybody is talking about a paper that's not actually published yet, so there seems to be a lot of speculation and uncertainty and buzz generation around... edit: As of 2018, the state of knowledge apparently could be summarized as: "Was “he” born a “she”? Did Pulaski suffer from a hormonal condition resulting in female physical characteristics? Or were the remains from that Georgia plantation simply someone else’s? The answers will be revealed this summer in a Smithsonian Channel documentary." https://today.emich.edu/magazine/article/10654 https://today.emich.edu/magazine/article/10654 It seems we're still waiting for the documentary to be aired. And hopefully some paper published.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- belorn 8y ago
  Do they have a specific reason to suspect Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia? There are multiple causes for intersex, many which could result in ambiguous sex characteristics.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - markoman 8y ago
    Yes, they did have a reason: "Another unusual feature of the skull was noted by the radiologist and confirmed by the doctors. The area on the base of the skull where the pituitary gland is located was substantially larger than normal." [0] Its also noted in that article that he was born with some type of anomaly, or 'debility' and that caused him to be baptized in the home, which would be unusual for Catholic families in Poland. Interestingly, this article on poles.org was written long ago in 2008 and leaked the detail (about this CAH theory) about Gen. Pulaski possibly being a girl. This was supposed to be a secret by the Smithsonian-funded group performing the forensic anthropology analysis and only released now. [0] http://www.poles.org/L_Kaz/E_Kaz.html http://www.poles.org/L_Kaz/E_Kaz.html
pessimizer 8y ago
There are going to be some angry Chicago men that aren't going to know how to deal with this, and some Chicago women who are going to be very pleased.
- yborg 8y ago
  I'm born and raised in Chicago and have no idea why you think this would make any difference to anyone here. A hero is a hero.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ngcc_hk 8y ago
Why only man can be buried in Arlington? Even if she is a protectorate of Washington!?
- kasey_junk 8y ago
  Umm. Women are buried at Arlington. Pulaski was buried in Savannah because that’s where he died.
  - zb 8y ago
    And also Arlington didn't become a cemetery until the 1860s, during the Civil War.
  - massivecali 8y ago
    I think in this context, the question is about the soldier. Female family members ARE buried at Arlington, as you point out, but with their male veteran spouse/parent. Female soldiers seems to be a recent thing, as they traditionally were confined to noncombat roles. This article describes an apparent long running dispute on the issue: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/female-wwii-pilots-barred-from-arlington-national-cemetery/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/female-wwii-pilots-barred-from-...
aaron695 8y ago
Life is boring. But that doesn't get you papers in journals. The DNA will show he was a he. The skeleton looking female will just be shonky work from anthropologists, a field with no actual scientific rigor. (Or the DNA test was wrong) And then people will have to move to more out there theories. Watch and see.
dewlinedew 8y ago
Mulan
peteretep 8y ago
As Polish crypto-history goes, I still think I prefer the TURBOSLAVS
- ilugaslifk 8y ago
  TIL: https://mfafinski.github.io/Turboslavs/ https://mfafinski.github.io/Turboslavs/ We wuz, etc
m0zg 8y ago
Did they just assume their gender?
TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
This claim relies on us being able to reliably sex skeletons. What is the false positive rate? How accurate are we in archaeology where the skeleton has been underground for a long time?
- dignati 8y ago
  I was under the impression that they later confirmed his sex as female using the DNA sample
- elmolino89 8y ago
  If you have a pelvis or even a sacral bone recognizing typical male from female is trivial. How many false positive errors can be made? No idea, but if your bones during several years are bathed in a sex hormones cocktails different from what your sex chromosomes are indicating, then on a body plan level you are not what chromosomes are saying. It is debatable if such mix up is a classification error.

209 points by uxhacker 8y ago

My son once remarked that the incidence of secret female soldiers pretty much has to be higher than we suspect because, by definition, if they succeeded, everyone thought they were male. If you died on the field of battle during a bad battle, you might be left there or buried in a mass grave. You didn't necessarily get an individual burial. Re amenorrhea. Being underweight and exercising a lot can cause amenorrhea.* In Canada, they did an experiment to let women into the infantry on the condition that they meet the same standards as men. Only two women made it through. One quit before being assigned to a unit. The other quit a few weeks after getting assigned. She said she thought it would get easier once she was in a unit. She thought training was intentionally harder than normal routine for the military. But it never got easier. Unlike male firefighters, female firefighters have to lift weights to be able to do their job. A big guy can do a fireman's carry without being a body builder. This is generally not true for women. I have serious health issues. As a teen, my periods tended to be 3 to 8 months apart. I was quite skinny when I first began menstruating. My belief is that my irregular periods were largely rooted in how underweight I was. I also was nearly 17 when I began menstruating. So I strongly suspect that women who successfully passed themselves off as male in very physically demanding jobs probably had their periods suppressed to at least some degree. The very act of trying to physically keep up with the demands of the job may have helped hide their gender by reducing or eliminating their periods. In times and places where sex outside of marriage was very much frowned upon, it wouldn't necessarily be weird to just be celibate. This would further help hide the person's sex, both by not exposing their body to another and by eliminating the risk of pregnancy. This also was an era that was not awash in information like we are today. If a baby was born with an oddity, it might be the only time anyone dealing with the child had seen or heard of such a thing. Even physicians had limited information compared to what you can google up in a few minutes these days. In my youth, I was told at times that I was extremely feminine. One woman who played baseball told me she couldn't imagine me playing a sport because I was so very feminine. (I actually did gymnastics for a time, though not competitively.) After being homeless for a bit, I began getting addressed as "sir" by people who saw me from the back. I'm tall for a woman and had short hair, but both things had been true before I was homeless and no one mistook me for a man. I suspect two things made the difference: 1. I stopped wearing a bra. Bra straps are visible through clothing, even from the back, and signal gender. 2. I think my demeanor and body language changed. So, if you dress in men's clothes and adopt male body language, I think that goes a long way towards convincing others you are male. Also, I was extremely flat chested until I had my first baby. I gained a cup size with each of my two pregnancies, putting me at an average size. Talking to other women, this seems to be pretty normal. So it seems if you don't ever have a baby, you may not become very busty. Being flat chested definitely makes it easier to pass for male. * https://healthfully.com/486066-underweight-and-amenorrhea.html https://healthfully.com/486066-underweight-and-amenorrhea.ht...

Zarath 8y ago
Very interesting post. Thank you for sharing :)

uxhacker 8y ago

This is a better link: https://asunow.asu.edu/20190405-discoveries-asu-bioarchaeologist-uncovers-200-year-old-mystery https://asunow.asu.edu/20190405-discoveries-asu-bioarchaeolo... Primary source and more detail.

sctb 8y ago
OK! We've updated it from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/06/casimir-pulaski-polish-general-woman-intersex https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/06/casimir-pula....

ashleyn 8y ago

The impression I'm getting from new historical findings, is that the Continental Army basically took anyone who could stand up straight and shoot.

diminoten 8y ago
And got super lucky in who ended up being the folks in charge. Or maybe Washington really was great at identifying talent.
- protomyth 8y ago
  Well, given the Generals he didn’t like turned out to be pretty bad, I tend to think he knew who was actually good.
lainga 8y ago
European officers knew it, too, and had a habit of coming to America and demanding to be commissioned into the upper ranks. Von Steuben initially tried that, was refused, and only came back as a volunteer because rumours of homosexuality had kneecapped his chances of promotion back in Prussia.
skybrian 8y ago
They weren't so keen on officers recruited by Silas Deane who didn't speak English and lacked military experience. Lafayette got in partly by offering to serve without pay.
markbnj 8y ago
Sure, and they also had a big problem in that the initial terms of enlistment were fairly short, as was common with militias, and given the conditions and lack of monetary support from the fledgling government it was difficult to get soldiers to reenlist. I don't think these issues were unique to one side, though. The British basically perfected the art of rounding up drunks and vagrants and turning them into soldiers and sailors. Anyway, the continental army was a ragged mess for literally the entire war. If it weren't for the staggering incompetence of British generals and the ancient animosities of European powers who saw the colonies as a pawn, the continentals might very well have lost. In the end if there's a tl;dr on the American Revolution it probably reads something like "Thanks for the new country, France!"

expertentipp 8y ago

Pułaski była kobietą!

idlewords 8y ago
You can say "Pułaski był" or "Pułaska była", but you can't say what you just said. This is not 'Nam, there are rules.
- akavel 8y ago
  It's a paraphrase of a quote from a well known Polish comedy film Seksmisja. Highly recommended if you know Polish language and some culture/history! Also, you may then find out that numerous quotes from the film have entered the popular language :) https://youtu.be/lwleaxA0ps0?t=266 https://youtu.be/lwleaxA0ps0?t=266
  - idlewords 8y ago
    You are right, and I fear the Polish Council is going to rule against me on this one.
    - akavel 8y ago
      Most probably yes... per the same inner motive, per which you yourself couldn't resist writing your initial comment! X-P
  - mamon 8y ago
    Except in the movie it's only part of the joke. They keep naming famous historical figures this way, until one of the men shouts in frustration: "Yeah, and who else? Curie-Skłodowska?" :)
  - mcorning 8y ago
    Kocham che!
- lmilcin 8y ago
  You certainly aren't expert on polish culture, otherwise you would instantly recognize the reference to a famous polish movie.

Causality1 8y ago

The article says two people got the gender of pictures of babies wrong and then says "his parents could have done the same thing" but that makes no sense. It makes no mention of Pulaski possibly being intersex or having any other condition which would interfere with looking at his genitals to determine sex. It also says Pulaski always considered himself male but has absolutely nothing to back up that claim. People back then were ignorant but not so ignorant as to mistake a vagina and a menstrual cycle for being a "weird man".

Causality1 8y ago
The article paints the picture of a person who, rather than being transgender, or intersex, or just not liking the role of women in the 18th century, had mind-bogglingly idiotic parents who raised him the wrong gender as a "whoopsie" and never thought to question it. I find that rather unlikely, especially considering the other women from that time period who assumed male identities to break out of restrictive gender roles.
- has2k1 8y ago
  > ... had mind-bogglingly idiotic parents who raised him the wrong gender ... Though uncommon, XX children can have ambiguous genitalia at birth. Today (1) we have some idea on what it is and we can deal with it at various stages of growth in-utero, at birth, during infant development, at adolescence or even later? Faced with a similar situation the past, parents gambled (aided with biases and superstitions). Is that sufficient to call it idiocy, I do not think so. 1. https://childrensnational.org/choose-childrens/conditions-and-treatments/diabetes-hormonal-disorders/differences-in-sex-development https://childrensnational.org/choose-childrens/conditions-an...
  - Causality1 8y ago
    Exactly my point. That could easily have been what happened but that's not what the article says.
  - ladberg 8y ago

salex89 8y ago

If you like this kinds of stuff, a similar story: Milunka Savic. A Serbian war heroine who was discovered to be female after being wounded in battle. Although not accounted as LGBT, she just wanted to fight... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milunka_Savi%C4%87 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milunka_Savi%C4%87

ohaideredevs 8y ago
What does LGBT have to do with wanting to fight?
- toyg 8y ago
  One is very likely to be LGBT if s/he is a transvestite.
  - austincheney 8y ago
    Transvestism is a unique behavioral pathology that has nothing to do with sexual orientation.
    - TomMckenny 8y ago
      I'm not sure wearing the wrong clothes is much of a pathology.
      - cannabis_sam 8y ago
        I’m not even sure the clothes are wrong..
      - austincheney 8y ago
        Its classified as a pathology of gender dysphoria in the APA DSM-5. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathology#Psychopathology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathology#Psychopathology * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria#Diagnosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria#Diagnosis

akavel 8y ago

Just googled up some articles from the Polish press, and they seem to hint at Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, which "[would often] involve excessive or deficient production of sex steroids and can alter development of primary or secondary sex characteristics in some affected infants, children, or adults." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_adrenal_hyperplasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_adrenal_hyperplasia That said, it seems everybody is talking about a paper that's not actually published yet, so there seems to be a lot of speculation and uncertainty and buzz generation around... edit: As of 2018, the state of knowledge apparently could be summarized as: "Was “he” born a “she”? Did Pulaski suffer from a hormonal condition resulting in female physical characteristics? Or were the remains from that Georgia plantation simply someone else’s? The answers will be revealed this summer in a Smithsonian Channel documentary." https://today.emich.edu/magazine/article/10654 https://today.emich.edu/magazine/article/10654 It seems we're still waiting for the documentary to be aired. And hopefully some paper published.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
belorn 8y ago
Do they have a specific reason to suspect Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia? There are multiple causes for intersex, many which could result in ambiguous sex characteristics.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- markoman 8y ago
  Yes, they did have a reason: "Another unusual feature of the skull was noted by the radiologist and confirmed by the doctors. The area on the base of the skull where the pituitary gland is located was substantially larger than normal." [0] Its also noted in that article that he was born with some type of anomaly, or 'debility' and that caused him to be baptized in the home, which would be unusual for Catholic families in Poland. Interestingly, this article on poles.org was written long ago in 2008 and leaked the detail (about this CAH theory) about Gen. Pulaski possibly being a girl. This was supposed to be a secret by the Smithsonian-funded group performing the forensic anthropology analysis and only released now. [0] http://www.poles.org/L_Kaz/E_Kaz.html http://www.poles.org/L_Kaz/E_Kaz.html

pessimizer 8y ago

There are going to be some angry Chicago men that aren't going to know how to deal with this, and some Chicago women who are going to be very pleased.

yborg 8y ago
I'm born and raised in Chicago and have no idea why you think this would make any difference to anyone here. A hero is a hero.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ngcc_hk 8y ago

Why only man can be buried in Arlington? Even if she is a protectorate of Washington!?

kasey_junk 8y ago
Umm. Women are buried at Arlington. Pulaski was buried in Savannah because that’s where he died.
- zb 8y ago
  And also Arlington didn't become a cemetery until the 1860s, during the Civil War.
- massivecali 8y ago
  I think in this context, the question is about the soldier. Female family members ARE buried at Arlington, as you point out, but with their male veteran spouse/parent. Female soldiers seems to be a recent thing, as they traditionally were confined to noncombat roles. This article describes an apparent long running dispute on the issue: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/female-wwii-pilots-barred-from-arlington-national-cemetery/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/female-wwii-pilots-barred-from-...

aaron695 8y ago

Life is boring. But that doesn't get you papers in journals. The DNA will show he was a he. The skeleton looking female will just be shonky work from anthropologists, a field with no actual scientific rigor. (Or the DNA test was wrong) And then people will have to move to more out there theories. Watch and see.

dewlinedew 8y ago

Mulan

peteretep 8y ago

As Polish crypto-history goes, I still think I prefer the TURBOSLAVS

ilugaslifk 8y ago
TIL: https://mfafinski.github.io/Turboslavs/ https://mfafinski.github.io/Turboslavs/ We wuz, etc

m0zg 8y ago

Did they just assume their gender?

TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago

This claim relies on us being able to reliably sex skeletons. What is the false positive rate? How accurate are we in archaeology where the skeleton has been underground for a long time?

dignati 8y ago
I was under the impression that they later confirmed his sex as female using the DNA sample
elmolino89 8y ago
If you have a pelvis or even a sacral bone recognizing typical male from female is trivial. How many false positive errors can be made? No idea, but if your bones during several years are bathed in a sex hormones cocktails different from what your sex chromosomes are indicating, then on a body plan level you are not what chromosomes are saying. It is debatable if such mix up is a classification error.