Countdown to Life was a series, conceived by the BBC’s Science development team, to document cutting edge research about how we develop in the womb.
In this episode, we focussed on the middle weeks in the womb, when a series of events, largely determined by our genes, transform each of us, from a generic human to a unique individual.
One of the features that emerges during this time is our sex. As our male or female genes start to express themselves, our genitals grow and as we suggest in the film, whether we feel like a man or a woman, may be influenced by events that happen in the womb.
It was the development of our sex that interested us most of all and became a big focus of the film. We wanted to tell the story of how we are all made, through individual human stories and we’d heard about a village in the Dominican Republic which harboured a strange secret – many of the boys born in the village are mistaken for girls because in the womb their bodies do not produce the kind of testosterone needed to grow a penis.
Life for these boys is confusing because although they’re raised as girls, as they grow up they start to feel and look male and when they go through puberty they start to grow a penis. Hence they’re known as ‘guevedoces’ – meaning ‘penis at 12’.
An American scientist first came across the ‘guevedoces’, in the 1970s, and when we started making our film we had no idea whether the condition was still in existence in the village. What’s more local fixers and journalists doubted whether this isolated community would want to speak to us about this sensitive subject.
After a few weeks of detective work, one fixer found half a dozen guevedoces who said they’d be happy to meet us, with a view to telling us their stories on camera.
As soon as we arrived in the village, the children were bemused by our presence and gathered around to talk with us. I immediately noticed one 9 year old girl, who, was particularly curious about what we were doing. She had pig-tails and was introduced to us as Carla, but there was something unmistakably boyish about her, so I asked our fixer to find out more about her. Her mother confirmed that she was indeed a ‘guevedoce’.
I think our presence in the village gave Carla and her mother the impetus to take action and over a weekend we filmed her extraordinary transformation from girl to boy. This started with Carla having her hair clipped short at the local barber and ended with him going school on the Monday morning as Carlo.
Carlo’s relief at finally being able to live as a boy was unmistakable and it was great to see his beaming smile.
Though as we learnt from other guevedoces in the village, life and love continues to be complicated for them as they grow up.
Their stories gave us an insight into the complexity of how we develop in the womb and how and why each of us is unique and different.
Countdown to Life: Against The Odds is nominated for Best Science Documentary at The Grierson Awards 2016.
Helen Sage for BBC Studios, The Open University; first shown: BBC Two
