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So says the FAQ:

|U. Jamie Lee Curtis is a hermaphrodite.
|T. Like with any celebrity, there are lots of rumors about her.

Current status (as of March 1997): We don't and will probably never know, and that's ok. JLC chooses not to discuss it, she has a right to her privacy, and further speculation is tacky. In short, the rumor has no place in AFU.

In May 1996 the thread surrounding this FAQ entry resurfaced in AFU, where it seems to be the firm majority opinion that this FAQ entry should and will remain U. for two reasons. First, the one tiny group who could be presumed to have an authoritative answer to the question, JLC's doctors, are ethically bound by confidentiality. Second, the one other person who might speak to the question, JLC herself, chooses not to. Speculation into such a personal area by anyone else is certainly a discourteous and disrespectful invasion of Ms Curtis' privacy.

As stated by Joe Chew in an AFU post from 23 May 1996:

>Here's a handy if perhaps insufficiently rigorous test. If you
>met the celebrity in question at a party, would you say, "DUDE!
>You *must* tell me where you buy your gerbils!" or "Ciao bellisimo,
>babe; how's life as a hermaphrodite?" If saying that to their
>face would feel wrong -- and I think that if you weren't raised in
>a cave by wolves, it *would* -- then where do you get off gossipping
>about it on the net?

In fact, in 1994 Peter van der Linden did indeed go to the source, and ventured to ask JLC herself about the rumor, an act which some AFUers find tacky, at least in retrospect. PvdL posted the letter's (non-)results and his own speculations to AFU:

-------------included post-------------------
From: linden@positive.eng.sun.com (Peter van der Linden)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Abnormal genes of Jamie Lee Curtis
Date: 9 Oct 1994 17:40:44 GMT

I recently wrote a very nice letter to Jamie Lee Curtis, asking her if she had any genetic abnormalities. I got no response, and I am wondering if this is (slight) evidence in favor of the hypothesis.

After all, if I were a celebrity, and someone wrote in professing to be a fan, and enquiring after my heath, I would have no reason not to assure them that everything was just tickety-boo. On the other hand if everything was *not* totally dandy, then I may prefer to keep quiet rather than lie. There's a constitutional right against self incrimination, but this is not a court of law, and I think some information can be drawn from Ms Curtis's silence, and from her infertility. Are there any other data points for or against?

Can anyone think of any other ways to obtain the information which will confirm or deny this persistent urban legend?

-----------------end included post----------------------

A rare printed source for this rumor is a Baltimore Morning Sun article from Sunday, March 17 1996 written by William O. Beeman (found at http://data.club.cc.cmu.edu/~julie/whatru.html). From that article:

"The medical term for persons of ambiguous gender is "intersexual." Estimates of the numbers of persons who may be born intersexual ranges from 1 percent to 4 percent of all children born today, according to Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling of the Division of Biology and Medicine at Brown University...

"As a result, there are perhaps millions of XX males and XY females living in the United States today. These are cultural males with male genitalia who are genetically female, and cultural females with female genitalia who are genetically male. The film star Jamie Lee Curtis is one well-known individual who is genetically male, but phenotypically female...

"William O. Beeman is an associate professor of anthropology at Brown University."

In the fall of 1996, Catherine Yronwode wrote both Anne Fausto-Sterling and William O. Beeman, and received the following responses, which she posted to AFU on November 13, 1996:

Anne Fausto-Sterling wrote:
>
> I have never written about Jamie Lee Curtis. I know nothing about her.
> And I'm not interested. I also resent having things that I never said
> attributed to me. Please read my published work ("The 5 Sexes"; in The
> Sciences March/April, 1993) and use that as my statement on the
> question of intersexuality. I am not in the business of speculating
> about the personal lives of well-known people.
>
> And since you've cc'd this message to alt.urban.folklore, I presume
> you will also cc my response.
>
> Anne Fausto-Sterling

William O. Beeman wrote:
>
> Greetings!
>
> I'm not sure I'm really going to be able to help you, but I will tell
> you what I know.
>
> First, the version of the article you cite was NOT the final printed
> version. This version was sent out by the Sun in advance of the final
> edit, which cut the reference to JLC. In the end, I could not
> authenticate the story to my satisfaction, and since it was peripheral
> to the main point of the story, I cut it.
>
> The original source of my informaton was members of the AIS community
> who had heard about JLC from her plastic surgeons who were using her
> as an example of successful vaginoplasty to calm the fears of persons
> facing this operation. My attempts to track down the surgeons was
> totally unsuccessful, and JLC has steadfastly denied everything.
>
> So I am sorry to disappoint you. There is a warm gun here, but no
> smoking gun.

The feeling among regular and veteran AFU posters seems to disagree with PvdL's stated view that JLC's silence may be taken with impunity as circumstantial evidence that the rumor is true, and to disapprove of his call for more data points. Subsequent data points, in the form of Beeman's article, turn out to be unsubstantiated. Current opinion as it has been posted in AFU states that we have already sought after information by all fair means available, that further speculation is pointless at best and tasteless at worst, and finally that JLC has a right to keep her genotype to herself. A couple sample opinions, quoted by Kim Scheinberg on 24 May 1996:

>From Michele [Tepper]:
>
>Furthermore, it's pretty much an AFU consensus that if Ms Curtis isn't
>talking about her own alleged genetic abnormality, it's pointless,
>hurtful, and tacky as all hell for us to be talking about it as if we
>actually knew what her medical situation is.
[...]
>From Joe D:
>
>I find the speculation about various genetic/hormonal/whatevers to be
>equally rude. It's not really any of our business what medical conditions
>another person has. Until JLC herself speaks out on it, it's nothing but a
>rumor (and a nasty one at that). And personally, I can't blame her a bit
>for refusing to dignify it with any sort of notice whatsoever.