Hi; I’m a student at the university of London, and I’m looking for a little bit of information.

I’m actually doing a degree in Drama, but it’s to do with feminism, and I’m researching the biological factors behind gender as well as the cultural factors.  A friend who is studying medicine referred me to this condition, and I am using it in my essay as an example that the line between male and female is often more blurred than one might expect.  Whilst I realise that for all intents and purposes, the girls suffering from this condition are completely female, they obviously do need medication to - as far as I can tell, and please forgive me if I’ve got it wrong - stop the more masculine attributes making themselves apparent.

I really don’t wish to cause any offence and I truly hope that those of you with CAH or children suffering from it, don’t begrudge me the use of this disorder in my essay.  However, there is one thing I would like to know, and I can’t find it on the sites I’ve checked, so I was wondering if any of you could help me.  Basically, I want to know when CAH was first "discovered" - or, I suppose, accepted by doctors.  (Like so many of these things, I am guessing that there was a time when it wasn’t considered "real"; my brother suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome and OCD, and even to this day there are people who don’t believe that it’s a genuine problem).  As I am studying feminism, which is to do with the acceptance of women not as a female form of man but as separate people in their own right, I want to know if CAH became more well-known and documented at around the same time; that is, when peoples’ attitudes towards gender and sexuality became more accepting and open.

If I have said anything here which has offended or upset anyone, or if I have stupidly put my foot in my mouth and got anything completely wrong, then I really do apologise.  I have no experience of this condition and only learnt about it recently, so I’m a bit of a rookie!  But if any of you are willing to help and think that you know anything which might help me, to do with how long it has been around, and maybe the attitudes towards it of people who don’t know anything about it, then I would be incredibly grateful.

Thank you very much, and I wish you and your children the best of luck in their future health.

Robyn (UK)