Eleno de Céspedes

Eleno de Céspedes, also known as Elena de Céspedes (c. 1545 – died after 1588), was an Afro-Spanish surgeon and soldier. (Scholarly literature varies in referring to Céspedes as Eleno, as Elena, interchanging back and forth between the two names, giving both in full e.g.) as Eleno/Elena, or combining them as e.g. Eleno(a), Born into slavery, and branded on the cheeks as the offspring of a slave, Céspedes was freed as a child, and took the surname of a former owner's wife. Because Céspedes lacked facial hair, the vicar of Madrid, Juan Baptista Neroni, questioned if Céspedes was a eunuch; at either Céspedes's or Neroni's request, four men (including a doctor) examined Céspedes (from the front only) in Yepes and attested to the presence of male genitalia and that Céspedes was not a eunuch, whereupon Céspedes and Caño were given a license to marry.

After the banns were announced, however, two townspeople told the priest Céspedes was "male and female", with genitalia of both sexes. Subsequently the priest refused to perform the marriage, and Neroni arranged for a second examination to be performed by Francisco Díaz (Philip II's doctor and a noted urologist) and Madrid doctor Antonio Mantilla on 17 February 1586. In turn, midwives who examined and penetrated what they interpreted as Céspedes's vagina with a candle and fingers found it so tight and resistant to penetration that they concluded Céspedes was not only female but a virgin.