So I was watching this Drunk History video and heard them mention that during Jefferson and Adams' slander campaigns against each other, Jefferson accused Adams of being a hermaphrodite.
While I do enjoy watching Comedy Central's Drunk History from time to time, I understand something like that I should do more thorough research on before taking it as fact. I ended up finding this article from CNN discussing the rivalry between the two founding fathers. In the article, it says the actual quote from Jefferson is that Adams was a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."
From this quote it almost seems like Jefferson was saying less that Adams actually had both male and female genitalia but more that he was just saying Adams is an extremely feminine man.
So I guess my question is; did anyone ever try to actually claim Adams had both male and female genitalia? Or did Adams getting called a hermaphrodite just a way of saying he was not a "manly man" type? Was the modern idea of hermaphroditism the same back then as it is now?
The source of the quote is from a man by the name of John Callender who was an editor of The Richmond Recorder, a paper friendly to Thomas Jefferson. Callender also wrote for some other journals as well, including the Republican paper The Aurora (a position secured for him by Thomas Jefferson) and in 1800 was busy at work on a book-length pamphlet titled The Prospect Before Us which was supposedly a political history of the 1790s, but was mostly an anti-Federalist rant that attacked John Adams in particular.
The particular beginnings of the hermaphrodite idea come from that 187 page pamphlet, in particular this quote where Callender says that John Adams is . . .
"that strange compound of ignorance and ferocity, of deceit and weakness, a hideous, hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."
Given the nature of some of Callender's other insults of John Adams "a repulsive pedant", a "gross hypocrite" and "one of the most egregious fools on the continent", I think it's pretty clear that the insult was about John Adams' character, not any actual physical attributes that Adams may or may not have had.
The Prospect Before Us landed Callender in legal hot water. After it was published he was brought up on sedition charges under the Alien & Sedition Act and was sentenced to 9 months in prison and a $200 fine. He was released on the last day of Adams' Presidency. Thomas Jefferson pardoned Callender and many of the others who were imprisoned because of the Alien & Sedition Act.
Callender approached Jefferson asking for the job of postmaster in Richmond, and when Jefferson refused to give it to him Callender turned his pen towards attacking Jefferson and the Republicans as well as the Federalists.
As a side note, it was Callender who first named Sally Hemings as the slave with whom he was having an affair (rumors of Jefferson's affair had come out before, but Hemings hadn't been named), and went even further by stating that Jefferson had fathered children with Hemings.
Sources:
McCullough's John Adams
Annette Gordon-Reed The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
I don't think anyone took this to literally mean Adams was a hermaphrodite. As far as I remember, John Ferling's John Adams biography doesn't make any mention of this, nor does Jon Meacham's Jefferson biograhy, The Art of Power. Sure, it could have been left out as being not of particular relevance, but it's the kind of odd anecdote or story about someone that would have likely been included to give a chuckle. Prior to rekindling their friendship (see: *Founding Brothers, Joseph Ellis), the feud and dispute between Jefferson and Adams was incredibly contentious, especially around the time of the election of 1800.
Based on the quote that you pulled, I would agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion: he was not referring to Adams dressing in drag or having two sets or mismatched genitalia, but it was a dig at his character. Jefferson was a Renaissance man and Adams was a bit less of a people person, more the academic than the well-rounded type who was both an academic and an athletic like Jefferson, who captured more the 'manly man' image. (Though Jefferson wasn't exactly at Washington levels of athleticism or soldierly activity himself-look at his flight from Monticello during the Revolutionary War, for example, which really became a black spot on his record).
Sources:
John Ferling, John Adams
Jon Meacham, Thomas Jefferson
Joseph Ellis, Founding Brothers
Edit: Ease of sources
In my opinion, Jefferson was taking aim at Adams for trying to be both a Federalist (Whig) and a Democratic-Republican, all in the name of national unity.
It does seem that Jefferson considered Adams to be rather more a Democratic-Republican than Federalist (Whig) until he ran for president on the Federalist ticket with the slaver and planter Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina. But that is something you should explore for yourself.
/u/smileyman posted about this very quotation in /r/badhistory: Did Thomas Jefferson (or his supporters) really call John Adams a hermaphrodite? It has about the same conclusion as /u/UWCG here, but with a few more details, that it was a dig at Adams's character.
(The 113 comments have nothing to do with the question, so far as I saw, but digressed onto the accuracy of Miranda, political vituperation, and other side issues.)