An Intimate Introduction To An Intersex Life (Part 2/3)
Apr 06, 2024
This is part two of three articles about L originally published in 2022. You can read the first article here. This second article explores L's relationship with their body and how their body and sex was medically manipulated without L's consent.
Medical Menopause
“When I was growing up I always knew I was different. I knew in my body that I felt totally different to other people. I felt I was in the wrong body.”
As a child, L didn’t like to wear dresses, play with girls’ toys, or do anything girly, and describes himself as “feral”. The problems started when L was supposed to be going through puberty, but didn’t. Medical tests showed he had a hormone imbalance and he given hormones to kick start his puberty as a girl. Up until this induced puberty, on the inside, he didn’t have any type of discomfort or unease about his body – because it hadn’t changed yet. However, it quickly became clear that everything he felt about not being a girl growing up was actually true despite what the synthetic hormones were doing to his body.
Listening, I had a sense of the anguish, loneliness, and confusion this must have caused, taking L further away from himself rather than feeling more at home in his own body. As if being a teenager wasn’t hard enough already.
L became very uncomfortable with the various parts of his body that changed but didn’t know why. As part of the hormonal process, he grew breasts. When I asked how he felt about his breasts now, he shrugged, “I can take them or leave them, really. They don’t really feel like mine”. Looking forward, L reckons he will probably reduce or remove his breasts, but is not rushing into any surgery just yet.
I asked L if taking puberty-inducing hormones helped her feel more like herself, as many trans people say they do. L vehemently shook her head, explaining,
“Definitely less like myself, as I was given female hormones. So it was a constant battle. My body physically didn’t accept the treatments and emotionally it was really hard and amplified how bad I felt about myself.”
Earlier in the year, L stopped taking hormonal treatments, after a 10-year medical menopause. The induced menopause had been really horrible for her body and she’s really happy to be done with it. She’s also really enjoying watching the changes in her body and wondering where it’ll settle.
When I asked if she had ever felt like herself as an adult, her answer was that it’s almost impossible for her to know. But, she thinks that she’s feeling more like herself than ever before, now she’s off all the hormone treatments. So she’s ready to start sharing her story and telling the truth about who she really is.
Intersex Investigations
L shared some of her history in the previous article and feels ready to share more now. At 19, when L hadn't started puberty, she wasn’t really part of the conversation between the doctors and her parents. It was something that she experienced as happening to her rather than with her.
Despite the absence of puberty, she only found out she was intersex when she was having many problems with her hormone replacement medication and was in a lot of pain in her reproductive system in general. After various medical examinations, L was told that no ovaries had shown up on the scans and that she had an under-formed womb.
There was then a very long period of time when nothing happened, as the healthcare professionals involved didn’t want to deprive L of the opportunity to get pregnant despite her repeatedly saying she didn’t want to. Even though L was by now in her 40s and had been certain her whole life she didn’t want children.
The combination of hormonal blockers and hormones medication together was really hard on her body and mental health. L also had endometriosis and investigations showed she was bleeding outside of her womb. Despite this, she was still denied a hysterectomy. Only when L complained about how much she was mentally and physically suffering through all of this, did a clinician finally give permission for her to have a hysterectomy.
Horrendous Hysterectomy
"Honestly, the whole misogyny around medical care, it just really pisses me off!"
L's hysterectomy procedure was supposed to last 45 minutes. L was in surgery for around 8 hours. The surgeons prolonged the operation due to what they found and what was done to L without his consent. L had agreed to a hysterectomy only. During the procedure, what should have been ovaries were found to be under-developed ovotestes on one side and an underdeveloped gonad on the other side. Due to their fibrous nature, they were automatically deemed a cancer risk and so were removed during L’s hysterectomy.
L added that there have been no detailed studies to prove this theory which may be worth noting as this belief forms the basis for all similar non-consensual surgeries. The remaining hours of surgery were taken up removing L’s cervix, lengthening his vaginal canal, and then dilating it. As if that wasn’t excruciating enough, also without his consent and for absolutely no medical reason, during this surgery, his urethra was rerouted. In total, L had over 300 internal stitches.
The argument for this unauthorised surgery, as it was later explained to L, was so he could have sex with a man. This is regardless of the fact that L was a life-long lesbian and didn’t want to have sex with people with penises, but nobody had checked with him.
For the following 6 months, L had an endless series of kidney infections that were horrendously painful. Thankfully, the rest of L’s genitals were left alone and he doesn’t have any residual pain today.
In case I’ve not made it quite clear enough through my mist of rage, most of the above were not done with informed consent as L was under anaesthetic when the doctors made the decision to perform the majority of this surgery. This is an example of why so many intersex people are so adamant and vocal about not performing unnecessary surgery on intersex infants, children, or adults.
Hospital Freakshow
After the exhausting 8 hours of surgery, L also found out that a number of medical professionals had come into the operating theatre and not only looked at – but also taken photos of – her genitals. She came round to hear hospital staff talking about, “the hermaphrodite” like she was in a freak show.
As a neurodiverse person, just being in a ward with five other people was already overwhelming. On top of that, there was a near-constant stream of people asking questions and wanting to look at L’s genitals.
L gave me the example that one time she woke up to find her covers had been pulled up to her waist and there were two medical professionals staring at her genitals. As the sleep cleared from her mind, she read that one of the two people had a “Podiatrist” badge on. So to add insult to injury, this person was a foot doctor and had absolutely nothing to do with L’s surgery at all!
L doesn’t describe herself as particularly emotional, but after this hoard of people examining her without her consent, she said she sobbed and sobbed in her hospital bed, not knowing how to make the horror stop.
Chimeras
A few days later while still in hospital, L was informed of his karyotype (46 XY) and was told he was genetically male in a female-presenting body. L was told he had female reproductive organs but a male skeleton, so wouldn’t have been able to birth a child vaginally even if he had ever wanted to. L also shared that he had been told he has male nipples with female mammary gland chest tissue, so his body really does contain aspects of both sexes.
As if L wasn’t special enough already, this means he is probably a natural intersex chimera!
Right, one last sciency bit. Most often, chimeras occur when fraternal twin embryos start together and one is consumed by the other. Nom nom nom! This results in one person containing more than one set of genetic material. For example, they might have one set of DNA in their blood and another in their muscle tissue.
Given twins are common in L’s family and his mother had confirmed that she started her pregnancy with twins and gave birth to only one child, it’s likely that Lor is also a chimera. Lor has yet to do further genetic testing, but if he does, there is a high chance he could be 46 XY and 46 XX.
One aspect of natural chimerism is having areas of different skin pigmentation, which L has on various parts of his body. He also had to have eleven extra teeth removed as a child and has plenty more extra teeth buried in his gums, which may well have belonged to the consumed twin.
If you want to read the final instalment about how L has since navigated their gender and sexuality journey, click here.