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I'm An intersex

Stop intersex genital mutilation

By Sarah LeePublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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I didn't notice anything different about me until I looked at the cover of my immunisation record, my name was of no surprise to me but what caught my eye was what was written for my sex, it seemed as if a mistake was made, the doctor intended to write female but wrote male and corrected it but with a different coloured pen.

These are just clues that make sense now that I have the bigger picture, the doctor could've easily had made an honest mistake and had hastily picked up a different coloured pen to correct it.

As I was growing up, I was into hobbies or toys that were better 'suited' or normalised for the male gender, such as playing competitive sports or with my prized Ultraman toy, I never liked wearing sandals, jewellery, dresses, makeup and the only footwear I needed were Nike running shoes. But none of these things describes what an intersex person is, what I described can easily be anyone.

My hobbies and choice of clothing didn't make me intersex, it was my genes, the sequences of DNA tightly packed into the nucleus of every single cell in my body, a mistake had been made in one of the 25000 protein-coding genes I had. a gene that coded for the enzyme 5 alpha-reductase which aided in converting testosterone into the more potent dihydrotestosterone, the mutation made the enzyme dysfunctional and stunted what could've been a normal process for my developing gonads while I was in my mother's womb.

This mutation is rare and was passed down from both of my parents, making it a rare autosomal recessive disorder but enough about the science, as much as it was useful for helping me understand my difference, it only tells part of the story.

My parents, with tears flooding down their eyes, told me I was infertile and will never have my period when I was six years old but it wasn't until the time I was 13 when during one of my many doctor appointments, I saw my diagnosis on my doctor's computer monitor.

However, it was a relief knowing there is a name for what I had and what I am, the confusion--although I was successful in hiding it--was there, but there was no place to turn to when I looked for answers, my parents were adamant about not discussing it and comfortable with being in denial and treating it as an open secret, something to keep within the family's conscious and sweep under the rug. I didn't dare to ask the doctors anything because my parents were always there in the same room, and if they knew I had questions about my condition, I felt as if they would've been distraught with the pressure of facing my reality.

Regardless of what you want to say about the internet, it was useful for clearing my confusion and giving me clarity on what was different about me, the countless amount of information available helped me in unthinkable ways, it helped me accept myself for what I was and not express any blame on myself or my parents, however, this doesn't change a sad fact about the way intersex children were and still are being treated like to this day, something that should medical consent and ethics to shame.

I was born with underdeveloped testes which were removed from me when I was only a few weeks old without my consent, and without my parents being fully aware of the implications it will have on me, both emotional, social plus private, and the utter uselessness of the unnecessary surgery. However, this isn't only something that has happened with me, it has happened to countless other intersex individuals around the world who had their choices stripped of them just as they were starting to breathe, and with signing the petition attached to this article, you can make sure intersex genital mutilation is banned and children in the future that are born with a harmless genetic condition aren't subjected to a lifetime of trauma, shame and most importantly, preserving their right to their body.

https://m.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/sign-the-petition-demand-lawmakers-ban-intersex-genital-mutilation?detail=emailactionLL&link_id=2&can_id=b8242a01f946b3c8f1cc992f635c243c&source=email-sign-if-you-agree-intersex-genital-mutilation-has-no-place-in

https://www.change.org/p/end-intersex-surgery-at-lurie-children-s-hospital?recruiter=false&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&recruited_by_id=f6de5790-c491-11ea-8f24-3bb7046a813a

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About the Creator

Sarah Lee

Write about whatever catches your eye and gets your brain firing.

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