Male-identified PAIS and testosterone

[Peggy]

Hi all

Saifa/Sypha wrote (last year),

I am looking for folks who may have a variation of AIS, raised as female, but then reaffirmed their gender as male. I have been on testosterone for over 4 years now with no significant change in my body.

and also

before I started testosterone, i contacted Tony [in Australia] and he supported me through the rough times in the initial part of my gender affirmation process.

I too have PAIS, but I transitioned in the opposite direction from you. I grew up male and changed to living female in early adulthood. Part of the reason I chose this was because with AIS, testosterone (either from your own body or from a bottle - it does not matter much) will not do much to virilize you. Most male-identified persons with PAIS, even treated with high doses of testosterone, never develop full virilization. (They don't call it "androgen insensitivity" for nothing.) That is part of the reason for choosing a female sex-of-rearing for PAIS children. I don't think anyone should tell you which gender to live in, but you need to accept the limitations in what medicine can do for you. Your physician who prescribed testosterone for you should have explained this.

I know Tony B. and his experience may have misled you somewhat. As I suggested to him years ago, and as he is now starting to realize, the fact that he got a fairly strong response to testosterone probably means that he actually does not have true PAIS at all, but instead, any of a number of different metabolic conditions with a similar phenotype, except that with these other conditions, there is full sensitivity to testosterone. A fairly large number of those labeled "PAIS" have been misdiagnosed in this way.

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"When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine." - Pablo Picasso

[Piaget]

Hi all... I haven't posted in a while, but I feel there is a need for clarification here... my understanding is that for a person to have no response to Androgens or testosterone, they would probably be AIS. Those of us who are PAIS, like me, have a variety of individual responses to Androgens and Testosterone... I was born a little male and a little female because I "partially" differentiated along the continuum from female to male as a fetus.
I was born with clearly underdeveloped tissue and my life was actually in danger because I would not stop bleeding "down there". I was back in the hospital for weeks and the doctors ultimately decided to sew me up both internally and externally. They joined my labia into a faux-scrotum and sewed my urethra under my extended clitoris and called it a penis and, thus, they called me male. Abracadabra... - Later on, in my teens, my mother took me to a special doctor 50 miles from our hometown and I received shots which I was told were for allergies. They were in fact testosterone and for me the only effect was I gained a lot of weight and my singing voice was ruined. I lost my high notes but didn't go lower at all. Another example of a partial effect. I also never grew a beard nor additional body hair. So, my long winded point is, that PAIS can have a variety of results, different to each person. :teach: