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Finding your story
I was born with ambiguous genitals, they put female on my birth certificate but that didn't seem right and I was raised as a boy - very happily. I didn't start puberty and had medical problems from being hypo-gonadal as well as emotional problems feeling like everyone else was growing up but me. My mother wanted me seen in a gender clinic. My father wanted to take me to an endocrinologist his doctor suggested. My mother won and my life turned into hell. Finally pulled away from the gender clinic by my father I got to the endocrinologist who put me on testosterone replacement and finally I grew up!
I was left with fear of the medical establishment and never did get a complete workup for intersex until I was 44yrs. old. My karyotype showed that I am XX, have a tiny uterus and ovaries that don't work, and a sealed over vagina that was opened for me for sex and health care. Talk about a shock!! I think it took me a full year to digest the information. It turns out I have CAH in addition to progestin induced virilization.
It changed everything. It changed nothing. I'm the same man I always was, I just know my body for the first time in my life. I'm gay and have a lot of friends who I showed all this off to and everyone thought it was cool. My partner, as you can see is very happy with me.
You may learn new things about your body that really surprise or shock you. But you're still you, you just know more about yourself now. Your wife loves you because you're you and she'll love you more now that she knows more about you. This is, after all, your story. When all the crazy discoveries are over you'll still be you. I know there were times I felt like I was loosing my grip on who I was because my body seemed like it had kept secrets from me and was a stranger. But that really does pass.
2007 looks to be a big year for you!!
Jim Costich
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