It was intersex awareness day yesterday (at least based on what my shitty work LGBT network is saying), and I want to talk a little bit about my journey and story with being intersex.
I first realised something might be "different" about me at quite a young age, my periods were never regular like others, and my parents often commented on me being hairier than others. It was only after two periods of severe agonising pain for 2 weeks on end that I got a blood test to confirm that I have PCOS.
This made a huge amount of sense for me, as around that time I was growing facial hair for the first time.
There's many people with PCOS who don't view themselves as intersex due to the condition, but I think it's also important to acknowledge those of us who are. My body has different characteristics to a "typical" afab body, I naturally have facial hair, my periods and emotional regulation are impacted by my testosterone levels. My parents have mistreated me and said a variety of cruel things to me because of my facial hair and how accepting I am of my intersex nature.
After a year of this diagnosis, I had a second blood test to investigate my condition. This time it came back clear. No sign of hormonal differences. I will admit I was at a loss. The answer was so clear before- and PCOS is not a condition you can lose or vanishes. The answers I had about my body and health were very quickly lost, but even the doctors couldn't say for sure that I didn't have PCOS- one test said I did, and the other contradicted it.
For a while I hesitantly discussed myself as intersex in a few personal spaces. Around close friends who knew my whole story and how up in the air my condition was, and how even though I'd had a short period that appeared to show normal hormones, my body very quickly resumed how it had always functioned.
That was until I met another intersex person. I was at a local kink and alternative market, just shopping for jewelery when one of the sellers pointed out an intersex themed necklace. We spoke about the hatred from people we experienced for our facial hair, the struggles of not properly connecting to the experiences of our assigned gender at birth in a way beyond the trans experience and into our bodies themselves. I admitted that I didn't know if I could call myself intersex. My diagnosis was up in the air, and even then, PCOS is viewed as not medically intersex regardless of the intersex people who very much state that it can be. She firmly turned to me and said that if I was experiencing the world in the way I was, having different sex characteristics like facial hair growth, differing hormones, an experience that people who aren't intersex may struggle to comprehend, I wasn't stealing from anyone to call myself intersex just because I existed on a strange borderline of the condition.
And since then, I've been very proud to call myself intersex. I have had chances to get further blood tests, but the doctors and I both agree that it's not worth continually testing my hormones when it is clear they are different. My parents still hold the firm belief I'm using my intersex identity and hormone condition to "validate" my transness, but it's far from that. I am intersex no matter what. It's not a proof of my transness, it's an identity that finally gives me an answer to why my body hasn't looked or acted like any other afab people I've known.
But yeah. Happy intersex awareness day. I'll likely speak more on this in the future.
