Endocrine disruptors and I

[Emmaline]

Hey peeps,  okay bit of a ramble and then my question...

In addition to being transgender, I have varicocele, benign testicular cysts, female carry angle, female finger ratios, very sparse facial hair, zero sperm motility, very little semen and a lot of pain in my groin.  All this points to D.E.S exposure, and my mother had eight miscarriages before me, and it is likely that she was given D.E.S- though at the very end of it's run in the UK (banned in 1971 in USA, continued use in Europe til eighties).  I also found out yesterday that my father used to be heavily exposed to DDT, and it was used on our farm until it was banned (he used to sit on bags of the stuff and powder the backs of cows with it).  There is a chance D.E.S was in the cattle feed too.

I didn't stand a freaking chance, did I? 

Anyway, 'D.E.S son' is listed occasionally as an intersex condition, basically started developing as a boy, got hit with disruptors and finished developing as a girl.

In your opinion as someone who identifies as an intersex person, would it be fair if I class myself as intersex or should I just use transgender?  Yes, transgender people are technically intersex insomuch as the part of the brain that holds gender identity has developed counter to their body.

The thing for me is this... being born with a body that passes as one sex (even though the wrong one), has a 46xy karyotype and can reproduce (or at least, could until I did HRT with the help from IVF)- my struggle seems to me to be different to someone who had ambiguous genitalia, is is unable to reproduce or has atypical genes.  My struggle seems sufficiently different to make a distinction, if only in terms of narratives.

I am interested in hearing your feelings on this- if only for conversation.

[Ms Grace]

I couldn't really say, it's probably one of those curly questions with a range of possible answers. I know when I tried to transition the first time I was very hopeful a chromosome test would reveal me to be XXY; to me that would be the "validation" I needed that I was only "this way" because of a genetic "defect", not "effed in the head". Well, I wasn't XXY...disappointing at first but it helped me realise I just was who I was and didn't need a reason or justification to be trans.

[HughE]

The way I see it is that DES exposure is a type of intersex condition, because you started off developing as male, but then the DES began to be administered, and it caused you to develop as female instead of male for the remainder of the pregnancy. It's just that with DES (and, I suspect, with the treatments that replaced it), the exposure tends to not start until too late to have much effect on genital development and the brain is the main thing that tends to be affected, so there's often not much physical indication at birth that anything untoward happened. The medical definition of intersex revolves around genitals, and it's something that usually gets diagnosed at birth. Nonetheless, they've got the same underlying cause - a disruption to that person's hormones during part of their prenatal development.

With classically defined intersex, the main focus is usually on the genitals (and often the disastrous consequences of botched attempts to "normalise" the sex of the baby). With DES (and indeed transsexuality from any cause), the main issue is psychological problems, caused by years and decades of being forced to adopt a completely different social role from the one your brain is wired up to perform, and also I think by having a body that's producing the wrong mix of hormones for your brain. So there's two completely different sets of priorities there, however there's at least one thing that DES and classically defined intersex have in common - you're at high risk of experiencing problems with fertility, and of developing health problems as you get older due to your testosterone production falling below the minimum needed to maintain good health (if you transition then that's no longer an issue, because the estradiol you take as part of your HRT performs the same functions as far as your body's concerned as testosterone, except the female version of them). 

DES lost it's FDA approval in 1971, however doctors in the US continued to prescribe it off label for several years after that, and I've chatted to DES daughters who were born in the mid-70s in the US. Elsewhere, it continued to be used throughout the 1970s (and right up until 1983 in Spain I think).

[Emmaline]

It would have been 1975 when I was exposed in the Uk, some sources point to 1982 as the offical end of DES in Europe, but most say 1971 - I guess they assume American bans somehow magically carry across to UK. 

Some resources say the medical definition was chromosomal, some genital, others include hormonal.  It certainly is fuzzy.

[Eva Marie]

I have many of the same symptoms that you listed Emmaline - the varicocele, the feminine carry angle (but weirdly only on one arm), infertility, a feminine appearance since i can remember, feminine facial features, feminine wrists, I was quite small when I was in my teens and early 20s, and of course I am TS. I now seem to pass quite easily in my new life and I know it is because I look like a girl.

I was born in 1962 so the timeline for DES fits, but my mom is adamant that she didn't take anything during her pregnancy with me. Some sort of endocrine disruption definitely happened though.

I do think that being intersex definitely applies and Hugh explained it very nicely.

[Emmaline]

Thanks!