Feminized body(without HRT) and confused about my Gender Identity

[jameswhiteshine]

Not necessarily.  I looked all my life different than ordinary men, but I have a host of other mutations in addition to XXY.  I never ever got body hair, my pubic hair was always (and still is growing in the femle pattern, I don't have an Adam's Apple, no receding hairline.  With other words, only my genitals and a somewhat light beard growth seperate my body appearance from that of a female.  My body decided to stop to produce testosterone in a male level several years ago .
And somewhere along that line seems to be a middle ground, of whatever hormone influence.  I had never, and still don't have, a clear gender identity.  This allows me to be gender fluid.  I can present as amale in the morning, or as a female in the afternoon, without feeling any dysphoria.  I prefer to be a female, because I hope that I will be able to develop a female gender identity.  It is not a nice thing to not know who you are!  Every morning, when I wake up, I have to decide which gender I will be for the upcoming day.  Sounds great, almost like  superman, or?  Let me tell you, most of the time it is not fun!

I am not sure if I really look all that different from most men but in regards to my hairline, they are lower than many biological women (could be genetics by mom and dad don't have low hairlines) and just for your reference. It's quite different from yours (from what I see in your DP). In regards to your gender identity, it's possible for a person to not learn towards either gender because it's more complicated than we think. Also, people always say 'I feel like male', 'I feel like female' just to make it easier for others to understand them. In reality, no one really knows what it feels like a male or a female. Honestly, I don't either and I doubt anyone does!. All I know is I don't feel LIKE my male peers. It's important to make peace with yourself! It is still fine if you keep your hair shorter and choose to wear a mix of masculine and feminine clothes if that is what makes you feel comfortable. In my case, I dress up every then and now but my everyday attire is quite neutral even when I am alone.

[HughE]

Oh, I must say that I am little stunned. It's like you know my entire anatomy. Only one thing that does not exactly match the description is I am quite muscular (more like muscular female than bulked up male) as I used to be an athlete. Honestly, I did not really have a lot of muscle before I hit the gym and put on some muscle. Oddly, I had a hard time gaining muscle weight. Now, it makes a lot of sense. Also, I never had acne as a teenage! My eyelashes are pretty long and it looks huge without any mascara, however, my feet is quite flat (I come from a family full of flat fleet).

The long eyelashes and high arched feet are just something I noticed about myself, they're not part of the medical criteria for eunuchoid habitus. In my family, my father and brothers have/had flat feet and my sisters and mother have/had arched feet, so mine have followed what happens in the women rather than the men in my family. People have actually told me I look a lot like my mother.

I never really had any idea about female pubic hair pattern (Still a virgin!) and it seems like I exactly have it. No significant hair from belly button. I have rounded hips even though I am pretty athletic. I have put on some weight recently(quite rapidly, thanks to extreme winter here!) and everything literally went to my thighs and below waist. As of now, my measurements are 41-29-41. I am starting to look more awkward in male attire. Thanks to the winter clothing and multiple layers, it does not look too obvious. Unless I hit the gym and lose like crazy 20-30 pounds, My body is gonna look quite feminine. My body fat percentage is around 18% which is not high at all yet it looks thick. My arm span is definitely longer than my height. As for my legs, they are 43" long(outseam). To give you an idea about my stature, I am about 74" tall. how-old.net almost always genders my face as female even without any makeup. About my digits, my index finger is slightly longer than my ring finger. Isn't it normal?

In men, the ring finger is supposed to be longer than the index finger. In women, the two are equal in length or the index finger is longer.

I am not too sure about this. Though my testosterone levels are in the normal range for men, it certainly does not have any effect on my body yet.

Doctors often assume that, just because the testosterone level falls within the reference range, that it's within the normal range for a healthy adult. That's a false assumption. Lab reference ranges are based on a random sample of blood samples submitted at that lab for testing, and the people having blood tests tend to disproportionately be sick or elderly. They don't necessarily reflect what hormone levels should be in a normal, healthy population.

As part of the Framingham Heart Study, they measured the testosterone levels of several hundred fit, healthy men, to determine what T levels should be in a normal healthy male population. The average (mean) total T was 723.8 ng/dl (25.1 nmol/l). If you're a healthy adult man, that's roughly where your total T should be.

I don't know the situation in Canada, but here in the UK, the guidelines state that your total T has to be below 12 nmol/l before you can be considered for treatment, anything above that counts as "normal" (even though that's less than half the average for normal, healthy men, and anything below about 15 and you'll almost certainly be experiencing symptoms of low T). It's just an arbitrary limit they've chosen to keep the number of patients the NHS has to treat small.

So what doctors say is "normal", isn't necessarily normal at all.

I am not too sure about the typical body structure of female members of my family as everyone is either overweight or obese. Thus, it's not possible for me to know it. My higher estrogen levels shouldn't be causing this either, right? I heard that testosterone suppresses the effects of estrogen.

It probably works both ways. I know that high E counteracts the effects of T, so you can have good T levels but still have the symptoms of low T if your E levels are excessively high.

This is gonna sound weird but I hate wearing makeup and doing my hair. Gender identity wise, I feel like I am a tomboy who does not care about pronouns. I am an outdoor person as well. Growing up, I always played with girls until someone said it's not appropriate to mingle with them (thanks to the sexist culture in my country of birth). I have even had my dad ask if I was third sex when I literally had no idea about it. I obviously said no because I was just a kid. I definitely did not feel like males of my age!

Sounds a lot like me when I was a kid!

I vaguely remember this, I had this serious issue when I was really young. Whenever I peed, it did not come out of the tip of my penis and I had a surgery along with my hernia to have this fixed. This fits the description of the hypospadias surgery that you mentioned because I got circumcised with it as well.

Hypospadias is a form of intersex. It's where you were born with ambiguous genitalia, except doctors have decided to assign you male. For some reason, they bend over backwards to avoid diagnosing intersex in a person assigned male, so they call what are actually ambiguous genitalia, hypospadias.

Childhood inguinal hernias are another thing that can happen as a result of abnormally low testosterone during prenatal development. I had one.

I really wish the karyotype comes back with an explanation to all this. It will just make things little easier (like coming out).

I wouldn't worry about it. Pretty much the only intersex condition it can pick up is Klinefelter's, and there are many other things that can cause intersex. From what you've said, you definitely are intersex.

[Linde]

. Pretty much the only intersex condition it can pick up is Klinefelter's, and there are many other things that can cause intersex. From what you've said, you definitely are intersex.

I would be very careful with this statement.  I know that I am a Klinefelter person, with a host of other chromosome mutations, and I am a medical professional with an advanced degree! 
However, I would never even try to make a remote diagnosis of any other person, in fact, I would not expect any other medical professional to diagnose me right via long distance and just a description (no pictures) of me!

The only thing what I would say here is that it sounds possible that the person with this description could be/might be intersex.  That is as far as  would go. 
I don't know what your professional background is that allows you to make this absolute statement about this person?

[PurplePelican]

I had one.I wouldn't worry about it. Pretty much the only intersex condition it can pick up is Klinefelter's, and there are many other things that can cause intersex. From what you've said, you definitely are intersex.

Funny, I was taught to determine a number of things from the results of a karotype analysis, perhaps because of your laser-focus on DES issues, you've forgotten about the others.

And making a DX based on a written description is complete rubbish. It's so far from professional that I just don't know what to say, except you kinda need a physical exam and some path done..

[jameswhiteshine]

Let me make this very clear. As of now, I have not been diagnosed with any sort of intersex condition by any doctor. Here's what I know for sure, I am phenotypically male regardless of my chromosomes. I could be intersex or not. The following are the most likely outcomes of the karyotyping:

1. Klinefelter's Syndrome (XXY or XXXY)
2. XY male (normal)
3. XX male (De la Chapelle syndrome),
4. So many other possible outcomes.

It's also possible that my condition could be caused by hormonal imbalance. It's not really uncommon for some males to have high levels of both Testosterone and Estrogen (like me). This happens when an aromatase converts excess testosterone to estrogen. However, my gender identity is just not male irrespective of my karyotype result. I still have to wait for a bit more before I get it. I will update it when I get it. At the moment, I am not even diagnosed with gender dysphoria yet as I never opened up about it to a doctor. That's because I don't want any of my medical records stating I have gender dysphoria as it will hurt my chances when I apply for permanent residency in the future. Also, I am not worried about the fact that I could be just a biological male with gender dysphoria (like most trans women). I have never cared about my pronouns throughout my entire life. Regardless of what other people call me, I know who and what I am. Thank you for all your input, I appreciate your time.

[HughE]

Funny, I was taught to determine a number of things from the results of a karotype analysis, perhaps because of your laser-focus on DES issues, you've forgotten about the others.

A karyotype lets you know how many of each chromosome you have, and whether there are any major structural abnormalities in any of them, such as translocated or inverted sections. The main thing a karyotype wouldd be likely to show as far as intersex is concerned, is XXY (or some other multiple X condition such as XXXY or XXYY, which have similar effects of preventing the testicles from growing to full size, so that not enough testosterone is produced for full masculinisation to take place). You're right, it can show some other genetic factors that can be causes of intersex too (such as  mosaicism or chimerism, where there's, e.g. both XX and XY cells present). However, most genetic causes of intersex are quite rare, Klinefelters is the commonest one, at about 1 in 500 male assigned births.

And making a DX based on a written description is complete rubbish. It's so far from professional that I just don't know what to say, except you kinda need a physical exam and some path done..

I'm not making a diagnosis, I'm expressing an opinion. If someone has the eunuchoid body structure I described, it means they've had lower than normal male testosterone present from before puberty, which even on its own points to some form of intersex as a probable cause. If they've also got scars from hypospadias surgery and a female gender identity, that's a pretty definitive indication that there wasn't enough testosterone there for full masculinisation to take place during their prenatal development, and they are intersex. That's just my opinion of course!

For whatever reason, doctors bend over backwards to avoid diagnosing intersex in someone who they've decided to assign male. They use names such as "hypospadias" and "micropenis" for what are actually the ambiguous genitalia of an intersex baby.

http://intersexroadshow.blogspot.com/2013/02/hypospadias-intersexuality-and-gender.html

[jameswhiteshine]

So, my results are out! As expected, the karyotype revealed XY Male but there was an anomaly detected. One of the chromosomes in the 9th pair is inverted and this could cause infertility. I did a bit of research and I found out that it causes inter sexuality in pigs. Although I am not a pig (lol), I am quite surprised by it. This anomaly is primarily associated with chronic myeloid leukemia and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. The latter could cause the symptoms that I experienced.

[PurplePelican]

So, my results are out! As expected, the karyotype revealed XY Male but there was an anomaly detected. One of the chromosomes in the 9th pair is inverted and this could cause infertility. I did a bit of research and I found out that it causes inter sexuality in pigs. Although I am not a pig (lol), I am quite surprised by it. This anomaly is primarily associated with chronic myeloid leukemia and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. The latter could cause the symptoms that I experienced.

Ahh, about what I expected. And exactly the kind of thing I'd have been looking for, not an IS issue, but an issue with structure.