My intersex adventure: Interview with Phoebe Hart
Documentary film-maker Phoebe Hart lifts the lid on a long-held family secret in Orchids: My Intersex Adventure. Six years in the making, the film is a powerful and accessible insight into people born with genetic, hormonal or physical features that may be considered both male and female. The self-described 'hermaphrodite' spoke with Katrina Fox.
13 February 2011
http://www.thescavenger.net/isgd/my-intersex-adventure-interview-with-phoebe-hart-579.htmlAs a child Phoebe Hart was a happy go-lucky girl – until puberty hit and she was told that, unlike her other female friends, she would never get a period and would not be able to bear children.
The reasons were kept hidden from her until she was 17 and her family explained that she had Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS). This means she is a woman with 46XY (male) chromosomes. Undergoing an orchidectomy (an operation to remove her undescended testes) as a teenager left not only physical but emotional scars on Hart.
Like many intersex people, Hart was urged to keep her situation secret.
