Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I wanted to come up with a witty title but couldn't think of one. I do dry humour better so never mind.

Anyway, as it says on the tin... I mean, post title, I'm wondering if I may be intersex. :)

One of the major things I remember is that when I was younger I asked my Dad about a line/ridge on my scrotum and was told, 'Oh, that's because of the hernia surgery'. Bearing in mind that I know that in most male bodied/assigned people that line will extend up the underside of the penis. Mine doesn't and indeed it seems to be a ridge that is only on the underside of the scrotum almost directly in the middle. Furthermore, when I'm in the bath and laying down/everything is relaxed, my clitoris (as I think of it) looks somewhat bent over and my scrotal area definitely seems to have a cleft/indent to it, plus I seem to have quite small testicles and when things are 'pulled up close' so to speak, my scrotum is about half the size of my clitoris in terms of how it hangs. My mother also told me about this hernia surgery but whenever she talked about it she seemed incredibly cagey/uncomfortable. Furthermore, I have two birth certificates, one labelled M (my sex of rearing) and one labelled F, which I was always told was an admin error as my middle birth name began with F. That being said, I left home about 2 1/2 years ago owing to my mother's massive denial about my being trans and shortly before this time both my birth certificates went missing. I couldn't find them anywhere. On top of this, any discussion on these matters growing up was always forcibly shut down, or so it felt to me, though that may have simply been the effect of growing up in an abusive household as evidence and research suggests my mother is probably narcissistic.

Combine this with the fact that now, post puberty and 25 years old, I have smooth skin, a soft/quiet voice, reduced muscle mass (I can't carry heavy things well at all, I'm very awkward/clumsy, and even lifting heavy pans/grating cheese for too long tires my arms very quickly), a short torso in comparison to noticeably lanky/thin arms/legs, very mild breast growth (I have one side that is developed to probably an A cup or slightly smaller and one side that isn't at all, as I'm quite skinny so it's more noticeable) and very fine/sparse body hair as well as facial hair that isn't necessarily sparse but is very fine when it grows through but grows slowly.

I'm at the stage of thinking I may be intersex, and indeed plan to raise it with my doctor next week, but validation is always good. Thanks for reading and thoughts very much welcome. :)

It does sound like you could have been born with ambiguous genitals and been given surgery as an infant to "normalise" them. The symptoms you describe suggest that you have hypogonadism, or chronic below normal male testosterone production. All in all, you sound a lot like me when I was younger (except my hernia was left untreated until I eventually had it repaired when I was an adult). You could mention those symptoms to your doctor. He can order a karyotype, which is a test in which your DNA is analysed to see whether you're XXY. If it's not that, then it's possible you have some rarer genetic intersex condition, but IMO more likely that some environmental factor messed up your hormone production while your prenatal development was taking place. There needs to be testosterone present in order for both male physical development and masculinization of the brain to occur. If anything interferes with your testosterone production during the time your prenatal development is taking place, depending on how far into the pregnancy the hormone disruption occurs, it can have effects including genital abnormalities, reduced fertility and reduced testosterone production later in life, and of course gender dysphoria (caused by having some or all of your brain development occur as female instead of male).

A lot of us in the over 40s age group were exposed to a drug called DES, that at one time was often used as a treatment for preventing miscarriages and premature births. One thing I've been trying to find out is whether there's other medicines still in use that can also interfere with fetal hormone production, and be a cause of intersex and/or transgender. I suspect there could be.

Thanks for such an indepth answer. :)

As I say, being 25 and born in 1991, I don't know that I would have been in contact with things like DES etc through my mother (though I'm pretty sure she must have had a miscarriage at some point because of course though she never said as much, she always seemed very sad when such topics came up.)

Beyond that, as you say, it could well be that my testosterone was lowered by other factors. I know I was born 16 weeks premature and had quite serious epilepsy as child which can lower testosterone (though new evidence is suggesting this is rare), but then there are plenty of people with both or either of those conditions who aren't trans and/or intersex. It also wouldn't explain the birth certificates/hiding thereof or indeed the caginess around the 'hernia surgery' so I suspect you may have a point re possible corrections etc. :)

Ok just come from your intro page and wow my first impulse is to say you're so lucky but not sure if that's appropriate.

The history part certainly fits the theory but as I'm fond of saying none of us can change how our story begins but we can change how it ends. Physiology aside it sounds like you know who you are and that is a great thing.

Totallyish OT just because of Hughes knowledge. Could a mother late in pregnancy with a severe kidney infection being pumped full of penicillin and having a nearly fatal allergic reaction affect hormonal development of a baby? (Sorry but curious)

Last bit back on topic I hear your title with classic Power Rangers Megazord voice in my head. Probably just me but loved it.

Hi Artemisia,

welcome  :)
(well I'm newbie also, so I don't feel I can be on the welcome committee, but anyways welcome here)

:)

I think I'm XXY, there was never any doubt about my male genitalia but I have most of the other symptoms described for XXY, I had a little breast development, but since I'm very slim if not skinny only me really saw it, tallest of my family, no chest hair, almost no beard until I was like 30, female like wrists and shoulders, never was very strong... difficulties in high school (I quit)... pretty much all that's listed on the Wikipedia page and elsewhere...
also I have it seems a weird type of arthritis, also listed, anyways my knees hurt a lot, or used to.

plus, now, I have had a very fast and quite strong response to low dose HRT. My doctor found a test she can ask for in our public system that is not a karyotype but that she says will show if I have a gene that is doubled. I'm also in the autistic spectrum but I have no official diagnosis for it but it's quite obvious now that I studied autism.

I can tell you that HRT felt as if my whole brain and body was fed for the first time with the right fluids. And my knees don't hurt half as much as before. I feel I'm being repaired

there are many XXY, certainly many who aren't trans, numbers I've seen show one out of 500, one out of 800 or one out of 1000 men birth (they don't seem certain, normal: we're not being checked for that). I'm pretty sure most of them have no genitalia ambiguity, so they actually don't know that they are XXY. so anyways that's many XXYs

I think, well so far in my research, that the consequences of XXY are poorly known. As a matter of fact,if you look at the description of XXY, some pertaining to troubles in teen years seem similar to autism traits. Don't you think?

@Jerrica: Thank you and Megazord references are fine. :D Also, loving your profile pic, fairies are awesome. :)

@Soli: Those are all very good points, to be honest I'm wondering if I might in fact be XXY because the other thing that's interesting is is that a) my mother always used to say 'You have such a lovely figure' which is a bit of weird thing to say to an apparently male child, and b) more recently when I realised I may well be on the autism spectrum and had testing for such (which the person testing me said I needed to be referred to a clinical psychologist, but it seemed 99% likely I am) she was all 'Oh well, I know you may think that, but I was reading a case history about someone who had similar symptoms to you but they weren't autistic.' (she's an academic) Both those things lead me to wonder if she knew/knows I'm intersex and obviously was/is hiding it and therefore whether maybe in XXY conditions there are traits that appear autistic but aren't technically, hence her other comment. :)

Thank you for your kind words and I totally love my fairy. Got her everywhere even on mug of tea right now lol.

As in UK (from other thread) your GP should be able to order blood test for XXY. Tell you for sure on Thursday once I ask for one. Never considered it but might as well ask. If he suggests T I'll scream and run though

Hey welcome Artemisia! And I also love dry humor  >:-)

I'm not sure how much I can speak on this topic since idk myself for sure but I have my own list of things similar to what so far everyone here is describing minus having ambiguous gentalia. I feel like my fast response to hrt kind of confrims a lot of things I had been suspicious of. The first one being my bone pains and how that just stopped suddenly out of nowhere. I've always had wide hips and they grew even more within a few months in. And this is at the age of 21. Did everyone also have wide hips prehrt too?

Quote from: Soli on April 23, 2016, 12:36:11 AM
I can tell you that HRT felt as if my whole brain and body was fed for the first time with the right fluids. And my knees don't hurt half as much as before. I feel I'm being repaired

Never have I related more with a post  :)

@Jerrica: I laughed out loud at that, just the mental image of this kind of hysterical screaming followed by 'I'm um... banned from the doctor's surgery' 'What? Why?!' *twisting hands together looking downcast* 'I uh.... well, he suggested T to help with bone health etc and... I kind of threw his computer at him and ran screaming from the room.... O.o' ;)

@Lady_Oracle: Awesome name and yay for Our Lady Of Dragons! ;D Re hips, I don't know how wide mine are, I know that I'm quite boyishly curvy, but given I'm quite slender that would be in proportion. i.e. with the fact that I'm slender, my arms and legs are longer than torso and my hips do seem wider than average plus a general hourglass figure it all seems to slot together. (I have a small layer of fat where most male bodied people would have muscle round about their diaphragm type area) I know that on a scale of 1 to 9 when it comes to working out one's waist to hip ratio I scored as an 8 while most women score as a 9, so it's quite likely I do have wider than average hips. :)

aww thanks <3 I go on at 9pm est tomorrow. I shall take back the Iron Throne, stay tuned  :laugh:

Yeah it does sound like you have wide hips too. I was at 115-120lbs most of my life until I started hrt and despite that I had curves. My face was very andro too with little to no brow bossing. Currently my whr is at 0.67 (waist 26" hips 39") but I have no idea what it was prehrt. I wish I knew, I'd have to see if i recorded those measurements somewhere.

btw I love your name too! Do you like Greek mythology by any chance? I've always been really into it.

Lady_Oracle for president! I mean... Queen. ;D

I am as it happens, but more specifically as a hedgewitch I work with a number of deities including Artemis who I took my middle name from. (Incidentally I changed my middle name when I got married which may seem like a contradiction in terms for the namesake in question, but it just popped into my head when my husband I were playing around with changing our names for our wedding so I think maybe She wanted me to have it. :) )

That's interesting. I know I'm about a 34 waist and I'd guess about 36 hips as they do widen after my waist which apparently means I have a WHR of about 0.3, but I'm not sure that's possible. O.o :D In my case my waist and hip measurements were lower before, as I've put on some more weight owing to eating disorder recovery, so if indeed as I believe my hip circumference has increased too, that would support the wide hips thing. :)

This is something I posted elsewhere and thought I'd add here as that was in someone else's thread and no one seemed to respond plus I didn't want to hijack someone else's posting. :) (This is pretty much what I posted with a little rejigging to account for discussions already had on this thread) :

I was curious, if it's ok to ask/not dysphoria inducing for anyone, about what you've noticed about the scent of your sweat? :)

What I mean is, I'm pre HRT so I'm curious to know about others' experiences. You see, sometimes my natural scent is apparently more vanilla scented, which from what I've read is more in keeping with aspects of Testosterone production and sometimes it's more citrus scented, which likewise I'm led to believe relates to Estrogen production conversely. Is it possibly my hormones have some kind of natural cycle, thus inducing a change in scent? :)

vote for me and I'll teach you how to ride a dragon :laugh: wait no im a queen, no voting necessary! I'll just enact national dragon riding day!!  :laugh:

Wow thats really cool! I feel a really strong connection to my ancestors, especially the spiritual/shamansim part. I've been looking into it more and it feels very familiar, idk how to describe it. 

About your question I'd be happy to answer! My scent has changed dramatically. When I start to stink now like sweating all day in the sun, I smell like onions. My natural scent in general is kind of sweet smelling. What's interesting is that I smell similar to some of my female cousins now. My genitals smell like a vagina and sometimes the scent can be really strong. When that smell turns sour omg its the worst and its really embarrassing lol I worry someone else can smell it  :o

Yeah that could definitely be the case. Your hormones dictate scent so much.

I had a low T baseline when I was tested my first time, which was odd given my age at the time.

Woohoo! With a manual for beginner dragon riders called 'How to train your dragon' no doubt... ;)

That's interesting and fits perfectly with what I've heard myself, i.e. that female body odor varies between sweet smelling things. Very interesting. :)

And yes indeed, working with ancestors is always good/general spirit appreciation/work as well. :)

Just a further thing that I thought I'd put out there to gather data points so to speak. In relation to my scrotal area, another thing I've noticed when doing necessary self exams and exploring the areas with fingers to see how it all fits together is that my fingers push up very easily in-between my testicles and I can touch the underside of my clitoris seemingly with nothing in the way expect obviously scrotal skin. What I still can't work out, even having researched (as I know that the scrotal septum is much like the septum in the nose only the former is 'fibrous tissue' so probably finer and therefore I don't know how pliable it is), is this normal, or does it suggest further fiddling about on the part of doctors? Thanks. :)

So, updates.

I've had blood work back and though Estrogen wasn't tested, my serum T was along with Progesterone and FSH/LH (Follicle Stimulating and Luetenising Hormones) were tested as well.


Though of course test ranges are variable, the T range was 0.20-2.90 and mine was listed as 21.8 which I assume means that it's at the 'low to normal' end. The fact that it had been flagged as 'routine appointment' would suggest, given that others simply read 'normal no action' that this is the case.

Interestingly, my Progesterone and LH/FSH were all in female typical ranges as this was flagged on test results.

Now, my GP is going to chase up my birth records and see what we can find about these birth certificates and from there see if a karotype etc may be needed I'm guessing. :)

I think I may be intersex,growing up I looked like a girl with a boys haircut,at the age of 13 puberty backfired and I developed as a girl would except I have a penis,i grew to a AA cup didn't grow facial hair or body hair til I dry shaved for a few yrs,im going to be 51 on the 29th of August and can pass for 35,my hair grows like a woman's hair does. I've known since I was 16 that if I took estrogen my body would take to it real fast and finish developing. When I sweat you better be up wind from me or you will gag,the only deorderant that works is women's Secret and that lasts about 45 mins,mens deorderant lasts 10 mins at best and I've tried about everyone of em and came back to women's Secret. My gentials are somewhat normal but I have a cavity I can push my penis into and draw up my ballsack and I look female down there. My wife knows about this and we agreed that I stick to crossdressing for she didn't marry a female,and she is fine with the crossdressing but not hormones.

Quote from: Artemisia on August 17, 2016, 01:25:41 AM
So, updates.

I've had blood work back and though Estrogen wasn't tested, my serum T was along with Progesterone and FSH/LH (Follicle Stimulating and Luetenising Hormones) were tested as well.


Though of course test ranges are variable, the T range was 0.20-2.90 and mine was listed as 21.8 which I assume means that it's at the 'low to normal' end. The fact that it had been flagged as 'routine appointment' would suggest, given that others simply read 'normal no action' that this is the case.

Interestingly, my Progesterone and LH/FSH were all in female typical ranges as this was flagged on test results.

Now, my GP is going to chase up my birth records and see what we can find about these birth certificates and from there see if a karotype etc may be needed I'm guessing. :)

Yep, a total T of 21.8 nmol/l is slightly below the average for normal, healthy men aged 20 to 40 (723.6 ng/dl or 25.1 nmol/l), but well within normal limits. Total T isn't the whole story though, if you have high SHBG and estradiol, that can lead to you developing symptoms of hypogonadism even though your total T looks good on paper.

What were your LH and FSH? If they were at or near the top of the range, that would be consistent with you being XXY (whereas if they're in the middle of the range or below, you're probably not XXY).

Seeing this in one of your earlier posts though,

QuoteI was born 16 weeks premature and had quite serious epilepsy as child

I'd say it's more likely to be the stress of your premature birth, and the medication given to you to keep you alive that are responsible. To start with, you'll have been given corticosteroids to help your lungs mature, and these can suppress testosterone production. Also, in animal experiments, exposure to epilepsy drugs in infancy has been shown to permanently mess up testosterone production, e.g. see:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8661355

and

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7200262

@Cheryl, thanks for sharing, that's interesting. :)

@HughE: re FSH and LH I'm not sure I'd have to check. :) You make good points re the premature birth and of course now you mention it, yes corticosteroids were given to help with my lungs. Re the epilepsy though, from things I've read more recently, new evidence seems to suggest that while T can be lowered by epilepsy/medication it's fairly rare. :)

As a further update for anyone interested, checking my paper work again, my serum levels of FSH and LH are 2.5 and 3.4 respectively. :) That is, FSH is 2.5 and LH is 3.4.

Quote from: Artemisia on August 24, 2016, 01:19:53 PM
As a further update for anyone interested, checking my paper work again, my serum levels of FSH and LH are 2.5 and 3.4 respectively. :) That is, FSH is 2.5 and LH is 3.4.

Those readings (assuming they're in IU/l) are towards the lower end of the scale. If you were XXY, they'd more likely be in the region of 10 or 15 IU/l, so that's probably not what it is. I'm in a similar situation, with hormone levels that don't look spectacularly out of range, but nonetheless with symptoms of hypogonadism that have been present all my life. It's something that seems to happen a lot in people who were exposed to DES, and I think what could be causing it is a combination of T being somewhat on the low side, while sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) and estradiol (E2) are both higher than they normally are in men. SHBG and E2 both act to counteract the effects of T, so I think the combination of them being higher than normal amplifies the effects of T already being on the low side, and leads to symptoms of hypogonadism appearing. That's just speculation on my part though. Until someone owns up to the fact that there is a problem with these prenatal hormone exposures and does some proper research, it's anyone's guess as to what's actually happening.