Susan's Place Transgender Resources

So I've always wondered if I could have been some type of intersex condition. When puberty hit the first thing I developed was a larger wider pelvis. But the hips never assumed the normal female position. I recently had a lower body CAT scan done for a back issue. So looking at the scans and images from online textbooks I've noticed a few things about my bones. I don't know if there are any anatomy experts here but I am going to link the 3D images.

Side view of the pelvis. Feminine like traits
Greater Sciatic Notch is wide and curved with an open angle
Neutral angle between the Illiac Crest and the front of the Pubis Tubercle.
Sacrum angled back and curved away from the pelvic opening.
https://www.flickr.com/gp/149006210@N03/aq2606

Front view, feminine like traits
Pubis angle greater than 90 degrees.
Sacrum Promontory not produting into the pelvic opening
Wide pelvic opening
Short and wide spaced Sacrial Joint
Iscriac Spines not protruding into pelvic opening.
https://www.flickr.com/gp/149006210@N03/r9q8j4

https://www.flickr.com/gp/149006210@N03/v935np

https://www.flickr.com/gp/149006210@N03/o1TV0v


What doesn't look feminine is the Pubis/Ischial Tuberosity did not appear to fully rotate forward and so the hip socket remain lateral where in a normal female pelvis the sockets face somewhat forward.

Another thing is measuring my knee Quadracept angle (Qangle) is around 15-16 degrees. In fact if I try to stand with my feet together my knees hit but my feet have a slight gap. It's almost as if my pelvis had finished in a fully feminine position my knee angle would have been just right.

So I met with my new general practitioner doctor today. He had a bit of a hard time believing that those CT scan images were mine. He said his thoughts is that is looks very female. He said most of the bone shapes are formed in utero and it's just the growth plates that would change as you age.
I also posted them to a biology forum used by college students. One BS in physical therapy said based on every trait he saw that it was most likely female. I didn't say it was mine. 

I still don't know what it means but my knee angle and elbow angle also fit into the "normal" range for a woman.

So I suppose genetic testing would be the only way to know for certain if I have some Intersex trait.

How do you get a cat scan of your pelvis?

For me it was going to the ER with severe back pain. The CT scan of my abdomen area was to check for kidney stones but they also got a better look at my spine. I got the CT scans from the hospital on CD. Then I downloaded a program from the Brazilian Healthcare website that lets you see 3d images from the CT scan file slices.

Wow this is amazing, nice to see someone else like me. My hips are child bearing basically and always have been since I was a teen. Its one of my odd things of how I developed throughout puberty and it caused me a lot of issues like physical pain until I started hrt. This inspires me to get an cat scan done like this at some point. I feel like I should probably get a sonogram too before surgery just to see if I have any undeveloped tissues or something. Thanks for sharing Josie!

Really, omg I was beginning to think I was the only one. It's nice to know others are the same!

The CT scan actually shows all the internal soft tissue. The cd I got from the hospital has a sliced image viewer with the files. You can move through the scan one slice at a time from three different directions.

I found a 3D image program that was free to download from the Brazillian healthcare system web site. That program turned the slices into the images I linked here. I used the "bone" filter in the program to get just the bones shown. The 3D images really confirmed it for me. I too looked just to see if there was something underdeveloped in me. Nothing there but the usual. I guess I always hoped.  :-\

I think my skeleton and my work history is a lot of my back pain. My lowest 2 discs are the ones with damage to them. With my sacral angle being feminine there is a lot more load put on those bottom discs when I lifted things. Way too heavy things.

:D it's just awesome knowing some is like me!




Since I finally figured out how to properly link pictures to the forum

(https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5480/31400140576_4e18e1cb34_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/PQHVQ5)image (https://flic.kr/p/PQHVQ5) by Josie H (https://www.flickr.com/photos/149006210@N03/), on Flickr


(https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5590/30614889434_590f5b1cc6.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/NDkj2h)image (https://flic.kr/p/NDkj2h) by Josie H (https://www.flickr.com/photos/149006210@N03/), on Flickr


(https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5671/31436573995_79116f5156_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/PTWEdt)image (https://flic.kr/p/PTWEdt) by Josie H (https://www.flickr.com/photos/149006210@N03/), on Flickr



(https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5815/30628873023_116a1a6c6b_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/NEyYRD)image (https://flic.kr/p/NEyYRD) by Josie H (https://www.flickr.com/photos/149006210@N03/), on Flickr

(https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/678/32395255931_e60a202262_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/RmE9Xn)pelvisTop (https://flic.kr/p/RmE9Xn) by Josie H (https://www.flickr.com/photos/149006210@N03/), on Flickr

I wonder how common it might be.

Prior to my receiving a double laminectomy, two doctors said my hips were made for bearing children. It has always been impossible for me to "walk like a man". I also wonder if having AIS could have had anything to do with it, as I developed into an adult.

To me, it just improves my ability to fit in as a woman.

Wow, I taught myself to walk toe out bow legged back in jr high. I'm trying to loose that habbit now. I can walk slow like that but not a fast walk or run. When I run my feet have to land just on each side of a line. Same with a fast walk. My hips have to sway to walk fast or run or I trip and fall. Thought it was just being awkward when I was younger but I have found it still applies as I have tried to stick to an excercise routine with a treadmill.

Thanks for posting more Josie! Its been very informative. I relate with that, I also had difficulty trying to walk like a guy for so long prior to embracing transition. My hips got bigger bone wise once I started hrt but it happened in the first few months of starting then after all the changes were from fat redistribution. So now I have hips that are on par with my sister and about the same size as my mom, despite myself being really thin. Out of my sister and I, I resemble my mom's physique more.

I never fully masculinized either skeletal wise so it wasn't just my hips but my entire bone structure developed more on the fem side of things, small rib cage, wrists hands minus my height. I'm still tall but I guess that's not necessarily a factor of masculinization due to the fact that I still had female proportions prehrt. Its also interesting to note that when I had my base levels done I had low T and this was starting hrt at 21 so I mean that just adds to my questioning. Due to the fact that amab peeps at that age shouldnt have low T. I had some testing done but they never tried looking into intersex stuff. I guess this was due to the fact that there was technically nothing wrong with my bottom parts and just lack of know how on such issues since that seems to be a common problem with the medical community concerning the topic of intersex in general.

From all the research I've done I might have some form of AIS, makes the most to me. It could also be klinefelter syndrome. Or even maybe de la Chapelle (xx male) syndrome but that one seems the least likely because the odds of having it is so small compared to the other two.

My skeleton masculinized late but it did eventually get at least some traits. My hands are pretty big but I've shaken hands with shorter guys that dwarfed mine. My wrists are really small for a man my height and weight. My rib cage did deepen in my 20s mostly. My ribs are still narrower than my pelvis. My shoulders aren't wide but sit high. As in my collar bones both angle upwards. I wonder if that's more from many years of bad posture. On the other hand I've just recently noticed how from the side my frame looks like a woman. Standing upright my back curves in from my buttocks then back out to my shoulders. I still need to work on my posture though. Lol. All those years I spent hunched were not good for my back or neck. I have to constantly remember to keep my shoulder back. My skull has a small brow ridge but above that my forehead is mostly verticals like. My chin is male defined at the end as is my nose, but my actual jaw follows those common female like markers.

I wish I would have known about T blockers back when I was 20. Oh well we learn so much more when we finally open up and insist on being our true selves. Thank you both for sharing also.

What's your leg to trunk ratio like?

There's a band of tissue just above the penis (or vagina) that joins the two halves of the pelvis, and is called the pubic symphysis. If you're male, the distance from the soles of your feet to this band of tissue should be about the same as the distance from it to the crown of your head. In females, the legs tend to be longer and the upper body shorter, so the ratio is more like 1.2 or 1.3 to 1 (mine is almost 1.3:1).

Another thing to look at is your armspan in relation to your height. The two should be about the same. If your armspan is significantly greater than your height (mine turned out to be 4cm greater), it's a marker for "eunuchoid habitus" (as is having a female leg to upper body ratio).

Other markers for eunuchoid habitus include having long, slender arms and legs; a female "escutcheon" or pubic hair pattern (like an upside down triangle and confined to the pubic area); sparse or very fine chest and body hair; feminine looking facial features; a female digit ratio (index finger as long or longer than ring finger); gynecomastica; clear, acne-free skin as a teenager; small, high arched feet (in my case anyway). Most of these things are a lot more noticeable in your teens and twenties. After that, testosterone (even at below normal male levels) masculinizes your body to the point where you don't stand out any more.

Eunuchoid habitus is a type of body structure caused by having below normal male testosterone levels as you pass through puberty, and is something that's normally associated with intersex conditions. Just from chatting to people about it, way more of us seem to have it than is the case for the cis population, which is another line of evidence that being trans is actually a form of intersex (except one in which the main effects have been on the brain rather than the genitals).

Dr Milton Diamond recently published an article about transsexualism as an intersex condition.
https://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2015to2019/2016-transsexualism.html

QuoteWhat's your leg to trunk ratio like?

That's a whole new thing I hadn't read before.

So my legs are only about 2 cm longer than my upper half.
My arm length is 4 cm longer than my height.

I know I masculinized mostly close to 20 and a bit past. Up until I graduated high school at 17 my rib cage was narrower and only half to 2/3 as deep as it is now. I didn't get really defined muscles until nearly 20 also.

I know I have read the growth differences between men and women is due to the earlier puberty start in girls. Boys have a year or more greater growth time before the hormones really kick up and shut down the bone growth plates in the longbones.

I'm just going to add a few other pictures with anthropological traits

(https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3954/32091199413_2f6dd0a495_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/QTMMxB)image (https://flic.kr/p/QTMMxB) by Josie H (https://www.flickr.com/photos/149006210@N03/), on Flickr

(https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2903/32063235544_e3c61ce887_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/QRjsRW)image (https://flic.kr/p/QRjsRW) by Josie H (https://www.flickr.com/photos/149006210@N03/), on Flickr

(https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2256/32063236304_54b872af4a_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/QRjt63)image (https://flic.kr/p/QRjt63) by Josie H (https://www.flickr.com/photos/149006210@N03/), on Flickr

(https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3695/32063236774_75caea731a_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/QRjte9)image (https://flic.kr/p/QRjte9) by Josie H (https://www.flickr.com/photos/149006210@N03/), on Flickr

Not to derail this fascinating thread - but again, I've learned something new about myself.

My arm span is 7(!) centimetres longer than my height, and my trunk/leg ratio is 1.18. (That and small feet).

But, I don't have a CT of my pelvis (only my skull from emergency surgery), and my foot (avoiding surgery)....

Thanks !

Sno