Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Community Conversation => Transgender talk => Topic started by: Emmaline on April 13, 2014, 09:50:14 AM

Title: DES babies?
Post by: Emmaline on April 13, 2014, 09:50:14 AM
Hi all.  I am researching about d.e.s at the moment as I fit the symptoms exactly (varicocele, testicular cysts, sex atypical features, low T and... ba ba ba boom- transgender).  I am trying to track down my medical records in the uk- but considering the number of miscarriages prior to my birth and the year (1975)- it is looking very likely that I am a des baby.

So any others know this, maybe have sought legal compensation or have tracked records down in the uk who have tips that would be peachy.

Title: Re: DES babies?
Post by: justpat on April 13, 2014, 11:37:40 AM
   Welcome to the crowd. There seems to be quite a few of us here and several good posts have been made since you became a member. There is a lot of good information available but I guess after being overwhelmed by it I just accepted it and have been happy ever since.I can't change the past and I feel lucky to have been born this way.  Good Luck on your journey.  Pat  DES 1950
Title: Re: DES babies?
Post by: Dee Marshall on April 13, 2014, 12:07:57 PM
I have no idea, but strong suspicions. My mother had at least 5 pregnancies, 7 children and only 3 of us survived. Also I was the last and was conceived AFTER she had surgery and was believed sterile. Good candidate to be  a DES son. I've had a lot of the known symptoms, but, no records, and Mom is long dead. I'll never really know. Does anyone else find themselves getting angry at the possibility that you're going through all of this because of medical laxness? I came to terms with being trans only recently. Wondered if I might have been intersexed at birth. Wondered, given the twins in my family, if I might be a mosaic chimera. Just wondered without real answers. I guess nothing really matters except that somehow I'm trans whatever caused it, but the thought that someONE not someTHING made me this way makes me SO angry!

Where did that rant come from?
Title: Re: DES babies?
Post by: Jessica Merriman on April 13, 2014, 01:16:11 PM
Quote from: Dee Marshall on April 13, 2014, 12:07:57 PM
the thought that someONE not someTHING made me this way makes me SO angry!
I  hear you on that! DES 1965.
Title: Re: DES babies?
Post by: Emmaline on April 13, 2014, 04:34:43 PM
Amazing story isn't it?  Proved ineffective for miscarriages and still being prescribed a decade later.  Horrifying.
Title: Re: DES babies?
Post by: Sydney_NYC on April 13, 2014, 04:48:22 PM
DES 1970 (US) baby here. In my case my mother didn't even know she was taking it as it was in her prescription prenatal vitamins that her doctor had given her. She had no history of miscarriages either. In the US they were suppose to stop using it in 1972, but I'm not sure about the UK.

My HRT doctor look one look at my body (had feminine hip/waist even before HRT) and suspected DES before I even mentioning it. I was going to ask her about it too.
Title: Re: DES babies?
Post by: Emmaline on April 14, 2014, 08:47:57 PM
Early eighties in the uk.  Plus we had des in beef production to increase meat yield.  Aaaaand I grew up on a cattle farm. 
Title: Re: DES babies?
Post by: Jill F on April 14, 2014, 09:22:56 PM
Probable.  I had persistent Mullerian duct syndrome and my brother had cryptorchidism.

I was born in 1969 and I knew something was wrong when I was 4.
Title: Re: DES babies?
Post by: Northern Jane on April 15, 2014, 05:43:06 AM
Not sure here. Born 1949 with many developmental problems (heart, respiratory, etc.) XY, uterus, ambiguouse genitalia, assigned male, identified female from before earliest memory, thought I was a transsexual - didn't find out about the other stuff until my 50's. Never though of suing anyone - just a shtyie break.
Title: Re: DES babies?
Post by: Ms Grace on April 15, 2014, 06:12:35 AM
It's probable, Emmaline. I have those symptoms and born in Australia 1966. My mother and father had tried for several years to have a child and I was their first but if there were miscarriage concerns I've never been told. My mother did ask if my "condition" might have been caused by something she took during pregnancy (without elaborating on what that might have been). I told her no, partly because I don't want her to beat herself over it and also because I'm happy enough to be me without finding a cause or excuse. Besides, if it was that DES stuff that caused me to be trans* I owe it my gratitude, I'd rather be a transwoman than a cis man.