Is it possible to live for 30 yrs and not know that your sex was reassigned at birth? My friend just found this out. Born a male and from a circumcision accident was reassigned to a female and was not told this or was aware for 30 yrs.
It is indeed possible and was done routinely up until the late 70's and early 80's Although more often than not it was actually done when the infant was intersexed and had ambiguous genitalia since it is easier to fashion something internal than to make something which is external to the body.
The story about a circumcision accident sounds to me like a fiction - though there is one very famous case recorded which became something of a cause celebre for Dr John Money - whom I am ashamed to admit I actually knew on a personal (non professional) basis. He is not very well regarded in Trans circles these days... but I have a photo of my partner sitting on his knee at my very boozy 30th birthday party which he attended for various reasons.
It may be that your friend was told that it was an accident to prevent her parents from having to explain that she was actually intesexed.
Unsurprisingly, as gender Identity is actually mainly innate and not, as all the crazies want you to believe, programmed by nurture, reassigning at birth without being able to ask the baby what it felt it should be was not a great success - many of those so reasssigned rebel in later life and revert to what would have been their original gender.
Ironically although I was intersexed my gentialia, though small and hypospadias were not considered abnormal enough to have the benefit of this reassignment at birth - something which I would have killed for! Which all just goes to show that sometimes you are damned if you do and damned if you don't! Because I of course went on to have full SRS at the earliest possible moment once I became an adult.
Thanks for the information. I have had a lot of conversations with my friend since and she has told me several aspects of her situation. Please keep in mind I only want to support my friend in the upmost best and respectful way. That is why I am looking for information. She has felt male her entire life but has identified herself as being a lesbian. She says that is all she had to compare it too since she was attracted to girls. She could never understand where her penis was and felt a subconcious absense of something. She had never had a period. When she questioned her mother about it, her mother told her that she had some type of "lady problem" and probably wouldn't ever have one. She accepted that and didn't care much about having one. She remembers going to dr's over the early years and being probed there and believes she was given homone medication during puberty. The medication was apparently to help with her "lady problem." She has been to the dr's and they have discover the absense of a uteus and overies. She does notice slight scarring in the genital area and when she asked about it as a child. It was told to her that she had an accident when she was young and had to have a little operation there. She has always accepted what her parents told her. Unfortunately her mom has sinced passed and she has no relationship with her aged father. So, she is not exactly sure what happened when she was born. Anyways thanks for your help
I should google Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome if I were you.
It's impossible to be certain - but I would be willing to bet that your friend was intersexed at birth. It may not have been with AIS - there are a whole spectrum of disorders - but that is the most common one.
It should be possible to prove - there will be a medical record of the fact somewhere, and indeed even if there isn't, these days with the recent advances in gene mapping it is relatively easy to test for specific gene faults and prove the condition after the fact so to speak - that is how I eventually got my diagnosis - as I had undergone gender reassingment decades earlier without even being aware that I was anything other than transsexual at the time.
At the end of the day supporting someone in that situation really amounts to telling them that they have a right to be the person that they want to be. For some people that involves transition to the oposite gender, for others it does not. The imporatnt thing is that she should feel comfortable in whatever way she wishes to identify. For me that is as a fairly feminine but down to earth bisexual female.
Whatever she chooses she is lucky to have caring friends like you around!
Take care.
Jenny x.
Swyer syndrome is another condition that matches what you describe.
Only medical testing can find the truth.
Quote from: Ashley4214 on April 10, 2010, 02:55:43 PM
Swyer syndrome is another condition that matches what you describe.
Only medical testing can find the truth.
that and obtaining birth medical records from the place they were popped out at, if anything was done, it will probably be there.
Quote from: FlanHusky on April 10, 2010, 03:48:58 PM
that and obtaining birth medical records from the place they were popped out at, if anything was done, it will probably be there.
Very good point, didn't think of that for some reason.
Creepy! I just watched a bunch of Dr. Money cases about David on youtube yesterday
and then I found this thread, being released today.
Quote from: Megan on April 10, 2010, 08:21:21 PM
Creepy! I just watched a bunch of Dr. Money cases about David on youtube yesterday
and then I found this thread, being released today.
(apologies for going off topic for a moment)
Professionally obviously John did some things which were pretty questionable to say the least. When I was introduced to him I knew nothing of what he had been involved with, and privately he was a real sweetheart. He had a bit of a thing for Alison and once even proposed to her... I think he envisaged that Alison and I would move over the pond and come and look after him in his retirement as a kind of menage a trois!
It never happened because she told him that I was enough to satisfy her! ;D
Oh - and now no doubt you'll all think I'm a making this all up so here's the proof!
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm5.static.flickr.com%2F4052%2F4510355884_4095351502.jpg&hash=476c0f15c19543a7d19feb4adc769a225835d038)
We now return you to your thread...