Hi there
There seem to be rather a lot of 'I think I might be intersex' posts here at the moment,
but here's my rather long life story, can someone tell me what they think?

I'm 31 now, and nominally male.
I was diagnosed with Hypotonia and then Dyspraxia as a fairly young child, 5 or 6 I think.
I had a lot delayed motor skills and poor physical coordination, and was send for physiotherapy.
At playgroup/primary school I was fairly mixed in gender behaviour. I think I was envious of a lot of the things the girls were
allowed to do and I was not because I was a boy, but I didn't think that I therefore should be a girl, I just thought it was rather unfair.
At the same time I never felt the least desire to play football, or any other sports, or be the least bit competitive, and had a lot of
difficulties making friends.  In the end I spent most of my time on my own.

I was bullied quite a lot at my single sex secondary school, often called the feminine version of my name, and again never seemed to be able to make any friends there either. Academically I was pretty good but I think overall it was more of a negative experience than a positive one.

I started having gender 'issues' when I was 14, started desperately wishing to be a girl, crossdressing, making images of my face on girls bodies etc. I subsequently repressed a lot of these feelings, but they've never gone away entirely, I just found less 'obvious' ways of expressing them on the quiet like playing female characters in games or maintaining a female avatar in a virtual worlds. I also got into reading TG fiction and occasionally watching transformation videos, which seemed to have quite an arousing effect, although I never sought one.

Around the same age I had a small amount of breast development, and my puberty was very delayed.
My mum took me to the hospital and they gave me a rudimentary physical examination, and took a blood sample for a Chromosome test,
but they basically said everything was fine, I was just a late developer. I never got to see the result of the Chromosome test, and my mum is now a bit unclear as to whether it ever arrived. Presumably it was for suspected Klienfelter's or something like that.

From about age 15 onwards I started to get quite depressed and sluggish, and my schoolwork suffered quite a bit. I slipped down from the top set in maths to the third, and my A level results were quite disappointing to me, leading me to miss out on my first choice of university.
It didn't help that I was still rather preoccupied with transgender thoughts while I should have been revising for exams I suppose.

Puberty wise I developed very slowly. I didn't shave till I was 18, my voice didn't really break till I was 22 and I didn't finish growing till about 25.
I've never really had a 'sexual awakening' type thing, so while I have something that's nominally a penis which works for urination, it's never really felt like an especially important part of me, in fact at one time I described it as an 'ugly piece of skin', and I've never felt like I really wanted to use it for it's other 'intended' purpose, or even thought very much about what that might be like.
It's pretty minimal in size most of the time, sort of 2-3 inches, and sometimes it disappears inside me entirely and I have to hunt around to fish it out when I need to use a urinal or something. At it's most erect it can reach about 5-6 inches, though I haven't tried doing anything like that for a couple of years.
I've only ever tried masturbating two or three times in my lifetime, (just to see if I could work out what all the fuss was about, as I said I have no sex drive), and while it did seem to have some effect, making my body stiffen up all over, I've never experienced anything I would describe as an orgasm that way, though I have ejaculated something sometimes. I've never had any kind of sex, nor even a close relationship.

At university I again had great difficulties trying to make friends, and while I didn't find the concepts I was being taught all that challenging I found the expected workload really exhausting, particularly when trying to combine that with trying to have a social life for the first time.
I ended up getting really depressed in my first year, and missing a load of lectures and coursework.

However during the summer I got a lot better, and was fairly successfully employed for a number of weeks.

So I went back for the second year, and made an even more serious attempt to try to work out how to socialise, this time pretty much
neglecting the actual academic side almost entirely. Again nothing ever seemed to work out the way it should, and I got really depressed,
so much so that I dropped out at Easter and never returned.

After leaving university I was briefly put on Prozac, which seemed to help a bit, and sent to a clinical psychologist with suspected Asperger's,
although at that time he didn't think I merited a diagnosis. I had sessions with him for about a year though I don't now remember that much about what we talked about.

In the mean time I continued working part time while I finished up my degree at a local university also part time.
This seemed to work out for me fairly well, as the workload on both sides was fairly light and I had a lot of 'breathing room' while moving between the two places. However during this time I've had essentially no personal/social life, just spent virtually all my waking hours teaching myself things from the internet.

When I started working full time I started getting really exhausted and depressed again, and was again put on an SSRI, this time Citalopram.
This had an almost immediate effect on me, it seemed to wake up a part of my brain that had been dormant, making me much more socially conscious, it also shifted my internal body image somewhat, gave me hot flashes with a sweet smelling sweat, made me a lot less hungry and various other things. After a few day the effects were becoming really intense, like the precursor to serotonin syndrome including bruxism, tachycardia, disassociation and brain zaps. I came off the Citalopram pretty quickly and gradually calmed down over a few days.

I was sent back to the clinical psychologist and this time was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome.
Again I went on having sessions with him for nearly a year, and this time I did bring up the thoughts I had been having that I might be transgender, but he was very dismissive of the entire concept, and I kind of agreed that I did not seem to really 'think' in a female way, being a nerdy scientific computing type, even though I felt I behaved in a female way, had all kinds of repressed female desires, and had essentially zero masculinity.

To me Aspergers is a condition that does seem to fit in some respects but not in others, and I started endlessly researching it and trying to
see if I could find other people who had had similar experiences to me.
I think it's true to a degree, I am pretty emotionally disconnected from other people, and have an number of the other traits,
However I am certainly not routine bound, nor do I make endless lists etc. In fact I really struggle to establish any kind of routine in my life.
I tried going to Aspergers support group for a bit, but could not find anyone who seemed very much like me there, they seemed 'lower functioning' if that isn't considered rude. I did make friends with some of the helpers though, and it was a nice change to find some people closer to my age that I could talk to outside of work.

I went back to university to do a final year project to complete my honours degree, while again working part time.
I think I bit off a bit more than I could chew and I again started to get really stressed and depressed again. I had a few sessions with a university counsellor, but they fizzled out pretty quickly. I did eventually hand in a rather incomplete project after being granted an extension, though it wasn't at all to my satisfaction.

After returning to work I found I couldn't seem to shake my depression, and again started researching all kinds of topics online, letting everything else in my life slide. The Transgender issue seemed to keep coming back into my mind, and soon became the focus of my attention.

I was sent to a specialist Asperger's therapist for 10 sessions, and after first going through all my history and experiences for the first few sessions I eventually admitted that I was pretty much non-sexual, but thought I was Transgender or at least a closet crossdresser, but I wasn't sure what to about it or whether or not to come out to anyone else. The therapy sessions did help reduce my depression a bit, but I was still basically non-functional at work and in my home life, sleeping in very late and just endlessly reading stuff. It does seem like there is a very strong correlation between Asperger's and gender nonconformity, both anecdotally and according to the latest scientific research studies. So it's possible I have aspects of both.

Going back into mass research mode, I learned that HRT caused mental as well as physical benefits to Trans people, and decided that it couldn't really hurt to try something, anything as a last resort. On self administering a very small dose of a herbal variety (yeah, yeah, so sue me!) I found the depression cleared up almost overnight. On increasing the dose gradually I found I was getting the very same kinds of physical effects that the citalopram had given me 3 years earlier. The internal bodymap changes, the change in the smell of my sweat, much smaller appetite, a feeling of fullness when eating etc., but without then leading to the serotonin syndrome type symptoms I had had before. In general I felt much much happier and could actually meet a lot more of my minimal social engagements without just wanting to cry. I also seemed to start to unconsciously exhibit a lot more feminine mannerisms and behaviours. However a downside of the estrogen did seem to be an increased level of dysphoria, I actually started really envying nearly every woman that I saw, and really started wanting to crossdress and do things like grow my finger nails out.

After a particularly intense session of this in a shopping mall, where I was barely able to hold myself together, I decided it was time to 'come out' to my mum and explain what was going on with me. We discussed things quite a bit over the christmas break, and I think she was aware that something like this had been going on with me for a long time, though she was pretty worried about what I might choose to do. I also had a number of 'strange' feelings, a general sort of 'spaciness' which was followed by a kind of mental epiphany as all of the research I had done over the last couple of years seemed to come together into a coherent whole. I accepted I am basically mentally female on the inside, and kind of came to terms with everything.

On the 5th of January I awoke really happy, self accepting, and seemingly 'together' for the first time in ages. I seemed to be operating from my rather immature hidden personality. Anyway, on sitting at my desk I started to experience a cramping in my abdomen, and then a pulsing throb, and then a rather cool liquid seemed to be flowing through me, and coming out of my backside. Having just come to a resolution on the psychological GID side, and feeling so excessively happy, it kind of 'clicked' with me that I must actually be having a period. Anyway the throbbing went on for the rest of the afternoon, and also to a lesser extent over the next few days.

I tried to explain to my mum what was happening but I don't think she really believed me, though she did book an appointment with the GP, which didn't actually happen till the 17th. By the time the 17th rolled around I wasn't sure I believed myself any more, so during the appointment I went into a fair amount of detail about the mental side of the gender issues, and mentioned my lack of physical masculinity, suspected Kleinfelter's or low testosterone levels, lack of any kind of sexual interest etc. but didn't say that I thought I might be intersex on the inside as well. He agreed to connect me with a gender identity clinic, to track down the missing chromosome test result, and to schedule some hormone and other blood tests to see what was going on with me.

Since then I've been a bit up and down, seemingly new parts of my brain have been coming online so I have a much greater social awareness, I'm seeing certain colours more brightly and seem to have developed rather an affinity for pinks and purples. So a lot of my so-called Aspergers issues seem to be clearing themselves up. For a while in late January/February it even seemed like I was beginning to have a female kind of puberty, I had all kinds of muscle spasms in my abdomen,  a problem with my throat, a few more hot flushes. One night I awoke with a feeling like a motor running inside of me, an amazing sensation I have never experienced before, that  I can only assume was a female type orgasm, with a lovely warm afterglow that remained until the morning. During it I had all kinds of other sensations, as though I was self-lubricating myself somewhere inside, and I felt like my mouth was even preparing itself for oral sex, like I was almost just a 'doll' to be used by someone.

Come the 3/4/5th of February the same kind of period pains and liquid flow happened again, and now on the 28th of February it's happening for a third time. I think 3 times in 3 months at roughly the right intervals, give or take a few days, is too much of a coincidence for it to be just a problem with a dodgy bowel movement or something, so there must be something very strange going on inside of me as well as with my overall body and sexual functioning.

I've done a lot of reading about these things, and it does seem possible that I have an ovary or ovotestis or two and at least part of a uterus somewhere inside of me that I was previously unaware of. If so, and they 'fired up' during puberty and increased my estrogen levels, that might well explain the breast development and sudden onset of transgender desires at that time.
I also remember when I was at university aged 19 I had an entire week where I was confined to my bed, virtually doubled up with a pulsing pain, which came and went every few minutes, and eventually seemed to lead to a very watery kind of 'diarrhoea' which happened several times over the next few days and which I was powerless to do anything about as it did not seem to involve the usual bowel movement muscles. I now believe it's possible that was actually my backed up menstrual flow bursting through into my colon and exiting that way, lacking a suitable avenue for a more conventional exit route.

Looking back I may have been having somewhat irregular 'cycles' over the last 10 years, but having no conception as to what could be happening to me. There have certainly been the odd weekends where I had a strange throbbing pain in my abdomen and had to sit with a cushion on my lap, or a kind of leak into my pants that I couldn't seem to do anything to prevent happening. If my hormonal balance has been continually being pushed out of whack, it might also explain all the depression episodes I've been having all my life.

I've now had the blood tests taken at the doctors surgery. I don't think another Karyotype test was among them, but there were several hormone tests taken, and I expect the results in the next couple of weeks.  I think that when I have a followup appointment with the doctor I really need to mention some of this other stuff, but I'm not sure how much I will be believed.  Apart from a very small penis size most of the time, and a generally feminine body shape, there's not that much physical evidence on the outside of my body to indicate what might be going on on the inside. I can try to describe the sensations I am experiencing, but it would probably take an ultrasound scan or something to show up if there really is what I am beginning to suspect that there is going on somewhere in there. I've been told the waiting list for the gender identity clinic could be up to two years, and I really can't wait that long to find out what is actually going on.

I'm not really sure what underlying condition I may have. If it turns out to actually be CAH or something, that may mean I am actually chromosomally XX after all, just very virilised in the womb with an intact internal reproductive system but no vagina.
I suppose that can't really be it, I mean I do seem to also have testicles, or at least something hanging there in my scrotum.
Something somewhere must be also producing testosterone, or I wouldn't have grown so much facial and body hair. If it were CAH, it might also explain why I seem to get so tired so easily from minimal physical activity every day, and burn out and get depressed so easily if I try to over exert myself for any number of weeks. At any rate, whatever it turns out to be, I've certainly never felt at all masculine during my lifetime.

The small amount of estrogen I took seems to have kicked my body into a new kind of homeostatis, and small kinds of physical changes seem to now be continuing to progress of their own accord. My breast buds seem to be continuing to grow, and mentally I seem much more awake and alert, happy, connected, expressive and communicative than I have been for a very long time. So I feel like it's done me a lot more good than harm, and may actually have put me on the path to working out what's really been going on with me for over half of my life.

Wow, that was rather longer than expected.
What are people's thoughts, am I just imagining these things, or could it actually be something real?
Does this make me a total freak of nature?

Hi baby! Do a search on Klinefelter's Syndrome. What you describe sounds a lot like 47XXY. This can be proved with a Karyotype test. A lot of the symptom match. I got back results from mine a few months ago and I have 47XXY myself. I basically means every cell in your body (skin, muscle, blood, cardiac, etc. are 50 % male and 50% female. There are quite a few variations of Klinefelter's so only a check of your DNA can pin point which it is if you have this condition.  Also try the web page for Intersex Society of North America. There are some things you match symptoms with as well there such as (PAIS). Not saying of course you are intersex, but it would be interesting reading.

You may well be right, looking at one list of symptoms I seemed to tick nearly every box, including having problems with my teeth and jaw,
I had a hell of a lot of orthodontic work done on me as a teenager due to missing adult teeth, finishing up with some facial surgery to correct a severe underbite.
Can Kleinfelter's actually lead to having excess internal organs as well? I assumed it was purely about body shape and hormone levels etc.

Perhaps the mosaic form is actually a form of chimerism, a mixing of two fertilised eggs of different sexes into a single body.
Some cells being XX, and others XY. Lol, I guess that would make me my own twin sister and brother.

I'm getting some really strong emotional swings at the moment. I hope some of this stuff calms down a bit soonish.
I'm also paying much more attention to other people's body language at the moment, it's amazing just how many typically feminine things I've been doing all my life without really noticing it. I must have been sending out some really mixed signals, no wonder so many people have found me so weird.

Klinefelter's only affects genetic coding. A couple of girls here had MRIs done of the pelvic area and did find out they were Intersexed by having female organs though. I would talk to your primary care physician about your suspicions and see if there is a reason for further medical exams to determine this. Gender Dysphoria is by some thought to be an Intersex condition of the brain as well. The bad news is studies are only available Post Mortem and results have varied.

This [XXXY] http://www.rarechromo.org/information/Chromosome_X/XXXY_syndrome%20FTNW.pdf,
sounds very much like me in a lot of ways, although I didn't have many of educational difficulties described.
Poor motor skills = very poor handwriting, but there were no problems with reading or vocabulary.
It does include the all problems with concentration, coordination, motor skills, daily living skills, missing adult teeth, etc. etc etc.
and describes my general personality fairly well. I really hope I get some answers to these things soon.

Now the question is, should I have been put Testosterone shots since puberty?
Would that have made me more masculine and prevented all the trans issues and associated angst?
Would I have been able to actually have some kind of social life?
Would I even want to be given them at this late stage?

I'd like to not be so tired out all the time, but I've just about got used to the idea of identifying as mostly female,
and I seem to be swinging more and more in that direction by the day. (Wow, there's all this pink stuff everywhere now!) 
Can't I be bi-gender or something, do I have to be just male?
Can I keep enough estrogen in my system to keep the female side of my brain up and running properly,
and soften my appearance a bit, while also having enough testosterone to give me more stamina
and let me be more physically active.

Gah, it's all so confusing now. But kind of cool in a way.
At least if it's something like this then I haven't just been screwing my life up for no reason.

Now the question is, should I have been put Testosterone shots since puberty?

If you had the variation or something similar... it's the standard practice.

Although some may have waited to see if you developed 'symptoms' in order to justify the use of T and other 'treatments'.

But in my opinion.. it involves educating the patient and their guardians about the condition and the treatments without fear tactics akin for what sometimes (often) seems more akin to reparative therapy and prescribed more for the suggested cosmetic benefits, inclusive of social aspects such as scaring the queer or trans away -- while the health aspects it's a grab bag. Individual results may vary

-- there's aspects of early treatment that can be helpful, certainly, however in my opinion, it's significantly lacking, and the whole of IS health is a great known aside from the pink and blue conspiracy, there are potential medical and psychological benefits that can be gained, certain health risks that may be prevented but there are many risks as well and often HRT is treated as a 'cure all' or miracle drug for everything that an IS person might be going through... and sometimes to the exclusion of investigating other 'treatments' or development of alternatives.

Research is lacking.

Would that have made me more masculine and prevented all the trans issues and associated angst?

No.

It may have added to giving you a more masculine appearance, but it wouldn't make you more masculine in and of itself.

Being IS would still remain and likely having to continue 'treatments' as well as facing other IS related issues would likely leave some gender questions or questioning of masculinity, and the various associated angst - that comes and goes with most IS people.

You might be totally well adjusted but there are realities within the wide variety of variations and conditions which is always going to leave a little more room than other people for those questions.

it's an inherent social aspect of the condition, even if you move beyond it... you would still have others, inclusive of the medical profession, that would question it. 

And as both IS and Trans issues gain more attention in the mainstream... it's more difficult to avoid -- although from my perspective, a little easier as it's less the hysterical, scapegoating that comes out every few years looking for an easy target to explain away all of society's ills.

Would I have been able to actually have some kind of social life?

Maybe, maybe not. It's not a cure all or wonder drug -- social life not included. 

These are issues that may have been better served through behavioral therapy.  Which often isn't included in the 'treatments' of IS people.

Would I even want to be given them at this late stage?

Most people that find out they have an IS variation, particularly a chromosomal variation... find out much later in life. And the majority of them are offered 'treatment'.

And many of them go through the same questions you have...

it's a bit of a peeve of mine, really, because then they scapegoat their variation for all of their life's ills. Maybe they would have won the science fair...  if only they had gotten treatment earlier.  Maybe they would have been prom king/queen, if only they had gotten treatment.  They wouldn't have stubbed their big toe on that autumn morning in 1985, but only, if only, they knew they were IS or they were never IS at all.

It also floods the research lines and refocuses it into these topics than investigating more prevalent health issues that run rampant in our community -- like a higher prevalence of dysautonomia and all the potential conditions that might be behind it... which actually may or may not be related to being IS because seemingly 99% of IS concerns is focused on questions like those.

Questions which seemingly make it easier for others to brush off my experiences, opinions, my identity, my being because oh, it's not really me because I don't exist... it's that I'm IS.

If you were diagnosed earlier... chances are everything you were would constantly be measured against it.

If doctors thought there was a chance even during your mother's pregnancy ... they might have recommended she aborted for as much for the potential that you might become queer as you might have had developmental and other disabilities.

An early diagnoses or treatment doesn't make it any easier... it may have brought you a different set of problems or much of the same.

The benefit you could have of finding out now certain aspects of your life might make a bit more sense, overall that can be a good thing ... just as long as you keep it in balance and not scapegoat it and the rest of us for every fallacy of your life.

while not specifically related to the *xxy/KS crowd, I find this vid (if you've got two hours to spare) for review.

Thanks for the answers, it's a lot to think about.
Of course I have no official confirmation at this stage, the GIC has apparently reported that the bloods taken thus far are
insufficient, so I'm going to be giving a second set of samples this Thursday.
At any rate the fact that I'm getting regular 'cycles' of hormonal swings as well as cramping shows that there must be 'something' up. 
If confirmed it's gonna be really fun to explain to 'selected' people that I've actually been walking round with a uterus
inside me for 30 odd years and not knowing it.

Actually, a lot of the things happening to me at the moment have their funny side.
Up till a couple of months ago I'd never really 'seen' social/sexual reality, I'd just been oblivious to most of the subconscious
'signals' sent between people. Now it's like I'm actually 'getting it' for the first time, and I'm still emotionally detached enough
to be able to analyse what is happening around me without it also affecting my behaviour.
(Well, actually now I think about it, it is starting to affect my behaviour somewhat. I'm certainly getting a lot more 'pulled' in certain
directions by certain colours and things. This gender targeted marketing stuff is really so powerful, I ended up buying my
second women's magazine this morning, something that I would never have considered taking off the shelf before..)

Anyway, this female puberty seems to be a very bumpy ride, with 'things' going off by themselves right when it is least convenient.
I was at a choir practice a few weeks ago and started to get really turned on all of a sudden. I was getting really tense
and couldn't stop coughing, and I seemed to be secreting what I assume is some kind of mucus from a patch of skin
underneath my scrotum. Perhaps this thing is the cause? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholin%27s_gland 
Suddenly all the women in the row in front of me started also looking very uncomfortable and coughing,
and bobbing up and down in their seats, trying to calm themselves down. When it had abated a bit they were all looking at each
other asking 'which one of us started that?'.  I can only assume there is some kind of powerful group mating instinct built into
humanity, so that when one person gets very worked up the pheromones kick off a chain reaction in other people nearby.
I bet in the history of the world there can hardly have been many instances where a 30+ year old 'man' has had that effect
on a bunch of middle aged women. I'm sure they wouldn't have believed for a moment who was actually behind it, I was
trying not to laugh. I've yet to discover what effect that sort of thing may have on men, maybe they'll all start to follow me around!

At the moment I'm slightly 'tensed up' again, which is giving me sort of spasms and making me cough, and I think even my cough
is becoming a bit contagious with the other people in my office, though they probably can't understand why.
They are beginning to wonder why the cough and rough voice are so recurrent in me this year though, it's a bit of a tough
one to try to explain. I also wonder if my periods are now synced up with the other female members of staff.

Though I've never had any sort of male libido, if I go much further I may discover I have a very powerful female one.
Which is somewhat exciting and somewhat scary in equal measure. The one orgasm I've had so far was totally unprompted,
and seemed purely physiological rather than emotional, but wow, I could do with that happening a few more times in my life,
even if it means learning ways to masturbate. From the sensations I experienced then I seem to be pretty fully functional
somewhere inside down there. Even something like 'gushing'?  I really don't think I imaged all of that, though I had to read
up on it afterwards. On the other hand some of the rest of the effects are a bit hard to live with sometimes.

I probably need to read one of these books for teenage girls that explains what I should expect to happen and when.
It's all rather new and strange at the moment. I mean I spent 2+ years as a teenager lying in bed 'wishing' I could
become a girl, but at the time I was mostly thinking about being a lot prettier, maybe even sexually attractive,
but not so much about actually being sexually charged like this.

actually you might try looking for "second puberty" stories... which are common among transgender and many variants of intersex people alike within their first few years of treatments. 

And both have opened the doorway for discussions as to when maturity and personal security (security with sense of self, as much as adjusting to the bodily changes) begins... a theory that all of us might be a little behind when it comes to social, psychological maturity, though it splits into whether this is the result of being hormonally challenged or more the result of psychosocial development and environments sending us conflicting signals.. and in the case of IS whether or not this is the result of the variations, particularly among chromosomal variants themselves.

---

Also, I'd be inclined to suggest that some of your enthusiasm, the build up of anxieties with the desire to belong, might be offering a bit of exaggeration to your experiences by latching onto sociocultural stereotypes...

but we all do it at one time or another, in one form or another... embracing some the positive and negative stereotypes, caricatures are what binds us to our communities and allows for others to recognize us as members of those communities... 

it's a place where many of us might relate to culture in the same way those of mixed races/ethnicity/cultures/nationalities/other distinctive backgrounds relate to the world too ... that awkward place in exploring the differences of integration and assimilation as well as preservation of its uniqueness, the pieces that remain segregated...

... and what that means when your experiences are reflections of belonging to more than one group or in identifying one group more than the others ... when you don't necessarily look the part or meet the standards' of the community or society's expectation of what a person from that group represents.

http://policymic.com/articles/80841/12-beautiful-portraits-of-black-identity-challenging-the-one-drop-rule

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/02/multicultural_identity_conflicts_black_people_have_them_too.html

http://jalwhite.tumblr.com/post/15727876288/to-live-in-the-borderlands-means-you

There's a lot of insecurities to confront while establishing your identity, promoting authenticity, attempting to gain stability and to carve out a comfortable niche within those communities... but it's also one which often has to be defended, both to those outside and sometimes just as much within your community itself.

And in online territories as well as some offline groups... this can be extremely exhausting as well as detrimental to ones' emotional and mental health.

Support forums are typically parent ran and the politics of which aren't keen to recognize IS individuals or those with non cis, non heteronormative views or expressions. Although I would have to say I am biased against the majority of parent organized groups and several other IS organizations.

There are IS social and support groups, although many are trolled... and therefore tend to be mistrustful. You may be seen as a troll until you prove otherwise.. and even then, even with a diagnosis or getting fed up and letting it all hang out, still isn't going to win some people's approval.

They also tend to be transphobic - again, mostly for the reason I mentioned before.

And you are raising a lot of the flags to which some of (many within) those groups may pounce upon and tear you apart for.  (although they're less aggressive with parents having those concerns or seeing, experiencing those connections)  -- so, you may want to start building a support network that you can rely on ... well, for support and gaining information on your potential condition... variation, and in how to deal with the system... but also, so you have a fallback system to deal with the drama that may be associated with joining the formal groups... which are still helpful despite all the sociopolitical bs that may be contained within.

But also, it's likely most of the people here went through a similar enthusiasm (those anxieties or bright eyed, naivety until they became more settled, matured) during their early confirmation to beginning 'treatment' ... there are, of course, parts you should revel in... but as part of my own bitter, jaded, cynical experiences and be careful and maybe a little reserve when you're dealing with some of the IS groups/organizations more directly.

--

and important to know... if you are diagnosed

there is a magical IS phrase for dealing with insurance companies for treatments, alternatives, gaining second opinions, referrals, finding a specialist (more than just a referral to an endo... and someone with more experience than having had one patient before, preferably someone that's up to date with more than just google.) etc...  it may work just as well with the rest of the TG communities as well.

"the quality of life"

for those arriving to the potential for 'treatment' late in life, the question from insurance companies may be... if you've lived this long without it, why do you need it? because it will improve your quality of life.

and if more reasons are needed, then because your physical well-being is dependent upon your mental health and emotional stability, to which other medications, treatments or therapy alone cannot fully support... 

Thanks for all the subtle advice...

I'm not that much of a believer in people just psychologically 'identifying with cultural stereotypes',
I'm more into looking at actual biologically driven behaviour patterns. It does seem that much of our
current consumer culture is built by the hands of others who understand how we actually 'work' at that level
all too well. I'm pretty sure I'm being 'drawn' in these directions by something powerful, but at the moment
at least I still have the power to resist, I'm just choosing not to do so quite so much as I was before.

I'm not attempting to muscle in on any IS community, I'm just trying to let off a bit of steam really by
telling the whole truth as I see it. It's just that it's such a relief to finally have some kind of understanding
of what's really been going on all my life. I know that you're right that it's not fair to attribute everything
that's gone 'wrong' with me to some hypothetical and highly unusual condition.  (It's growing less and less
hypothetical by the day, at least to me. I had another 'LH/FSH' blood test taken today at the request of
the gender identity clinic, so they must now be tracking me a bit more closely..)

If I stick with the NHS then I don't have to worry about insurance companies. (I have no other insurance
for one thing, so if I went private for things I'd just have to pay out of pocket), I understand that it
can be a very slow process, they seem to be rather 'backed up' with cases at the moment, but perhaps
I'll be considered a somewhat special case and prioritised..

I'm not saying I haven't screwed a lot of things up of my own accord, but it's kind of comforting to know
that the very worst periods of depression I've experienced seem to have closely coincided with certain
physical 'developments' that I didn't have much real understanding or expectation of at the time.

I suppose that it's wrong to speculate on certain kinds of subconscious influences on the various things that
I've done in my life, but it's actually quite a lot of fun!

I could quite easily put much of my moodiness and somewhat frantic 'nest building' type behaviour in the
last couple of years down to my 'biological clock' beginning to tick very loudly in my ear.
In fact for even the last 5 years or so I seem to have been desperately waiting for some kind of a relationship
to arrive, even though each potential professional one that I've found has been 'not right' in some respects.
I've not personally sought out a physical relationship myself, as something has always felt 'wrong' about even
pretending to be straight or gay or something in between as a male. I kind of sort of 'knew' what
kind of relationship I was looking for, but there seemed to be no way of finding it in the real world.

I don't know if the seemingly increasing prevalence of these kinds of things is actually down to the speculated
'environmental endocrine disruptors' or the contraceptive pill, (which the more conspiracy theory minded people
seem to think are in fact a deliberate wide-scale social engineering tactic, a la 'Brave New World'..), but there
certainly seems to be a lot of trends going on in the developed world at the moment, which when analysed from
this direction have certain 'resonances' with what I've experienced.

I've a friend from school who seemed to be the most similar to me personality wise, in fact he was the only
person I could find to talk to in any depth. He was highly intelligent. (Well he got much better A level results
than me for one thing), but during his late teens and early 20s he went through similar kinds of depression cycles
to mine, including actually being suicidal at one point.
At some point a few years ago he had some 'bizarre' physical symptoms, which from his description sound
surprisingly familiar. When he sought treatment for them the medical profession told him he had 'anal leakage'
and a 'cyst' which he had to have removed. He was then put on Citalopram for 5 years, which seems to have
helped him settle down a lot, and he has now found a good place for himself in the right kind of community.
Well I guess you'd probably describe him as a 'hipster' now. 

As a teenager he hit his growth spurt early, was quite lanky and has never been able to build up much muscle tone,
in fact there was one incident when the class watched a sex education video containing the words, "At this age,
you will often find that the tallest person in the class is a girl!", and most of the class turned to him and laughed. 
Now of course I can only speculate as to what was really the underlying cause of his problems, but over the same
time span I mentioned his personality seems to have shifted a lot towards the more feminine end of the spectrum.
Firstly by dropping out of an economics degree and taking up film studies instead, then by getting more heavily
into design, fashion and music etc. He seems to have kept switching jobs, and locations, moving ever closer to
'hipster' territory as he went. He also took up smoking at an age where you'd have thought he would have more
sense than to start getting into something well known to be expensive/addictive and life limiting.

[As I walked around while quite sexually charged up and emotionally detached, it really looked to me like smoking
is really just a 'displacement activity' for something else, something that people probably don't actually have so much
in mind when they do it, but which makes sense in terms of 'tension/release cycles' in a mixed sex office environment,
in terms of the age at which so many teenage girls seem to take it up, and in terms of the physical appearance of many
of the males that also do so at around the same time.
(Thanks for providing that little bit of insight Messrs. Freud/Bernays! ) ]
 
When he explained his problem to me, he said he worked out what was going on with him from watching a particular
episode of 'South Park' where a similar thing happened to Eric Cartman. I can't say I've ever watched that one,
so I don't know the full story, but if true it seems like a convenient way of dropping a nugget of possibly false
but socially reassuring information into the public consciousness...

I feel like my own personality has shifted a lot over the past 3 years too, post the brief Citalopram incident,
and I'm not sure now if it's entirely for the better. Socially I'm much more 'in tune' with other people, but I seem
to be really struggling to maintain some of my former levels of ability in deep concentration, mechanical/logical
thinking and long term planning.
Now as my 'cycles' progress I also seem to gain and lose other abilities, and really struggle to successfully reverse my car
into the garage sometimes.  I don't want to swing too far in either direction mentally really, ideally I want to be
able to maintain a nice balance of male/female activated mental traits/capabilities, if necessary by chemically 'tweaking'
myself from one direction to the other as required for a given task..

I'm still on the fence about that one really. Do I actually want to become much more unconsciously 'inside' of current society, and have a much more social existence now that I've worked out how I can be, or do I still stand aloof from it being rather analytical, but with much greater insight into what is really going on around me?

Whatever happens, no one is going to get away with telling me I have just have a 'cyst' somewhere,
I know what I'm feeling happening inside! I believe I understand way too much about the intersection of biology/endocrinology/psychology for that at this point, and I really deserve to be given the actual 'truth'
about my own anatomy, however bizarre it eventually turns out to be.

Less subtle

parent ran groups are primarily for parents and more specifically, serving expecting parents with a long standing tradition to dissuade them from aborting simply because the potential for developing a condition, a variation under the umbrella of IS conditions -- which many of us feel is rooted in fears associated with sexuality and gender, among the potential for other things.

They're slow on progress and split on the political developments in much of the world.

For the most part.. they claim neutrality in the way of politics and choosing to focus on support, however neutrality in this case often means being in the closet or toning it significantly down when it comes to LGBT issues, IS politics and other issues of what many of those groups feel are separate issues. Again, many are primarily for parents.

Other IS related groups run the gamut and many split, divide into more specific categories and variations/conditions... social activity varies from month to month, year to year, and still, because of various conflicts often break into smaller or more differentiated groups; so there are many queer IS variant groups, ethnic IS variant groups, and so on...

There are only a few broad IS groups, social or otherwise... the majority of active groups are primarily politically motivated - differing in their approach, philosophies, definitions of IS - though not all are activist groups per se... but they do often represent many of the sociopolitical conflicts within the IS community at large.

And some of those that come up on a general search may not be safe places. It can also put you at risk for being added to a list for harassment from some of the extremists in the community and a few from the outside.

particularly if you're also trans*, genderqueer or intersex identified -- many of us have taken to larger, more mainstream, social networks -- which still runs the risk of harassment but also, generally, offers more consistent support from the administration and the community.

if you find out you are and you need additional support and community, do try to make sure the support group you choose is friendly, and even then... you still might want to take extra precautions. There's been a resurgence of aggressive harassment this year, and more specifically against those that are trans too.

So do research the groups (more specifically its administration, mods) if you're in the need of support and of course, consider following typical online safety measures.

---

the other side, the connections that you're feeling, may not be true of all IS nor those with the variation you may have, and for other reasons, that too might feel to some as if it's unfairly characterizing someone else with same variation...causing unintentional offense.  But you may also find others with similar experiences if you look... but it's still can be a socially tense environment to navigate through online.

There's also the question to ask, what if you're not IS, does it dismiss your feelings? Does it dismiss your perspective? Your connections? What will you do then?

either way, your enthusiasm can be read as a bit of novelty because you've discovered what may be the missing piece to your puzzle, so things click now and the bigger picture makes sense  -- which is a common experience for anyone discovering something unknown about themselves or offering a greater connection to a community, to the world, that they're not such an outsider or alone... but the novelty of it is often exploiting the stereotypes surrounding these connections, generalized social artifacts that are more specifically represented within one group as a symbol of our connection and authenticity... but if you find out, you don't have to try so hard. you know?

And if you're not, be ready to accept that's okay too. There are likely other people that share similarities, thoughts, theories.

so, you know, do try to keep the bigger picture in focus, the rest of your connections and influences... we are more than our variations, all of our human variations alone. 

Just for kicks, you might try reading "Borderlands/ La Frontera: the new Mestiza" by Gloria Anzaldúa -- it's not IS, but it still might be helpful.

an excerpt can be found on youtube, one under "Cecilia Rodriguez Milanes.mp4"