Quote from: ToniR on May 02, 2015, 11:12:11 PM
I was born in '73. 5'10", wrists and ankles are considered medium for a female my height. Right now, never on hrt, 36-30-40. (Pokey butt, not as wide as I would like) Female carrying angle. Index and ring finger same lengths. I knew I wasn't quite a normal boy as early as I can remember. Odd thing is my mom just told me tonight that she had some type of hormone injections every two weeks for pretty much her whole pregnancies with me and my sister. My sister has had extremely rough periods and is unable to have children. Even crazier is that my grandmother took hormones during her pregnancy as well. My mom was thought to have been unable to have children either so she called me a miracle.

I've read mum's medical records of her pregnancy, she was not prescribed anything, nor did she take any OTC meds - except for a small glass of Guinness to combat morning sickness, as recommended by her doctor.

Quote from: Lady Smith on May 02, 2015, 11:47:39 PM
I know my Mum had problems with conceiving and was given 'hormone treatments' back in the 1950s.  Ever since I started living as myself I've always wondered if that was why I was TG.  In her 70s after I came out Mum would sometimes get quite tearful and upset that she'd 'ruined my life' somehow by having those treatments.  I used to tell her that I was glad to be here rather than not and that I was happy with my new life.

As a child I did have some intersex issues that were 'fixed' with surgery when I was 14.  I can remember having sore nipples too, but they went away after I was 'fixed'.  I was tall for my age (runs in the family), but very much a slow developer and child-like in my behaviour. I hated sports, team sports in particular, but later became a good distance runner.  My Dad was a good man, but being constantly told I was a 'sissy' or that people would think I was mentally deficient because of the games or toys I wanted to play with was really hurtful.

I've just been doing some further reading on DES and I'm not sure what I'm feeling right now.  All of a sudden I've had the hunches I've had for so long about my past and childhood confirmed and I don't know whether to cry or to get angry or what.  All those crap years of being picked on and bullied at school, being belittled and disapproved of by my own father.  All that terrible confusion over why I didn't feel like other boys did or even that I could identify with other boys.
It wasn't a genetic accident that led to me having scary and painful surgery that nobody ever really explained to me properly when I was 14.  It was all down to a medical treatment that Mum accepted in good faith.  And no I'm not angry at Mum, - the truth is I don't know who I should be angry at.

Yes I'm not sure if I'm mad or just upset. Basically it was either not being born or being born having been subjected to meds that may or may not have caused me to have the issues and feelings I've dealt with all my life. I think I'd rather just not know.

Quote from: ToniR on May 02, 2015, 11:12:11 PM
I was born in '73. 5'10", wrists and ankles are considered medium for a female my height. Right now, never on hrt, 36-30-40. (Pokey butt, not as wide as I would like) Female carrying angle. Index and ring finger same lengths. I knew I wasn't quite a normal boy as early as I can remember. Odd thing is my mom just told me tonight that she had some type of hormone injections every two weeks for pretty much her whole pregnancies with me and my sister. My sister has had extremely rough periods and is unable to have children. Even crazier is that my grandmother took hormones during her pregnancy as well. My mom was thought to have been unable to have children either so she called me a miracle.

From the sounds of it, your grandmother may well have been given DES, which would mean your mother is a DES daughter. I've been told that, while the majority of DES grandchildren are fine, there are sometimes "third generation" effects seen in DES grandchildren, and that can include gender identity problems as well as some of the same intersex-related abnormalities that were associated with being directly exposed to DES (such as hypospadias). So that's one possible explanation for you being trans. 

However, the fact that your mother was given injections throughout the pregnancy means that you're almost certainly hormone exposed yourself - probably not to DES though. DES was sometimes given by injection, but much more usually as tablets. My guess is that, rather than DES,  the drug your mother was given is much more likely to have been another type of artificial female hormone, a progestin called hydroxyprogesterone caproate. My understanding is that hydroxyprogesterone caproate is more usually given as weekly injections, however it has quite a long biological half life (around 15 days), so it can also be given fortnightly. DES has a much shorter biological half life (around 5 days I think), so if it were DES, your mother would have needed injections a couple of times a week.

From what I've read about it, hydroxyprogesterone caproate should be quite effective at suppressing testosterone production, and should therefore be capable of causing female brain development in biological males. So that, I think, is the more likely explanation for you being trans.

Sorry to hear about your sister. Aside from the trans thing, another problem that seems to occur very commonly as a result of these hormone exposures is that they damage your endocrine system. That's probably what's happened to your sister.

It appears that you have really done your homework I can totally appreciate that. I have tried to figure out what it was my mom was given and I thank you because I haven't had any luck. This is really a lot to process.

First a thanks to Hugh for his constant work and effort on this subject.


I am 100% certain that I was DES exposed (as my mother talked informed me @ 18 or so and was quite strong about educating me to that fact).

Understand this has been one of the biggest AH HA's of my life.  Though at the end, I still have to deal with being me and what that all means (my privilege BTW).

Thanks

Tawni!

i was exposed to something, but my mom doesnt have those medical records anymore, theyve been long lost.

when she was ~4months pregnant with me she had severe bacterial pneumonia with a 105+ temp for almost a week before my grandparents took her to the doctor, and they had to put her on a ton of medication, and did something to try to save the pregnancy. penicillin and something else.  turns out her and i were alergic to penicillin and they had to give us a 3rd medication because of it.  no idea what the other 2 i was exposed to in there were but the temperatures were probably plenty enough to fry some things.

i was most likely going to be born brain dead is what the doctors were telling her.   thank god im not.

Quote from: Mai on June 23, 2015, 10:52:55 PM
i was exposed to something, but my mom doesnt have those medical records anymore, theyve been long lost.

when she was ~4months pregnant with me she had severe bacterial pneumonia with a 105+ temp for almost a week before my grandparents took her to the doctor, and they had to put her on a ton of medication, and did something to try to save the pregnancy. penicillin and something else.  turns out her and i were alergic to penicillin and they had to give us a 3rd medication because of it.  no idea what the other 2 i was exposed to in there were but the temperatures were probably plenty enough to fry some things.

i was most likely going to be born brain dead is what the doctors were telling her.   thank god im not.

Prior to about 1960, DES was the sole hormone used for miscarriage prevention. From the 1960s onwards, progestins were used too, and from the early 1970s, corticosteroids started to be used in problem pregnancies as well (to promote lung maturation if it was thought the mother was in imminent danger of giving birth prematurely). DES had largely been withdrawn from use as a miscarriage treatment by the early 1980s, while progestins and corticosteroids are still in use even now.

What all 3 types of hormone have in common is that they suppress testosterone production. DES and progestins completely suppress it, while corticosteroids can reduce it by up to 60 percent in animal experiments (whether that's enough to produce a female gender identity I don't know).

DES was usually given as a tablet, as were the early progestins. The currently used generation of progestins are given as an intramuscular injection, usually weekly. I'm not sure how corticosteroids are typically administered in the pregnancies where they're used.

my mom took psychiatric medication while she was pregnant with me, she was going to stop it through her pregnancy but the doctor told her it was fine and wouldnt effect me.....thats always bothered me

Quote from: AleksiJason on June 25, 2015, 02:04:32 PM
my mom took psychiatric medication while she was pregnant with me, she was going to stop it through her pregnancy but the doctor told her it was fine and wouldnt effect me.....thats always bothered me

I don't know about psychiatric drugs in general, but anticonvulsants (the drugs used to treat epilepsy) have been linked with gender dysphoria. This is thought to be because they interfere with hormone metabolism in the developing fetus.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10097803
"Prenatal exposure to anticonvulsants and psychosexual development"

QuoteAnimal studies have shown that prenatal exposure to the anticonvulsant drugs phenobarbital and phenytoin alters steroid hormone levels which consequently leads to disturbed sexual differentiation. In this study, possible sequelae of prenatal exposure to these anticonvulsants on gender development in humans were investigated. A follow-up study was carried out in phenobarbital- and phenytoin-exposed subjects and control subjects matched for age, sex, and the mothers' ages...As a group, exposed and control subjects did not differ with respect to gender role behavior, although higher numbers of prenatally anticonvulsant-exposed subjects reported current or past cross-gender behavior and/or gender dysphoria. Three prenatally anticonvulsant-exposed subjects were transsexuals and had undergone sex reassignment surgery, a remarkably high rate given the rarity of transsexualism. In addition, two exposed males had exclusively homosexual experiences, whereas none of the control males reported exclusive homosexual behavior. The groups did not differ in attainment of pubertal psychosexual milestones.

Quote from: Opaque on September 20, 2010, 01:39:11 AM
Hello everyone.  This is Opaque and it is my first time posting to this group.  I am in my 6th day of HRT and would appreciate some honest, upfront communication.  Specifically, I have read several of the posts from other members on various transgendered topics, but I have not seen anything mentioned or related to DES which is commonly referred to as "Diethylstilbestrol".  This estrogen is a synthetic nonsteroidal estrogen that was first synthesized in 1938, and given to pregnant women to hypothetically reduce the risk of pregnancy complications and losses.  Well...my mother took DES when she was pregnant with me back in the 1960's.  I have read numerous articles that discuss DES sons and prenatal exposure to DES.  There is a high prevalence of individuals with confirmed or suspected prenatal DES exposure who self-identify as male-to-female transsexual or transgender, as well as some who have reported experiencing difficulties with gender dysphoria.  IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE THAT RELATES TO THIS???  Thanks.

Hi Opaque,
Great topic!!!
I was also impacted by DES. My experience is this...My mom was given huge doses of it while pregnant with my oldest sister...huge, massive doses in order to prevent miscarriage/premature birth. In my research, I discovered that the drug stays in the mother's fatty tissues for a lifetime but gets re-released into her bloodstream when she's under tremendous stress.
My sister--the one the DES was for--she was born sterile with various female reproductive issues. My second-oldest sister wasn't affected in any measurable way--despite having an early hysterectomy--but my mom's pregnancy with her was unremarkable and no notable stressors.
When my mom was pregnant with me, they were told they were going to have a boy as soon as the sonogram could detect--but they weren't sure as the genitalia wasn't formed enough and they were kinda taking a guess. During the pregnancy, my mom went through some seriously bad family crisises, and I think the DES in her system affected me. I was supposed to be born in one month, but I wound up being a few weeks late into the next month.
My hypothesis is that my body/mind were wired for female but the DES caused disruption of development and initiated the development of certain boy parts. However, when I went into a major university clinic hospital for eval prior to beginning HRT/SRS, they at first throught Kleinfelter's syndrome but being aware of the DES exposure, thought that the drug was the cause of my mind/body disconnect. Further, detailed internal studies showed remnants of ovaries that were shriveled and useless. The gender doctor described my case as intersex, but being my parents were struggling enough with the situation and in order to expedite my surgery timetable, he just listed me as transsexual and started the usual protocol.
I truly believe that DES has been instrumental in causing my developmental issues. I have two older and 1 younger brothers, none of whom show any signs of physical damage from the DES exposure because our mom's pregnancies with them was quiet and non-stressful(or at least as un-stressfull as pregnancy can be lol)

I'm not sure whether everyone will able to access this google books preview, but hopefully it works. It's a preview of "The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women" by Barbara Seaman.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HHm1qkcgFSUC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=Dr.+Karl+John+Karnaky&source=bl&ots=ZoAtDy84FQ&sig=KQvfmqX6HwxAOe0a6aKaCcjtIRc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAWoVChMI0JKF2-P5xgIVgrgUCh1vCA0H#v=onepage&q=Dr.%20Karl%20John%20Karnaky&f=false

The search I used drops you near the end of the chapter, but if you page back through it, it provides some interesting new insights into the story of DES.

Nazi scientists working for German pharmaceutical giant Schering (now Bayer I think) had developed and patented an artificial estrogen, ethinyl estradiol, and it looked like the Nazi regime was going to profit handsomely from the discovery (at the expense of women needing estrogen replacement). Accordingly, British chemists collaborated on developing an easily manufactured nonsteroidal substitute for ethinyl estradiol, and DES was the end result. By not patenting it, they made it freely available to all, and the Nazis' dastardly plan to corner the world estrogen market with ethinyl estradiol was foiled.

DES was never intended to be used in the reckless way that it ultimately was, and Dodds and his fellow scientists who made the discovery, had considerable misgivings about its potential to cause cancer and other adverse effects from the beginning. Unfortunately, US pharmaceutical companies seized on this inexpensive yet exceedingly potent estrogen, and started marketing it for all sorts of highly inappropriate purposes (including miscarriage prevention).



This is an excerpt from p38-39 of the preview, and shows how it was already known within a couple of years of its discovery, that DES causes intersexuality in male animals exposed to it in the womb. Astoundingly, despite that knowledge, DES was subsequently promoted as a treatment for preventing miscarriages, and used in somewhere in the region of 10 million pregnancies worldwide. You do have to wonder what was going on behind the scenes at the FDA. How did DES ever gain approval for use during pregnancy, considering that it was known almost from day one that it causes intersexed development in male lab animals? What did they expect to happen when it was given to human beings?

  OUCH! One passage in that says: However, her [Dr. Olive Smith] husband says. "you can do all kinds of things to rats and mice by giving them overdoses." This scientific shrug of the shoulders cannot reassure the maimed. No it doesn't. These women were given overdoses as seen in the table in response #104 on this thread. My mom and myself were two of the 'rats.'

Joelene

Does anyone else ever want to dig up someone's remains, reanimate them and then, well, violence of your choice?

It was all about money then and it's all about confuse the issue and deny now. This drug makes many lives very difficult and outright kills others. 

But, by denying it now, they make it more likely that there are other drugs out there today doing the same thing.

Jen

Lies and greed from big corporations, - why should we be surprised? 

When I found out about DES and that I was a DES child I was angry enough to want to dig somebody up and kill them again, but now for my own sanity I've decided to let that anger go.  I'm 61, - do I want to go about being angry for the rest of my life?  No I don't, life is far too short for that.  I'd much rather find contentment with what I already have and get on with it.

I've seen enough so that, as far as I'm concerned, there's a mountain of evidence showing that DES induces female brain development in biologically male fetuses, and, in human beings, the way this often manifests itself later in life is as MTF ->-bleeped-<-.

If one medically prescribed hormone can do this to large numbers of people and the whole thing pass completely unnoticed as far as the public are concerned, then who's to say other hormones aren't doing the same thing? Hardly anyone knows what medicines they were exposed to before birth, and, by the time you've reached adulthood,  it's usually difficult or impossible to establish whether exposure took place (since medical records often no longer exist, and people's memories of what medicines were given during a pregnancy decades earlier tend to be quite unreliable). You're actually more likely to be able to find out with DES than with other hormones due to the fact that, during the 1980s, there was quite a lot of publicity about DES causing cancer, and a lot of doctors did the right thing and informed their patients who'd been given it of what happened.

So, IMO there's good reason for thinking that there could be medical hormones still in use that are continuing to cause ->-bleeped-<-. Even if by some amazing stroke of luck there aren't, the fact that ->-bleeped-<- is a kind of intersex condition and that, for many of us in the over 40s age group, it was caused by a medicine given to our mothers while they were pregnant, is something that the public should know about. I'm sure it would go a long way towards helping us gain acceptance from our families and the public at large, and I think it makes a strong case for us being given assistance with things like hormones and surgery too.

Good grief is this thread still rumbling on?

I was the second person to post on this back in 2007/8 - so I'm on record as being affected.

In my case, I suspect that my mother was well aware of what had been done, because a.) she had some medical training and interest herself (she produced medical radio programmes) and b.) she had a private obstetrician and c.) in the late 1950's evidence was already beginning to accumulate - which probably explains whu I was monitored pretty carefully for those days.

However in my case there was a matching positive side because of course that knowledge may have contibuted to the unusual degree of gender expression lattitude I was afforded when growing up.

I cant be bothered to get angry - this chemical changed my biological destiny yes - but it has given me a good and interesting life, and I cannot regret that. I have symapthy of course with those who suffered for being different, but on the whole I did not, and so I cannot regret an experience and journey which has on the whole given me more joy than sorrow.

Quote from: HughE on August 01, 2015, 09:17:55 AM
I've seen enough so that, as far as I'm concerned, there's a mountain of evidence showing that DES induces female brain development in biologically male fetuses, and, in human beings, the way this often manifests itself later in life is as MTF ->-bleeped-<-.

If one medically prescribed hormone can do this to large numbers of people and the whole thing pass completely unnoticed as far as the public are concerned, then who's to say other hormones aren't doing the same thing? Hardly anyone knows what medicines they were exposed to before birth, and, by the time you've reached adulthood,  it's usually difficult or impossible to establish whether exposure took place (since medical records often no longer exist, and people's memories of what medicines were given during a pregnancy decades earlier tend to be quite unreliable). You're actually more likely to be able to find out with DES than with other hormones due to the fact that, during the 1980s, there was quite a lot of publicity about DES causing cancer, and a lot of doctors did the right thing and informed their patients who'd been given it of what happened.

So, IMO there's good reason for thinking that there could be medical hormones still in use that are continuing to cause ->-bleeped-<-. Even if by some amazing stroke of luck there aren't, the fact that ->-bleeped-<- is a kind of intersex condition and that, for many of us in the over 40s age group, it was caused by a medicine given to our mothers while they were pregnant, is something that the public should know about. I'm sure it would go a long way towards helping us gain acceptance from our families and the public at large, and I think it makes a strong case for us being given assistance with things like hormones and surgery too.

My Mum often said she was worried that the hormone therapy she was on in the 1950s had affected my older sister and I.  At the time I didn't really know anything about DES, but once I did it became all too plain to me that yes indeed my sister and I had been profoundly affected.  I haven't mentioned anything about this to my sister because she has managed to make a happy and stable life for herself for some years now and I don't think she needs to suffer the same distress and upset that I've recently gone through these past months.
I worry a lot that my demi-girl identifying daughter has intersex characteristics because of my exposure to DES.  She tells me I shouldn't feel upset and guilty about it, but I can't help worrying because she's my child and I love her.

As to the question of family acceptance too much water has gone under the bridge for all the hate speech and insults cast at my daughter and I to be easily undone.  If I could even manage to get certain members of my family to actually listen to me and give me a fair hearing I very much doubt that it would change anything.  We'd still be the embarrassing freaks whom they don't want anybody to know about.

Having seen how slowly the government in my country has dragged their heels over compensation and assistance to other groups in NZ society who have suffered health problems from exposure to chemicals or radiation I wouldn't want to hold my breath waiting for any kind of assistance.  At least I live in a country with a public health system so I can get HRT, medical treatment and any necessary follow up tests at little or no cost.  Actual humane and realistic assistance with SRS isn't likely to happen anytime soon going by some of the comments our prime minister and his cronies have made lately.  My daughter might see it happen when she's my age, but it won't be in my lifetime.

I may as well add my name to this thread.   DES was probably the reason I was born at all, since my mother had miscarried frequently prior.   In that light, I'm okay with it.   

And, I've dealt with the results of DES exposure as well as possible.   I do find my body frustratingly immune to hormones.   I never masculinized before (small stature, no body hair, no beard), and haven't really feminized since starting HRT or after SRS.   And, mentally, I find myself in between genders as well.   

So, life goes on, it's all water under the dam.   I would be interested if the medical industry ever wakes up to what happened.

^^THIS^^

If DES is the reason I'm here to type this today, then I can't completely vilify it.  I'd rather have a moderately sucky life than no life at all.