Longer intro with more details are here
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,212536.msg1881897.html.
TL;DR: I found out at 35 that I was intersex by complete, surprise accident.
Male genitalia, nothing physical feature wise that would indicate being intersex, and my parents were amazing and never made me feel like I was 'weird' or that something was wrong when my gender expression growing up was all over the board.
They never made me feel that anything was wrong with my body when, at puberty, I got some things that are definitely not usually associated with male bodies: Soft features, my voice didn't drop all that much (it's 50/50 as to whether it gets read as male or female; if I'm excited it almost always gets read as female), I stayed pretty short (5'6", my brother is 6'3"), I grew breasts (this didn't alarm them as it's somewhat common for boys to temporarily have small breasts during puberty, but they usually go away; mine didn't, they stayed at B cups), my hips got wider, my body hair was pretty sparse, I could only grow facial hair in weird random patches, and my waist has a pretty noticeable tuck to it.
I was also overweight as a teenager and most of my fat distribution was around my hips, belly, and thighs, which is more common in female bodies than in male.
The main social bonus there was that it's 'acceptable' for heavy guys to have breasts, so nobody really mentioned mine, they just assumed I had them because I was overweight.
When I'd ask about it or ask why my brother was tall, square, muscular, hairy, has no boobs, and generally
obviously male looking the response was always along the lines of, "That's normal for him, and your body is normal for you. It's not fair to anyone to compare your body to someone else's normal because all bodies are different." so it never really became a major concern or problem for me.
I was healthy and had no complaints, and nobody in my family or friends circle ever made me feel like I was different or strange, so I never thought much of it.
When I was 35, I developed a cyst in my abdomen, sort of to the lower left; I could feel it when I moved and it was a bit tender to press on the area. They did an ultrasound and saw what was assumed to be a benign cyst. I had surgery in 2015 to remove it, and the call I got from the surgeon after the pathology labs had been done was...interesting.
"We got the results back from the make up of the cyst. The good news is that it's not cancerous, but..."
"But?"
"...there's no un-awkward way for me to say this: it's ovarian tissue."
I had had, all my life, an unknown ovary just hanging out and doing normal ovary things, like producing a lot of estrogen, which pretty much explains all of my more feminine looking features.
After a second or two of silence, my response was to laugh and say, "Well,
that sure explains a lot of things!"
I then asked if they had noticed anything else strange in there like a whole or partial uterus or another ovary and they said they hadn't noticed anything that looked like a uterus but that they didn't really check for an ovary closely as nobody had any idea what they were removing was a dead ovary, which is a fair enough answer.
They had me visit an endocrinologist for a hormone panel and it did, in fact, find that I had very high estrogen levels; close to what you'd find in someone born female, but not quite.
My testosterone levels were/are on the low end of normal.
I haven't had them tested since 2015, but I'd guess if I really did only have one ovary that my estrogen levels have dropped off a bit since then.
They told me they could fix it with estrogen blockers and T shots or gel, but I declined as this is how and what my body developed with and what it's used to and I don't want to mess with it if there's no good medical reason to do so. They couldn't give me a good medical reason as there's really not anything physically unhealthy about me, so that was that.
She told me the door was open if I change my mind about it though.
I don't know if there's a second ovary hanging out and, honestly, I don't really care. If there is, I hope it doesn't die and get encapsulated like the other one, but if it's there, it's there and lucky me I guess.
I'm kind of glad I didn't get 'normal' testosterone levels as my brother started losing his hair at 17 due to hereditary testosterone fueled male pattern baldness anyway and I like having hair. He's bald at 34, and I still have a full head of hair at 36.
I've also long since had electrolysis on my face as it looked like I had strange blackhead patches at random spots when I'd just shave the few areas that could grow anything but peach fuzz.
I did recently have surgery to remove the breasts, however, as it turned out that there's a strong family history of breast cancer that is estrogen sensitive and I didn't want to risk it; since I'm AMAB and generally identify as/live as male day to day, it was covered as gynecomastia surgery.
I'm still not
entirely sure how comfortable I am as IDing as intersex, even though it's technically medically correct, just because I've lived my entire life as just—what I am, whatever that happened to be, but here I am anyway, so hello!
