Always welcome to post fun pics and share stories. Being an Intersex person, queer, an ally, or different from the "norm" can easily lead to rough times.

We should always strive to support one another to make each day better than the one before.

Hope all is well 💐

This is the Weekly Discussion Thread for /r/intersex.

Feel free to use this thread to discuss whatever you've been up to. It does not have to be intersex specific, but please mind the rules and stay SFW.

Have a nice week!

~ your mod team <3

The chicken used to appear like a standard hen then her comb, wattles and tail feathers started growing larger. The chicken has started getting male colour feathers around their neck and also started acting a bit like a roster. But they are still the size of a hen, which is about half the size of the males

So basically this happens when a hen damages her left ovary. This can cause the dormant right ovary to grow and develop into a male sex organ, resulting in a hen that takes on some rooster characteristics. This process is called spontaneous sex reversal. It's relatively common but I still thought it was interesting and worth sharing on here.

Apologies for the blurry picture.

Dear new members of r/intersex,

Welcome to this sub! We hope you had a wonderful time so far. If you want to, please feel free to introduce yourself (but please restrain from sharing any sensitive personal information and try to stay true to our rules).

~ your mod team

My family was weird about me during puberty.

While I don't identify as a girl I still feel very strongly about the way I've been treated because with how I was raised.

I was designated female at birth, percieved as a girl, and treated/raised a specific way due to that perception //btw is this alright terminology? I'm trying to stray away from using stuff like AFAB to describe my experiences. Feel free to correct me.//

I started considering the possibility of being intersex due to some of my PCOS friends talking about it and one of them learning they actually having NCAH. I'm dealing with a lot of stuff relating to scheduling OBGYN oppointments and finding an endocrinologist for some health related things and it's not something I've had the time to really pursue questioning on, but I did start looking into the intersex community and discussions more.

I was recovering from having an >!abortion!< just barely a couple weeks back I had a lotta time to think about this stuff. And I kind of had some hindsight about the way I grew up.

Compared everyone else in my family who grew up as girls, I was different. Considered 'normal' for others but 'weird' compared to them and was treated as such. Getting body hair at 8 as opposed to 10-11. Starting my period in middle school as opposed to elementary school. Having broader shoulders and vellus hairs in the mustache area and under my chin that were still faint but definitely visibly more apparent than theirs. My voice wasn't "light." My body didn't develope as many curves as them either.

I feel like I couldn't really tell when they would shave or not but my mom and aunt would somehow always point out when my body or facial vellus hair would start to show more. And it was always clear to me just how different I felt every time I get threaded or waxed.

And it felt bad and I wanted to know so badly just why I ended up with the genetics I did compared to them. Why I couldn't have barely visible body hair and vellus hair, a "soft" voice, a more relatable experience with periods, have narrow shoulders, have a fuller chest or hips, etc?

I was called "boyish," not out of respect for my gender identity but as a way to point out that I was just different than what's expected of a "girl"/"woman" in my family. Jokingly calling me "son" or someone "trying to be a lesbian" was just something my parents did especially through my early teen years whenever I'd be dragged to church or their workplace parties. Sometimes I'd get a "you have dad's armpits" or //later on// when some of the teen boys in my family saw my face and go "damn, why'd you have more of a mustache than me?" because they theymselves just started growing their own peach fuzz. I always pretended it didn't get to me. I always tried to tell myself that I should be grateful because it's "affirming" to my gender in a sense even if I didn't feel like it.

Thankfully I knew people who were like me in school. Not many but I knew several raised-as-girls who had body hair and vellus hairs like mine or even more. Who had broad shoulders and more androgynous voices than I. Who had less curves than me. It was them who've helped separate my experiences with my family and feel like I belonged and wasn't any less worth as someone percieved as a woman.

And I'm just thinking Wow. That wasn't great of my family.

I dunno if I'm intersex but I've definitely felt... seen? In a way that I haven't really felt in other spaces. I wouldn't be miffed if I wasn't.

I'm just glad to hear learn people's experiences and it's also helped me come to some realizations about my own.

Realization that: wow my family treated me like shit!

If I'm not intersex, then I'm not. I just know I have PCOS and my testosterone is within "high normal" according to my OBGYN as of last oppointment. Whatever comes out of my upcoming appointments I'm just glad I decided to look around this place.

The vet did all they could. 😢

In their essay “Why Five Sexes Are Not Enough,” lain Morland says that “bodies that cannot be easily described as either male or female” can be seen not as having an “‘ambiguous’ combination of male and female genitalia... but rather a perfect, and perfectly comprehensible, set of intersexed genitals.”

Rule 3: Respect Your Neighbors While we allow meta discussions about Reddit, including other subreddits, your community should not be used to direct, coordinate, or encourage interference in other communities and/or to target redditors for harassment. As a moderator, you cannot interfere with or disrupt Reddit communities, nor can you facilitate, encourage, coordinate, or enable members of your community to do this.

Interference includes:

Mentioning other communities, and/or content or users in those communities, with the effect of inciting targeted harassment or abuse. Enabling or encouraging users to violate our Content Policy anywhere on the Reddit platform. Enabling or encouraging users in your community to post or repost content in other communities that is expressly against their rules. Enabling or encouraging content that showcases when users are banned or actioned in other communities, with the intent to incite a negative reaction.

----++++

This is a rule of the site and although people might have difficult moments with a reddit sub community it is important to protect yourself and this reddit.

This reddit will follow the terms of service and I recommend deeply everyone does the same.

I don't want to see any of our members in trouble. Best, Ice

I know there IS hate towards intersex people, but I don't see much of it, more just people confused when I say I am intersex (because they don't know what it means) but as intersex awareness spreads do you think there will be some people who think we are cursed by God or something? Conspiracy theorist and the likes, saying "why is this all coming to light now?" And stuff? I know it probably will happen but what are your theories on how big this community will be?

Been sharing this on my socials today.

Happy intersex awareness day and thank you Vickie Boisseau one of the founders of intersex awareness day who shared it with her birthday. 🎂

Happy Intersex Awareness Day, y'all!

If anyone is in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area we'll be meeting up at Stella's at 3pm for an in person InterConnect meetup. 💛💜💛

Had a man call me "baby girl." Gross. Had to scrub any trace of my breasts from those sites to avoid confusion in the future even though they all list me as intersex/nonbinary/transmasc. I may even cut my Instagram off of any I have it attached to because of how nasty it feels.

Just talked to my OBGYN today, they wanted me to get an ultrasound screening and blood test for 17-hydroxylase. She agrees that my symptoms of early body hair growth when I was child wasnt normal. It sounds like she thinks it may be NCAH instead of PCOS, but because they overlap, she just wants me to get tested for both just to make sure.

I will say that, when I explained my early rapid growth spurts, she said that it was normal for girls to stop growing around middle school to early high school. I feel kind of frustrated that she didn't understand that I was the tallest in my elementary school class then all of the sudden I wasn't around middle school. But she stood her ground saying it was normal. I also feel like she didn't account for my weight issues being underweight, but that was kind of my fault since I didn't thoroughly explain it.

Despite that, I did learn something new about PCOS. Apparently my OBGYN explained that it shouldn't be even called PCOS due to it being a metabolic issue (take that with a grain of salt bc I don't fully remember if it was that or something else) that causes the cyst to form in the ovaries. Something that a certain subreddit ahem r/pcos ahem never fully explained and/or say it's something else completely different.

Eitherway, I'm relieved that my OBGYN agreed with me having symptoms of NCAH and PCOS (except the early rapid growth part). Even if I don't have NCAH and/or PCOS I still know I have symptoms of hyperandrogenism. Here's hoping that the tests go well and explain my symptoms.

What are your favorite definitions for what it means to be Intersex? Either something you write yourself or something you can link to.

I am AuDHS and I wanted to know if there was a high crossover with being intersex and neurodivergency

This is the Weekly Discussion Thread for /r/intersex.

Feel free to use this thread to discuss whatever you've been up to. It does not have to be intersex specific, but please mind the rules and stay SFW.

Have a nice week!

~ your mod team <3

I work at a major company in the USA. (One of the biggest in the industry.) The company hosted a speaker to talk about intersex awareness & issues, and I wasn't able to attend it entirely, but I got the sense that it was a pretty good talk. I'm the only openly (+visibly) queer person on my team, but the company is huge and has lots of folks across the spectrum.

I'd like to mention something about intersex awareness day being tomorrow to my team, but I want to know going in what I'm risking. I'm assuming I'm risking next to nothing with this move, but maybe there's something obvious I'm missing? Just curious to know what I'm getting into!

After what I can only imagine was a storied battle between my doctors and my insurance...they finally strongarmed my insurance into covering my necessary testosterone medication.

No more using GoodRX and paying my day's paycheck for the privilege of staying alive. No more 795$ bills and having to skip medication.

I WIN.

Now that we've said goodbye to knowing our bodies as Nature sent us,

now that we've visted and held that perfectly-born child,

now that we've told our story that was once shameful,

now that we've opened to Reality's Imagination,

now that we've grieved for All Ourselves,

now that we've asked for Pain's Gift,

now we say another goodbye and cycle through again.

Why dose society care so much about gender? It barely even matters outside of reproduction, and yet it is made one of the most important things ever? From such a young age we are separated by gender. Weather it is subconsciously or not, from the moment we are born we are treated completely differently. This creates a cognitive separation and you can see it in Pre-School when there is hardly ANY DIFFERENCE at ALL! this is completely un- nessesary and all comes from the sense of there being two different groups, and the separation between them.

So today I saw my new therapist for the first time, they were asking me questions about my life as well as my medical history. I told them that my past case manager “diagnosed” me with ADHD (for some reason my medical records doesn’t mentioned that I was diagnosed so I have to get re-evaluated) and that I have symptoms of NCAH which I’m going to see an OBGYN for that as well as testing for PCOS. They then proceeded to tell me that its possible that my NCAH is the reason why I have ADHD due to my hormones/differences in hormones as well as low cortisol levels. Does anyone know if thats even possible? When I look it up, it mostly mentions higher chance of depression and anxiety (which I have both). Any help is appreciated, thanks!

I was through puberty but had hormone conflicts and issues - having both testes and ovaries. The ovaries went dormant according to doctors for many years, occasionally kicking in. Until they decided to have their own puberty (began to fully produce estrogen) later.

My point, this and hormone therapy (as I had my testicles removed) at this later point in my life has done little, to almost nothing (skin is great!) to change my looks. I am female in an outwardly male looking face and body. Facial feminization surgery has not been able to offset the foundation enough to still not be called, ‘Sir’.

So, I live my life and let slide that I catch people’s looks all the time.

I am older and was born when - and maybe they still do - the doctors selected my gender and did ‘corrective’ surgery just after I was born.

I would like to hear from others as to if this happened to you?

The doctors told my parents never to tell me. They did not want to confuse me. Yet, they had no idea how I was wired.

They removed the female external genitalia features and did a hysterectomy. Yet, they forgot or missed and left my ovaries.

I did not find out until my twenties when post-college I saw my own doctor for the first time. They discovered and educated me on this over or after several years of being my doctor. I additionally confirmed this from some things my mother left for me when she passed away a few years later. And, by chance or karma I met my birth nurse at this time. I had to coax the truth from her as she was reluctant to tell me till I told her what I knew and things my mom left me. She added that the doctors also thought I was supposed to have been a twin but that did not happen.

How many in this community had knowledge of intersex conditions prior to diagnosis?

I love seeing how others have turned their experience into art. One movie I can think of is “Ponyboi”, which I really enjoyed. :) If you’ve created anything about your experience, I’d love to see it! I will share a poem I wrote a few years ago:

they say i was born a woman

but it never felt quite right

they say i was born a woman

the absence of blood kept me up at night

they say i was born a woman

something inside me knew

cargo shorts

scraped knees

i could’ve sworn i was sposed to be born blue

they say i was born a woman

but 17 at the gyno i slouched

she said to me

no cervix

no ovaries

just a “blind pouch”

born between two sexes

i finally found my place

they say i was born a woman

truth is, i transcend time and space

the amount of non-intersex people who don't even know what intersex means, how large the community is and how many variations are under the umbrella is a little upsetting to me.

there's so many misconceptions and i wish there was more visibility and education so all intersex people would be able to be honest and happy about who they are and not have to hide if they didn't want to (sadly i feel a lot like i need to)

I, myself, have Klinefelter’s; and my way of coping and dealing with it is cracking jokes about it. I only have a select few, so I want to expand it.

Here's the ones I have, maybe you could add them to your jokebook if you have one:

"Got that 'buy two, get one free' deal."

"I passed my chromosome test with extra credit!"

"Klinefelter? I barely know her!"

"If chromosomes were cool points, I'd be cooler than you 😎"

"Instead of 23-and-me, I use 23-and-a-half."

Five is good, but I want more.

I’ve been trying to find something that kind of fits my aesthetic/interests, I’m a punk/emo/goth. was originally looking into the figure hermaphroditus (I’m a greek mythology nerd) but there’s not much on him as far as symbols I could get tattooed. kind of at a loss for something fitting for me. any ideas?