The Ballad of Seth Glover - Chapter Two
Oct. 20th, 2006 09:18 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
the-mouse-king.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
transQuestions and comments I've received in my later years.
"You look so feminine." I know. Funny, isn't it?
"If you're a boy, then where's your Adam's Apple?" It's there, just not prominent.
"Do you even have a penis?" Why, yes I do. And functional, too!
"Promise me you're really a boy?" I promise. "And you've always been a boy?" Always.
Some of you might be thinking "what a liar. You haven't always been a boy. You said you were a girl for 12 years."
Ah, there you are incorrect. I lived as a girl for twelve years.
"Okay ... now I'm confused ..."
I was born a boy.
"Still confused ..."
Two words: Testicular feminization.
At least, that's what they called it back then. Nowadays it's referred to as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Not saying that I'm an insensitive individual who looks androgynous, though. I've always liked testicular feminization better.
"Isn't that what Jamie Lee Curtis has?"
Yup.
"So you're like ... a hermaphrodite?"
Well ... no ...
"???"
When I was still in the womb, I was male - an XY chromosome. Nature and her twisted sense of humor thought it would be funny to never let my balls drop ... ever. I never responded to male hormones, thus - when I was born - I looked outwardly female, even though I had no uterus or ovaries - but since I looked it on the outside, thus doctors assumed it on the inside.
Nowadays they have testing for this sort of thing before the child it born to prevent confusion later.
Usually, since it's so much easier, person with TF will decide to live as a woman. This was not my case.
Savvy?
"Ooooohhhhhh ..."
Lately, I've been watching House, M.D. I love the show. Hugh Laurie is superb. Last season, though, they had an entire episode devoted to my condition. I guess that since it's known by the mainstream, it finally gave me the courage to start talking about it to other people.
When I was ten, I had my appendix taken out, something was wrong and we went back for an ultrasound and the like. That's when the discovery happened.
They never showed it or openly admitted to it, but I knew my parents were devastated. They'd raised me as a girl for ten years. It wasn't so much that I'd never give birth or have children, but I think it was more that they'd lost ten yeras with a son.
I'd always been a bit of a tomboy. At the time I was going through the Penis Envy phase that most girls have - chopping off all my hair, wearing only boy clothes, doing boy things. Dad said many times that he thought I should have been born a boy. After we found out that I really was, we joked about it frequently.
Other than my grandmother, the only other person who didn't adjust well to this news was my older brother David. To this day, he still has difficulty with it, especially when he looks back on old family portraits.
What I never told my parents before the discovery was that I'd wished and prayed to be a boy so many times; sometimes I wonder if I was really born that way, or if some higher power suddenly decided to grant my wish ...
To be continued ...
"You look so feminine." I know. Funny, isn't it?
"If you're a boy, then where's your Adam's Apple?" It's there, just not prominent.
"Do you even have a penis?" Why, yes I do. And functional, too!
"Promise me you're really a boy?" I promise. "And you've always been a boy?" Always.
Some of you might be thinking "what a liar. You haven't always been a boy. You said you were a girl for 12 years."
Ah, there you are incorrect. I lived as a girl for twelve years.
"Okay ... now I'm confused ..."
I was born a boy.
"Still confused ..."
Two words: Testicular feminization.
At least, that's what they called it back then. Nowadays it's referred to as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Not saying that I'm an insensitive individual who looks androgynous, though. I've always liked testicular feminization better.
"Isn't that what Jamie Lee Curtis has?"
Yup.
"So you're like ... a hermaphrodite?"
Well ... no ...
"???"
When I was still in the womb, I was male - an XY chromosome. Nature and her twisted sense of humor thought it would be funny to never let my balls drop ... ever. I never responded to male hormones, thus - when I was born - I looked outwardly female, even though I had no uterus or ovaries - but since I looked it on the outside, thus doctors assumed it on the inside.
Nowadays they have testing for this sort of thing before the child it born to prevent confusion later.
Usually, since it's so much easier, person with TF will decide to live as a woman. This was not my case.
Savvy?
"Ooooohhhhhh ..."
Lately, I've been watching House, M.D. I love the show. Hugh Laurie is superb. Last season, though, they had an entire episode devoted to my condition. I guess that since it's known by the mainstream, it finally gave me the courage to start talking about it to other people.
When I was ten, I had my appendix taken out, something was wrong and we went back for an ultrasound and the like. That's when the discovery happened.
They never showed it or openly admitted to it, but I knew my parents were devastated. They'd raised me as a girl for ten years. It wasn't so much that I'd never give birth or have children, but I think it was more that they'd lost ten yeras with a son.
I'd always been a bit of a tomboy. At the time I was going through the Penis Envy phase that most girls have - chopping off all my hair, wearing only boy clothes, doing boy things. Dad said many times that he thought I should have been born a boy. After we found out that I really was, we joked about it frequently.
Other than my grandmother, the only other person who didn't adjust well to this news was my older brother David. To this day, he still has difficulty with it, especially when he looks back on old family portraits.
What I never told my parents before the discovery was that I'd wished and prayed to be a boy so many times; sometimes I wonder if I was really born that way, or if some higher power suddenly decided to grant my wish ...
To be continued ...
