Being Intersex — More Than a Diagnosis

• Trigger warning for genitals, coercive surgery, depression, self harm and suicide-

Identifying as intersex is a radical process. For a lot of us, there is an “aha!” moment when we discover the term for the first time, it usually involves connecting the dots between our bodies and an identity. It completely changed me; I felt that I had agency over my body for the first time in my life.

I remember sitting on the floor of my first apartment late at night, secretly researching the “deformity” that I had kept hidden throughout my life. I felt alone in my experiences, and almost never discussed what I had been through with anyone. It goes without saying that I was still very emotionally scarred from my traumatic medical history. One click lead to another and I found myself reading The Intersex Roadshow, a blog by Cary Costello. The particular post I read pointed out the ways that society hides intersex identity from people who are designated male at birth and have intersex traits, and instead labels these bodies as “deformed” or merely “inadequate” rather than somewhere along the spectrum of sex. I could barely finish it, being met head on with ideas that shook the foundation of my identity. I began rapidly shuffling through my experiences and the ways I thought about myself.

Staring blankly at my laptop screen, I realized…shit, he was talking about me. “How could I have not known about this?” I kept asking myself.