Transgender Woman Discovers That She Is Also Intersex After Undergoing Gender-Affirming Care
Everyone deserves access to gender-affirming healthcare and the right to fully understand their own bodies.
@justnausicaa / TikTok A transgender and intersex individual is shedding light on the fact that their community is often overlooked in the medical field.
According to Nausicaä (@justnausicaa) on TikTok, she realized that she was intersex only after seeking transgender-affirming healthcare, where medical professionals, as well as herself, made some significant discoveries about her body that she otherwise would have been unaware of.
The transgender intersex woman discovered that she was indeed intersex while undergoing gender-affirming healthcare.
Intersex is a general term for those presenting differences in sex traits or reproductive anatomy. Those who are intersex may have genitalia, hormones, internal anatomy, and chromosomes that can develop in many ways.
For example, a person may be born appearing female on the outside but may present characteristics and anatomy that are consistent with males on the inside. Some intersex traits may appear at birth, while others do not until puberty or later in life.
An estimated 1.7% of people are born intersex according to research conducted by Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling.
Some people who are intersex may not even be aware that they are until they begin undergoing other physical changes in their bodies. One of those individuals is Nausicaä, who also happens to be a transgender woman.
“Last summer, I found out that I’m intersex and there’s just a list of strange things in my life that finally make sense,” she said in a TikTok video.
According to Nausicaä, it was not until she was 14 years old, before she began her transition journey, that she began to notice traits associated with intersex individuals.
“I had my mom take me to the doctor’s because I was worried that I was a 14-year-old boy with breast cancer 'cause I had these lumps on my chest,” she shared. However, her doctor informed her that sometimes during puberty, a person’s hormones may get “confused” and the lumps on her chest were actually developing breasts, which is a physical change associated with puberty for those who are biologically born female.
A couple of years later, Nausicaä was learning about the difference between men's and women's hairlines in her biology class.
Typically, men's hairlines are projected straight forward, whereas women’s aim in a backward-facing direction.
When Nausicaä took a look at her own hairline, she was shocked to discover that it was consistent with the hairline of those who are born female. She was confused by this since she had not begun her gender transition yet and still possessed traits associated with biological males.
One’s hand not only varies depending on gender but may also provide a hint of their sexual orientation. While she was in college, she also made an interesting discovery regarding the anatomy of her left hand.
Typically, men tend to have longer ring fingers than index fingers, as do lesbian women. In straight women, the two fingers are usually the same length.
While looking at her own left hand, Nausicaä noticed that she appeared to have the traits on her ring and index fingers associated with those of straight women.
Additionally, Nausicaä learned a specific clue about herself that pointed to her being intersex while she was undergoing treatment for her cystic acne.
“I had terrible, terrible cystic acne up until I started transitioning,” she revealed. “The thing I used for testosterone blocker to transition is Aldactone, and my cystic acne disappeared.” Oddly enough, Aldactone is used in treating cystic acne in cis women.
Nausicaä’s experiences prove that intersex individuals who are also transgender can and do exist.
Mari, a youth member of interACT, an organization advocating for intersex youth, spoke about their own experiences being transgender and intersex on the podcast, “Gender Reveal.”
However, there is generally not a lot of research conducted by medical professionals regarding the matter, and people who find themselves intersex while also undergoing gender-affirming care like Nausicaä may find it perplexing and even scary.
It is important for those in the medical field, notably endocrinologists, fully understand the science and possibilities behind being both transgender and intersex and have discussions with each other in public. This way, those who are both will have a deeper understanding of their own bodies and will feel less alone.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.