What It is Like to Have Top Surgery and be Intersex

Warning: Don't read this out loud. If on a device that speaks, don't let it. 

It was August 2012. After years of feeling extremely uncomfortable with my body, I sat down in a huge MBA chief chair in an office. After a brief examination I was approved for top surgery, a double mastectomy with reconstruction. It was a relief because my breasts were too big for my small child-body. 

All said and done, if I had extremely small breasts I probably wouldn't have had to get top surgery. But I was forced on psyche medication which made my breasts grow bigger. It is a side effect common with autistic people put on a particular drug. Changing my medication was not in the big picture as most people liked who I was based on it.

"We had to do surgery on an intersex child." Say surgeons.

 

Yes I'm intersex. I'm an XY female; when I looked at my 23andme account it revealed I had enzymes in the brain which are associated with men. I also look more masculine. Finding out I was intersex was the most liberating fact for my caged self-esteem. The line between men and women is not sharply defined as one would think: sometimes X and Y genes cross over when meiosis (the production of eggs and sperm gametes) occurs.