This Woman Only Discovered She Was Intersex After Watching A Viral Video About It

Posted on by patriciaange

“My life could have been 100% different if one person would have told me the truth,” Irene Kuzemko told BuzzFeed News.


The video, by BuzzFeed News, was called “What It’s Like To Be Intersex”. Irene thought intersex was some kind of new gender identity. She had no idea that it was a physical phenomenon, a biological difference in which a body does not align to standard male or female norms, or that it had anything to do with her. Realising this would uncover secrets that had devastated her life for the last 10 years.


At birth there were no doubts: Baby Irene was a girl. Until puberty, there was also nothing unusual. Her life was entirely unremarkable: a “regular, middle-class” family that divided its time between Moscow and Lviv, a city in western Ukraine.

Irene’s body appeared just like any other girl’s. She was clever and liked dressing as a “tomboy”; she mostly related to male characters in books and films. But then, at 12, her classmates started developing breasts and menstruating. Irene did not.

“Don’t worry,” her mother and grandmother told her. “It will happen.” Their optimism proved unfounded.

“I was freaking out because I had no breasts,” she says. “I felt self-conscious.” By 13 and then 14, when still nothing had developed, her periods continued to elude her and, aware she was also growing hair on her upper lip, Irene asked for help.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/this-woman-only-discovered-she-was-intersex-after-watching

Our Mission:

The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) is devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeriesfor people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female.

We have learned from listening to individuals and families dealing with intersex that:

  • Intersexuality is primarily a problem of stigma and trauma, not gender.
  • Parents’ distress must not be treated by surgery on the child.
  • Professional mental health care is essential.
  • Honest, complete disclosure is good medicine.
  • All children should be assigned as boy or girl, without early surgery.

  • The United Kingdom Intersex Association (UKIA) is an education, advocacy, campaigning and support organisation which works on behalf of Intersex people.

    Intersex people are individuals whose anatomy or physiology differ from contemporary cultural stereotypes of what constitute typical male and female.

    UKIA Guide to Intersex

    How we’re made Chromosomes and Karyotype ♀♂

    Human beings usually have a set of 23 pairs of chromosomes in each cell of their bodies. The first 22 pairs are called “autosomes” and the 23rd pair are known as “sex chromosomes“.

    The way of identifying the configuration of the chromosomes is by what is called “Karyotype“. For example, someone with a 23rd pair of chromosomes which are both Xchromosomes will be identified with the Karyotype “46,XX“. This tells us that they have the usual 46 chromosomes (23 pairs) and that the 23rd pair (“sex chromosomes”) are both X chromosomes. Someone with a 23rd pair of chromosomes consisting of one X and one Y will be identified with the Karyotype “46,XY“.

    However, that’s not the whole story. Far from it.

    Many individuals are born with more or fewer sex chromosomes than the typical simple pair. They may have three sex chromosomes, for example, two X and one Y, in which case they will be identified by the Karyotype “47,XXY“

    Or they may have only one sex chromosome, an X, in which case they will be identified by the Karyotype “45,X0“

    Here is a diagram of the four Karyotype examples given above, but these are only examples; there are many more variations.

    More about Karyotype variations

    Some of these are common, some quite rare. But they prove that the general social presumption that all humans fit neatly into the binary model of being either “46,XX=female” or else “46,XY=male” is far too simplistic and very mistaken.

    It is also mistaken to regard these Karyotype variations as being rare phenomena – for example, in the UK there are probably around 1 in every 500 phenotypic males who have an extra X chromosome (47,XXY), around 1 in every 1000 phenotypic males who have an extra Y(47,XYY) and a similar number of phenotypic females with an extra X (47,XXX)

    Unfortunately, it is still far too common to see people refer to Karyotype Variations using stigmatising terms like “abnormalities”, “errors” and such. It is UKIA’s view that these are simply natural variations and should be regarded as such. It is well past the time for abandoning the hysteria and fears rooted in past ignorance and taking a more mature common-sense approach in discussing these variations.

    It should be noted that some of the people who have some of these chromosomal variations do not regard themselves as being Intersex and this should be respected.

    More examples of Karyotype variations

    Chromosomal Mosaicism

    This is where it all gets really interesting!

    “Mosaicism” is the term used when different cells have different configurations of chromosomes. For example, in some cells the sex chromosomes might be XX and in others, X0. The karyotype for this person would normally be written 46,XX / 45,X0 (or sometimes as 45/46 X0/XX)

    Similarly, if some cells had XY and others had XXY, their karyotype would be 46,XY / 47,XXY

    As with all things in nature, there is a whole, beautiful, big world of infinite variety out there.

    Nature rarely ever creates a simple binary choice between two extremes and that is as true of sex chromosomes as of anything else.

Leave a comment