Here is my story in short:
I believed I was a disorder, a condition, and a syndrome most my life. It took Pidgeon Pagonis, Hida Viloria, Cary Gabriel Costello Ph.D., Tiger Devore Ph.D., Tony Briffa, Buck Angel, Judi Herring, M.D., and many other amazing souls, to help me realize that my adrenal condition, and PCOS, were indeed an intersex variation; that I was not out of my mind for feeling like I was a boy, although I was assigned female at birth. That I was NOT a disorder, and that I could exist my true gender. Here are more details about me; my autobiography: About Mx. Anunnaki Ray (With videos).
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My life, like many, was taken from me; thanks to a world that wants to erase intersex existence, and try to force us all to conform to two binary boxes, either male/boy or female/girl. Yes, I went through much therapy to learn I was a girl, and conform to being a girl. For 46 years, I conformed to being a very “strange” girl. The consequences almost took my life.
I am often asked, is your body more “male” or “female”. I know what they are getting at but will never answer in a way that would satisfy their need to confirm their beliefs around the male/female binary. I am an XX46 Intersex person, assigned female at birth, and my true gender is that of a gender non-conforming man. Therefore, my ENTIRE BODY, including my chromosomes, belong to me and are also that of a intersex man. For one simple reason, my body belongs to me.
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Some would say that makes me “transgender”. Well, Yes and No. I blocked testosterone to appear female and took more female hormones. So I suppose in a way I did trans women things at one point. And now, I inject a bit more testosterone, to help with my steroid deficiency in my body, and to also give me the secondary sex characteristics I so very much desire to have. With that, since most my life I appeared female and socialized as female, I suppose I also relate to trans men.
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But, I don’t feel I am in the wrong body, and will not have chest masculinization surgery, or any more surgery, unless absolutely medically necessary. Due to having Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Mitochondrial Dysfunction, I have already had eighteen surgeries! I am not thrilled to be told I would need more to appear a typical man. Plus, I will be honest, I am very fortunate to have all sexual function and pleasure. I am certain surgery would mess with all that!
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I have been with my husband for twenty-eight years, I am proof we are lovable. We also have a family and three kids. So we are capable of having families too. Do we appear “gay”, yes! To people who don’t get to know the details, they assume all sorts of things.
Thanks to much love from the intersex community, transgender community, and others, I now fully embrace that I am an intersex person, and a gender non-conforming, androgynous person.
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There are just too many “genders” in this universe to cram us all into two boxes. I always say gender is a personal thing and not related to our chromosomes, hormones, genitals or reproductive system. Transgender people truly get that one. It is time those medical personnel that see us intersex babies born, get it too! Worrying about our future sexual orientation, and how we appear to the world with genitals and other characteristics that do not conform, should not be the issues here; when sexual sensation, fertility, and surgeries we later wish we did not have, are happening to us without our consent as children. There are simply too intersex people who have survived non-consenting surgeries, who are very unhappy.
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Thank God my parents never had me operated on, and I never received clitorial reduction or the removal of my “strange ovaries”; that they all said would be “cancerous”. I have to thank a Catholic Priest for that. My mother joked that she wanted to name me Anthony. Even with therapy to teach me I was a girl, I later became their “tomboy”, and now I am legally their son.
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I am 48 years old, with no cancer of any kind; and although I had a very difficult time getting pregnant, and maintaining a pregnancy; after 4 pregnancy losses, we did have two amazing biological kids. We adopted our youngest. My kids call me Vader, which means father, and I consider myself a Seahorse daddy since I had two babies c-section. My body could have never naturally birthed a baby.
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Please, if you are a parent, learn our stories before you allow doctors to cram your kid into a binary box. We can exist. WE ARE REAL. It is truly the society that needs to be fixed?
Am I Transgender? Can an intersex person be transgender?
Doctors call us a disorder, defect, or syndrome when we are born. We are simply INTERSEX.
~.V.~
Mx. Anunnaki Ray Marquez 