In fifth grade, at an all-girls summer camp, we were introduced to Sex Ed. I was handed a paper with the anatomy of a penis on one side, and the anatomy of a vagina on the other. When we were told that we would be learning female anatomy, I looked at the side of the paper with the penis and thought “It’s drawn pretty big, but this must be the female genitalia,” before my paper was flipped over and I was corrected. I had thought that the drawing of the vagina, which was drawn from a side view, was the anatomy of the anus. I mean, I was a girl, and my parts sure didn’t look like that. I didn’t think about it too much. In middle school, I realized that I was not a girl. After confiding in a friend I trusted, I was outed to my mom, who was fortunately very accepting. Unconscious exorsexism made me decide to call myself non-binary, as in my mind, I thought it would be “easier” than coming out as a trans man. It wasn’t, and I eventually admitted that I wanted nothing more than to be a boy. A man. I don’t remember when I realized that I was intersex. All I remember is Googling what a normal vagina was supposed to look like until I found myself on a page about clitoromegaly, and thinking back to when I had to change my menstrual cup after every class period in middle school. Like when I discovered I was trans, it took me a while to finally admit to myself that I was intersex, even with support from other intersex folks. Until then, I hadn’t realized how endosex-centric most trans spaces are. Even simple definitions of words often rely on the person using it to be endosex (ie. trans man as “man assigned female at birth” — excluding those who may have been assigned intersex or “X”). “AFAB” and “AMAB” are too often used as substitutes for “vagina” and “penis”. Frequently, I would even see endosex trans folks claim that being trans made them “mentally intersex”, or that it was possible to “transition to intersex”. On the other side of the coin, I felt like I was a fraud in intersex spaces due to being trans. While being on testosterone made me feel more like myself, it also made me feel like I was erasing myself. I felt like my clitoromegaly was now just a product of being on testosterone, despite having it all my life. Although I knew, and was assured by others, that nothing could “make” me endosex, I felt like an imposter. Like I was erasing my intersex traits. Being transgender and being intersex are not the same, but they are not opposed to each other. We share struggles. We fight alongside eachother. We are siblings in arms. If anyone who is both trans and intersex recognizes themself in these words, know that you don’t have to justify yourself. Some days, I feel like a double imposter. But as I get older, I realize that I am not a riddle with a correct answer. I am simply me; an intersex trans man.
