Alright, this is another take on the whole dangers of conflating trans and intersex issues, using my own experiences but I'm going to try to summarize it since I don't need to necessarily tell my life story again

My personal experience and why trans and intersex conflation = bad

I was put on a path to reassignment surgeries after my initial gonadectomy as a baby that my father agreed to out of fear. This was because I didn't fit their clean definition of female, or male typical genitalia having clitoromegaly and vagina agenesis. I was stated to have AIS

My mother who was in emergency care at the time, wasn't supposed to live and it was thanks to her that these series of dangerous surgeries targeted to correct my genitals and body to fit a strict definition were stopped because she insisted I wasn't too different from my sisters

My mother went through difficulty going against the hospital with my father's assistance but they managed to correct my paperwork and raise me as a girl, like my sisters. However I was very gender-non conforming as a child, having interests that were seen as "odd" for a girl.

Dolls and action figures, pretend and playing rough while also combining the two, I loved video games and I was in general a dirty, outdoors activity type kid with video games as my sweet intermission. My parents grew concerned because of this, that they made a mistake.

My parents were desperately searching for resources to raise an intersex child, being met with nothing. All they knew was I was supposed to go in for hormone therapy as I got older because I didn't "naturally produce enough hormones on my own, especially after my surgery."

Mom continued to research, my dad ended up talking with a trans co-worker and friend who was curious about his intersex daughter. My dad would talk with this trans woman about me and his concerns, to which he told me that this person insisted I was probably trans myself.

My dad continued to talk with this person and would find out that apparently they showed very "feminine" interests growing up but as they grew older started to repress and suppress themselves. This trans person actually wanted introduced to me but my dad declined that interaction

My dad did take that advice to heart though, telling my mother what he was told and that I might be trans because of my intersex condition and the fact I was also gender non conforming, that they "might have made a mistake" refusing those surgeries, robbing me of normality.

My mother, not really having any other options or evidence otherwise went with it. Never taking me to see a doctor about starting hormones to boost my development. This led to me being isolated by my peers for staying child-like, getting harmful names stuck to me too.

I grew to resent being a girl, being weak as a result. I knew I was different and anytime I confronted my parents they'd just tell me I was a late bloomer. I never got the answer whether I was really a girl or not either. Frustrated with everything around me.

On top of that I also liked girls for some reason, something that scared me because my parents were the only ones at this point treating me somewhat decently. I didn't know how to feel and I started to panic even more.

But my health started to suffer too.

Getting sick all the time, coughing fits would lead to me discovering a bit of blood on my hand from covering my mouth.. losing consciousness and excessive levels of fatigue. My complexion became permanently ill-toned and I got teased and isolated for that too. I was alone.

Eventually I'd end up living with my oldest sister because of the fight I had with my dad, my mom was sending money to my sister to help her support me there. However things really didn't change, they actually worsened because now anyone associated with me got called a pedophile.

On top of that, it went from being teased for looking like a little girl to being an "it." The cruelty knew no limits and sure I found some friends but they didn't stop me from spiraling into starving myself and self-cutting, even if I hid I was doing such.

I eventually ended up in a facility, with a staff member connected to the doctor who forced my IGM. Several tests done, and manipulative talks used to get in my head and try to reform me to a good obedient heterosexual teenage girl. I refused and would often end up passing out.

The manipulative talks became more abusive in nature, even physically to the point of trying to force me to change myself. I was also shunned by nurses there, treated like I wasn't even human.. but a test subject which just made me resent my sickly, frail body even more.

The concept of gender was forced in my head as their efforts to correct me failed. It started to line up, that I wasn't meant to be a girl and my body was telling me that. But I also had doubts, doubts that had to be answered and I was confronted with a solution.

Guided through a torturous practice of sickening proportions, I was guided in a manner that used my infertility and undeveloped body against me to prove I wasn't a "proper" girl, the ending result literally shattered any connection I had with girlhood but then I felt relieved.

So began my transition which the staff there was very intrigued in, watching me overcome my weakness and suddenly be more "healthy." Mentally and physically, that they told me I couldn't be a girl because of how I was, so I became a boy. The paperwork was authorized and sent.

My parents, who I was living with again supported my transition and my change in role. However the relief and satisfaction I felt was temporary, especially as I realized the more I worked out I started to feel sharp tingles and pains in my arms. I no longer looked like a child..

Something was wrong, very wrong. The pains started to spread throughout my body and distress started to raise, I began to question myself and realized that I changed myself just in the opposite direction. In desperation to escape being that picked on, weak little girl, I changed.

Around 2 years of taking testosterone I stopped injecting myself and noticed the strange sensations centered in injection areas weren't getting any better. I felt lost and confused, not knowing what or who I was anymore.

I didn't want to become that weak girl again either.

I didn't get much of a choice though but I resisted temptation, refusing to start testosterone again despite my frailty and weakness returning. The sickness was actually worse, with coughing fits leading to increasing loss of blood and pain from sensations, changes to my genitals

Eventually I saw a doctor as it got to be too much, questioning why I was stuck looking like I was in-between too. I was met with excessive resistance but eventually discovered that I had low estrogens and low androgens, the doctor was horrified how long I had been in this state.

Led to a karyotype test, the very first one. Of which I was informed I had a 46 XY karyotype. Now in my 20s, I was FURIOUS. I confronted my parents in rage and demanded if they knew about this, that I was like this. I was in denial about the whole thing too, this couldn't be real

I did schedule a second one because I had to be sure, there's no way I actually was male.. right? What was wrong with me? However when I confronted my parents, they confirmed my fears and I screamed at them that I hated them and once I left, they'd never hear from me again.

This brought my mother to tears and my father as he said "felt immense guilt." Likely connected to what his former trans friend told him that I'd hate them and never speak to them again, like his friend blamed their parents.

I did everything in my power to recover.

The second karyotype happened, conveniently where I needed several labs taken that day to figure out things. My right arm grew to suffer from all the blood drain, so I requested my left arm be used instead. After a struggle, the sample was collected.. and then discarded on result

They insisted the result was tampered with, although there was delay. What was that result? 46 XX, a normal female karyotype.. but I had a 46 XY karyotype too, and an AIS diagnosis? None of it added up, regardless I was told to pretend this never happened and it was a mistake.

I utilized all sorts of tricks, with cutting off circulation, inflicting pressure to get past my weakness so I could continue to work but it got harder and harder but I was determined to get away from the very people who ruined my life. I'd have rather been dead at this point.

I worked with my doctor to get to the bottom of the mysteries of my body, I was determined to make this work and treatment was providing some relief but the pain continued to get worse and we couldn't figure out exactly why. More thorough scans were needed and they were requested

We discovered that I had a uterus, cervix and even an ovary which didn't add up with my dx. My doctor said I needed to undergo another test but the insurance wouldn't help and I could barely afford things as is with my minimum wage job that I had to take less and less hours on.

My doctor then changed my diagnosis from AIS to Swyer, going off the scans and test results alone and stressed that if I did really have AIS, testosterone wouldn't have effected me as strongly as it did. I couldn't necessarily have disagreed, it did add up.

I still felt off.

I still felt like a freak, not understanding my differences to other women now and questioning how I now was transitioning back to being female, from my initial short-lived male one. I began to doubt a lot of the things I was told, growing to resent LGBT who I realized used me.

A lot has happened since then, like the fact now my Swyer diagnosis has been brought up into question and investigation of that supposed fluke karyotype holding substance after all. Unfortunately the testing for mosaicism is ridiculously expensive, gene testing in general is.

My body has been the victim of negligence due to my DSD/VSC and the fact I've been thrown into the gender mess because of it. Implied to be something because I wasn't enough of something else, or didn't look a specific way. I have severe image issues as a result..

I've seen some younger women with AIS getting sucked into this mess too, feeling that because they aren't "proper females" that they must be trans, that their being intersex is used as justification to push them to transition themselves, or claim to be trans.

It also ties into what I talked about at the start, where my mother couldn't find help or resources. They didn't exist and in this case they're so mixed in with trans stuff they might as well not exist. Parents are being misled and not properly supported in many ways.

IGM still occurs, trans lobbyists actually fight against bills that stop IGM due to their influence in preventing unconsented and unmedically necessary surgeries. Trans lobbyists also insist we're to be othered or justification for a "sex spectrum" the very thing that caused this

And well.. now? I'm practically disabled due to all this. My life ruined and I just mostly try to speak out now, but scared to even do that effectively.

I love how I tried to summarize this and still ended up with a ridiculously long thread. I guess that just goes to show complex and not simple of an issue this is? I know my own circumstances are extremely unique.