150 Years Ago, A Boy Was Born To My Great-great Grandmother. And That Was The Last Time That Happened

150 years ago, a boy was born to my great-great grandmother. And that was the last time that happened anywhere on my maternal line until my son was born in 2016. This is a story about intersex people.

For 150 years, the women of my family kept having daughters, who either also had daughters, or they were oddly unable to have children. Strange quirk, we assumed. No boys.

In the late 1970s, my mother’s sister had a daughter with Down Syndrome. Genetic testing was done, and it was discovered that although she looked female, she actually possessed the male XY chromosome combination. Her sister was born three years later. And because of that genetic concern, her genes were checked. And she possessed … the XY chromosomes. A third daughter, born a few years later, possessed the usual XX.

Keeping in the tradition, my mother had two daughters. Because of our cousins’ genetic conditions, my sister and I were both checked. Both of us appeared typically XX. And so for more than thirty years, it was dismissed as a quirk, and no one said the word intersex because that wasn’t a thing in 1980.

In 2014 I had a son, breaking the chain of girls. It was an interesting story! I then had two daughters, and didn’t bother to do any genetic checking.

And then in 2020 my sister became pregnant. Early genetic testing said boy, XY. Twenty week anatomy scan said girl. Definitely 100% girl. Uhhh?! As expected, she*** was born genetically male, possessing only male gonads in the form of undescended testes, but female external genitalia.

It was Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, a genetic mutation carried on the X chromosome. See, all bodies start female. Then, when the hormonal influence of the Y chromosome kicks in, instructions on the X are supposed to detect the testosterone and create male genitalia. Except a person with AIS is non-reactive to testosterone, and the body stays, at least superficially, female. Genetic check would say boy. Presence of testes says boy. Pants check says girl. Making the question of sex (sex. Gender is something else, ok?) distinctly complicated.

If someone has a mother who is a carrier of AIS, there are 4 possibilities. Unaffected XY, and so genetically and structurally male. Affected XY, and so intersex. Affected XX, and so a female carrier. Unaffected XX female and entirely unaffected.

My grandmother was a carrier. My aunt and mother are carriers. My sister is a carrier. When my niece was born, my single non-intersex cousin and I did genetic testing. And we are both carriers as well. My son is an unaffected XY male. My niece is affected XY intersex. Both my cousin and I also have 2 daughters each. And, because it is medically and psychologically relevant, we had them tested. All XX.****

And I was ready to check one more thing: are my daughters carriers? There is a 50/50 chance. And then I stopped, because they are preschoolers, and that is their reproductive decision. They know three intersex people. And if they care, someday they can check their genes and the odds that my grandchildren will be intersex. The intersex people they know will, I hope, be able to talk to them about the beauty of their lives as one of the wonderful variations of humanity.

150 Years Ago, A Boy Was Born To My Great-great Grandmother. And That Was The Last Time That Happened

More Posts from Horsecatfairybunny and Others

horsecatfairybunny

2 years ago

Thing is that is not the worst response, "Climate change does not existence so we should pollute as much as we want" is also a response people have

today my wisdom is: the ecological crisis of our planet is not a thing that will Suddenly destroy us sometime in the next century—it has taken decades of continuous work for our biosphere to be preserved thus far, and it will take decades more of continuous work to continue preserving it.

The apocalypse is not a single event hovering in the future bearing down on us while we sit helplessly. We are at least 150 years into an ongoing "apocalypse."

Things will continue to steadily get worse without steady action, but "augh! it's already too late to stop climate change and mass extinctions!" is specifically the worst response

60K notes View Post

horsecatfairybunny

2 months ago

On Colors And Being Different And Not Being Enough For Yourself

on colors and being different and not being enough for yourself

(please reblog instead of liking)

35K notes View Post

horsecatfairybunny

3 months ago

@stvksn on ig

178K notes View Post

horsecatfairybunny

5 months ago

517K notes View Post

horsecatfairybunny

3 months ago

I cannot overstate how much I love Tom Lehrer's story. It sounds so fake but is entirely real.

He's a goddamn genius- he started studying mathematics at Harvard when he was 15 and graduated magna cum laude. He worked at Los Alamos for a few years before being drafted and working for the NSA, where he claims to have invented jello shots to get around alcohol bans.

He then went back to Harvard for a couple years before starting to teach political science at MIT.

Through all of that, he was writing and performing both some of the funniest shit you'll ever hear (Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, Masochism Tango) and absolutely scathing political satire (Who's Next, Wernher von Braun, Send the Marines). Until the mid/late 60s counterculture gained momentum. He didn't like their aesthetic, so he stopped making music.

Shortly after, he moved to California and started teaching math and musical theater history at the UC Santa Cruz for the next 30 years.

I don't know if non-Californians understand just how goddamn funny that is. It's where stoners and math (and now computer science) kids who couldn't get into Berkeley go. Leaving Harvard/MIT for UCSC is peak academic phoning it in. And by all accounts he had a blast.

Plus the whole putting all of his music in the public domain thing. That fucked.

32K notes View Post

horsecatfairybunny

9 months ago

A group of scientists delightedly run around a lab, climbing ladders which lead to glass cylinders down which they happily speed on their backs, then rush back for another go. In the foreground one scientist says to another "I actually meant to order glass slided to go in the microscopes, but everyone seems so happy now, it'd be a shame to send them back."

My latest cartoon for New Scientist

11K notes View Post

horsecatfairybunny

1 year ago

When I was a kid, I would only eat the yolk from an egg. Didn’t matter if it was boiled, fried, poached or deviled, the yolk was all I wanted.

My reason for this was “the white makes me feel sick”/“it hurts my tummy”. And everyone did what most folk do when kids say such things, they roll their eyes and call you a fussy eater and complain to anyone who will listen about how hard your child is to feed.

They won’t eat sandwich meat, they won’t eat minced beef, they won’t eat nuts, they won’t eat tomatoes, they won’t eat pasta, they won’t eat fish or spinach, they barely eat fruits and ugh you should see the tantrum they kick up when you try to give them yogurt for a healthy snack. And get this, they will only eat the yolk from eggs. What an annoying kid, right?

So, anyway, as it turns out egg whites are high in histamine while egg yolks are not. Everything I listed up there, is actually high in histamine or is histamine releasing and as someone who just found out after 20+ years of abject misery and several near misses with anaphylaxis that they have histamine intolerance disorder/possible MCAS, I feel really fucking validated about childhood me being a fussy eater.

So uh, pro tip to parents, while there is every chance your kid genuinely is a fussy eater, please also consider that there may also be something at play going on and they’re not just doing it to personally piss you off. Whether it’s a food allergy, intolerance, sensory/texture issues or an issue as insidious and hard to detect as mine, please don’t assume your child is just being difficult for funsies. And please don’t force them to eat something they say makes them feel sick. There’s probably a valid reason, and it warrants investigation rather just assuming your kid exists to tick you off.

51K notes View Post

horsecatfairybunny

2 months ago

people want doing the right thing to be like pulling the correct lever at the correct time but actually usually doing the right thing is more like holding a moderate weight at arm's length continuously for seventeen years

75K notes View Post

horsecatfairybunny

9 months ago

I got a laptop with Windows 11 for an IT course so I can get certified, and doing the first time device set-up for it made me want to commit unspeakable violence

Windows 11 should not exist, no one should use it for any reason, it puts ads in the file explorer and has made it so file searches are also web searches and this cannot be turned off except through registry editing. Whoever is responsible for those decisions should be killed, full stop.

Switch to linux, it's free and it's good.

143K notes View Post

horsecatfairybunny

9 months ago

To some people you’re an NPC

To other people, you’re the special, unlockable character that they worked and worked to finally get- and when they do they’re so happy because they got the game just so they could find you.

259K notes View Post