Symptoms man born with both male and female genitalia had before diagnosis at 50 years old
Topics: Health, Australia, LGBTQ, Sex and Relationships
Liv Bridge
Featured Image Credit: ABC: Back Roads
Topics: Health, Australia, LGBTQ, Sex and Relationships
A man who only found out he was intersex in his mid 50s revealed the main symptom he experienced before the diagnosis.
According to Planned Parenthood, intersex is an umbrella term which applies to bodies 'that fall outside the strict male/female binary' though either their reproductive or sexual anatomy.
For instance, some intersex people might have genitals or internal sex organs that don't typically align with male/female categories, like having both ovaries and testicles, or external genitals that appear male/female while their internal hormones or organs don't.
Some also are born with combinations of chromosomes that are different from XY (male) and XX (female), like XXY.
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While it's hard to know an exact number, estimates find around 1-2 in 100 people born in the US are intersex.
Rob Wilson, a poultry farmer from Australia, is one such rare case as he revealed he was born with both male and female genitals.
However, at three days old, doctors decided to perform surgery by stitching up his vagina, effectively declaring him a male.
Despite appearing to live the next five decades as a typical Aussie man, it wasn't until he reached the milestone that he grew curious about the ongoing medical problems that had plagued his life.
Rob explained to ABC Australia: Back Roads that he suffered a regular pain for more than 50 years while working that he shrugged off as a stitch.
Now, he's confident it was actually his period. Despite taking testosterone every day from the age of eight and undergoing dozens of surgical interventions throughout his life, Rob says his body still menstruated, but couldn't release it.
As a result, he says his body reabsorbed the blood, leaving him with high iron levels.
The father only came to learn of his condition when his dying aunt finally broke her silence.
"Just before she died, she rang me up and said, 'You better come and see me, I've got some information you need,'" he said.
She told him that he was born with a rare chromosomal condition called 48,XXXY, something which affects between one in 17,000 and one in 50,000 males worldwide.
He added: "It made a lot of sense to me because I worked on the department of main roads and I used to get the stitch every so often, I thought 'Oh it's just a stitch' but it appears that was actually when I was having my monthly periods."
The confession also resonated with Rob, who told the outlet he felt a bit of an outcast in his family.
"My parents never ever really spoke about it," he said. "Dad used to say, 'Oh look, Rob's different, but there's nothing wrong with him,' and that was it.
"I just got on with life. Dad used to say, 'You can do anything anyone else can do, boy, if you set your mind to it."
Part of that now involves Rob jetting to Ukraine for treatment every year to balance his conflicting hormones since the country had similar cases due to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
As to how it occurred, he says he has 'no idea' but has a theory that perhaps his father, a prisoner of war in World War 2, suffered heinous experimentation at the hands of the Nazis which saw him 'injected with stuff.'
Rob added: “Whether that was something they was experimenting with or not, I don’t really know."