Sheila RN:

I've been meaning to ask this question for awhile. I started out as a pseudo- hermaprodite and had no problem with the name, it meant that I wasn't a hermaprodite. Then I became someone with adrenogential syndrome, no problem there either. It explains my issues in both areas ( adrenals and gentical ), my doctor still writes adrenogentical syndrome on my bill. I always wondered why he wrote adrenogential syndrome on the work up sheet, it's much easier to write CAH.     ( LOL)    

" POOF " ......I'm now intersexed ....I must state here that the Intersex Society of North America does wonderful things and is a great cause. With that said, I wonder why the word " intersexed ?" By my understanding the term has come to mean anyone with ambigious genticals and only one type of sex organs and one type of chromosomes ( CAH) or people that are born with a different type of chromosomes and a mixture of ovaries and testes ( Adrenal Insensitivity Syndrome preferred over the word hermaprodites).

Why can't it be called Congentical Adrenal Hyperplasia ? Why must they term it Intersex also. The men with CAH don't have ambigious genticals and most women with CAH don't have ambigious either. Sure, some are a little bit bigger than what would be considered normal ( whatever that is ) but most of us aren't a 5 on the Prader scale. It doesn't make sense even if we are a Prader 5, even with extreme virilization we are still only born with one type of genticals, not both .

I've been told that there are women with CAH that do later in  life transition into males but there are also women without CAH that transition into males. Transitioning into one sex or the other is not unique to CAH. For me, this is the realm of transexualism. Androgens ? who knows how they affect the brain ?  with or without CAH.     

The medical label applies to the medical condition that I was born with but not to me as an individual human being. CAH is not a trait of me, it is a mal- function of my adrenal gland.

Sincerely,

Aimee