What I’ve learned from having balls. | Emily Quinn | TEDxProvidence

[Music] I was ten years old when I found out I couldn't have children while other kids were on the playground or after-school activities I was at the gynecologists office having genital exams cat scans MRIs blood drawn I found out I was born without a uterus and inside my body I have testicles instead of ovaries my doctors told me that I have XY chromosomes and that my body can't process testosterone if you need a second to take that in imagine what it would feel like to learn that about yourself at age 10 it was a lot and it didn't end there my doctors told me that unless I removed my testes I'd probably get cancer I didn't know it at the time but this was something I'd hear over and over and over again from many different doctors over the next 20 years what I never heard from them is that I'm intersex intersex is a word that describes people like me who don't fit the type of typical definition of male or female people who are born with differences in their chromosomes gonads ovaries testes internal organs external organs hormones the list goes on and on there are over 30 different ways somebody could be intersex but my doctors never told me any of that instead they told me that I had a rare medical disorder that I'd never meet anybody else like me and that I shouldn't talk about it I should keep it a secret I think they were trying to protect me from being bullied at age 12 we learned about bodies in health class and my teacher told us that girls had XX chromosomes and boys had XY I knew I was XY so that day I came home crying and I yelled at my mom because she had never told me I was a boy it made me feel like I couldn't trust people for this information about my body so like any millennial preteen I turned to my best friend the internet was a terrible idea I only had the language doctors had given me which means at age 12 I was looking up sex disorders online don't try that at home please the internet wasn't what it is today and I only found a few articles and forums talking about people like me and it was so negative everything made me out to be this gruesome hideous creature not human not good I cried for hours that night and I didn't understand how this body I was born in could be so terrible at age 14 I was hanging out with some girls from my dance troupe and one of them had just gone to the gynecologist for the first time she was telling us all about it and they were so so cool they were older than me I wanted to impress them so I started bragging about how I had already been to the gynecologist loads of times already it was a low point I learned in that process that if I tell people about the good things maybe they wouldn't have to find out about the bat at age 15 I kissed a boy for the first time went on my first date but then I would have nightmares about what would happen when I told him my secret I had this fantasy all worked out in my head that we'd fall in love and he proposed and that's when I tell him the truth and every time in my head that I told him the truth about my body he broke up with me I rarely ever told boys my secret I just couldn't risk what would happen if they found out and telling girls was hard enough as it was at age 17 I told a friend of mine or I was hanging out with a friend of mine and her boyfriend when my secret came up and it turned out she had already told him everything without my consent or knowledge and I felt so betrayed this was my deepest darkest shame the most personal secret and I'd trusted her with it and again it felt like I couldn't trust anybody but I was a teenager and that didn't last long a couple months later I told another friend and she started crying and told me that if it was her that she would kill herself I comforted her and cried with her gave her a hug I understood she didn't have to tell me I was worthless that summer I turned 18 and went to yet another gynecologist and this one told me that unless she operated on my vagina I would never be able to have sex this was a couple weeks before I went out to college moved hundreds of miles away from home and I was so overwhelmed by everything going on that I decided to postpone the operation this turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made because I later learned that she was completely wrong it wasn't true at all but because she didn't understand my body because it was different to her that meant it was broken and she needed to fix it this wasn't the first time that had happened all the doctors who told me that I would get cancer unless I removed my testes that was a lie too or it was unintentionally a lie they didn't understand my body to them it was broken it was wrong it was different and they wanted to fix it but I know no that my risk of testicular cancer is lower than the risk of breast cancer and a typical xx woman with no predisposition no family history but they never understood my body in college I had a doctor present to my class about transgender issues and I approached her afterwards and asked if she knew about my intersex variation when she said yes I started crying because for the first time in my life I met a doctor who understood my body in college when I called to make an appointment she was booked out for months but I knew it would be worth the wait and in the meantime I started dating the perfect guy he was sweet and funny and nice and creative I knew he was the one but when I told him my secret he broke up with me coincidentally five days later was my appointment with that doctor five days after the breakup and I was a mess needless to say but when I walked into her office I was surprised because she didn't ask me to strip down and put on one of those scratchy paper dressing gowns a genital exam was a standard procedure for me anytime I saw a new doctor and so when I asked her about it she was confused and her word still hit me in the gut she said no you have androgen insensitivity syndrome the term they used to describe my body I know everything I need to know and it was in that moment that I realized all of the genital exams I had were completely unnecessary how violating that was how absurd it was that my first instinct when entering a doctor's office is to get undressed how may be going to the gynecologist wasn't something to brag about at age 14 or ever really if we're being honest she she didn't know for sure about me getting cancer and so she wanted me to explore my options I still wasn't sure and so she referred me to two people a therapist and a surgeon when the day for my surgical consultation came I got to his office went into the room and he performed a general exam my recent revelation hadn't sunk in yet so it was still standard procedure I didn't question it it wasn't until I was getting dressed afterwards that I realized this was a doctor who would be removing my testes - inside my abdomen nowhere near my vagina and I realized he was doing a genital exam he was exploring touching looking at my genitals just for his own curiosity every intersex person has stories like these but unfortunately most intersex people aren't as lucky as I am to have escaped all the unnecessary medical interventions these surgeries and practices caused intersex people lifelong consequences pain scarring inside and out emotionally physically for no medical reason at all these surgeries are entirely unnecessary and this experience with the doctor was unnecessary but fortunately I was seeing the therapist that the doctor had referred me to and she suggested I meet up with other intersex people so the next summer I flew across the country and for the first time in my life 13 years since finding out as intersex I met other people like me and not just a few people but hundreds it turns out despite most of us being told that were the only ones or that we won't meet other people intersex people represent around 2% of the population that's around 150 million people worldwide and we all have similar experiences with doctors shame loneliness pain I thought back to that time I was 12 and looking up sex disorders online hoping somebody would be talking about my positive body positively and looking around I was surrounded by so many beautiful incredible inspiring healthy people and I didn't understand it if my body was broken that didn't make sense because that would mean the millions of people all over the world would be broken too so one year later I did the only thing you naturally can do when things need to change and I came out publicly on MTV you know that's what you do I guess at the time I was working with interact the leading organization here in the u.s. fights for the rights of intersex kids and we worked to develop the first-ever intersex main character on television it was a groundbreaking being able to see yourself your story represented in the media to know you're not alone or have something that you can show other people to validate who you are or to explain what it might be like to live in your shoes it's life changing since then it's been five years and I've been using the media and speaking to raise awareness about intersex issues to fight for intersex rights and visibility can I just say that I'm tired I am it's exhausting when you tell somebody you're gay or vegetarian people usually know what that is when I say I'm intersex that takes at least 20 minutes and a drinker to not serve the drinks for me or though probably both and when you've spent half your life ashamed hiding this deep dark secret telling the whole world is still scary even today there's this voice in the back of my head saying don't do this people aren't gonna like you you'll get hurt but how many more intersex kids have to get hurt before things start to change before the rest of the world realizes that we don't need to be fixed the idea that difference automatically means bad is what's truly scary to me our society is so afraid of people who are different than each other than one another than ourselves that we shame or shun anyone who doesn't fit our definition of normal this leads to doctors lying to families parents choosing cosmetic surgery on their infants genitalia and intersex people spending their entire lives sometimes not talking to another person about their life their story their body it's scary to me and it's taught me that the only thing that truly needs to be fixed is the way we treat people who are different from us we can do better [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 331,471

Rating: 4.85745 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Health, Gender, Identity, Medicine, Personal growth, Sex

Id: 28Ip-STEPKU

Length: 14min 57sec (897 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 25 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/dsmintactarchy]

I wonder how many people thought how horrifying when she mentioned cosmetic surgery on their infants genitals while circumcision never once crossing their minds.